Three cheers for all the emailers and letter writers!

We met at the Rose Bowl and banged a lot of drums, said a lot of heartfelt things, got a £100 from Alan Bennett and generally made a big noise about keeping Royal Park for the community.

It was a lively event and felt really good to be part of although I couldn't stay for the Executive Board meeting as I had my son with me - he was happy to be at a rally to help save his old school but wouldn't have coped inside with so many people.

The news from the council chamber later was stunning, it must have been so tense in there and then suddenly Royal Park was off the agenda; deferred for at least 3 months because Councillor Brett was still in discussion with Royal Park Community Consortium.

Apparently, local councillors had been absolutely flooded with emails and letters in the last few days.

Finally, perhaps, they will begin to listen.

Here's the Guardian version from John Baron

And from the BBC

I finished the day with parents' evening at City of Leeds, always a positive experience even though we had a bit of a problem to iron out - everyone said my daughter can do anything she likes for her GCSE options except, of course, the combination she actually wants to do - typical, but at least at City when things like that crop up they do their absolute best to sort it out.

Well, it's sort it out or teach her myself!

Ah, yes, another thing the government thinks parents can't do properly - teach their own children!

Just remember that a child's education is the responsibility, not of the Education Authority, but of the parent and any parent can choose to teach their own child.
It does not have to be in the same way that the government dictates a child should be taught - there are many good ways to teach a child and for each child the best way is unique to that child.

The report on education other than at school is biased against parents and home education. It states that there are parents 'not cooperating' when, in fact, the law states that parents do not have to do anything and that is just what they are doing. Education Authorities tell parents that they must allow inspections and most accept this without question but it is not actually true.

The funny thing about home educated children is that most of them do at least as well in life as school educated children, and many of them do much, much better.

The only time that the LEA has the right to interfere with the home education of a child is if that child has a Statement of Special Education Needs in which case they do have a duty to ensure that the child's needs are met, but again, this does not have to be in a school setting.

The safe-guarding issue is largely a red herring. That is not the responsibility of an LEA but of the parents - a school is 'in loco parentis' when a child is in its care, not when a child is at home. If there is any doubt that the parent is not caring for a child properly then there are many other places than school that a child will be seen - doctors, youth groups, toddler groups, etc - and any of them can speak to social services, as can a concerned individual member of the public.