Home education must be defended

Last Wednesday, BBC’s Radio 4 broadcast an episode of their File on 4 Investigates programme which exposed a ‘school’ (not actually a school as such, but a centre for home educators) called Hope (Home Of Positive Energy) Sussex, based outside Hastings, which appeared dedicated to fostering ‘awareness’ of conspiracy theories in the children being taught, and the parents who come in with them, with the clear intention of nudging them in that direction. The programme is titled “We Are Not A Conspiracy School”, but this is clearly what the place is. The ‘community’, which hosts music festivals and talks by among other people Katie Hopkins and Kate Shemirani (a nurse struck off for spreading misinformation about Covid at the height of the pandemic, and who influenced her daughter to refuse treatment for cancer, which she subsequently died from), was founded by Matthew Single and his wife Sadie who were former members of the British National Party who were expelled (and fined) for leaking its membership list in 2008, then disappeared from public view before reappearing as anti-vax theorists. The programme noted that Ofsted had expressed concerns about the institution but had been unable to investigate as it did not have the statutory powers to do so.

There was no doubt that the ideas they were promoting were outlandish, anti-scientific, and rooted in paranoia. The programme noted that the two founders were the Singles, but the website lists two co-founders, both female, named only as Katy-Jo and Sadie, but all three were heard on the programme. One of them told the interviewer that she did not believe in viruses; they also told him that schools only teach one theory about the origin of the universe and life on earth, namely the Big Bang theory (which is untrue, from personal experience). A man was heard telling children to fire ball-bearing guns at a TV, which we were told had the letters ‘BBC’ on it. The ‘community’ is secretive, its headquarters (a former agricultural college) unwelcoming to journalists from the “mainstream media” and has only a sign reading “No Trespass, Strictly By Appointment Only” (though its other entrance is marked with a yellow flag with a smiley face on it, for the benefit of festival attendees); the journalist met them at a recording studio. The founders told the interviewer that they were not brainwashing their children at all, and could not as the children were free to ask questions, and did so, having been taught “critical thinking”. However, it was clear that the community existed so that like-minded people could withdraw from the world and teach their children free from what they call “the bonds of a malevolent State, intent on imposing ever tighter control over us all”.

HOPE are cranks and I would not recommend them to anyone looking for support if they are home educating, but the programme did not find any evidence of children being physically abused, which is at least as important as the issued raised here. It’s important that home education and home-educating parents in general are not judged by the extremists as there are schools you would not send a dog into either, especially at secondary level. I know families that home educate and most did so to remove their children from environments where they were bullied, or faced racism or other prejudice, or because there was a necessity stemming from a medical condition or disability. There are some children the school system simply makes no effort to accommodate, and education departments encourage parents to home educate; there are school leaders who take pride in harsh ‘discipline’, humiliating children over petty uniform infractions, locking toilets to prevent “internal truancy” during lessons regardless of how adequate they are for the numbers of children needing to use them during breaks, or such problems as girls getting periods unexpectedly. Some parents want to protect their children from the depredations of such “leadership teams” or from whatever bad influences other children have been exposed to and nobody should be standing in their way.