No Smoke Without Fire

So the saying goes. It's not always true though is it, as we frequently find out when trying to light our stove!

I've read in a few places recently, that the reason the government's idea of a licensing scheme won't work to save home educated children at risk, is because those who have something to hide will just move home and go underground, and it will be the innocents who suffer most from the unwarranted intrusion of the state into their lives.

I have to say that I am really rather affronted by this type of attempt to argue the case against licensing. However, if memory serves me correctly, I shouldn't really be surprised, considering the source.

We are currently in the process of preparing our house for the market, but that doesn't mean that we have *something to hide*, it just means that we don't want to stay in a country which shows such distrust in us, and which is quite happy to sanction the abuse of our children by the state. We know that we aren't alone in wanting to leave this country, we know many people who don't home educate who wish to leave the sinking ship that is England. Will they find themselves hunted down by interpol* for daring to find a better place to bring up their children? Not yet, perhaps.

What irks me is that our children have been consulted, their opinions have been listened to, and they will be acted on. This is how our family has always worked, much to the horror of quite a few people, but it seems like a perfectly reasonable way to operate a family to us. Now if the government would only take a leaf out of the books of those of us who parent in this way, perhaps articles like this one (from whence the following apposite quote comes) wouldn't be being written in today's press.

"Labour made a disastrous mistake when it abandoned its own tradition of self-help and mutual assistance for a distrustful bureaucratic state. We are not willing to be the helpless observers of our lives."

And this is exactly why we plan on moving, not because we are the foul,child abusing people who aren't giving their children a *decent* education that some sections of our own community seem to be painting, but because we believe that we are responsible people, who deserve to be trusted to do the right thing for our family, and we wish our children to be brought up to believe the same of themselves.

* this has actually happened to a Home Educating family I know, who moved from the UK to another European country.