Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / Special Guest: Jenn Hodge Interview: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Now the Act) — What Home Educating Families Need to Know

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Special Guest: Jenn Hodge Interview: The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Now the Act) — What Home Educating Families Need to Know · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

0:15
Hello everybody, Welcome to another episode of the Big Home
0:18
Ed Conversations. My name is Kelly Rigg.
0:21
I'm a home Ed mom of two and a qualified mindset and ADHD
0:24
coach. I'm passionate about supporting
0:27
parents and neurodivergent families as they navigate
0:29
children not OK at school and ultimately then the transition
0:32
from mainstream schooling into home education.
0:35
With what began as honest, heartfelt talks around the
0:37
coffee table, this podcast is now going into a space where
0:40
hundreds of listeners now tune in for real, unfiltered
0:43
conversations about alternative education, mindset and
0:46
educational philosophies. We cut through the noise and
0:49
focus on what really matters to home educating families.
0:52
As you will know. This season has been sponsored
0:54
by. Strew.
0:55
A home educating logging app that basically has been designed
0:58
by a home educating mum and her brother.
1:01
They really felt that it was high time that we had an app
1:04
that was built by people who are home educating in the UK and to
1:08
support our community. And what I really love about
1:11
this app is that it's really been designed with that in mind
1:14
and that they are developing features all the time now.
1:17
We've obviously been telling you a little bit about it every
1:19
single week and as we have been coming up against any kind of
1:22
little teeny weeny bugs or we've got anything that we'd like it
1:24
to. Have we've been feeding?
1:26
Back to Woody, who is the developer?
1:28
So her brother. So Kaylee is the mum and Woody
1:30
is the brother but they have been taking on board all of our
1:34
ideas and are literally working to add them and create more
1:38
feature rich opportunities for you to use going forward.
1:41
They are so open to our ideas and needs and are really keen to
1:46
make sure that this app becomes something which is just the most
1:49
helpful thing in your back pocket.
1:51
So if you are considering giving it a go, download it, use our
1:56
Code Big Home Ed podcast so that you can kind of show where you
1:58
found it, and ultimately just just give it a whirl.
2:01
It's got a free trial on there. Give it a try and see whether or
2:03
not it suits you. Obviously, none of us have to do
2:06
anything that doesn't feel right for us.
2:08
If this sort of thing isn't your system and this isn't how you'd
2:11
like to be doing it, then fair enough.
2:12
Not everybody likes to keep track of things in this way, but
2:15
I've know that I've really enjoyed having this lovely feed
2:19
of imagery. Like I take photos of a lot of
2:21
what we do so I can look back and just like scroll through the
2:24
memories. But instead of them all just
2:25
being in my phone, I've now got like notes against them that
2:28
help me to remember exactly what we covered during that window
2:31
and what kind of things that they learn, the ways they
2:33
surprised me, the things that they said.
2:36
And that's really lovely for me because my memory isn't great.
2:39
Anybody else? And it's not just about making
2:42
sure my future LA report is good.
2:44
That's got nothing to do with it, really.
2:46
My goal here is to make sure that I've got something really
2:48
beautiful to look back on, my memories of their childhood, of
2:52
what they've been up to. Now, getting on with what we're
2:56
doing today. This is an interview that I did
2:59
with Jen a few days ago, and I'm extremely excited to share it
3:04
with you. So Jen Hodge is the founder of
3:07
Doing Education Differently. She is a leading voice in
3:10
neurodiversity and education reform and has been at the
3:13
absolute forefront of the fight against.
3:15
What was the Children's Well-being and Schools bill and
3:18
is now the ACT? She is obviously continuing to.
3:21
Fight alongside us to make sure that as this act.
3:24
Comes into play that it is legal and it's actually doing the
3:29
right thing for our kids so. She's an incredible.
3:34
Advocate and she's incredibly empowering and this interview
3:38
just really was the most incredible chat.
3:40
So I hope you enjoy it. Buckling, getting, get, get
3:43
settled in and yeah, we'll see you at the other end.
3:53
Hello Jen, thank you so much for coming on and chatting to us
3:55
today. In the past, we've we've covered
3:57
the children's well-being in schools Bill throughout its
4:00
journey as often as we managed to get kind of mostly Wendy from
4:03
education otherwise on to come and sort of give us an update on
4:05
what she was doing in regards to kind of fighting and campaigning
4:08
against it. But I know that you've also been
4:09
extremely busy for the past couple of years really fighting
4:12
this one and and trying to help the community to fight back.
4:15
And we are at sort of sad, sad times, I think at the moment
4:18
that we're not feeling particularly well heard.
4:20
I think as a community, I think it's a real shame that was we're
4:23
still kind of now seeing it actually being passed officially
4:26
this week and getting the royal assent.
4:28
But how, how must you be feeling right now?
4:30
I'd love to know more about what's going on in your side of
4:32
things. You must be feeling devastated,
4:33
really. Well, I don't know.
4:35
I, I have very mixed feelings. I think I always knew it was
4:38
going to happen. I wasn't in the camp of, I mean,
4:41
I don't get me wrong, I absolutely believed in and and
4:45
continue to believe in all the action we're doing.
4:47
However it would have been, it would have taken something quite
4:51
big to stop it going through. I absolutely hoped we could have
4:55
got it more heavily amended and kind of more pro home education,
4:59
pro family choice. But I did know it would go, I
5:02
did imagine it was going to go through in some shape or form.
5:05
Interestingly, like I think, and this is what I'm trying to
5:10
communicate definitely to people who who kind of took out my
5:14
content online is that it gives us something like it's this
5:20
fear, isn't it? It's the fear of the unknown is
5:22
absolutely debilitating. And I think home educators have
5:24
always had this hanging over them like a shadow.
5:28
I've been home educating for over 18 years and it was always
5:31
this, is this going to suddenly change?
5:34
And the threat of, it's been there for so long now of when
5:37
legislational change will this come in which government's
5:40
coming into power? How can you vote to actually
5:43
tactically, sorry, not tactically, tactically to do the
5:46
best for home education. And now it's here.
5:50
And I do think actually that sometimes it's better not not
5:53
it's good that the law's in place, but it's almost, if it's
5:56
going to happen, at least we can stop fretting about is it going
6:00
to happen? Isn't it going to happen?
6:02
And we can start doing something about it, which and for some
6:06
think, yes, our voices haven't been heard enough, but now we
6:10
were just voices before, whereas now what we're going to have is
6:13
hard evidence. And that's going to be really
6:15
hard to ignore because before I think our community has been
6:19
sold somewhat of it's a bit wishy washy.
6:23
And it's very lovely that home educators want to choose to live
6:27
this life. But you know, really, you know,
6:29
and, and we've been, you know, there's been lots of children
6:33
kind of saying, I don't want my rights taken away.
6:35
And, but in fact, it's really hard to, it's really hard for
6:40
children to voice potential harm, particularly for children,
6:45
because you don't really want them to think that there's going
6:49
to be potential harm. You don't want to be sitting
6:50
there with your child and saying, I think this is going to
6:52
be really, really awful for you. What do you think about it?
6:55
Because why would you do that as a parent?
6:57
So what will happen is when things start to go wrong, as
7:01
they invariably will, we will have hard evidence, we will have
7:05
strong voices and they will be a lot harder to ignore.
7:09
Yeah. And I think obviously we've had
7:11
over, I know that from talking to Wendy, that we've had so many
7:13
court cases over the years of children being treated badly in
7:16
schools, possibly parents as well, obviously being treated
7:20
badly as home educators, fighting for rights, getting a
7:22
lot of kind of legal precedents in place.
7:25
That you're right as, as awful things may happen in the next
7:29
years. Obviously the potential data
7:32
leaks and all the other things that we're all dreading and and
7:34
fearful of as well, that ultimately these things are
7:37
likely to happen. And when they do, we then have
7:41
the opportunity then to actually fight back and to say, well, you
7:45
have an opportunity to take this information.
7:48
You may, yeah. We couldn't like no matter that.
7:52
Yeah, we, we, yeah, we couldn't mount a legal challenge against
7:56
a proposal. No.
7:57
So now again, now it's an act, we will be able to mount legal
8:01
challenges and there will be, there are already, there are
8:03
already ones in the pipeline. There's a number of kind of
8:06
religious organizations who are very unhappy with, with the way
8:10
it's been presented and the impacts it's going to have.
8:14
There will certainly be something going forward from the
8:16
home education community. There will probably be ones
8:19
going forwards from communities that that are against digital
8:23
ID, which we all are, but there'll be specific
8:26
organizations. So that's their focus.
8:29
So it's certainly, yes, we've got the ability to now start
8:32
holding MPs accountable and saying we warned you and you
8:35
didn't listen. And that's, I think that's going
8:39
to be quite powerful. Yes, I think so as well.
8:42
I guess there's always the hope as well that in, in the years to
8:45
come, obviously I'm, I'm well aware I'm kind of associated to
8:48
some degree. And so I'm sort of Surrey
8:49
related kind of borough councils and things like that.
8:52
I can see so many of them are under huge financial pressure
8:54
right now to kind of sustain the staff.
8:56
They've got to actually sustain the features and services they
8:59
offer that realistically, with home education being reasonably
9:04
quite a small number of children compared to the masses that our
9:09
local education authorities are really likely not to have the
9:12
funding to put as much pressure on us as we've all kind of been
9:16
led to fear is likely to be the case as well.
9:18
But I think it would take a massive shift in government
9:21
attention, which let's face it, they're, they're fighting fires
9:24
on all fronts, aren't they? So I reasonably think this is
9:26
sort of like one small group of kind of Lords and etcetera
9:30
interests that they've really pushed through.
9:32
But realistically it's now going to be coming over to a new group
9:36
of MPs and all that sort of to actually kind of enact it and to
9:39
do stuff with it. And that's hopefully going to
9:42
shake it up a little bit, I think with some of the changes
9:44
that might then happen over the next few years in government and
9:46
therefore what might come from it.
9:48
It's a lot of confusion I suppose right now, isn't it?
9:50
You don't really know what they've been asking for and what
9:53
that actually gets and what people will actually end up
9:56
having to do in the next few years.
9:58
Really. Really.
9:58
None of us can really know that yet, can we?
10:00
Yeah. I think what we're definitely
10:02
seeing is a very hard line Labor agenda which which Labour have
10:06
always been in. It's one-size-fits-all.
10:08
Everybody gets the same equality and that's all very well, but we
10:12
know that equality doesn't work. It's equity that we need.
10:15
We need everybody needs to access what works for them
10:18
because otherwise it's just disadvantage.
10:20
And the lab Labour Party, we'd be very keen to push this to get
10:24
this going as quickly as possible.
10:26
And they have said we'll fund it, we'll fund local
10:29
authorities. But absolutely how they and I
10:32
know, you know, this is something that a lot of us feel
10:36
and say how they are going to dip into this magical pot of
10:39
gold coins when you've got social services on their knees,
10:44
you've got child services as in, you know, send on its knees and
10:48
you've got mental health, children's mental health on its
10:50
knees. And you're going, well, how come
10:53
you can find the money to pay for this process of local
10:57
authority officers to kind of come out and assess homes and do
11:01
all this when you can't do that, it's not really OK, is it?
11:03
And I think that's going to make a lot of that's going to be
11:06
something again when when they start releasing figures and say,
11:08
oh, we're going to pay for this and pay for this.
11:10
And I think as well it's, it's whether I think there could be
11:16
delays that Labour will try and push it through as much as
11:19
possible. But with everything, with the
11:21
the political climate in the UK and overseas, there are a lot of
11:26
things happening, as you say. And, and if they start taking
11:29
precedent, if things rough up in One Direction or another,
11:32
certainly it could delay it. Yeah, and the actual execution
11:37
of it. I mean, I know Bridget
11:38
Phillipson has referred quite a lot to kind of using AI and I, I
11:41
imagine I don't have a magic spyglass into the future or a
11:45
crystal ball, but I imagine it will be a lot.
11:49
It will be an online report. It will be assessed probably
11:52
using AI tools to deal with the level of paperwork.
11:57
But it's still the level, I mean, even even the
12:00
deregistration meetings, I mean, I, I work with the local
12:04
authority all the time and liaising with them is, is
12:06
challenging enough to pin them down to some time to talk to
12:10
this or talk about this. The idea that they're going to
12:13
have the ability to attend these deregistration meetings quickly
12:17
and efficient. It's just not.
12:18
It's just all going to be very slow and grinding I imagine.
12:23
I think so. I think as you say, how many?
12:25
Until we get that policy out. Yeah, I think it's been, if you
12:29
can see how many children must be on there, not in school
12:32
register, sort of fantastical thing that I don't even know if
12:35
it even really exists. But like there's, there's plenty
12:37
of like in every homemade group we go to, there are at least a
12:42
handful of people who are off the radar of their local
12:45
authorities that have never been contacted.
12:46
They don't know where they are, what they're doing.
12:48
But when these children are registered with their GPS,
12:50
they've been seen for injuries at hospitals.
12:53
If they've had them, they are perfectly seen by society.
12:55
I was absolutely not at risk at all.
12:57
But the local authority haven't chased up where they're
13:01
receiving their education, in some cases for their entire
13:05
educational career. Like actually these children can
13:08
get all the way through and never be contacted.
13:09
And so realistically, if that's happening, then where are they
13:12
suddenly going to get the capacity to to chase and follow
13:16
up on everyone? I think it is.
13:17
I think it's a bit like the act of putting through of this bill
13:21
almost just feels like they needed to act.
13:24
They needed to show that they were going to act and to say
13:27
they were going to do something. The actual making it happen is a
13:31
whole other thing. But like every government
13:33
propaganda and every kind of thing they say, it really
13:35
depends us now who's driving it and who's really wants to make
13:38
it happen as to whether or not it ever actually does anything.
13:42
So we have to wait and see, I suppose.
13:44
But it's, yeah, it's difficult. Absolutely, But I do think
13:49
there's a big appetite for that and there's a big appetite to
13:52
get kids back into school. And this is this is the
13:54
difficulty. I don't agree that there was.
13:57
I think I think The thing is that Sara, the case of Sara
13:59
Sharif, which I think is the thing that most people say, oh,
14:02
they're trying to respond to that.
14:04
That would that was a very useful, sadly A tragic, but for
14:08
them useful opportunity to springboard this bill, which
14:11
would have been lined up years ago for them as soon as they got
14:15
into power. And I do think they'll they'll
14:19
give it a good shot. It's just going to be whether
14:23
their ducks line up in a row and for it's going to be whether can
14:26
they get the staff. Are they expecting the pushback
14:29
they're likely to get from the community?
14:31
They're the vast majority. I mean it's interesting.
14:34
Obviously at home Ed groups, you're saying, you know, there's
14:37
people that are off the radar that is now the minority of
14:40
people because the vast majority are already on registers because
14:43
they've been in school and come out.
14:44
But everyone's going to have to be registered afresh.
14:47
So they're going to have to take have to take that potentially.
14:50
I mean, we could be looking at 200,000 children.
14:55
They're going to have to take everybody at kind of start,
14:58
start afresh and have the big stream of numbers that's coming
15:02
out of school. So yes, it would be lovely to
15:05
think that the bill, the the ACT will be chugged up by
15:10
bureaucracy and the LA and guidance and whether they manage
15:14
it and money and staffing. However, I think it's really
15:17
important that families don't do what a lot of families did
15:21
before, which was when we started campaigning.
15:24
There was still a quite a large section of the community that
15:27
just went, oh it's never going to happen, oh it won't go
15:29
through, oh, it's never gone through before.
15:33
I think it's important that people take it seriously and not
15:36
that they panic or worry, but that they engage and go because
15:40
I think it could be easy to say it's never going, it's never
15:43
going to happen, they won't sort it out because then that's when
15:47
you can end up getting a bit on the backside.
15:51
Yeah, that's the problem, I suppose.
15:52
If you, if you sit on your hands and you're cavalier about it,
15:54
then ultimately that is when they get their opportunities to
15:57
push things through that. If we continue to maintain a
16:00
wall up and saying, no, we're not happy about this and This is
16:03
why. And here's a lot of very
16:04
educated reasons as to why it's not OK.
16:07
Yeah, then eventually it will hopefully barrage them back into
16:12
realizing it's more effort than it's worth to try and actually
16:15
get it to happen. And I think ultimately we as a
16:18
community obviously know that this has got nothing to do with
16:20
safeguarding. Truthfully, home education we
16:23
know is not a safeguarding issue.
16:25
And I think if we really wanted to get get fed up about it, then
16:29
really they're called kind of I keep always get the phrase of
16:31
get your own house in order comes into my head an awful lot
16:34
that we know that children in schools are a lot of children
16:37
are at significant risk, even if they don't experience any abuse
16:41
in the sense of sexual abuse or any other kind of abuses that
16:45
that we would obviously label as a crime.
16:48
We know that obviously, especially when it comes to
16:50
send. But generally children in
16:51
general are experiencing a lot of harm in the form of education
16:56
that is being offered in this country on mass.
16:57
And what I can't possibly understand is how how we can
17:01
have a government wanting to govern further, a group of
17:04
people who said, you know what, I appreciate what you're trying
17:06
to do. We would like to do it
17:08
differently. And ultimately I think it's it's
17:11
such a difficult thing for them to be able to then govern that
17:16
whilst then also taking into consideration how we like to do
17:19
it and how we how we want to have our freedoms.
17:21
But I think that's going to be the biggest problem going
17:23
forward for them is how they do that.
17:24
Fairly obviously, we've got the religious groups fighting back
17:27
against it, which at least have kind of like a defined rights, I
17:31
suppose. As a religious organization,
17:35
I've always been thinking recently that the home education
17:37
community almost needs to have, it's like, set belief structure
17:40
that is like defensible as a these are our rights.
17:43
This is how we choose to live our lives, and we need you to
17:45
respect those boundaries. That it is so difficult to
17:48
convey when the truth is that a lot of it is actually individual
17:51
and it's more about people being able to live their own
17:53
individual human lives. That it's such a complicated
17:56
beast. This isn't it.
17:57
Yeah. Absolutely.
17:58
And I agree with you. I mean, there's there's adults
18:02
who were home educated that are fighting against the bell.
18:04
I know people who have, you know, second generation home
18:09
educators and babies being born and their parents were home
18:12
educated and their parent, their parents before had different
18:16
kind of alternative education. And it is a culture.
18:19
But as you say, it's not a culture like any other culture
18:22
really. It's a, it's a culture that's
18:25
joined by kind of, yes, rooted in freedoms, rooted in human
18:29
rights, rooted in the ability to make to parent and to take care
18:33
of your child and to execute your job properly.
18:36
And, and certainly I have, I have speak a lot about the
18:40
failings of our mainstream school system and the amount of
18:43
harm that happens to, as you say, to all children, the amount
18:47
of things they're exposed to. I mean the the level of
18:50
inappropriate age, inappropriate sexual pressures and
18:55
conversation and language and pressures, relationship
18:59
pressures and exposure to just just everything that's not very
19:06
good about this world. The kind of gang cultures even
19:09
on a very minimal level and how we interact with each other of
19:13
how we talk about other people. It staggers me that Keir Starmer
19:18
can stand up and talk about British values and like managing
19:21
extremism and suggest that's that homes are dangerous and
19:25
school is the safe place for that.
19:27
I find that I don't the things that come out from them.
19:30
Sometimes you just go. Do you think we are all utterly
19:33
devoid of any intelligence because we we should as a as a
19:37
society be actually moving towards a more kind,
19:43
compassionate, respectful, autonomous and safe community
19:48
rather than almost? What happens at the moment is
19:51
this idea of the world is an awful place, so we best get them
19:55
used to it from four years old because they're going to get a
19:57
bit of a shock otherwise. Whereas my attitude is let's
20:00
change the world. Yeah.
20:03
So yeah, that's what you take on it.
20:06
No smiling. And I get why you're smiling,
20:08
but ultimately you're so right. Like we have this idea and this
20:13
attitude that the goal is to teach them how to be bullies
20:17
less they be bullied. Like teach them how to be
20:20
competitive and to one up on other people, less other people,
20:23
one up on them. That ultimately what we're
20:26
trying to gain from creating a community in a human race that
20:29
behaves that way. So ultimately, I mean, I did a
20:32
talk recently about the kind of history of education and also
20:34
very much all in fresh in my head at the moment.
20:36
But the whole kind of concept of even mainstream schooling being
20:39
voted in before the general working man was even able to
20:42
vote. This was decisions made for us
20:45
as a people that we were going to have this mass education that
20:47
was 100% focused on deference to the church and to authority.
20:52
It wanted everybody to be following the rules and going
20:55
along with messaging that they wanted to offer us.
20:58
Ultimately, I know that the reason why we have such a lot of
21:01
pushback and fear around individuals educating their
21:04
children based on their own autonomous needs is just of
21:07
trust issues is how anybody's kind of boiled it down.
21:10
It's trust issues. And it's also like an archaic
21:13
kind of hang up from generations gone by that were all about
21:18
order and keeping people in check and under control is that
21:22
we can be as like controversial as we like here.
21:24
But ultimately it's it's really being mindful of the fact that
21:28
governance all comes down to trying to keep some sense of
21:31
order. And whilst I can completely
21:32
respect it as a need, considering population was
21:36
booming back in the late 1800s, like there probably was a lot of
21:40
fear around making sure that people did get a fair
21:42
opportunity education and they did get an opportunity to better
21:45
themselves and to, to fight back against dodgy contracts and poor
21:49
working conditions and get rid of child labour.
21:51
Like all of these things were good things.
21:52
It's not all bad, but ultimately it's the hang ups that have had
21:56
been had over the past 100 years and how it's shifted.
21:58
It's not boiled down to being a system that works well for our
22:02
modern day and with access to so much education and access to
22:05
opportunities and resources, children don't need a school to
22:09
do extremely well for themselves in life.
22:12
But we do think that I do feel like the government is just
22:15
almost just sticking their fingers in their ears.
22:16
You know, this is the way we're doing it and we're going to
22:18
carry on doing it this way even though it is putting so much
22:21
pressure on so many systems. As you say, mental health and
22:24
welfare, all of it is struggling partly in the way of the way
22:28
that children are being educated, the way we were
22:30
educated. Like, it's interesting, isn't it
22:32
really? Yeah, 100%, yeah.
22:35
I mean it. What what gets me is at the end
22:37
of the day, the system isn't working.
22:38
And I, I think that and it's really simple.
22:40
If you want to look at let's, how do we, how do we decide if
22:44
school is, is good or not? And you go, well, let's look at
22:47
our adults, Let's look at our society.
22:49
And we're like, yeah, so we've still got a massive problem with
22:54
the amount of people that are having to access welfare.
22:56
We've we've got overpopulated prisons, overcrowded prisons are
22:59
full of ADHD humans that shouldn't be there.
23:03
We've got health crises everywhere.
23:06
You know, we've got here, there are lots of lots of areas that
23:10
basically show lots of miserable people.
23:11
There are more depressed adults as more adults on
23:14
antidepressants. There are depressed children.
23:16
There's all these things. And you're like, and what's the
23:20
common denominator? I can tell you it's not that
23:22
they were all home educated. No, it's because they all, you
23:26
know, went to school. And that's the one key thing
23:30
that we can change. And in fact, if we get school
23:32
right, it will take, it will take a couple of generations.
23:35
It will need to ripple out. But if we get school right and
23:39
we meet children's needs and we recognize their strengths and we
23:42
empower them and celebrate them and we give them strategies for
23:46
their challenges, they will make better decisions as adults.
23:50
They will make better decisions about who to be their partner.
23:53
They will make better decisions about what job to do.
23:56
They will be able to go, you know what, I can't work full
23:59
time, but I can do this and I can do it this way.
24:02
So I might need a bit of support with this, but I can contribute
24:04
this or you know, I can do this or I can work this way.
24:08
And it solves so much, like so many of the problems we have in
24:12
society is just because of that process of being broken through
24:17
school. And the amount of adults I speak
24:20
to who even if they're not, I mean the vast majority
24:24
neurodivergent, but even when they're not, they just kind of
24:27
go, I survived school. Or they'll say, yes, school was
24:30
great. And I'll be like, right, what
24:31
did you do in your 20s? Oh, yeah.
24:33
I was mostly just drunk for it. And I was mostly just down
24:36
there. And you're like brilliant.
24:38
So we as a society expect accept that as well.
24:42
We kind of go, you know what, it's absolutely fine to define
24:44
an entire decade of your life as going out and then drinking an
24:49
insane amount and waking up not knowing where you are and all of
24:52
these things or spending loads of money on stuff or whatever.
24:54
But we're kind of OK with that. And we're not going.
24:58
Could that be a different way? And this isn't about anti
25:01
drinking and it's not about anti having fun.
25:04
It's about actually, we've got 80 years if we're lucky.
25:09
How do we want to spend it? What do we want to spend it
25:11
doing? And why is it that we've got
25:15
these kind of things happening with our use when actually at
25:17
that age you should be changing the world or doing lots of
25:21
things. And, and, you know, a lot of
25:24
people are still stuck in this, you know, feeling like they
25:27
should go to university to get a degree they probably never going
25:29
to use and end up with loads of debt on trying to get into jobs
25:33
and struggling and, and everything.
25:37
You know, it's just, I just think that the things we teach,
25:41
I think we learn far more at school than we're actually being
25:44
taught in lessons. And this is the problem.
25:48
Yeah. And it is, it is all it is all
25:51
society control. It's.
25:53
So interesting what you're saying there as well about that
25:54
idea of like, it's almost as if we allow play in their 20s, but
25:59
we don't allow play during their childhoods.
26:02
They're almost like we say no good childhood is all about
26:04
preparing to be an adult. But then when they become an
26:07
adult officially, then it's like cool, like you're out of school.
26:10
You can do what you want. Like go off, earn your money,
26:11
have fun, drink, play, have fun. It's like your own problem.
26:15
Now you go and do what you want to do.
26:17
But like we almost feel like those first 18 years are like,
26:19
we've got to put everything in their heads so they can be
26:22
successful. But actually the truth is we
26:25
basically teach them to just memorize stuff and essentially
26:28
teach them to dislike education, not want to continue to educate
26:31
themselves, not be. Involved in their community.
26:33
Not actually contribute or have autonomous involvement, not
26:37
vote, not have anything to do with the running of the country
26:40
or creating businesses or working or having any kind of
26:43
contribution at all. Now you're an adult.
26:46
You don't even know what your value is.
26:48
You don't know what your strengths are.
26:49
I mean, you can. It's all of it makes a lot of
26:51
sense when you actually sit and rant about it a little bit.
26:55
Yeah. I mean, it's so confusing that
26:57
so many of us are stuck believing it's so different that
26:59
actually it should be that way how it is now.
27:01
And it should be that they have their freedom when they first
27:04
leave school and can go off and have their fun and all the rest
27:07
of it. That you're right.
27:08
It's strangest, it would seem to just have this real fixed idea
27:12
of what's normal and all. That's what that's what I did
27:16
when I grew up. It's like, yeah, but how did it
27:18
serve you truly? Like, how happy are you?
27:21
How successful has your life really been?
27:24
I mean, I only really found education again when I started
27:27
home educating my kids that they'd absolute love and passion
27:31
for these very, really random subjects that they get into.
27:34
Really sparked me to Start learning with them and made me
27:38
realise how much I actually loved the act of learning.
27:42
But really in this lovely projecty, eclecticy kind of way
27:44
that we do it, where you learn about what you want to learn
27:47
about in that moment. Take it where it goes.
27:50
And I learn new stuff alongside them every single day.
27:54
But I dropped education in a big way when I left school.
27:57
I was so over it. I just wanted to be free to just
28:01
do whatever I wanted to do. And you're right, that doesn't
28:03
turn you into someone who is an activist or it works hard to
28:07
support your community or does any charity work that doesn't
28:10
turn you into that person. It turns you into someone who
28:12
wants to go off and have some fun and just make some money and
28:15
burn it. That's that's all it really
28:18
creates is a A wish to go off and be.
28:20
Free, yeah, absolutely. And you know what?
28:22
There's a difference between like freedom and enjoyment and
28:25
play and excitement and exploring and survival.
28:29
And I think what we see in our in, in the UK, I don't think we
28:34
necessarily see huge amounts of the former.
28:36
We see an awful lot of burnt out adults who are stressed by the
28:42
time they, they've left. They need college stress.
28:45
And so the lifestyle I'm kind of talking about is more 1 of
28:49
surviving the day and getting through waiting for the weekend
28:53
rather than actually are positive, passionate, exciting.
28:57
And I think there's a couple of things on what you said there
28:59
that I'd like to raise. And the first thing is the lack
29:01
of family. So everything in our society is
29:04
so devoid of family connections. And I think if you kind of look
29:08
at like a lot of European societies where you've got, yes,
29:11
people drink, yes, people party and have fun and whatever.
29:15
But there's an it's all, a lot of it's very deep rooted in
29:17
family. You come together as families,
29:19
as communities, as extended families, as friends, as
29:21
neighbors, celebrate together, you drink together, you you play
29:25
music, Yeah. And, and you get that all the
29:27
way through. So children are raised into that
29:29
and there's a lot of that feel and you get to learn, you know,
29:33
elders are there to learn from whether you sometimes ignore
29:36
them or not. But you have that kind of,
29:39
that's why that's kind of who's raising you.
29:42
And you kind of look at the UK and we are so anti older people
29:47
and so disconnected quite, you know, a lot of disconnection
29:50
between families and children. And I think a huge amount of it
29:54
is actually that kind of kids starting school super early
29:59
being in really, you know, we are so academic, we are so
30:02
uniformed, we are so dressed like this time like this, do
30:06
this, sit there and do that stand up.
30:09
And the idea, you know, with the direction of labour's going,
30:12
let's get them in earlier. Let's get the, you know, school
30:14
based nurseries, let's get them in at 9 months old.
30:16
Here's some money, go back to work, get your child in
30:19
childcare. The whole thing is this
30:21
separation of children and family, because actually if they
30:25
wanted to support children to get a decent breakfast in the
30:28
morning, they'd make sure the families have more money because
30:31
the adults need to eat too. And in fact, it's, it's better
30:35
to have that time around the table in the morning.
30:38
And yes, some people have to work and that's absolutely fine.
30:40
But as a society, we don't say to parents with young children,
30:45
would you like to adjust your hours?
30:47
Or would you like to do this so that a few times a week you can
30:50
start a bit later. We, of course, we don't.
30:52
So we've got a whole, a whole kind of society that's very anti
30:56
family. And the other thing I just
30:57
wanted to pick up what you said is I believe very much and I
31:01
know sometimes I upset teachers when I say this and it's not
31:05
anti teacher, it's anti school system.
31:08
It's a school extinguishes the love of learning that babies are
31:12
born with a natural instinct to learn.
31:15
And they say it's everything to them.
31:18
They from the initial eye contact to observation and
31:21
communication and everything it's there.
31:23
You don't need to create it. And when you know, it's there
31:26
through the toddler ears, if you're at home playing, play
31:28
groups, toddler groups, whatever.
31:31
And then they start school and learning is made to be a dirty
31:35
word. It's made so, you know, this is
31:37
how we learn this thing. And well, what if I don't learn
31:40
that way? Or what if I'm not engaged with
31:42
that? And what if and the, the the
31:44
lack of rest, the lack of play, the lack of kind of, we are
31:48
going, as you say, we are going to deliver this information in
31:51
Victorian methods, but with some pretty pictures on the wall and
31:55
a nice carpet. But essentially it's the same.
31:57
And so then we end up, we end up going through this process and
32:01
then we try have to try and correct that, it feels like.
32:05
And the good schools, I know they do really good things, but
32:08
I still go around them and think you're just undoing what you're
32:11
creating, but you're teaching them tolerance.
32:15
But in fact, if you allowed them to dress how they wanted to,
32:19
they would learn diversity through living.
32:23
You don't need if you make everyone uniform and say you're
32:25
the same and then you're like, and then three years later
32:28
you're like, we're now going to teach you that not everyone's
32:31
the same. And it's like, yeah, it's
32:34
illogical. It's it's absolutely not fit for
32:37
purpose anymore. And we need us.
32:39
And The thing is, if we get it right, but then at some point
32:43
this is all going to change and hopefully it will.
32:46
But what worries me is the hundreds of years it's going to
32:49
take for us to actually, it's like, just can we not just do it
32:53
now? Can we not just can we do away
32:55
with the waiting and just we've? Got some strong ADHD minds to
33:00
just get in there and get on with it, don't they?
33:03
100% I'm here. I'm available, not really
33:07
available. I have a very busy job looking
33:10
after the young people that school have messed up.
33:13
Not messed up because they're amazing children, but the yes
33:16
children that school have harmed and but I would love to be
33:20
creating something that meant these children went harmed in
33:23
the first place. Yeah, I think we all would
33:26
really, wouldn't we? And I think what a lot of people
33:28
I think maybe don't understand about the home educating
33:30
community as a whole is how passionately we actually
33:32
advocate for children's rights and educational rights.
33:36
And we care an awful lot about what goes on in schools.
33:38
And I know that there's certain people who I've tried to speak
33:41
to about it in the past who have kids in school who are just
33:44
like, yeah, but I've got a full time job and they're all right.
33:47
They seem to be getting on OK. And I'm just like, OK, And I was
33:52
like, just an just an FYI, it's still worth paying attention to
33:55
this bill because if they're ever not OK, then you have lost
33:58
some of your ability to fight with that.
33:59
Like, like, it's really hard to get anybody who isn't already of
34:04
an alternative education mindset sometimes to even really kind of
34:07
take it on board and think about it.
34:08
And so hold on conversation, I guess another time.
34:10
But that I got, I suppose, in a way that leads us quite nicely
34:14
into what can people still do? What should we still be doing?
34:18
What, what else can we do to try and keep our voices being heard?
34:21
I know there was a survey that was being done by the Open
34:23
University that lots of us have done.
34:24
I think that's actually closed now.
34:26
I think that was closed yesterday, wasn't?
34:27
It I think that's closed now. Yeah, yeah.
34:29
But I know a lot of people are trying to get that completed,
34:31
but what else can we do? What is there still to be done
34:34
so? I think definitely return
34:39
keeping pressure on MPs are it's really important.
34:42
I kind of the way I see it is almost MPs need to become our
34:46
best pen pal or our best friend. We need to just be keeping in as
34:50
regular contact with them as possible.
34:51
Even if it's just case of keeping e-mail correspondence up
34:54
And if they don't respond repeatedly report them.
34:57
You can report them to the Parliament.
35:00
There's a whole thing online to say they never respond.
35:03
Keep the pressure up on them and tell them what your concerns
35:05
are. Now, part of me also feels, and
35:08
this is going to sound a bit bizarre, but now is maybe a good
35:11
time to also rest. We're coming into the summer.
35:14
Nothing major is going to happen when the consultations start
35:18
coming out from the government, absolutely we need to respond to
35:21
them. But there is going to be times
35:24
ahead where we're going to need really strong voices and bodies
35:29
and people showing up. And I feel if we kind of expects
35:34
everybody to keep that ongoing forever, they're going to burn
35:38
out. So I personally say breathe out,
35:42
try not to panic, try not to worry, enjoy the sunshine,
35:46
respond to consultations when they start coming out.
35:48
Follow people. I mean, follow me, follow other
35:51
people, the home education Action Group, there's various
35:55
different people that have good information about the bill and
35:59
not build the ACT. So I got used to it and and just
36:02
kind of take some time. The other thing, the other thing
36:06
that you can do which doesn't make much, it's not too much for
36:09
hardship is just building, starting to build community
36:11
more. I know that home eds has has
36:14
always been notoriously great at community, but there are still
36:18
particularly with the in surge of new home educators is kind of
36:21
welcoming them into the community, making sure they kind
36:24
of know what's going on and what's gone on before.
36:26
A lot of them won't know anything other than being
36:29
heavily regulated. So maybe just talk to them about
36:33
what it was like, what it's been like, how it's worked so well
36:37
and why we're trying to hold on to these kind of freedoms to be
36:41
able to kind of go about our lives with without this
36:44
ridiculous oversight. And that's a lovely thing to do
36:48
because that's that's not a hardship.
36:50
And when things start happening, when we get guidance coming out,
36:55
local authorities and families, then there's going to be other
36:59
things to do. And it will involve, you know,
37:02
you might want to, if you're able to, you might want to
37:05
financially support fundraising for a legal challenge.
37:08
You might want to be, you might be a family that's negatively
37:11
impacted and want to kind of be part of a legal challenge.
37:15
You might then as things start changing, talking about it,
37:20
posting it on social media, being really loud about the
37:25
things that aren't working or going wrong.
37:29
So there's going to be plenty and being able to say to your
37:32
MP, well, look, I warned you this is happening, what you're
37:36
going to do about it. So for now, definitely on any
37:39
petitions as well. So do stay in touch with your
37:41
MP, sign petitions, respond to consultations.
37:45
Other than that, do take a breath out and try not to get
37:49
too over what I mean. I just, I know fear is crippling
37:54
and it yeah, I see so much of it in the community and it's not
37:58
necessary. And the other thing I sometimes
38:00
see in the community and people say to me as well is the amount
38:03
of groups where people ask simple questions and other
38:07
people will respond with their oh, you shouldn't do that or you
38:11
shouldn't do or you should know that or, And I think it's really
38:16
important to like retain your kindness and remember that we
38:22
are people ask quite. There's no such thing as a
38:24
stupid question, you know, Let people ask questions and respond
38:29
to them with with kind of, yeah, openness and kindness.
38:33
If you haven't got any good to say, just don't.
38:36
This is one of the things you have to be really mindful of as
38:38
well. Don't me, because I think I had
38:39
someone pull me up once on something I said somewhere and
38:42
like on a comment I made and I was like, OK, that's fair
38:45
enough. Thank you for airing your, your
38:47
views on it. But it's important for us to
38:50
have these discussions and for us to not operate within a
38:52
vacuum where we just ping pong the same thoughts around.
38:55
We are allowed to have conversations.
38:57
We're allowed to discuss things, dispute things, understand
39:00
things, take your time to reason your arguments fairly and
39:03
kindly. If you've got an alternate view,
39:05
I think there is an awful lot of that in some of these groups,
39:08
actually. I agree that sometimes it can be
39:10
very difficult for new people in the community to actually feel
39:13
accepted, to have to help them to understand and to shift
39:17
viewpoints. To be my husband, bless him as
39:20
so many husbands are, are kind of just on the the other end of
39:23
me researching and then feeding stuff back to him and asking him
39:26
to get on board with the new way of thinking all the time.
39:28
But there's an awful lot of people out there who will have
39:30
chosen home education or not necessarily even chosen it, but
39:33
have had it rather thrust upon them with children not OK at
39:36
school, who maybe are wishing that their kid had been OK at
39:40
school and that things could have carried on as they were.
39:42
Because they're still trying to keep a full time job.
39:44
And they they don't know how to make the lovely ideals of the
39:48
home meds kind of community happen under that pressure of
39:51
very, very difficult, challenging behaviour from their
39:54
child who's not OK, them not OK, their family situation not OK,
39:59
finance is not OK. Like at the end of the day, we
40:01
have to have compassion for each other and to recognise that.
40:05
We're not all in the same boat and where we want to do good
40:08
things for our kids. So that's something which bonds
40:10
us. But we do also have to be open
40:12
and mindful of that, that people have got different capacities
40:15
and yeah, they have had different amounts of information
40:17
getting to them. I think unfortunately it is a
40:20
little bit Lord of the Flies and it's a case of when even when a
40:25
new kind of community emerges or things, you know, numbers,
40:29
numbers increase suddenly and then people get involved in it
40:32
who are perhaps very used to doing things a certain way or
40:36
having a certain structure, whatever they, it's natural for
40:38
them to go right. We're, we're, we're in charge
40:42
and we're going to give this advice and you need to do it
40:44
this way and you need to. And there's, and that's a very
40:47
natural human instinct. People, people, that's how
40:49
people work. They, there's leaders, there's
40:51
followers, there's, there's different types of people, but I
40:54
think it's just home education community is really special.
40:57
It's been really special for a number of years.
40:59
And I, I have always felt like I've been part of something
41:03
really multi generational and, and, and really touched by the
41:07
fact that we've got people that have been doing this for, for so
41:09
long and standing up for rights and doing things differently and
41:13
meeting needs. And I go to kind of, I'm
41:15
speaking at home Ed conference on the 16th of May, the learn
41:21
free conference in Coventry. It'd be great to see people
41:23
there. And I've going there like I see
41:26
people who are really different from me.
41:28
And what I love about it is everyone's like, hey, hello.
41:31
And it's so everyone's so welcoming and accepting and
41:35
we're all here under the home Ed banner, whether it's because
41:38
we're thinking about home Ed or we're new to it or we're
41:40
experienced home Eds. And we can do that in a really
41:44
open like, yeah, OK, I know those people do things this way
41:47
and I know those people that have that kind of lifestyle.
41:49
But we've all got our best children, our children's best
41:53
interests at heart. Our children are all thriving.
41:55
We're all different. And so I, I think I don't want
41:59
to lose that. So I do hope that people can
42:01
yeah, that it's just that thing. And just keep being.
42:04
And if you see someone who's in a group or, and a bit out on the
42:08
outside of it or struggling to speak to people or, or maybe,
42:11
you know, on an online space and do say to them, you're doing
42:15
great. You know, you're doing great
42:17
just by making this decision just by I'm trying, you know,
42:22
don't don't worry. And you know, we all get things.
42:25
We all goodness, I I I'm dyslexic, I get spellings.
42:29
I have a couple of lovely people who regularly send me a private
42:33
message and say, Oh, Jen, start this from OK, great.
42:36
And I really value and appreciate that.
42:38
What I don't value and appreciate is people who kind of
42:41
comment and go, my goodness, if you spell like that, you're
42:44
giving homage community a bad name and it's comments like that
42:47
and I don't care. But there are lots of new people
42:50
to home meds who do care and it can really, it can really knock
42:54
their confidence. We've, we've talked before about
42:57
I was joking with a friend last year about how we think when we
43:00
first start home educating that school is the bar that we're
43:02
supposed to be trying to hit. And then you spend spend some
43:05
time home educating and suddenly you realize that you're supposed
43:08
to be vegan and do loads of environmental campaigning and
43:11
you're supposed to be making sure your children become
43:12
activists one day. And you're like, wait, hang on a
43:14
minute. The.
43:15
Bar for home Med seems higher. It's like, what are we doing
43:17
here? And it's so funny because
43:19
essentially, like if you actually stop and just think for
43:21
a second that actually, yes, OK, all these things would be
43:24
lovely. But realistically, I'm operating
43:26
within my own little nearest spicy family who've all got
43:29
issues with carrots, let alone like this rare plant down the
43:32
road. And ultimately I really do want
43:34
to do lots of good for my community, but there really is
43:36
only so much time in a day when I'm building 20,000 meltdowns.
43:39
So if it would be OK, can I just like do as much good as I can do
43:43
with my lovely little people and just have a really great time
43:46
learning with them and see what they make of it and enjoy our
43:48
lives and not actually have all these pressures that, yeah,
43:51
again, another whole conversation for the time,
43:52
really, but it's so wonderful and kind of recognizing that,
43:56
accepting it eventually. Yeah.
43:59
And after a certain amount of years, you then do the flip side
44:02
where you go, you know what, I've met the bar of school just
44:05
I kind of over overseeded the bar of school just by not
44:08
sending my kids to school. And in fact, everything else is
44:11
a win. So I think you definitely go
44:14
through that journey, don't you? I think, I think one, one thing
44:18
just to kind of add as we kind of probably wrap things up is
44:23
there is nothing to say that nothing goodwill come from this
44:25
act. And I think it's very easy to
44:27
kind of go, it's all doom and gloom.
44:29
It's all going to be awful. You just don't know.
44:32
And sometimes you need difficult things to happen to, to get to
44:37
the good fit and you need that kind of pendulum swing.
44:41
It's all been free and easy. Then it's all been like rights.
44:45
We need to regulate. You don't know it will come down
44:48
to rest somewhere and we don't know what will come for it.
44:52
And, and there could act actually be huge benefits from
44:56
these conversations coming, being coming out into the into
44:59
the forefront and recognizing, you know, it may shine a massive
45:04
spotlight on the harm that's going on in schools.
45:06
Because when homemade parents are going, my autistic child who
45:11
is utterly burnt out and is they want to visit us.
45:15
We've now gone to court or whatever that whatever the whole
45:18
thing is, because I don't want to spread misery.
45:22
Those situations, whilst horrible to have to go through,
45:26
may change the face of everything.
45:30
So it's very easy, I think, for everybody to get very like, Oh
45:33
my God, this is the most awful thing.
45:35
It's like, no, this isn't. This is just a, another chapter
45:40
of the home education story in this country and we don't know
45:44
where it's going to take us. Yeah, and it could be somewhere
45:49
really good. I'm not suggesting all of it
45:50
will be clearly, because otherwise I wouldn't do what I
45:53
did I do, But I think it's important to just assume the
45:56
best and to go. This might bring change in
45:59
another way. This might propel a community,
46:02
communities to get together and get more involved in politics.
46:04
This might form a new political group that come on and they
46:08
absolutely shake the ground by changing things up.
46:12
Yeah. I won't get drawn into
46:14
conspiracy theories. I won't get drawn into it.
46:16
There's no point in doing and I think we just need to do our
46:20
best. Yeah, I think that's really
46:22
lovely. And I think you're right.
46:24
I think there's so much potential here for us to
46:26
continue to showcase how beautiful home education is as a
46:29
choice for our children and to see how well they thrive and how
46:33
incredibly intelligent and capable they are.
46:35
And the more of them that go through that process and are
46:37
seen and heard, the less so, the harder it will become to argue
46:41
that there's a problem here as well.
46:43
Which I think is is really what we need is that shift in public
46:46
opinion, which is a gradual thing for sure.
46:49
But the more of us who talk about it and actually share our
46:52
experiences and, and campaign and talk to our MPs and get
46:55
people on side, the more of that is spread.
46:58
And you're right, it does change minds.
46:59
And we've seen it happen with obviously with people's gender
47:03
equity and with people being allowed to, to love who they
47:07
love, like all these things do. Gradually, gradually, gradually
47:10
shift in public opinion and people are more accepting an
47:13
open understanding. And all we can hope is that
47:15
eventually that will be the case.
47:17
As you say, we changed the world, age and one feeling at a
47:20
time, 1 issue at a time. Simon.
47:23
Yeah, we're all in, right. So thank you so much for your
47:26
time today. I really appreciate it.
47:27
And I got to run off and pick up kids and do things now.
47:30
So enjoy. Have a lovely afternoon.
47:32
Evening and thank you so much for being on here chatting to us
47:35
today. Thank you for inviting me,
47:36
Kelly, It's been fantastic. You've been listening to the Big
47:43
Home Ed Conversations podcast. Thanks for tuning in.
47:47
Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share with a
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47:55
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47:59
We'll be back next week to talk about our experiences bringing
48:01
the topic of town planning and St. furniture to our children.
48:04
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48:07
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