Madam,

It is with growing anger that I read your article in the Cambrian News regarding home education (‘Concern about hidden, home-educated children’). There are a number of councillors that appear to be prejudiced against this choice, no doubt due to the fact that Ceredigion has the highest number of homeeducated children in the country.

This is a statistic they obviously see in a negative light as the increasing number of articles in your newspaper concerning this attest. Clearly, they have not stopped to ask why parents choose to opt out of the school education system, because if they had, they would not be making the disgusting, generalized and completely defamatory remarks that were printed. Cllr Marc Davies claimed, “I don’t understand why people want to do this”.

Well let me help you on that score. I took my children out of state-run education as the school’s attendance figures were more important than their welfare. Cllr Paul Hinge stated, “a parent’s decision to take a child out of school instead of talking to a headteacher was disruptive”. I did speak personally with the headteacher who reassured me the school would help. The best they could offer was a referral to the educational psychologist. By this time, due to the abuse my child was receiving in school, they were close to a breakdown, so we chose to home educate. I had to give up my job to facilitate this, which caused us hardship at home. Cllr Alun Lloyd Jones is “not happy about the health of the pupils, we are not happy about what’s going on behind closed doors, because we haven’t got the right to go behind that door without giving a warning”. Are you saying councillor that parents who home educate are doing so to facilitate abusing their child? My child was being abused in school, not at home.

Ceredigion County Council’s education system turned my child into a gibbering, self-conscious wreck, who was so scared he followed me around like a shadow, and hated education. It took three years of gentle and careful nurturing to undo the damage, the system that you councillors are advocating, had done.

As it is they are now doing very well in university, so home education is a totally viable alternative. Have they even considered that the narrow curriculum in Ceredigion may be pushing parents to consider alternatives?

We are now in the 21st century and it’s time for this prejudice and stigmatizing to stop. Perhaps it’s also time to vote for new councillors, as clearly the ones we have are no longer fit for purpose. I for one will be urging Ceredigion Council to take action against such divisive, derogatory and inflammatory remarks.

Yours etc Name and address supplied.

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