I write to you regarding your shameful coverage of the Khyra Ishaq case on the Jeremy Vine Show on Friday. While the interview was conducted by Fern, it was done in the name of JV and quite honestly, you should both be ashamed.
Fern, to be a journalist is many things; there is, without doubt, a pressure to provide a story from one’s employers – and no doubt from those who employ your employers. There is certainly a need to provide readers or listeners with something to make them think. There is an adage that one should never let the facts get in the way of a good story. But there is also a duty to investigate, to look at your story impartially and with open eyes. To regurgitate pap is not journalism, or certainly not the sort the BBC should expect. It is the stuff of Bella Magazine to simply follow a hysterical mantra spouted by an agency with more to gain from the hysteria than it has to gain from the truth.
Fern, throughout your career you have marketed yourself as a champion of people, of families and i suspect, you believe that you are someone who allows the voices of women and children to be heard. It may be, while you hosted a conversation yesterday about the desperate case of Khyra Ishaq,that you believed you were doing so.
I believe you let down many more women, children and families than you championed yesterday. I believe you let down Khyra, her siblings, other children in her position and every last home educated child and home educating family in the country. And i would like to tell you why.
If a community knows itself to be at fault, it tends to clam up and hide the evidence. You might ask yourself therefore, why the home educating community are not silent about Khyra Ishaq, or indeed about Eunice Spry and her children?
I can tell you why. We are not silent because we are furious on behalf of those children, furious they were abused and furious they were let down. But we know they were not let down because they were home educated, even if those words are applied to the position they were in. There is a significant difference between Elective Home Education and Children Missing Education, one you should educate yourself on.
Those two families, the only ones the government can bring to the table in defence of their persecution of home education, were NOT hidden, unsupported, abandoned home educated children who would have been saved had they been in school or inspected more frequently. Khyra was in school; her teachers knew she was at risk and begged for help, the teachers at her siblings schools knew they needed help. Social Services knew they needed help and they visited – and the sum total of their efforts was seeing the child on the doorstep and concluding she was fine, despite plenty of other people categorically saying she was neither fine nor safe. Her mother did remove her from school yes, a devious mother who knew how to play the system to hide the worsening truth. But the truth was already in the domain of Social Services – who abandoned her.
And Eunice Spry was also known to Social Services, not just because there were some concerns about children in her care but also because she was an approved FOSTER MOTHER who continued to have children placed with her and left in her care despite those concerns. Yes, they were not in school, i agree. But if regular visits from Social Services concluded she was a fit parent to continue fostering, how exactly was the fact that she was supposedly home educating to blame?
I think, Fern, you have been duped – by a government and a Secretary of State who would like to divert attention from the fact that his Social Services network failed children in its care. Now, why would he prefer to pass the buck on to home educators?
The only cases the government can find where “home education was a factor” are ones where the authorities were already significantly involved in the family and did nothing to help those children. They did not use the powers they had to help them, powers which would have been entirely sufficient to save them, had they been used properly.
Fern, you asked “Should home-educators be required to follow the same rules as the rest of us?” I would like to ask you what rules you mean?
Do you mean “should home educators be handing their children into state care daily and asking permission to spend time with them at non-government approved times?”
Do you mean “Should home educators only spend the hours after 4pm and weekends with their children?”
I have to tell you Fern, those are not rules. They are norms, but they are not rules. And i am free to break norms; i am free to choose to be with my children, to be responsible for them, to educate them as i see fit. I am free to aspire to bring them up in a way that allows them to contribute to a better world.
What rules do you mean Fern?
Do you mean “should home educators have to feed, clothe, love, care, nurture, respect, provide for, worry about, taxi-drive, spend money on their children like you do? ”
Do you mean “should home educators have to make sure their children have friends, go places, see things, do things, interact with people, socialise, join Brownies/Gym/Taekwondo/Dancing/Rugby/Youth Club/Drama Club like you make sure your children do?”
Because Fern, we do. Home educators are a committed bunch of people, with their children’s best interests at heart, who live in the same world as you do, with the same clubs, the same National Trust, the same Alton Towers, the same shopping centres, the same swimming pools. We can make use of all those things to – and we do – cheaply and at off-peak times quite often, allowing many of us to use them more often than schoolers because we can afford to do so.
Or do you mean this rule, Fern? Do you mean “Home Educating families should have to prove yearly that they are innocent of any wrong doing, without cause to believe they are guilty of anything when the inspection took place, by allowing people into their homes, to speak alone with their children, to be inspected and verified and stamped as a good and wholesome family who are allowed to go about their lawful business for another year?”
Do you live by that rule, Fern? Do you allow someone to do that to you yearly? Would you like it if they did? That is quite a different rule to living by an internal code of right parenting and good community which doesn’t (yet) have to be stamped by an authority.
Khyra Ishaq died because she was failed by the state while she was in school, a state which then did nothing to prevent her disappearing even though they knew she was in danger. So should we begin inspecting the homes of all school children, just in case?
Baby Peter died because he was almost ‘invisible’ due to being under 2 and because 60 professionals to whom he was not so invisible didn’t deal with what was happening to him. Should we inspect, yearly or more often, the homes of all under 2 year olds to check they are not also being abused?
Some children become obese because their parents have poor understanding of nutrition. Some don’t. Shall we send all overweight parents to health and nutrition classes and monitor the meals they provide their slim and fit children because obese parents cannot be trusted to do better for their children than they have done for themselves?
Some children get bullied at school. Shall we inspect all of them to ensure they are not learning to be bullied by bullying parents?
Some children are bullies. Shall we inspect all their homes to check they are not being taught to be bullies by bulling parents?
Some children drink alcohol when they are too young. Shall we inspect all their homes to check if their parents like more than a bottle of wine a week?
Some girls get pregnant under age. Should we fit all 11 year olds with an IUD, just in case?
For 2 cases of children removed from school, Ed Balls and the media and Graham Badman have framed the parents of perhaps 80,000 children as possible child abusers who need to be monitored. No one has done an impact assessment on those children to see how this has affected them.
I can tell you. My happy, healthy, fulfilled, loved and home educated children are furious. Hurt, furious, bewildered and confused. They do not understand why they, and their lifestyle, has been singled out like this. My children, who know how to behave in groups and in public, who regularly have to wait for the schooled kids to settle and behave at clubs, who have friends who hate school and learn nothing there, cannot understand why they are being scapegoated.
My children fully understand that their parents are under attack – and it is hurting them. I’m big enough to take it – but it is hurting my children.
You might say there is no smoke without fire, Fern.
I say the BNP might say that about black skinned people.
I say Hitler might have said that about Jewish people.
I say some might still say that about people who are gay.
It doesn’t make any of them right. It doesn’t make Ed Balls right.
I might say all journalists are idiots who cannot think for themselves because the Daily Mirror and Bella Magazine exists.
But i’m disappointed to have to think that about Fern Britton and the BBC.
Well said Merry
Please, please, please send this somewhere official, it is brilliant.
Do you remember the shocking interview she did on This Morning, many years ago, with the Lewis family?
Great letter.
Sadly FB has previously shown herself to be very anti-HE so this was a golden opportunity to share her prejudices.
Oh, like all enemies of educational freedom I’m sure she believes herself to be on the side of right, and to know what’s best for everyone, but like all such people she is wrong.
I’m sending it as many places as i can think of 🙂 Feel free to suggest.
well said even though i live in rep of irl i am so horrified by this i am totally in favour of he as we he my youngest son for 2 yrs and quite honestly saved his sanity but even here i had to submit to more checks and meet certain criteria that would never have been neccesary for his school . i had nothing to hide but it was unfair .as for my opinion of fern briton she is a total muppet .send it to eu headquarters
Send it to Fern Brittons Agent, the BBC, Jeremy Vines agent, the newspapers, the PM if you like but definitely get this out there so that those involved can read it. This is an exceptionally well written piece and desperately needs to be viewed by as much of the public and those in the media as possible.
Thank you!
Absolutely fantastic letter.
x
Well said Merry.
If you change your i to I where appropriate before sending (no point adding fuel to the fire) then get it out there.
Very very well said!
Hope its OK I’ve just put it on Jeremy Vine’s Facebook page!
😀 My “i” not “I” is a style issue on my blog 😉 I refuse to conform or cope with the extra keystrokes – but i do tend to alter it when ‘abroad’ so to speak 😉
Jenny 😆 Blimey. Mind you, i did email it to him.
Thanks. What a brilliant piece.
I wouldn’t dream of insisting on conformity – go for it lol
Outstanding!
It made me cry. Just like your children have been affected , so have mine. My beautiful, normally happy, bouncy 7 yr old daughter now asks me what we have done wrong with tears in her eyes, as I sit and read or listen to yet another new article tarring our name.It is all so unfair.
Persecution is something I never thought I would experience. Sadly I was wrong x
The West’s children went to school – Let’s dig up the patios of all schoolchildren’s homes.
When my eldest son had a teacher who could not even spell the subject she was teaching – words fail me. Home ed saved all our sanity. He is in a great school now, but benefitted hugely from the one to one he got – the child who couldn’t read is now a voracious reader and scored 100% on reading, writing and comprehension. Long Live HE!
This is excellent Merry, I’ve just linked to you. I hope this travels far and wide. Lisa
Absolutely Fantastic thats all i can say Fantastic
Very well said Merry, you go girl! Someone has to understand how much this is hurting the kids – the one’s they claim to be putting first.
Fantastic, Merry.
I started listening to the show, but became so angry I didn’t listen to the end. My 14yo daughter is also angry. We need to shout even louder about this! Thank you for writing it.
Fabulous!
You’ve used the wrong there in one paragraph 🙂 should be their. Sorry only pointing it out should it go elsewhere.
May I share?
Grin – must have missed that; i did correct one like it. Please do share 🙂
Thank you Merry. This needed saying very badly.
This is Fabulous ~ you MUST send it !! Do you know what Jake said when I was chatting to him the other day about all this. He said “if they interview me I will say ~ I have a right to believe in Creation and YOU need to GET A LIFE!” ~ and do you know I think he would say it too! He is my kid who would prefer to be in school and yet he still feels mad at the thought of our family being forced into a corner. Even HE knows it’s JUST NOT RIGHT!
This is just so right and true. Fabulous. Send it everywhere.
I have never really warmed to FB. There is just something not quite right..too good to be true about her. It’s the front such people put on. Lorraine Kelly is another, especially after that episode where she told the bullied girl (was it?) she HAD to go to school. They just seem to be bothered with headlines and should be more concerned about the 40k HE kids they are hurting.. If they want to be treated like serious journalists then they should act so instead of accepting and regurgitating spoon fed dribble. I’ve stopped listening to the likes of JV. He should stop being so abrupt. He’s not a Jeremy Paxman and never will be. If you’re going to discuss something then give it enough air time.
My daughter is so annoyed and upset about all this. She refuses point blank to be interviewed by any numpty from the la or bow to their interfering. She’s absolutely boiling mad about it.
Fab Merry 🙂
Very well said Merry, you put into words so succinctly my thoughts. Thank you.
Very well said. Just thought I better point out that the ‘Some children get bullied’ and ‘Some children are bullies’ sentences are both followed by the same bit about checking if their parents are bullies – esp if this piece is going further, which I hope it is.
Brilliantly put :0)
I got such a sense of solidarity reading your letter.Thank you.
Absolutely brilliant letter, I hope you can send this off to as many people as possible, I hope she replies.
Tracy x
Thank you! Brilliant!
Barbara x
You speak for me too… Gives me great hope to hear someone communicate a cause so well….
Well said….
I hope Fern will respond and publicly too….
Makes me so cross to hear such ignorance and the blinkered approach to H.E …
We’ need people like you to tell them how it is !
Alex
Fabulous. Well done.
Brilliant!
Fabulous, Merry! Just listening to the interview and am shocked at her prejudice and ignorance.
I have just listened to this on i player, well the first 15 minutes as it made me mad and i had to turn it off. I have never heard such ignorant people in my life. Merry i am sure you have said everything that many of us would like to say but couldn’t find the words for. I will be interested to hear thier response (if any)
Sam
well said. thank you for this great letter. it warmed my sad HE mum heart.
Hi Merry,
Posting it far and wide! Excellent letter 🙂
Thank you Merry for finding the words, it is so hard. I haven’t listened yet and really have to listen in private, my daughter gets so upset. She is still upset about the unfairness she experienced at school three years ago and this feels to her like they are out to get her. Children as well have such a strong sense of justice, so many people are being the worst sort of role model here.
amen
well said Merry!
Well said. Thanks for writing this. You have so eloquently put into words what all of us are thinking. My 11 year old also worries about the proposed changes, and wonders why we just can’t be left alone to follow our own path. These ingorant public figures do more damage to our cause then they will ever know.
Bless you.
That was very well stated. Being in the states, I don’t know much about the two cases to which you refer. However, right here in my home state (Michigan) we have had what seem to be two very similar cases. In both cases, the children were originally in public school and being abused by their parents. When the state got involved the parent (in one case, the foster parent in the other) pulled them from public school and said they were homeschooling. Of course, they were not homeschooling at all, but when these children were abused to death the legislature and the media blamed it all on the “evils of homeschooling”. I am glad that you have chosen not to be silent in support of your educational rights and choices. We may be in different countries, but the challenges appear to be the same!
Oh so very well said. Thank you.
As a Grandmother of two, beautiful, bright and intelligent, healthy little girls I am horrified by yet another attack on Home Educators.
When I think back to when my own son and daughter were at school and how unhappy they were at times, I despair that I never considered there was another way to educate chlildren other than at school. My daughter was miserable at school, particularly secondary school and my son (whom I thought was o.k.) admiitted to me recently that “school was just something you had to get through.
It would be nice if the BBC had a follow up programme in which some of these comments could be shared with their listeners
Fantastic, well written letter. Certainly packs a punch!
Well Done! Brilliant! Thanks!
Many thanks – you have spoken for so many of us and our children.
Hi Merry,
fab letter. Whilst reading the comments I wondered if we could do a collective written session somewhere about how this is impacting on our children: the questions they ask; their emotional reactions and maybe the plans they and we are making to escape the impact upon them? Anyone want to refine this idea? Shall we do it?
love
Sally
Wonderful words, just how my ordinary hard working home educating family feel.
I wonder if we could get this printed as a full page in one of the dailies ~ How much would it cost?
We need to redress the balance and stop the control of the media by Balls and Badman!!
Thankyou so much for writing this brilliant letter.Please send it to everyone and anyone to read. My children were also worried as they heard about it on the radio.I reassured them as best i could and then went on to tell them what a debate is.Thanks again.
Super letter, just right. All bar none of the 100 and more Home edding families I have met getting out there at events, museums, camps & get togethers have been utterly concerned with their children’s wellbeing. These parents are stepping outside the norm and enduring inconvenience and expense at the very least, in order to provide their children what they need – an education which suits them. These parents need more acceptance and support if they seek it, not enforced monitoring. 3 cheers for home educators xx
Brilliant! Very well put. :o) Agree with everyone else – send this everywhere…
Very well written!!! I home educated many years ago as my son was diagnosed with dyslexia and help within the school system was very limited. My son was frequently given detentions because he could not keep up with class and became disruptive and the last straw was when he was excluded from school for a certain amount of days. My son was becoming very upset by the whole scenario and I knew that we needed to step in and do something as it was quite obvious the school was not prepared to give him the help he needed and just punish him when he clearly was struggling. So we de~registered him and taught him ourselves. Thankfully he is now twenty one and a very happy and contented person and I thank god for home education!!
I am saddened and extremely disappointed with Fern Britton.
I agree with other responses, you need to pass this letter on and make it known!!
Thank You from my Son and I all Home Educators!!
Have you sent it to Radio 4’s Feedback programme? Takes comment on all BBC programmes and often gets a response from the relevant producer/editor.
Excellent article – but why expect any better of a journalist – what exactly qualifies someone like Britton to speak on anything? It is a sad affair that people, who pass the responsibility for bringing up their children on to others, feel able to pass comment on those who care enough to not only care for, but also to educate their children themselves.