‘Hands up if you think a stricter rules are needed for home schooling’
IF the best place for most adults is the workplace, the best place for all children is the classroom. That’s where they begin to learn the lessons of life, not just the three Rs. Parents have a bounden duty to make the most of free state education.
School is primarily about education, but it’s so much more. It’s a social institution that defines childhood and makes us who we are. It’s where teachers can spot the early signs of child abuse, acting as social workers. School might have saved tragic Sara Sharif, pulled out of lessons by her violent father.
Kids mix with each other, finding their feet with fellow pupils and extending their horizons. They can’t experience any of that sitting at the kitchen table taking lessons from unqualified mums or dads.
That’s why I applaud the new law banning the automatic right to “home schooling” tabled this week by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. Exceptional cases will be exempt, but children will be numbered and on a register, to stop them falling through the cracks, with strict supervision of home schooling. That’s serious government.
In my schooldays (and possibly yours), the council attendance officer was round the house sharpish if you failed to attend. The sight of the “school bobby” on the doorstep was a public embarrassment.
School is also where you learn to respect and value adults outside the family. We remember our favourite teachers for the rest of our lives. I do. Miss Allen, of All Saint’s Primary (they were all Miss then, even if married, as she was) and Mr Hamilton, Mr Gotch and Mr Croft at Normanton Grammar.
They gave me my start in life. Education, not truth, shall set ye free. Bring back skool!
There’s justice on the horizon
The swan song of mad-hatted sleuth Vera is billed as the best holiday TV drama. But for my money, pride of place goes to this week’s final hearing of the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal. Edward Henry KC for the persecuted postmasters, a Falstaffian man tugging on his white beard, tore relentlessly into dishonest PO bosses.
His forensic assassination was a performance worthy of the magnficent ITV series, Mr Bates v The Post Office, which opened our eyes to this outrage a year ago. The job now is to sustain pressure for speedy, proper compensation for victims.
Let’s talk turkey at Christmas
Your Yuletide turkey is not a native of Britain. Most people know that, but how many know where Mr Gobble-Gobble came from, and why?
Step forward Yorkshireman William Strickland, a 16th century explorer who brought the turkey back from America. He is celebrated by a unique turkey lectern in St Andrews, Boynton, his family church and reputedly the smallest in the county.
Scarcely room to spread your wings, I’m told.
