Just a thought

Date: sometime in 2010

Dear Mr LA Official,

Thank you for your letter informing us, under the new 2010 legislation following the Badman review that you intend to come and visit my family to assess our educational provision and the welfare of our child(ren). We will be delighted to welcome you into our home once a few necessary conditions have been met.

1. We understand that you may wish to interview our child(ren) alone and, to this end, we must ask you to supply an enhanced CRB disclosure for all LA staff to be present.

2. It is of course vital that anyone assessing our educational provision is genuinely familiar with, and sympathetic to, our chosen educational approach. To that end, please supply us with full CVs of any LA staff who will visit, including full details of their experience as autonomous home educators.

3. [optional paragraph] Since our child(ren) have/has unique needs, it is also important that anyone visiting is familiar with their type of behaviour and learning patterns. On the CVs of your staff, please detail the training which they have received in communicating with children with [put in whatever is relevant here]

We very much look forward to discussing in person our educational provision with a suitably qualified LA employee at a mutually convenient time and place. In the meantime, and for your records, I enclose a copy of our educational philosophy together with 3/6/47 letters from [pillars of the local community] confirming that they are in regular contact with our family and that they have no concerns about the welfare of our child[ren].

Yours very sincerely,





This took me about three minutes to draft and of course I'm looking for criticism. No personal investment in any of the particular things I said here. The main thing is: I think that if the worst case scenario happens and Badman'd recommendations do become law, then I feel morally in a position to require public servants to be, well, servants, and that involves me, their tax paying employer, demanding that they should be suitably qualified before I engage with them. The last paragraph, with the letters from friends, is to ensure that, while they are trying to get the right sort of employees, they don't send SS round...

So, what do you all think?