THE recent stab by Baroness Delyth Morgan at demonising what I would consider the last bastion of hope for children these days – home education – and the subsequent take-up of the subject by the NSPCC (Jeremy Vine Show, Radio 2) has caused me to put pen t

THE recent stab by Baroness Delyth Morgan at demonising what I would consider the last bastion of hope for children these days - home education - and the subsequent take-up of the subject by the NSPCC (Jeremy Vine Show, Radio 2) has caused me to put pen to paper.

To send your child to state school these days is risking the deterioration of any standards you hope your child may aspire to, along with any hope that your influence in their early years will prevail.

With childhood being driven by rampant consumerism, media pressure to fawn over celebrity status, youth culture despising high academic achievement, schools obsessed with league tables, teaching to test and gearing up to the LCD (lowest common denominator), with bullying, violence and teacher-abuse rife, and one in five children leaving school unable to read and write I am surprised that more parents don't opt to keep their children at home.

To suggest that home educators could use the experience to their own sexually-abusive ends is appalling at a time when no section of society is free from the tainted suggestion - fuelled by media frenzy - that anyone giving their time to children must have 'a problem' in this area.

As a result children are being left by the wayside, starved of nurture, compassion, love and societal boundaries given them by anyone older than themselves.

Home education is not the easy option and is a decision that isn't taken lightly by parents. Schools are a hot-bed for pressure to be a 'chav', not be academically successful, partake in sexual activities at a young age and to conform with a youth culture that is becoming more threatening by the day.

To send your child to state school nowadays is taking the sanctity of childhood out of the hands of parents and putting it into the hands of a society that does nothing to protect the integrity of childhood and everything to promote the demonization of adults who want to nurture children.

Reading Ed Balls's statement: "This is no time for excuses - I want every child to go to a good school and that means every school getting above 30 per cent" (he means five good GCSEs including maths and English). One can't help but think that, if 30 per cent is considered 'good', then God help those 70 per cent of children who aren't getting even a good education, let alone a childhood that stabilises them for life.

HELEN CRITCHELL

The Town

Great Staughton