West End Letters: Home Education | Class

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 3 July 2009

Community covers all classes

• THANK you for running the feature on home education (June 26), a great job of putting a lot of information into one article.
I just wanted to clarify one point which might be misinterpreted,
“If Beth had gone to our local school, 70 per cent of the children wouldn’t have English as a first language.”
This might sound elitist or racist but only featured in our thinking to the extent that we felt it was safe to experiment with education outside of school. We knew that if it all went horribly wrong for us she still wouldn’t be terribly behind the rest of her class by the beginning of the next academic year.
When we were deciding whether or not to home educate one of my concerns was that we might be entering a world which was predominantly white and middle-classed.
This is certainly not the case in London.
The home education community encompasses all classes, creeds and colours.
The diversity that we enjoy here is probably enhanced by families moving to the UK to avoid more restrictive regulations in their home countries.
Consequently it is not just British home educators who are concerned at the government’s plans to impose their narrow definition of education on our lives.
LIL COLES
Address supplied, SW1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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