NSPCCP response to letter from Godfrey Bloom MEP
Dear Mr Bloom,
Thank you for contacting us with your enquiry.
The NSPCC would like to clarify its position regarding home education. We would like to make it clear that the NSPCC is not against home education and that as regards schooling we believe parents should have the right to decide what is in the best interests of their children.
We sincerely regret any offence caused by the quote attributed to Vijay Patel in The Independent. There was no intention to imply a connection between home education and Victoria Climbie's tragic death.
Our concern is about the safety of children. Those educated at home should have the same right to protection as those taught in school. This is what we have asked the government to consider in its current review. Our mission is to end cruelty to children, and to ensure that all children are effectively safeguarded, however or wherever they are educated.
Regards,
Duty Enquiries Officer
NSPCC Library and Information Service
Weston House
42 Curtain Road
London EC2A 3NH
Not even the courtesy of a signed letter. It could have been produced by a machine.
It was in response to this
Dame Mary Marsh
Director
NSPCC
Weston House,
42 Curtain Road,
London
EC2A 3NH
26th February,
Dear Dame Marsh,
I am writing to you on behalf of numerous of my constituents who are utterly outraged by the comments of one of your staff, Vijay Patel who had the sheer gall to tell the Independent newspaper, "Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child." (Independent - Is the Government right to be concerned about home-schooling? 26 Feb 2009).
How dare he as a supposed professional make such an outrageous suggestion, that Elective Home Educators are in any way linked to such a horrific murder. It is as fatuous as saying that 'all men are rapists'. What is more this self same Mr Patel had been forced only days before to admit on BBC Radio - "We.. the inf.. We don’t have the evidence there statistically, no."
This is deeply wounding to the thousands who take the opportunity to educate their children at home, with the absolute safeguard of the 1996 Education Act.
I expect to hear from you that Mr Patel has not only publically apologised for his demonstrably false smears, but also that he has either resigned, or if he will not resign, been sacked.
It is not worthy of a National Charity such as yours to engage in such underhand tactics, particularly when as you and he well know, it was singled out for serve criticism itself over the deeply sad case of Victoria Climbié.
Yours
Godfrey Bloom MEP
You will note that the response skates over the points and fails to address, entirely the concerns. Pathetic.
|