With new Bills about to be introduced in both Wales and Scotland which will have the effect, if enacted, of legislating parents out of their children's lives, these are very worrying times for all families. Such a profound shift of responsibility for the education and welfare of children from parents to the state is one that evokes sinister reminders of Nazi Germany.

A dedicated new action group has been set up to co-ordinate responses to legislative proposals by the Welsh Ass Government, which, if enacted, would effectively usurp parents' responsibility for education by imposing a regulatory regime on a long established and protected parental function in breach of the ECHR.

Under the dubious headline of Supporting children and families, Scottish Minister for Children and Young People, Aileen Campbell, has dutifully launched a consultation on the Scottish Government's forthcoming Children and Young People Bill. She's from the government and is here to help, don't you know?

Some encouraging news from Graham Stuart MP has been reported on our forums:

"I'm meeting ministers next week to discuss home education and will be asking for urgent action to remind LAs of their actual duties (and powers). Whatever form that takes (and assuming they agree) I will seek to ensure that we get copies that can then be distributed to families to use in resisting the unwarranted and intrusive behaviour of so many councils."

As an antidote to the continuing harassment of home educators and persistent ultra vires activity on the part of local authorities throughout the UK, Home Ed Forums is hosting an online conference - Dealing with Highly Intrusive Parasitic Public Servants - Practical strategies to tackle intrusive threatening and bullying behaviour disguised as ‘support’ - on our public forums on 29th May.

Serious concerns have recently been raised on both our public and family forums about the bullying tactics employed by some local authorities, whose officers have taken it upon themselves to pass judgement on what is best for 'our children' on the basis that their own parenting choices (e.g. dump kids in day care and nursery ‘education’ at the earliest possible opportunity and rentseek at the taxpayers’ expense) are not only beyond reproach but should ideally be embraced by all. There is a word for that beginning with F.

It has been reported that Jonas Himmelstrand, president of Sweden's Home Education Association ROHUS, has left the country with his family in the wake of continuing persecution from the Swedish authorities. The Himmelstrands have taken refuge on the Finnish Aland Islands along with other exiled Swedish home educating parents for whom life had become intolerable under the totalitarian state regime.

Home educators are reporting an increase in ultra vires activity among English local authorities whose elective home education guidelines have been exposed as inaccurate and misleading. Councils recently outed on our community forums include Barnsley, East Sussex and a Wirral, Knowlsey and Warrington combo calling itself the Elective Home Education Service. Other offenders have been flagged up on our private forums, on Facebook and other social media.

An opinion piece by a head teacher, which was recently published in the ‘What keeps me awake at night’ column of the TES magazine, evidently drew a strong reaction from readers. So much so, the editor has made a plea for ‘other teachers and professionals’  to share their views and experiences, in confidence, for a feature article he is writing on the ‘sensitive’ subject of parents exercising their legal right to remove their children from school.

EBHE (Edinburgh and Beyond Home Education) are excited to announce that Sandra Dodd, a popular prolific and high profile unschooler from New Mexico, will be giving two public talks in central Edinburgh on Saturday the 21st of May.

Did they really think we wouldn’t notice? Despite attempts to conceal their actions from home educators, the coalition government has seen fit to regurgitate recommendations made by the discredited Graham Badman in relation to pupil registration regulations and attendance codes in England.

Action for Home Education (AHEd) has today written to the Education Secretary, Michael Gove MP, alerting him to the contradictions inherent within legislation relating to Children Missing Education (CME) and seeking his assurances that appropriate action will be taken by the government to address the difficulties for families and confusion for local authorities which have arisen as a result.

In the wake of revelations that “home educated”, “disability” and “privately fostered” are listed as risk factors by the Metropolitan Police Service in its operational policy known as CRAM (Child Risk Assessment Matrix), alongside “co-sleeping”, “substance abuse” , “sexualised behaviour” and various other alleged indicators, some of our members decided to invite the police to help them with their enquiries by asking for evidence of the stated risks in respect of some of these named groups.

Did we all somehow manage to miss the official statement by the DfE that it was to issue new guidelines on elective home education in England? Googling and asking pertinent direct questions produced no results, so it seemed safe to assume that the rumours circulating around the home education community had no basis and were just another NPD induced fantasy from a paid up member of the Princess Pushy society.

Scotland’s national home education organisation Schoolhouse has reported on the Scottish Government's renewed commitment to upholding  freedom in home education in a response by Scottish education secretary Michael Russell MSP to parliamentary questions from Lothians Green MSP Robin Harper. Read the Schoolhouse press release in full.