Graham Badman visited a home ed group today in Kent. By all accounts he was bullish and narrow minded. He clearly has done little to make himself more popular, quite the opposite. He is also know as Badman by name and badman by nature!

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Ann Newstead (London)

This is just my personal account of Graham Badman’s visit to my HE group today:

Graham Badman visited our local group today, at the fortnightly gathering at a local rugby club house.

There were 15 families there, with something like 24 children between the ages of toddler to teenager.

Liz Green, his assistant, chatted with parents and played with some of the children and generally seemed quite open and genuinely interested.

Graham arrived in a suit as he had come straight from a speaking engagement (with teachers, I think!) so that immediately set the tone for the attitude towards him I think! His car also stood out a MILE in our car park….

He asked about the set up. We have use of the club house and the kitchen, but on this occasion were outside. The kids ran around outside, using the small sports equipment that we have, and generally using the space.

Graham asked if we ever put any “structure” in. I pointed out that there are many groups around, and many events, some of which are very structured, some are academic, whereas others are just social gatherings. Our gathering is the result of what the parents and kids that go there want, and is relaxed, informal – and we make it up as we go along.

He asked to speak to the children first (those who wanted to talk to him). A number of them (mainly the 10 yo and over) were on the rugby pitch at the time. I asked the kids if they wanted me or someone to stay there and they said no (actually they said “clear off!”) so he spoke with them alone for about 15 minutes or more.

After a while one of the children, an 11 year old lad, came over very distressed because he said Graham was “asking maths questions, about square roots, and I don’t know that”.

A number of parents were already commenting on the body language of the teens who – though they later told us they were fine with it – was very different to usual. Even when we have had the media at the group (which has happened twice now) the kids are usually relaxed, confident, chatty, and just themselves. Instead we had a group of kids standing around, heads down (some of them) obviously being spoke TO rather than chatted with.

At that point I went over and stopped him from speaking with them further. It wasn’t overt, but I am well aware that he realised what I was doing.

In context it appeared that he had asked a girl, (gifted and talented) who had said that she was interested in science and maths and wanted to be a doctor, how she could demonstrate to someone that she could do those things (hence the math question).

His attitude seems to be that, if we are saying you can’t impose a standard on home educators to assess “suitability”, then why can we not be judged against our individual personal educational philosophies. So a child expressing a desire to become a doctor should be able to demonstrate that they are working towards that…

The kids, as well as myself, argued against that. I argued against the whole idea of assessment, and secondly against judgement against an educational philosophy.

Graham kept accusing me of “returning to the trench”. My response was that was how it felt, and that is where the battle is.

He states that he wants to “stop the battle” and come up with a solution that stops these continued consultations.

He then spoke with the parents. He asked a number of questions, got a lot of personal examples given to him, and generally got given a piece of several minds!

His main themes included:
- Why aren’t we arguing for our “share” of our tax money?
- What do we want from the LAs – and “to leave us alone” was not accepted as an answer. He was pushing for what we wanted in terms of support.
- Did we want access to internet schools
- He looked for structure and didn’t seem to “get” autonomous home education or just even freedom to chose
- Would we be happy with a health visitor, rather than an EWO or Social Worker coming to visit (if we are talking about welfare, safeguarding etc)
- If we didn’t accept the Government monitoring us, would we accept “other home educators” monitoring us!! Eg, local groups, national organisations etc
- How can “society” protect the vulnerable amongst us

These questions draw a lot of outrage, a lot of argument, and a lot of very good points against from the families present, including the fact that if any other minority got singled out like this there would be outrage.

He also quoted some statistics (I wasn’t present at that point so I couldn’t ask where from) that there is a “high proportion” of home educated children who are NEETS, who can’t find jobs, don’t go into further education etc. It was outrageous, but I was only told this after he had left. I *will* be following it up.

The feeling/feedback from the families was:
- they weren’t sure that he listened
- felt they could see the points *he* was making
- felt that he didn’t understand/listen to the points *they* were making
- that he didn’t GET home education
- that he certainly didn’t GET autonomous home education
- many felt somewhat insulted by the end of the debate
- they were glad to have the chance to have met him for themselves and got a “feel” for what we are up against

My 13 year old said at the end that “talking to the Badman left a bad taste in my mouth”