Dear Mr Ed Balls and the DCSF

My son spent a total of two school years and a term at two different schools. He went happily into reception 4 months before his fifth birthday and within weeks, in retrospect, was a completely different child. He was a bright, happy child with amazing verbal and comprehension skills and he could even add up. He had a complete love of learning, had constantly been asking deep and probing questions since he could talk and just wanted to know everything about everything. Adults, even strangers, loved to talk to him and people everywhere we went constantly mentioned how bright and interesting he was. He loved life, loved people and just enjoyed being.

He quickly became very, very bored and frustrated at school. He learned to read within weeks and had finished the entire ORT reading scheme books in the middle of the second term of reception. He was frustrated to be restricted by the system, the "right" way of doing things, when all he wanted to do was learn and expand and grow. By the time he was in Year 1, he couldn't add up even the simplest of sums. 2+4 = impossible for him. Something happened to him in school which meant that even now, 3 months from his 12th birthday and five years since I removed him from school, Maths is a constant, uphill struggle for him and it shouldn't be.

He started ripping up Maths worksheets and refusing to do them. He escaped out of classrooms and went missing for up to 4 hours at a time, with 20 adults looking for him. This didn't happen once, but ten times.

He was assessed by an Ed Psych at the insistence of the school. I think they were fairly disappointed when the Ed Psych declared there was nothing wrong with him and his IQ was in the top 2% of the population. The Ed Psych put the ball firmly back in the schools court and yet he still continued to struggle. He stopped talking at one point at the age of 6. He was miserable, talked weekly about wanting to die and how "bad" he was, how he was always in trouble at school so he must be "evil" and "naughty" and "the worst child in the world" and "stupid".

So no, Mr Ed Balls, I will not stop fighting you and this government. It's been a long journey, but he is finally happy again. He still struggles with Maths a lot, but every month sees a small improvement. One day he may even be at the level he is "supposed" to be for his age.

It's home education that has healed him, that has given me back my son. I would rather move to the other side of the world than let the system back into our lives. I will keep on fighting for my right to keep my son whole.