It is great news that the recommendations of the Badman report on home education were binned in the wash-up. The majority of parents and researchers with any close knowledge of the realities of home education were totally opposed to Badman.

Support was only to be found in certain local authorities - where staff lack the wit or imagination to build co-operative bridges with their local home educating communities and just wish for more authority and powers in dealing with them - and among certain officials and ministers in the DCSF who appear to have an axe to grind.

Derry Hannam, From The TES website (www.tes.co.uk).