Millions of children are being harmed in schools every day.
No one is listening.
Home educators are blamed for multi-agency safeguarding failures.
No one is listening.
Parents are prosecuted for protecting their children or taking an affordable holiday.
No one is listening.
VAT on independent schools is negatively impacting 1000’s of children – many with SEND.
No one is listening.
What does school teach us?
I invite you to take a moment and consider the world we live in.
Whilst small shoots of joy, creativity and happiness appear – the overriding tone of our society and government is negative.
War, debt, consumerism, cost of living, austerity, depression, anxiety, abuse, knife crime, exploitation.
If school really was getting it “right” – do you not think that our society would be improving?
That the overarching feeling would be of positivity, health and wellbeing?
Besides French verbs, capital cities and quadratic equations (which can all be learned in a multitude of ways and locations) – school teaches us about ourselves and our place in the world around us.
From the separation from our primary carers at an ever earlier age, fracturing essential attachment, to uniforms that encourage us to be “the same” and a restrictive curriculum that everyone needs to follow – and in the same way, our mainstream schools are a systematic process of removal of everything children actually need, replacing it with unhelpful and often damaging experiences.
Connection, play, colour, texture, exploration, adventure, experimentation, autonomy and regular movement are phased out quickly after reception and replaced with books, iPads, power points, white boards and chairs.
Mainstream schooling is a counter intuitive system. Exam culture, hierarchy of academic subjects, big classes, enforced subjects, restricted movement and speech – all kill creativity and produce depression, frustration and stress.
We know it doesn’t work – if it did, bullying would be minimal, children would be healthy, we wouldn’t need to threaten parents with imprisonment to force children to attend and the UK would rank as the highest in Europe for children’s happiness and wellbeing.
Not the lowest.
This is not the fault of teachers – although if they could come together and be courageous – they would have the power to force big change.
All children are negatively impacted by school. Whilst those who fall furthest from the “average” will be bearing the brunt (those we label as having Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), every child who enters school is placed on a journey with the primary goal of uniformity and 9 GCSE’s and woe betitde, if you are not considered to be “trying your best”.
Very few achieve this high and narrow target. And even fewer benefit from it.
Are we really okay with wasting such a precious time of life?
Are we really okay subjecting children to ongoing bullying and telling them they need to be “more resilient”.
Are we really okay with children harming themselves, not eating and engaging in high risk behaviour?
And. Are we REALLY okay with school being something that the majority of people just “survived” (if they were lucky).
Whilst fantastic alternatives exist – mainstream school needs to be a suitable option for anyone who wants or needs it.
#AreYouListeningNow is a campaign for change: empowerment for parents, protection for home educators, reform for schools.
My School Story: What families have endured.
My School Story collects evidence of “school causing harm” and gives the opportunity for adults, parents and professionals to recount their experiences, giving them the voice that they have been denied.
We want to increase understanding and demonstrate that we need to “Do Education Differently”.
Child's Voice: What children want you to know.
We have asked children what they want the world to know about their lives. This could be about mainstream school or learning in a different way, such as home education or a virtual school.
Children deserve to be heard and respected. They deserve to be given the best start – which is not our current mainstream schools.
Home Ed Alumni: Education outside of school works.
Home Education Alumni (adults who were once home educated) have kindly agreed to share their photo, what they do now and a statement on what being home educated, meant to them.
The purpose is to show that home education is not hidden and that school is not essential – and in many cases, it is not the best option.
Families and Professionals Unite to Take Action
Current and Ongoing Action:
1. Children and Adults speak up:
Childs Voice
School Stories
Home Ed Alumni
2. Digital protest:
#AreYouListening tagged with relevant graphics or information and used on responses to political social media posts, which fail to recognise the harm being caused or push a negative family narative.
3. More Coming Soon…
Previous Action:
1. Day of Digital Protest: 28th Feburary 2025.
Images of “Are You Listening Now” flood the internet.
2. Regional rallies: Saturday 8th March 2025.
Families gathered in Birmingham, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Manchester to peacefully raise awareness of the Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill and School Fines. Hundreds of families attended and gained political and media interest.
What are our primary goals?
Millions of children are harmed by the mainstream schooling system every day – this needs to stop.
We are campaigning for:
1. Removal of proposed policy, that fails to hear and act upon the voice of its stakeholders (children and families).
Namely the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Data Use and Access Bill
2. Removal of proposed policy, that ignores centuries of recognised parental primacy, human rights, and reasonable thresholds for data sharing.
Namely the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Data Use and Access Bill
3. The Government to notice, acknowledge and rectify the failings of mainstream schooling – a system that routinely causes harm to young people and staff.
Failings include, but are not limited to:
- Mental, physicial and emotional abuse.
- One-Size-Fits-All methodology which discriminates against neurodivergent children.
- Subject hierarchy (promoting academia above the arts, sport, engineering & life skills).
- Draconian behaviour and uniform “management” approaches
Background and context
Governments, councils and schools make decisions for children every day – they talk about the child’s voice – but do they ever listen?
Over 100,000 young people and families will be impacted by the introduction of a Children Not in School register and associated legislation proposed in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. It will affect education providers too, who are already considering removing their services.
The Labour party are using tragic cases of multiagency safeguarding failure (as a result of ongoing Government underfunding) to push through undemocratic legislation, to remove parental rights, to “grab data” and to try and push young people back into the schools that failed them.
Every child in the country will be impacted by the proposed “Unique Identifier” – having not learnt from the Horizon scandal – they are planning on using AI to manage our childrens private data. How long will it be before the wrong families are investigated and young adults are finding their data has been leaked, impacting their credit rating and ability to get a job – or worse.
These risks are even more concerning when read alongside the proposed Data Use and Access Bill.
Whilst this time and money is being wasted – the Government refuse to acknowledge or act, on the failings of our mainstream schooling system, which is the biggest safeguarding risk to children.
Parents and carers have watched Sure Start centres close (which had multiple proven positive impacts on wellbeing and education for young people), austerity measures, the cost of living and now they are the ones left with a mental health crisis in young people to navigate.
Our Government is at a fork in the road. They continue as they have been, forcing more and younger children into childcare, blaming parents for their failings and tightening the vice of mainstream education.
Or they stop. They hold back on any further legislation and they look to others within the UK and beyond, for a better way.
It is at this time that we all need to ask ourselves – what is the point of 9 GCSEs passed, if it has destroyed a childs mental health in the process?
The Government MUST do better.
#AreYouListeningNow is supported by:
