Parent, Cambridgeshire

My eldest commutes 3 hours a day for college rather than attend any sixth form attached to a school, but especially the one he attended.

My youngest is now home educated because in November, aged 14 and fully aware of her actions, she tried to kill herself rather than go back to school.

She was in hospital for 2 days.

The current school system is failing children, it is destroying them, and it is not safe to send them back to.

We deregistered my youngest and now she's now much happier, she's recovering her sense of self and rediscovering that learning can be fun. And she's alive and wants to stay that way.

My eldest, despite being very academic, is considering just dropping out, because the commute is too much but going back to that school is not a better option.

We need educational reform that focuses on improving the well-being of children, not on enforcing blind obedience and stamping out individuality.

We need to be teaching children how to love learning, and modelling healthy relationships and interactions, not bullying then into conformity and being shocked that they only learn how to bully others.

You don't build community by forcing everyone to be the same, you build it by celebrating differences.

You don't stop children having problems by punishing them for it, you make them feel safe and help them identify and address the problems they're facing so that those problems don't impact others.

We need a restorative approach to behaviour, to treat teachers well, and to stop treating education like a business, a prison, or an exam factory.