Is home education an educational concern?

My daughter has now gone back to Oxford and I have been musing about the extent to which the concerns of professionals around home education actually involve education itself.  When speaking to teachers, social workers and so on about this subject, it is very noticeable that education itself very seldom comes up during the conversation. This is probably because although teachers, like all other specialists, try to make what they're doing sound very complicated and hard, they know really that any fool can teach a child any subject at all. No, it is not education that tends to be the focus of discussions about home education, but rather the wisdom of keeping a child within the family and not letting her mingle with others for six or eight hours, five days a week.

The question of possible abuse or neglect sometimes comes up in the course of such conversations, but this is more as a theoretically increased risk; it isn't seen as being a huge problem. By far the greatest cause for concern is the extent to which home educated children present as different; which is to say a bit weird and not like other kids of similar age. Many, perhaps most, teachers have come across the occasional home educated child who is now at school or college and they often remark that these children and young people  come across as outsiders, not able to connect with their peers in the same way that those who have attended school from the age of four or five seem to do. It is also observed that the longer children have been out of school, the stranger and less normal they appear to be. This is felt to be a bad thing for the children themselves, making it hard for them to get along with others.

Now I obviously cannot be expected fully to share such feelings and yet there is no doubt at all that there is something in this. Many home educated children have been withdrawn from school because they have been bullied. Often, this bullying has been because they are different in the first place. If the child is then taken from school and kept with the mother for a a few years, it is hardly to be expected that this would have the effect of making him or her more like other children; quite the opposite in fact. 

This then is in my experience the point which most worries professionals, that children who do not attend school tend often to become different from other children of their age. They think differently and behave and talk differently. Parents might find this a pleasing thing, because in many cases their child talks, thinks and behaves more like the parents than he does other children of his age. This cannot help but be flattering to a mother or father! It would be interesting to know what, if any, the implications of this might be when children become adults.  Do they settle down and become like everybody else or do they remain slightly off-beam and perhaps a little eccentric? Is there any correlation between this and the length of time that a child is out of school?  Is it more likely to be the case with children who were deregistered due to bullying? Is some of this perceived strangeness attributable to the relatively high proportion of home educated children on the autistic spectrum? I feel that there is scope here for somebody's thesis or research project.

Home educating parents presenting as problem families

I’m afraid that we are fast approaching a time when I will have to abandon this blog for a month or two. This is caused by the pressures of work. Before doing so, I want to spend a couple of posts looking at a question that a number of people have asked here recently. This is why local authorities apparently target home educators wholesale and do not fine tune their attentions so that they are focused more upon the families who actually need help; perhaps those where children are at risk. This is an easy enough question to answer, although the explanation will not be a very agreeable one for many home educating parents. Today I shall look at bullying in this connection and in a day or two we will examine abusive families.

I  remarked a few days ago that some home educating parents, whether wittingly or otherwise, seem to mimic the lifestyles and conduct of habitual abusers. I pointed out that this was apt to draw unfavourable attention to them. Many of the characteristics of these families are also uncannily similar to those that one sees regularly in the families of bullies. This is very curious, because of course research indicates that a perhaps a third of home educating parents withdraw their children from school because they are being bullied. Bullying is a very complex phenomenon though and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the bully from his victims. Yesterday, for instance, my attention was drawn to a boy who had supposedly killed himself because he was being bullied. It seemed an open and shut case, until we learn that he had himself been investigated by the police and social services over allegations that he assaulted a girl and also that he had been accused of violence  towards other pupils. Things are seldom as they first appear when you look at bullying.

When I worked with families with difficulties, those with whom I worked and I would sometimes discuss the common factors to be observed in the parents of children with emotional and behavioural problems. I was working with under fives, but we later heard about many of these children and learned how they did at school; usually, very badly. The parents often conformed to a pattern and it was, oddly enough, similar in many ways to the stereotypical abusing parent. They would not keep appointments with health or education professionals, their children often missed their vaccinations, they were ‘difficult to engage’, most did not want anybody coming into their home, they were aggressive and blamed everybody else but themselves for their children’s problems. Later on, they might typically move their child from one school to another; often on the grounds that the kid had been bullied. Now this pattern is well enough known to teachers, social workers and so on. It is, as you might say, a familiar syndrome. Unfortunately, it is also an eerily accurate description of many home educating parents!

One of the interesting things about these parents is that they would often claim that their  child was being picked on or bullied at school. Having watched their child as a toddler and three year-old, we often guessed that the boot was on the other foot! So it sometimes proved, because talking to the teachers at the school would occasionally reveal that far from being bullied, little Johnny was in reality an absolute terror to all the other children an d also his teachers.

It is unfortunate that a number of home educating parents should share a profile in this way with the parents of difficult children. I think that what sometimes happens is that rather than professionals being prejudiced against home education as such, they observe many home educating parents and see that they are indistinguishable from the problem parents that they have encountered in the past. I certainly see those similarities myself when reading what some home educators have to say.  So what is happening is that social services, teachers and health professionals are, as home educators say that they should,  targeting families in specific ways; rather than concentrating on entire groups such as home educators and wasting their resources on them. One of the ways that this is done is to look at the behaviour of parents and see if it matches particular profiles. When it does, then those families receive a little extra attention. It is a matter of regret that quite a few home educating parents present in an almost identical way to the parents of bullies and abused children! I shall expand on this theme in another post in a few days, because there are actually things that parents can do which would help them not fit into this pattern.  

Bullying at home

One of the difficulties I find when trying to debate with home educating parents is that they often seem to have a distorted view of the world; a view which blinds them to things which are perfectly plain to everybody else in the country. Take the question of bullying, for example. I remarked yesterday that most bullying  of children takes place in their home and is inflicted by parents and carers. Almost incredibly, there was immediate disagreement! The reason for this is of course simple. It is an article of faith among many home educators that schools are dangerous places, in contrast to homes which is where children may be kept safe. Because of this, there is a tendency to exaggerate hazards in schools and minimise those faced by children at home. Common sense, backed up by all the available evidence, suggests that home is far more dangerous for most children than school. 

Bullying is the use of force, strength or influence to intimidate and coerce others who are weaker than the one doing the bullying. Yesterday, somebody posted some research on here which was so ludicrously irrelevant to the debate, that I was somewhat at a loss to know how to respond; not a common occurrence on this blog! Those conducting the research had  defined bullying as something done by children:

‘Respondents were asked whether they were bullied, discriminated against, or made to feel different, like an outsider by other children.’

Not surprisingly, this survey had gone on to reveal that bullying was something done by children. Obvious really; if you only ask about bullying in relation to other children, then bullying will inevitably emerge as a school problem, rather than one at home. 90% of those asked had claimed to come from warm and loving homes. This settled the matter, at least to the satisfaction of the person who put the results of this research on the comment; homes are loving and warm and bullying takes place at school.  This is of course sheer Alice in Wonderland. People are asked if they have been bullied by other children and this is then used to prove that bullying is an activity carried out by other children. Let us look at the genuine and sustained bullying to which most children are routinely subjected; bullying which has nothing to do with other children and actually takes place  in their homes.

The worst sort of bullying involves the use or threat of violence against the victim. The bully uses superior strength to push the victim around and make her do as she is told. Here are a few surveys that readers might like to examine:

http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/news-views/press-release/how-safe-are-our-children-only-1-3-adults-see-slapping-high-risk

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096641/Support-end-smacking-ban-parents-say-prevented-summer-riots.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1529321/Punishing-children-by-smacking-wins-widespread-adult-approval.html



As we can see, for children who experience physical violence; 80% of it is in their home. There are a couple of surveys covering around two and a half thousand people in total which suggest that between 67% and 80% of parents have hit their children. It is interesting to think about those 90% of people in the research quoted yesterday who claimed to have come from warm and loving homes. 90% of people also claim to have been hit by their parents when they were children. In other words; 90% of adults were bullied by their parents when they were little.

I don’t propose to waste too much time on this, because the case is so clear. Bullying children, by using physical violence on them to make them do as others wish, is endemic in this country. 90% of adults have been victims of this bullying and it still happens to between 70% and 80% of children. (Other surveys sometimes find higher or lower rates, but I cannot find one where fewer than 25% of parents admit to striking their children). This is bullying in its worst form; not merely the threat of force, but the actual use of violence. This bullying usually takes place in the home and is inflicted by the adults who are close to the child. It results in many serious injuries and not a few deaths. Every three weeks, a child under the age of five in this country dies as a result of a violent attack. In 80% of these deaths, the parents or carer is the attacker.

I do not think that any of this has much bearing on home education, other than to show that many home educating parents have a skewed perspective about risks to children. They have a vested interest in portraying schools as dangerous places for children, but the reality is that for the overwhelming majority of children, their home is the place where they are pushed around and assaulted; bullied and intimidated into submission. I have only looked here at the most extreme form of bullying; that involving physical violence. Add in the name-calling, belittling and humiliation that are often mentioned in surveys about bullying and I can't help wondering how far short of 100% the figure for the bullying of children by parents would be.

A 'spiteful, nasty, mean son of a bitch' writes…

I was accused yesterday, not for the first time, of misogyny and bullying. Both are pretty unpleasant things and so I thought I would take the time to look at the idea that I am a ‘vile, insecure  bully', as another anonymous person put it, and see if the evidence supports this thesis.

The first thing to bear in mind is that all of us who are, or have  been, home educators are adults. This means that we must expect to encounter a little rough and tumble, with other people challenging our views and failing to agree with us. This is the same whether we are supporters of home education or Manchester United; not everybody will share our  opinions. As long as disagreement is expressed politely and the person disputing with me does so openly, I can see no reason to object to anything anybody says about me. If I say or write something publicly, then of course I can expect others to tell me if they think that I am wrong or that I am behaving badly. This has frequently happened on this blog and elsewhere. I have never felt bullied when others tell me that I am mistaken, to give one example, in my opinion that compulsory registration and monitoring would be a good thing for home education in this country. If I say this, or write about it in the newspapers, then of course it is OK for people to argue with me. This leads to another point. It was suggested yesterday that because some of the views that I was writing about had been expressed four years ago, then it was not fair to mention them now. This seems to me absurd. I wrote newspaper articles four years ago and people are still quoting them and asking if I stand by what I said. I could say that I have changed my mind or that I still hold the same view. This hardly means that I am being bullied! 

Another point to bear in mind when considering whether I am bullying people, is that I do not pursue anybody or try to press my views upon others. I am expressing here a purely personal opinion and if people do not like what I say, then surely the remedy is to stop coming here to read it?  It is ridiculous to go out of your way to come and read views with which you disagree and then say that you are being bullied by what is being said. I might mention  that when some people went to the police and tried to claim that I was bullying and harassing them, the police took this very stance. They advised those complaining, that if they did not like what I was saying, then to give me and my blog a wide berth. I spoke to the unfortunate officer in Lincolnshire who had been handling the case and he was utterly perplexed at the idea of somebody visiting a site on the internet regularly and then claiming to the police that she was being harassed by the person running the site! Interesting to note, by the by, that when the subject of yesterday's post began to blog last year, the very first people to comment were  those who were involved in trying to have me arrested! There seems to be a small group who are determined to portray themselves as victims of my bullying. They all know each other and egg each other on to see who can feel the most victimised. These remarks are meant generally and are not specifically directed against Nikki Harper, Maire Stafford or anybody else.

The charge of misogyny is a more tricky one to tackle. It is true that the majority of those whose views I examine and criticise on this blog are women. That is because women are very greatly over-represented among home educators. Most of the groups are run by women; as are the forums and blogs. Home Education UK, run by Mike Fortune-Wood is an exception and I have never been shy of stating what I think about the fool who runs it! I think that the fact that women are the subject of remark more often than men on this blog is simply a statistical thing; there are more of them involved in the enterprise with which this blog deals. If I were blogging about, say, football or motor racing, then I suspect that the proportions would be reversed and most of those about whom I commented would be men. Of course, it might be that some of these women feel that I should adopt a gentler tone when talking of women than I would if I were writing about a man. I am not likely to be doing that. I do not subscribe to the Victorian view of women as the gentler sex, needing to be handled with greater sensitivity and delicacy  than men.

Incidentally, has anybody noticed two interesting things about those who are accusing me of being a misogynistic bully? The first is that there is a preference for gendered insults such as 'son of a bitch',  'knob' and reference being made to my balls. The second is that the person saying these things will not sign his or her name. Anonymous attacks of this sort really are the mark of the bully.

Tragically, I shall be withdrawing for a few days; due to urgent commitments. Normal service will be resumed next week and in the meantime, please feel free to talk among yourselves.

Ostensible and real motives for home educating

Something which I have begun to suspect in recent years is that those who choose not to send their children to school are generally  motivated by something a little deeper than the reasons which they give to others. This is certainly the case with me and also with many of the home educating parents who open up about their past lives.

I was looking again at the blog written by the mother who left this country to avoid trouble with social services about her children’s welfare. One entry is written in the third person about a child who, I gather from the comments, is actually her. She says:



Once upon a time there was a 6 year old school-girl...
She was skinny & freckly & a little bit plain & awkward.
She hated school & had few friends. She was always much happier at home.
Sometimes she would be picked on by the other pupils for not being 'typical' or conforming to the 'norms'...



One of those commenting on this, also a well-known British home educator, says,



That could have been me, although they did not know I was bright they criticised all the time and I got two years of the bitchiest teacher going, she picked on and exposed the shy ones



Now neither of these two women have said in the past that they decided to home educate their children because they were themselves unhappy at school. In fact I have never seen or heard of such a claim anyway being made by a home educating parent. It is just that when we do hear home educators mentioning their childhood experiences of school, certain patterns seem to emerge. Typically, these include being unhappy at school, having few friends, being isolated and teachers who fail to recognise genius or at the very least talent and high ability. I am not about to name names, but this constellation of life events has been observed in very many high profile home educators, as well as an awful lot of others.

It is fascinating to relate this to my own experiences and apparent motives for home educating. Now I have often said that I was motivated by the realisation that I could give my child a far better individualised education than she would receive at school. I have also said that I believed that God has given us a duty to direct our children’s upbringing and education. Both of these motives are perfectly true, but they are in a sense ’cover stories’. The fact is that I hated school and did not feel inclined to inflict upon my own daughter something which I found so loathsome and distressing. I have noticed just this same phenomenon in so many other parents. You learn that they took their kid out of school because she was being bullied or had some obscure special educational need that was not being effectively catered for. Then, some time later, it comes to light that the parent herself hated school and was very unhappy there.

The truth of the matter is, I think, that so ingrained in our culture is sending your children off to school, that it takes a little more than a calm and balanced decision to break with the tradition of schooling and decide to go it alone. Very many children are bullied, many are on the autistic spectrum or have school phobia; very few of the parents of these children take the step of removing their child from school entirely as a remedy for the problem. It takes something a little extra to prompt such an eccentric move and this is often provided by the flashbacks suffered by the parent about her own school days.

I would be interested to hear what readers think about this. How many thoroughly enjoyed their time at school and who was unhappy; did anybody feel that her ability was overlooked by the teachers? I am not, as I say, going to give names, but I have collected a huge number of personal reminiscences from different sources which cover practically every well-known home educator or researcher of whom most of us have ever heard. All tend in this   same direction.

Educating bullied children at home

According to what little research has been conducted in this country about home education, one of the main reasons for deregistering children from school and educating them at home is because they have been bullied at school. The Education Otherwise survey in 2003 found this, as did the study by York Consulting in 2007. It is probably a fair guess that this is still the chief motive for the home education of previously schooled children in Britain.


One of the problems with bullied children is that they all too often go on to become bullied teenagers and then bullied adults as well. You frequently find that a child who was bullied at primary school, even if he is transferred to a secondary school where nobody knows him will be bullied there as well. Just as there is a bullying type of child, so too is there a bullied kind of child. It is a complicated subject, but the Americans have name for this; they call it ’victim precipitation’. It is nothing to the purpose here to consider why some children are prone to being bullied, it is enough to realise that it happens. In such cases, withdrawing the child from school and educating him at home is not always the best course of action; not by a long chalk.

Some of those children who get picked on are socially awkward, others might be on the autistic spectrum. There are also those whose home background might have made them appear a little strange to their classmates. It only takes something slightly different and out of the ordinary to attract the attention of the bullying type. I hope this does not sound like victim-blaming, because it is nothing of the sort. I am rather thinking about how things are in the real world. Unfortunately, colleges and the workplace can mirror the situation in schools. The peculiar work colleague can also come to the attention of those of a bullying disposition and have his or her life made a misery in the workplace.

If a child is  slightly different from others and has as a result been bullied, then withdrawing him from school and causing him to spend all day with an adult is unlikely to help him be more like his peers. Indeed, it is likely to have quite the opposite effect. If after spending years like this, he then goes to college, then the slight differences in the eight year-old might have grown into the frankly odd behaviour of the young man of sixteen. The bullying can then begin anew. I know of a number of cases where this has happened.

I am perfectly well aware that many schools fail lamentably to tackle bullying with sufficient rigour. Obviously, no parent will stand by and see her child being picked on and taking him away from the bullies can often seem the best solution. It may well be a good short term solution, but it is also quite possible that by doing this one is storing up even more trouble for the child in the future. Ideally, the school and other services should help the child; try to find out whether there is a way of preventing him from providing such a tempting target to bullies. This could be done by psychological assessments, counselling and behavioural therapy. Of course the bullies should also be dealt with ruthlessly; they too need help to make them behave like decent human beings and not like cruel young savages.

All parents fight fiercely to protect their children and will do anything at all that they feel necessary to look after their interests. If schools were to do their job properly and deal with bullying by referring both bullies and bullied to the appropriate services, then a lot of home education would no longer be necessary. I cannot think in general that it is healthy for children who are having difficulty surviving in a group of their peers, to be taken out of this social setting to spend all day with their mums. At the very least, it will hardly serve to make them more normal and like other children of their age! Perhaps when the Education Committee considers what support local authorities are providing for home educated children, this is something at which they could look. By putting in enough resources and help earlier on when problems rear their head, it might not be necessary for most of those children to be taken out of school  in the first place.

Incidentally, may I beg anybody commenting on this piece not to use the neologism 'bullicide', nor to repeat claims that sixteen children a year are driven to suicide by bullying? A couple of charities make a good income from bullying and they have a vested interest in the phenomenon; it is what brings in their funding. The 'sixteen suicides a year' gag is part of their mythology and bears no relation to the real situation.

A bullied child

The idea that the CSF Bill would be wholly bad news for bullied children who have been taken out of school is so bizarre that I have not yet bothered to deal with it. However, since it has been suggested that I shall be personally responsible for any ensuing suicides, anorexia or sterility, perhaps I should say a few words on the subject!

Let us start by looking at a genuine bullied child who was withdrawn from school due to bullying. She is, I imagine, typical of many. Since the Summer I have been approached by a number of home educating parents locally. They have seen my daughter's picture in the local paper and are very impressed with her IGCSEs. Four parents have stopped me in the street and told me that they have removed their children from school and two of them have solicited my help. I want to look at one particular case.

Kirsty is thirteen years old. She was bullied unmercifully at her secondary school, partly because she has ginger hair and partly because she suffers from rhinitis. This gives her voice an adenoidal sound which apparently irritated the other pupils. In the end, her father took her out of school last June. Now the hope of her parents is that she will take GCSEs in the ordinary way while studying at home. Neither of her parents, both of whom are on incapacity benefit, know anything at all about the National Curriculum, GCSEs or anything else much. They knew only that their daughter was suffering and felt that life was not worth living and so took her from school. Now they simply want her to get the GCSEs while staying at home. A pretty typical example of the situation, I would imagine.

The guy asked me to come and talk to him and his daughter, which I did. First problem; he is very hard up. In order for the child to study IGCSE mathematics, she will need two textbooks costing £15 each. He will also need to download the specification from the Edexcel site. They could not afford a new cartridge for the printer. Apart from the two standard textbooks, he will really need at least one other book on calculus; the textbooks do not cover this well. That's another £15. They will also need to buy paper, pens and so on. Just for this one subject, the bill is already up to £70. Since they are wholly reliant upon state benefits, this is not realistic.
They also want and need plenty of advice on how to go about doing things. I put him in touch with a few HE lists, but he really wants somebody to talk to in person. He joined a group, but they were in the main middle class autonomous educators. He is very working class and did not feel at ease. What he ideally wants is for somebody 'From the council' as he puts it, to come round regularly to help him plan his daughter's education. People moan about the requirement for one visit a year; this man would welcome weekly visits if they were available! Essex County Council has three part-time workers handling EHE. If he is lucky, he will be able to have a brief chat on the phone as well as an annual visit, but that's his lot. Apart from that, he is on his own. There simply isn't the money for the council to provide any sort of effective service for parents like this.

At this point, I can imagine readers getting tetchy with this fellow. After all, the people who comment here are in the main pushy and articulate middle class types who are used to getting what they want and fighting for things. Not a few are actually teachers themselves. The problem is that this man, like other parents I have met is not a rebel or campaigner; he simply wants his child to have a decent education without suffering bullying. He would also, as well as the carrot of funding, welcome the stick of coercion. Why do I say this?

Like many teenagers, his daughter's default setting consists of spending hours on the computer, chatting on MSN, listening to pop music and looking at photographs of other teenagers on Facebook. When not doing this, she watches a lot of television. What her mother and father want is a timetable for her and also a structured curriculum. Like many families, education is something which has always taken place at school and the child is not particularly amenable to the idea of her parents telling her what to read and write. Her father told me that what he really wants is "A lady from the education" to come to the house and put the frighteners on the kid and tell her that unless she follows a strict timetable then she will have to go back to school. The girl would accept such a statement more readily from a teacher or local authority officer than she would from her own parents. Because this has not happened, the child has gradually settled into a routine of spending hours on the computer and only doing any academic work under protest. As things stand, she will be lucky to get one GCSE, let alone five. She wanted to study A levels when she was older, but without GCSEs this prospect is not realistic.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill would be a Godsend to this family. They actually want masses of support which they cannot currently obtain. They also need that 0.1 of the AWPU which would pay for books and so on. I do not say that all bullied children who have been deregistered from school are like this, only that quite a few are. As things stand, this child's prospects are dismal. With the right help, they would be dramatically improved.

Bullying in schools

A couple of days ago, I wrote about a piece of propaganda currently being circulated by some home educators. Since the subject of bullying is mentioned in it and since not a few home educated children have been withdrawn from school after supposedly suffering bullying, I thought it might be worth looking a little closer at the whole business.

Before we can say anything at all about bullying and its consequences or prevalence, we need to know what we mean by the word. There is no universally accepted definition of bullying. A common one, used by many schools and local authorities is; " a persistent, deliberate attempt to hurt or humiliate someone. " In order to count as bullying, three elements must generally be present. The behaviour must be deliberately hurtful, it must be repeated over time and there must be an imbalance of power which makes it hard for those being bullied to defend themselves. This then is the definition of bullying which I shall work with for now.

We see at once that much unpleasant behaviour in schools would not fall into this category. A smaller child being beaten up by two older boys would not be classed as bullying if it was a one-off incident. An ethnic minority child who was ostracised by his class would not necessarily be the victim of bullying. This makes it very difficult to measure the number of children who we might reasonably classify as victims of bullying. Surveys typically ask children if they believe that they or those known to them feel that they have been bullied. Obviously, any child who has been the victim of unpleasant behaviour might see himself as a victim and report this honestly. This does not mean that he actually has been bullied. Unless children are familiar with the definition used then the whole process of gathering information in this way is pretty pointless. One cannot ask children if they think that they have seen bullying and then mark those answers down as the incidence of bullying across the nation's schools!

Frequently, the incidence of bullying in schools is grotesquely exaggerated. Some charities do this by asking leading questions or, as in the case of Beatbullying, by only asking the victims of bullying about the matter. Their motive is simple. Just as a charity which works for victims of domestic abuse has an interest in convincing us that every other man is beating his wife, so to do charities working with bullying depend for their continued finance on a ready and large supply of victims of bullying. These are their stock in trade and without them the funding would soon dry up! Always look closely at the methodology of surveys conducted by such organisations. It is usually shoddy and deceptive.

The truth is that bullying has become something of a growth industry in the voluntary sector, with various groups falling over each other to produce ever wilder figures. Local authorities, anxious to be seen as tackling the problem, join in eagerly, thus demonstrating their own liberal credentials. It cannot be denied that using the definition above, much of what is often called bullying would not qualify if judged objectively and rationally. It would instead be dismissed as the usual rough and tumble of school life. It is wholesome too, to remember that bullying also takes place at home. The tremendous imbalance of power between a child and her parents makes a perfect setup for bullying. Some children escape bullying when they go to school!

I cannot resist a final word about Beatbullying, a charity famous for the huge rate of bullying which they have managed to uncover by questioning only the victims of bullying. Beatbullying was involved in a campaign against "cyber bullying"; bullying by texts and on the Internet. They chose as their public figurehead a pop group called N'Dubz. A few weeks ago, a member of this group apparently called "Dappy" was revealed to have sent obscene death threats , by text, to a young woman who criticised his music. I will not put the full text here, but it is enough to say that he promised to kill her and called her a word beginning with C which is not generally used in polite company. How ironic that one of the leading charities in this field should have chosen an aggressive and misogynistic cyber bully to promote their campaign against cyber bullying!