Whether people wish to acknowledge it or not, bullying is a huge problem in Australian schools. It is not going to go away just because people pretend it isn't as bad as it is. My daughter was bullied so badly in kindergarten that she did not want to go anymore and I would literally have to drag her there. I, like most parents, hoped and believed that the teacher would be able to make it a safe and fun place for my child. Unfortunately this was not to be. The teacher was not really able to do anything except tell the boy his behaviour was undesirable and to please be good. Obviously this did not work. When my daughter started to have bad dreams about kindergarten and told her grandmother about the 'monster' who tormented her there, it became apparent that it wasn't working. I withdrew my daughter and began home educating her. We haven't looked back. My happy and confident daughter has returned. Her love of learning and education level would make any teacher proud. She is able to socialise with people who make her feel good about herself and distance herself from those who don't. She can learn about negotiation and disagreeing without physical abuse. Adults don't have to accept physical abuse in the workplace... so why should our children suffer it in school?

Sajo, you seem to have a very poor view of parents in general if you think that most parents ‘lack sufficient patience or skills to homeschool to a high standard.’ For someone who has considered home education, you seem to be quite hostile towards it. Susan Wight has not suggested leaving bullies to their own devices, she has merely pointed out a viable and successful option for families dealing with the issue of bullying. Surely you are not one of these people who believes that being bullied builds character. The problem is not so simple as merely ‘dealing with the bully’, how would you suggest this is done? It is the school environment that fosters bullying, and it is not only the children that are bullied, teachers are bullied and parents are bullied. How this is to be fixed? I can give you no answers, but I salute the home educators for finding a better way.

Sargo, I understand what you are saying but many of us have worked with schools to address antisocial behavior, only to fail. The sad fact is we can't stamp out bullying in our schools. No policy as good as it sounds will remove the bullying

Homeeducators do in fact give their children the tools to deal with bullying behavior as adults, but we don't place them in a situation where they are systematically bullied to get the point.

I understand there are situations where parents can not HS to protect their children but the sad fact is in today's society that if the schools can't cope then we do have to protect our children and step up to the mark the best way we know how.

Removing our kids does make a difference, it changes their lives. I've dealt with bullies in schools and it doesn't matter what you do or whether you work with the school, implement strategies etc it clearly doesn't work. If it did there wouldn't be a mass bullying epidemic in our schools.

Bullying is never ok for anyone's child, but as I said to you nothing the victims do to solve the problem is accepted by schools or work. They don't have the tools and their are limits to how often or much they are involved.

Whilst I do agree that the bullies themselves need support and need help, the tools simply aren't in place to do so and I won't do it at the expense of my child and nor should anyone else.

Schools are limited as to what they can do to deal with bullies. We are not physiologists and nor should it be our job as parents to deal with the behavior of bullies.(nor can we do so legally). We can only follow the protocol of the ed department which inevitably comes to nothing.
For many of us Home education works,whatever our choice; school system or not we have a responsibility to raise children who treat others with dignity, respect and love

Way to go lilian. I have just stood up and said "enough..your track record is rotten, you have failed". The school system is not working. We hear all the time how a lot of primary aged children are illiterate, and yet the government wants us to conform to that system. I was bullied at school, on a small level, and that was bad enough. My number one priority just now is my children, their welfare, their education, their health. They are MY responsibility, and I believe no-one except a parent has a childs best interests at heart. Home educating is a wonderful, and at the moment, free, alternative for many reasons, including bullying. Why oh why does the goverment feel it their duty to take away the parents authority.

My son suffered from severe bullying at school. His life was miserable. Sometimes the bullying was overt. When teachers attempted to crack down on that, the bullying didn't stop, it just became more sneaky and went unnoticed by teachers. A child has a right to learn in a safe environment. He has a right to be able to eat his lunch without crouching on the ground, constantly looking over his shoulder and in a position ready to run.
I now home educate and have discovered that not only does home education provide the safe learning environment that we wanted but it provides a better environment for a child who loves to learn.
I am worried that the state government's proposed regulations on home education will make it difficult for concerned parents such as myself to rescue their children from a bullying situation and they will not be able to watch, as I have done, as their children blossom and learn in a safe environment.
The government needs to do something about bullying in schools but it should not block the exit to home education by unnecessary regulation. Parents have right to educate their children in the manner they think fit. I suspect the government only wants to regulate home education in order to limit the number of people who are exiting the failing state school system to take up this superior form of education.

Let's face it - what is natural about school? Children are placed in an institution, segregated with children only of their own age and often, their own class (eg. Middle, upper or lower) and sometimes religion. Segregation doesn't stop there, these children are then put into groups of 'high achievers' or 'remedial' students and in sports games divided according to ability/age. The list goes on. This doesn't take into account the needs of the specific child, emotional maturity or the natural need to be exposed to a diversity of ages, cultures and ideas. Instead it breeds a culture of 'dog eat dog' and extreme competitiveness with no focus on understanding, compassion and basic human decency. How can a child be expected to accept that someone is 'different' in their class if the whole school system is based upon differentiating everyone into small groups? They see this child is 'different' and shouldn't be there, so they take it in hand and as a bonus they get to be seen as the 'best' at what they do; bullying. Children are then forced into three streams; to bully, to conform to normality in a disturbing way, or to differ and be bullied. A very unnatural state of being that leaves many children to live with one of those beliefs for their whole life, hence marital violence, low self esteem, teen suicides and the need to keep up with the Joneses.

People have a need to socialise and learn from a wide range of sources. They cannot function appropriately in society without this. Home education appears to be the only option. Up until the last few centuries when the educational 'crusade' began, children learnt in a meaningful and wholesome way about the world around them from people who cared, gave them loving, but constant guidelines and the ability to be involved in the world, not disjointed from it. Before anyone jumps up and down about literacy and numeracy - these are things that can easily be taught at home by anyone with a basic ability.