Dear David
I have been listening to your interviews (Brian Rose) and video casts with great interest since 6th May 2020. I really appreciate them and forward them on to my children, my sister and a few other friends. My husband and I are 71, my husband is supposed to be shielded, etc, but we don’t do any of it, nor do we go along with any of it.
One of our grandsons, who is 12, started at secondary school in September 2020 – his parents sent him to a private day school, because he is a very bright boy with an enquiring mind and they hoped it would prove more stimulating and challenging than state education. However, from the beginning, he has been the only one to refuse to wear a mask without having a special letter stating a medical exemption, so every single day (when he has been there) he has had teachers asking him why he isn’t wearing one. He has said that he is exempt. He has consistently refused to wear one. He has made friends there whose faces he has never seen.
During the third lockdown, when he was having to do home schooling, my daughter didn’t make him sit there all day in front of a computer, usually just the mornings. She doesn’t believe being in front of a screen is good for anyone, let alone a child. In any case he didn’t understand the maths in particular and it wasn’t possible to ask questions. In the end, the school actually reported her to Social Services because he was not doing all the lessons. Luckily, when the Social Services person rang my daughter, they said to her that they couldn’t understand why she had been reported. You can imagine that this made my daughter furious.
Finally, when my daughter and her husband heard about all the testing and masks in classrooms that their son would have to undergo (or fight against), coupled with knowing that they teach a lot of ‘woke’ and other stuff that he and they dislike (he talks to his parents about what goes on at school when he gets home), they decided to pull him out of the school altogether. My daughter had even been to see the head teacher, sent numerous emails objecting to it all, etc. They are now trying to fight having to forfeit a term’s fee.
Our grandson is delighted to be at home being home schooled. He has loved doing his own thing – throughout lockdowns, he has been teaching himself Spanish online, learnt to make origami via YouTube, been growing vegetables in their garden (neither of his parents are remotely interested in gardening), has taught himself to play grade 8 piano pieces via YouTube (but is also having proper piano lessons at beginner’s level), etc. He plays chess with my husband, his grandfather, who also talks to him about history, politics, etc. We are very proud of him. I thought you would be interested to know this story. Hopefully there are many others like this grandson, with parents who are prepared to fight for them.
Again, thank you for all you are doing.
All the best
Priscilla
