Freedom for Children to Grow

and requesting an appointment at the MP's surgery. It is here to give people an idea of what you could say when contacting your MP.

With "model letters" it is always best to use these as a guide but to use your own words and include or exclude information relevant to the particular issue or emphasis you want to raise.

Home education and the imminent DfES full public consultation.

I /we live in your constituency and home educate our own children. I am writing to express my concern about a forthcoming Government consultation on home education.

In December 2006, representatives of our national charity, Education Otherwise, were asked to attend a meeting in London with the Department for Education and Skills. They were informed that a full public consultation will be held in the early months of this year. The consultation will propose possible changes to legislation focusing on the compulsory registration of home educated children, standards defining "suitable" education and new arrangements for the registering of home education.

I/We have many concerns about the proposed consultation:

• concerns relating to the way the last consultation on this issue was conducted
• concerns about the research and local authority representations which form the basis of the investigation
• concern that the major stakeholder, home educating families and their organisations, have not been consulted on the questions to be asked or the issues to be raised in the consultation.

Families come to home education through a number of routes. For some it is a positive choice to provide an education which reflects the values, principles and educational philosophy of the parents. For others it is the last resort when the schools system has not adequately met the needs of their children.

I am /We are writing to ask if I/we may attend a surgery to discuss these issues.

Please could you contact us/me with details of an appointment at your constituency surgery. We expect the consultation to be launched very soon and then of course we will only have twelve weeks to respond.

Yours sincerely