A WEST DORSET couple believe that educating children at home is better than sending them to traditional ‘sausage factory’ schools.

They talk with experience after teaching the equivalent of a football team at their Ryall home near Bridport As the Government orders a review in home schooling rules to safeguard youngsters, committed Christians Andrew and Ruth Drapper say, that in some cases, it’s the children who need protecting from schools.

Mr and Mrs Drapper say far from putting youngsters at risk home can be the best place for teaching.

Mr Drapper, whose 11 children range from two to 22 years, said: “I think children ought to be protected from some of the things that go on in school.

“They are not protected from peer pressure, they are not protected from the influence behind the bike shed to smoke, drink, or have sex.

“They are not provided with an education according to age or aptitude, which the law requires, by the very fact that they are in a class of 30.

“We don’t want the Government interfering or dictating what we are allowed or not allowed to teach our children – but we would not want home schooling to be become an excuse for no schooling.”

Although none of his children take school exams both his oldest children have been offered university places with no GCSEs or A-levels.

Mr Drapper said the evidence is not there to support an argument that home schooled children are disadvantage or not well adjusted.

He added: “Most home school children are well adjusted, well educated and do well when they leave. Sending children through ‘sausage factory’ education deprives the nation of a breadth of diversity.

“Schools are very artificial. School doesn’t prepare you for adult life – it prepares you for more school.

“The grown-up world does not interact like school. Our experiences is that home school children are often very good at mixing with a broad spectrum of people – friends, pensioners, adults and children.

“I wish all children were home schooled, although not necessarily by all parents.

“It is very hard work and a very big commitment. You have to a sacrifice one of the family’s income almost for certain.”

The review was ordered after some local authorities said their duty to these children was undermined by the present rules where responsibility for a child’s education rests with parents.

Mr and Mrs Drapper, who are inspected annually by Dorset County Council, were led into home schooling 18 years ago while working in missionary roles in Birmingham where their children would have had to go to a school where 98 per cent of pupils did not speak or write English as their first language.

“We were threatened as Christians and the pupils at the school would shout abuse at us so it made us scratch our heads and think of an alternative to school.

“We believe God led us this way. We didn’t go into parenting thinking we would home educate but the Bible says parents are responsible for training their children, so that’s what we do.”

l Councils have no statutory duty to monitor the quality of home education children there is no legal duty on parents to answer any councils’ questions and there is no definition of what constitutes a suitable education.

There are 168 home educated children in Dorset and 48 in West Dorset.