PARENTS and children from South Devon celebrated the fact they were not back at school as they highlighted their right to home educate their children yesterday.

Twenty families from Torbay and Totnes gathered on Vire Island on the River Dart before marching up to Totnes's Market Square where they made bubbles with their children and held placards.

People taking part in the event insisted it was not a protest march but a celebration that parents have the right to choose how they educate their own children.

Legally, education is compulsory but school is not.

Tristan Dorling, a father of two girls whom he educates at home in Totnes, said he decided to take his daughters out of school after they were not happy.

He said: "The main problem is teachers have so many pupils per class they spend a lot of time managing children rather than teaching.

"In two hours of home education a day parents can do what teachers do in seven at school.

"Children can learn a lot more because of the one-to-one attention they receive."

Mr Dorling said home education took a different view — that education should be more children centred.

Helen Lloyd-Hoare, from Paignton, a mother of two daughters aged 10 and eight, also educates them at home.

She said it was important to dispel the myths about home education.

She said: "In this area there is a lot of support and understanding for home education. The LEAs are also quite supportive.

"You don't need to be a teacher or have lots of money. Home education is not illegal.

"I find it very fulfilling because I can see what the children are studying and where they are at. There is no sense of failure."

Parents taking part in the Not Back To School picnic and bubble blow event, something the organisers want to make an annual feature, said it coincided with National Freedom of Education Day.

There are about 50,000 families in the UK educating their children at home.

Despite insisting on the day not being a protest, the parents taking part said they also wanted to express their concerns about Graham Badman's report on home education.

Mr Badman was asked in January to carry out an independent review of elective home education for the Department for Children, Families and Schools.

Karen Benson, from Totnes, the mother of a seven-year-old girl, said: "There is much that's positive in this report especially trying to find arrangements so children have access to libraries, sports and music facilities.

"One of the most-concerning aspects of the report, however, is that LEAs would have the right to interview children on their own at home without the presence of an adult.

"These powers are not even enjoyed by the police. This is exceptionally invasive and unnecessary.

"LEAs want to know that children are safe and educated properly but they can do that without such a level of privacy invasion."

The Badman report would also decide which parents are to be allowed to educate their own children, track home-educating families on more databases, approve parents' education plans and enter family homes and interview children alone.

Leaf Lovejoy, from Stoke Gabriel, who is educating two of her three children at home, agreed.

She said: "This is a spurious case based on what happened with Baby P and other incidents of child abuse.

"Looking at home education is an excuse to divert people from the real issues which are how to reform the education system itself."

For more information on home schooling, log on to www. homeschooler.org.uk/start-here