Tracey Griffiths, 37, is a housewife from St Athan, Barry, with two children, Lewis, 14, and Rhiannon, 11.

"I've been teaching my two children, Lewis and Rhiannon, at home for two years now.

Lewis was badly bullied at school. He's a rather quiet, dumpy child, a well-behaved boy who won't answer back. He's also dyslexic, and it didn't help when teachers called him stupid. His self-esteem was non-existent.

After the final incident, where four boys sat on top of him and shoved sand in his mouth, I knew that I'd have to take him out of school. I asked about teaching him myself and was told by the school that I'd need a degree to do that. The welfare officer came to see me and was not at all helpful.

I really feared for my son's safety. My husband is in the RAF and we have moved about a lot. Lewis has been in 11 schools including a boarding school but the same thing happened there: he was bullied and was afraid to go to sleep at night.

One day my husband found a website called Education Otherwise which lists everything you need to teach children at home, including the local education requirements and your position in law. People don't realise they can do it themselves. I don't have a single O-level, and I never thought I'd be able to prove I could teach - I thought we'd have to pay for a teacher, which would be expensive.

Education Otherwise provide a network of people around the country who are teaching their children and who can advise one another. In the beginning I followed a timetable similar to the one Lewis had had in school, but the children didn't like it. I was advised to allow them to decide what to learn and when, but that didn't work either.

After a couple of months we weren't getting anywhere, and I decided to write my own timetable, which has worked really well. We study English and Maths, and then we do projects which we all really enjoy. At the moment we are building a robot, and doing a lot of music: they both play in the band at RAF St Athan.

I get all the books from W H Smith, and when we come across something that's new to me, we look it up together. I thought maybe they wouldn't like the fact that I didn't know something either but it makes them feel better. And they've learnt lots of things that children at school don't learn, like writing a shopping list, and working out budgets.

Teaching at home is a scary thing to do, especially at the beginning. But everyone is very helpful, and the libraries are great. The LEA is very helpful, and comes to check everything. I'm not the sort of person who's too shy to ask silly questions, and make full use of their information. Places like the Museum of Welsh Life are fantastic, too, with a special classroom for home-educated children.

Now Lewis is ready to go to college next September where he's going to do four GCSE's - English, Maths, IT and Electronics. His ambition is to be a musician in the RAF, but only after he's qualified in electronics and computers.

The biggest bonus is that he has self-esteem and confidence."

Tracey, Barry

For more information see our section on 'Home Education'.