LISTENING to the news tonight, I was interested to hear a mum in Sedgemoor saying if they had had the choice, they would have kept their children home from school in September.

I am 66, bringing up my granddaughter and caring for my partner who had a stroke in late 2019.

My granddaughter is 15, she was born in Taunton in September 2005 and I lived in Taunton till 2005. I trained as a nurse at MPH in the 1970s.

We asked her school if she could continue home learning in September but were told this was not permitted - we would have to leave the education system.

We did just this, but I feel angry we were not able to keep her in the system to get learning online/sent.

I am retired and have spent money on GCSE courses with Oxford Homelearning which are fantastic, but I could only afford four subjects: Science (double award) English Language and Mathematics.

I will need to pay for the exams the year after next too (if held!) at Taunton School as an outside candidate. All in all, the four subjects will have cost me about £2,000.

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We feel very let down by the education system and the country should feel let down too, because if we had had the choice there would have been far fewer children in school and social distancing would have been far better.

The education authorities, in fairness, had to obey government guidelines.

So the blame lies with the government. I wrote to Boris Johnson in September but got no response.

I felt this was worth sharing for all those that share the same story of frustration at not being able to take responsibility for their wellbeing.

JAN ARNDELL