Tag: Home education

My son Benjamin struggled with anxiety and depression in Years 10 and 11, and rarely felt able to attend school. He is one of many young people who experience ‘Emotional Based School Avoidance’ (EBSA) today. In the UK, EBSA affects approximately 1-2% of the school population; although, some researchers suggest it could be as high […]

Setting up a school or learning community is a wonderful, exciting and rewarding adventure, but at times it can feel overwhelming. This is why, in collaboration with Limitless we have launched a new membership community which offers: Expert webinars: Live monthly webinars with founders of innovative schools and learning communities, and practitioners in progressive methods […]

Life fills us with questions. Each new stage of growing and development changes our thinking from one level to another. Like a character in a video game, we pass one stage, fighting off goblins and bosses and eating energy balls to power up until we feel like a champion, and then we find ourselves diving […]

Part 2: Progressive Education I [previously] wrote about the Montessori Landscape in the UK and what I’ve learned so far about the scene [since relocating from the US]. Inevitably, my network and understanding have continued to grow since. Here are just a couple of additions: I have met with Dr. Nathan Archer who leads The International […]

This letter has been written by Rose Arnold of Suitable Education, at the request of and input from Welsh home educators, following the publication of the Welsh Government’s concerning elective home education guidance in May 2023:                                                                                                                         31st May 2023 Re: Welsh Elective Home Education Guidance May 2023 (288/2023) Parents and carers – not local […]

Authors: Max Hope & Sophie Christophy Max Hope, Director of Rewilding Education and advocate of freedom is passionate about rewilding and is excited about how concepts of rewilding can be used to ignite radical educational change. Sophie Christophy, Founder of The Cabin and unschooling parent, is a feminist and children’s rights activist and originator of the concept of consent-based education. […]

Watching our oldest child’s interest in learning slowly disappear and their curiosity and creativity dwindle became the motivator to us choosing to take all three of our kids out of the state system. It was not that their school was bad, or that the teachers were poor, or that the leadership team were without vision […]

Volume 12 (2021): Issue 1 (June 2021), Special Issue: Home-Based Education Volume 12 of the Journal of Pedagogy ran a special on home education. It includes articles on: Invisible pedagogies in home education: Freedom, power and control The experience of adults who were “unschooled” during their youth: A phenomenological approach Should educators promote homeschooling? Worldwide […]

By Rose Arnold, Suitable-Education.uk, first published October 2021 “Self-directed education is a pedagogy grounded in biology, anthropology, cognitive science, psychology and child development. It is not claimed that self-directed education is the only way that children can learn. However, being as it is an approach based on and supported by well-established and rigorous research from across multiple […]

Learning that’s lost in school can be found in many ways, if it needs to be found at all. As a homeschooler and author, I field many questions about the lost educational and social opportunities children face by being out of school, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made the issue of lost learning a deep […]

Lisa Carne shares with us a flavour of her book, Natural Curiosity, which is a warm and contemplative insight into her family’s experience of moving from mainstream schooling to home education, and learning through the lens of nature and natural history: “People say to me, ‘How did you first become interested in animals?‘ and I […]

Following the establishment of a state-controlled education system in England and Wales through the Education Act 1902, most people in Britain have become used to the belief that education is the responsibility of the government. That, however, is far from the truth. The Act’s provisions on Elementary Education (s.9) charged the new Boards of Education […]

Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist and author.  Her book ‘Changing Our Minds; How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning’ is out now, published by Little, Brown. This time a year ago, we’d never have guessed how many people would have spent this year homeschooling.  School seemed as much part of life as […]

Three European organisations advocating human rights and freedom in education – ALLI asbl (Luxemboug), Les Enfants d’Abord (France), and Full Human Rights-Experience Education – as well as independent philosopher, Bertrand Stern, have come together to write a letter to the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe. They are concerned […]

By Wendy Charles-Warner, EducationOtherwise.org December 2020 This report examines trends in numbers of home educating families in England. The data was obtained by sending freedom of information requests to each of the 151 local authorities in England. It also shares results from surveys undertaken across a mix of home education groups to ascertain the main […]

By Paula Rothermel, University of Durham, 2002 Abstract This research explores the aims and practices of home-educating families from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The methodology involves a questionnaire survey completed by 419 home-educating families and 196 assessments evaluating the psychosocial and academic development of home-educated children aged eleven years and under. The aim was to gain […]

Open letter to the Education Select Committee The following letter was sent on 17 December 2020 to the Chair of the Education Select Committee Mr Robert Halfon MP, to the Clerk, to the Children’s Commissioner and to the Local Government Association and signed by the parties below. Misuse of key terms by Children’s Commissioner and […]

There is no need for a change in current arrangements for home education. The law on the ‘otherwise’ criterion is clear on the right to an education that is not in school. Below is some evidence for the need for schools to change, based on the book ‘Self Managed Learning and the New Educational Paradigm’ […]

I’ve worked with families that home-school for a variety of reasons.  Some enforced and some consciously.  Like many things on the edges of a society it is a place that is so often misunderstood, but a place where you can learn so much from the community and I am glad that I found this community […]

Recently there have been renewed concerns from the media and policy makers about home educated children who are not formally taught, and who may be classed as Children Missing Education. This blog is intended to speak directly to anyone with concerns. Children are hard wired to learn from the moment they are born. There is […]

Recruitment, retention, results. This was what I gathered from my first meeting on the Sixth Form Management Team (SMT), back in the early teens of last decade. We called it the ‘3 Rs’ and it formed the basis of decision-making within our Sixth Form, an ambitious offshoot of the competitive inner-London academy I was employed […]