My work here is done…

Well folks, this really is the final post I shall be making here. I have been thinking lately about the different ideas that home educators have about education. There are certainly plenty like me who cram their children for exams and whose greatest wish is that their kids get a place at a Russell Group university, but there are also many who regard that sort of carry on as not only not being the best kind of education, but in a sense being the very antithesis of true education. They are of course perfectly right, at least up to a point. Let me...

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The solution to a minor mystery

Some while ago, a survey of the educational background of MPs revealed that one of them had been home educated. Nobody seemed to know who this was, but I can now tell readers that it is Nicola Blackwood:http://www.nicolablackwood.com/about-nicolaThose attending the All Party Parliamentary Group on home education on September 6th could do worse than approach h...

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Completely shameless...

I am quite shameless where my daughter is concerned. Here is a bit from the college website with a short video clip of Simone at the bottom. My only excuse for this is that after a final post tomorrow, I shall be gone for good!http://www.harlow-college.ac.uk/cms_/index.php/news/1398-a-level-results-2011.h...

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In which it is shown that home education can deliver at least as good an academic result as that likely to be gained at school

When first I told people that I would not be sending my daughter to school, there were many negative reactions. These ranged from predictions that she would be unable to get a job or go to university, to the fear that she would grow up introverted and weird. None of these things have happened. I have not mentioned it before here, although others have referred to it, but my daughter has a place at Oxford to study philosophy, politics and economics; otherwise known as PPE. Her A level results this morning were as hoped and so she is now assured of...

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Possible disadvantage with home education which may actually be an advantage

I have never found any disadvantage in home education as far as education itself is concerned. Nor have I ever observed lack of socialisation causing my daughter any problems. One thing that has bothered me over the years is that children like this, who have been the centre of their parents’ lives in a more personal way than those who are sent to school, might come to believe themselves to be more special and important than is actually the case. In other words they might, at worst, grow into spoiled brats and at best grow up thinking that they...

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Some good news for home educators

Many readers will be pleased to hear that I am in the process of winding down this blog, with a view to ending it completely in a fortnight or so. There are two main reasons for this. The first is simply that when my daughter goes off to university in the autumn, I can hardly claim to be a home educator in any way at all. It would be a bit much if I were then to continue writing about the subject and making handy suggestions as to what the government or local authorities should do with regard to home education! It will really be no affair of mine...

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Interesting piece from The Guardian

My views on education have not in the past been universally applauded and so I thought that it might be a treat for readers to see what I have to say upon another subject. Here is a piece of mine from today's Guardian. I need hardly add that this excellent book is available from all good bookshops!http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/aug/12/londons-ancient-hist...

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The teaching of reading without the use of phonics

A few days ago, I wrote a little about the use of synthetic phonics in schools and suggested that it was a more or less perfect way of teaching reading. Some commented, apparently believing that I was saying that this was the only method which should be used. In particular, several people raised the problem of children with hearing difficulties; those with glue ear were mentioned. For these children, who may be unable properly to distinguish between speech sounds such as 'b' and 'p' or 'g' and 'k', other methods are needed. I have put below some...

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Home educated prodigies

The history of home education is littered with cases of supposedly brilliant children whose parents were convinced that they would be world champions in some area or another. Sometimes the chosen field is physical; tennis or gymnastics. In other cases it is intellectual; mathematics or chess, for example. Below is a recent piece from The Washington Post about this sort of thing:http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/home-schooling-for-child-athletes-raises-questions-large-and-small/2011/08/05/gIQASWDR4I_story_1.htmlI do not think personally...

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An historical perspective on 'the state as parent'

A recurring theme in the debate on monitoring of home education is that parents have responsibility for their children and that if we allow local authorities to become too much involved then, it is claimed, we will find the ‘state as parent’ creeping into our society. It is instructive in this context to look at just how local authorities became involved in family life in the first place.As readers are probably aware, I used to write extensively for magazines such as True Detective and Murder Most Foul Quarterly (Yes, there really is a such a periodical)....

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The extra responsibilities of home educating parents

One of the great things about home education is that you can pretty well claim responsibility for the good things which your child achieves. I don’t just mean academically, but also when their character turns out well. After all, they have been with you for most of the time and so have picked up your ideas on justice and compassion, kindness and respect for the natural world. We can all feel proud about such traits when we observe them in our children. There is a downside to this though. If we accept that we are largely answerable for the good...

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An enduring myth among home educators

We all kid ourselves that we behave rationally and make our choices based upon common sense and logic. Sometimes this is true; often it is not. Our decisions are frequently a product of an accumulation of our prejudices and preconceived ideas which generate reflex actions rather than considered and well ordered thoughts. Somebody mentions the death penalty and we say automatically. ‘Oh, I don’t approve of that’. It may be twenty or thirty years since we actually thought the matter through logically and calmly, but it is so much easier to have a...

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The roots of confrontation between local authorities and home educators

There seems to be pretty general agreement that there is more tension between a number of home educating parents and their local authorities than was once the case. A few days ago, somebody here suggested that this was largely due to the Badman review. This is an interesting idea. There are it seems to me two main ways of looking at the situation today. On the one hand is the perspective that aggressive local authorities, acting in many cases beyond the letter of the law, have provoked peaceful and good natured home educators into becoming militant...

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Peer pressure in the world of British home education

Nobody knows how many children in this country are educated at home; nor are we likely to find out in the future. One estimate widely bandied about during the Badman review was 80,000. In a book published last year, Mike Fortune-Wood argued for a figure of 150,000. Let us split the difference and assume that perhaps as many as 115,000 are being educated out of school. Some families contain more than one child and so this might give us roughly 200,000 parents of home educated children in this country. The vast majority of these parents do not belong...

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Of pig's hearts

A couple of days ago, I posted a fairly long piece here about teaching science at home. Nobody commented all day, which prompted one person to ask in the evening, ‘is discussing actual education less popular than some other topics?’ Very perceptive! I have noticed that there is a great difference between parents who actually get on and educate their children and those who belong to organisations and Internet groups concerned with home education. I tended to associate with the first group; individuals who were passionately committed to their children’s...

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A black mark for Lincolnshire County Council

I had the misfortune to be in Lincolnshire over the weekend. For those unfamiliar with this ghastly part of the country, it provides a glimpse of Britain before the Industrial Revolution; peopled as it is in the main by half-witted agricultural workers. My wife’s family live there and so we have to visit the county pretty regularly. Mind you, they live in Grimsby, which is positively cosmopolitan and sophisticated compared with the little hamlets one finds tucked away between the potato fields. Most of the inhabitants of these places look like...

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The advantages of studying science at home

I have noticed over the years that although a fair number of teachers will concede that parents might be able to impart the basics of literacy and numeracy to their own children, there is a pretty general assumption that secondary education is beyond the ability of the average mother or father. Baroness Deech touched upon this last year, when she gave as a knock-down argument against home education, that it would not be possible to teach chemistry in this way. During the course of the weekend I met a retired teacher who does not know me and he...

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In which I confess to having been in error

Never let it be said that I am a man who refuses to admit when he has been wrong. I have been musing lately about my daughter and coming to the reluctant conclusion that I have been mistaken in an opinion which I have several times expressed warmly on this blog. Let me explain.I posted a link yesterday to a couple of pieces which my daughter wrote for The Guardian. Somebody then drew attention to her blog. In fact my daughter is well known in some quarters, as two recent examples will show. She had lined up an internship over the summer in a magazine....

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Like father, like daughter...

It struck me that those who enjoy reading my own pieces might well find it a pleasure to have some more of the family's writing to look at. Here are a couple of short articles by my daughter, whose ability to irritate people seems to be second only to my own:http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/webb-sim...

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