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-history

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Reviewing books with the home educators

Writing a book is a thankless task. One spends months researching, writing, revising, preparing the index, listing all the references, proof reading and so on and the whole thing takes ten times longer than you could possibly imagine. Then when it is published, people either don't buy it or those who do, read it and say that it is lousy! It is perhaps inevitable, to say nothing of depressingly predictable, that home educators should seek to turn this natural sequence of events back to front and begin their criticism and condemnation before the book has been published and read. This saves them the trouble of reading the thing I suppose, but when in addition they expect the author to set up and run a correspondence course in academic referencing systems, one somehow feels that the limit has definitely been reached.

Yesterday I had the fascinating experience of observing the convoluted mental processes of some very odd people. A number of them seemed to be aggrieved about a book which they had not yet read and of which they could know absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, the criticism was as serious as that of practically any book of which I have ever heard. The accusation that I am persecuting people by thinking about home education, for instance. One unfortunate person claimed that;

'Anyone that cynically writes a book purely for financial gain which it claims “identifies key areas of conflict between home educators and local authorities and suggests ways that these can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction” and then denies persecution of Home Educators is either demented or delusional.'

This was in response to a post which I made about the mental health of some home educating parents. That anybody could possibly see identifying key areas of conflict between home educators and local authorities as persecution tells us a good deal about this person's own mental state. Another comment said in connection with this, as yet unpublished, book;

' When a Judicial Review of Metropolitan Police Force policy finds against them for discrimination and persecution'

That is two posts in quick succession made by people who feel that either I or the Metropolitan Police are persecuting them. Fairly typical of a certain type of home educating parent, one might say, and pretty ironic in view of the topic of the original post upon which they were commenting!


Others had different concerns. Several people felt that I had written the thing under false pretences, because I was;

'claiming to be part of the HE community (that's your position of authority for writing this book isn't it?)'

This is such mad nonsense that it is hard to know how to respond. The blurb on the cover says it all;

'Simon Webb educated his daughter at home and has a blog on home schooling. He has also worked for many years with children who have special educational needs.'


Hmmm, no mention there of the home educating community. I cannot imagine who is making all this stuff up. If this is the reaction before it even hits the shops, the good Lord alone knows what people will be saying when they actually read the thing!

I think it worth making two points. Firstly, I asked several times on this blog whether anybody would be interested in contributing to a chapter on autonomous education. My original idea was that autonomous educators could have a chapter in which they expressed their views in their own words and that local authorities could have a chapter in which they stated their opinions. This could be followed with a chapter in which the two parties tried to find common ground. Nobody was the slightest bit interested in this and I gained the distinct impression that the parents both here and on the main Internet lists did not want to have their views publicised in this way. That is fine, but I can hardly be blamed when I am then compelled to put the case for autonomous education myself. Since this book is really aimed at education professionals rather than the lay reader, it means that I have had to explain autonomous education to teachers, local authority officers and so on in my own words. I would have preferred autonomous educators to put the case themselves. It is no good complaining at this late stage about the book; I tried to get others involved, but nobody wanted anything to do with it.

The second point is this. There is absolutely nothing to stop anybody from writing a book about home education themselves and finding a publisher for it. I cannot see why so many people are fretting now about how I have referenced the thing and what my views are. If people want to write a book about autonomous education, there is nothing to stop them doing so. It is true, as somebody pointed out yesterday, that Jan Fortune-Wood has written books on this subject, but these are a little outdated and peculiar. I feel sure that there is scope for something about the modern home educating scene written from an autonomous viewpoint and published by a proper publisher; something which major bookshops will stock. I am not really the man to do this. I have written a book from the standpoint of a highly structured home educator. This was only to be expected. I honestly cannot see why this would irritate anybody. There are currently books about autonomous home education and I have never felt persecuted by them! I feel that the field is open for a new book on this and perhaps instead of bitching about the fact that I have actually bothered to write a book, some of those commenting yesterday could write one of their own?

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Hothousing children at home

First, a real treat for readers! A chance to see and hear both me and my daughter talking about home education. Check out this bit from a BBC programme about home education which aired in February this year:





A few days ago, somebody commenting here drew attention to the supposed similarity between the present writer and Harry Lawrence, the famous home educating father of Ruth Lawrence. This was a fair point. There are indeed uncanny similarities between the various slightly eccentric fathers who appear on television or in newspapers from time to time to boast of their achievements and those of their offspring in the home educating line. Most of these men are what are known as 'hothousers'; which is to say that they work intensively with their children to stimulate their intellectual development in advance of their chronological age. The expression 'hothousing' is sometimes used pejoratively by autonomously educating parents to describe this kind of very structured home education.

The tradition of hothousing fathers is a very old one. A while ago I mentioned John Stuart Mill, taught at home by his father. Since the end of World War II there have been a number of high profile cases of this sort of thing. Edith Stern was taught at home in New York by her father from her birth in the early 1950s. Her progress was astonishing. By the age of two she could read fluently, she could play chess at four and at fifteen she became the youngest professor of mathematics in American history. On the face of it at least. a home education success story. Ruth Lawrence was taught at home by her father, graduating from Oxford University with a First at the age of thirteen. Judit Polgar, the chess champion is another case and of course there is the more recent example of Sufiah Yusof, who was taught at home by her father and entered Oxford University at the age of thirteen.

The above four are cases which were extensively covered by the media, but there are many more which are less well known. All seem to have points in common though. To begin with, there do not seem to be any female hothousers. All the cases of which I have ever heard have involved fathers rather than mothers. Secondly, it is usually daughters who are being pushed in this way. Thirdly, although these father-daughter combinations seem to have extremely close relationships when the child is young, this often seems to sour once the girl gets a little older. Ruth Lawrence, who moved to America and lived with her father until she was in her late twenties, went on to marry a man almost thirty years older than her, about her father's age in fact! The story is that she is now estranged from her father. Finally of course, there is the mysterious case of the missing mothers. My wife would look at pictures and films of such cases as these and ask, 'What's missing from this picture, children?' The answer is of course, the child's mother.

Now men can be pretty weird about their interests in a way that most women are not. I know quite a few men with obsessive interests in the American Civil War, steam trains and various other strange things. They have hundreds of books on their chosen subject and go on holidays to the USA or North of England so that they can visit battlefields of ride in steam trains. One seldom sees this in women. This I think explains part of the hothousing phenomenon; the fact that men become absolutely preoccupied with some project and pursue it singlemindedly to the exclusion of all else. There is of course a theory which holds that autism is simply an extreme and pathological form of maleness and I can easily believe it. Watch a man with an obsessive hobby and you can see traces of the type of single minded interest that one sees in some autistic people. I suspect that having once begun the task of educating their daughter, for some men it becomes an end in itself, just like the man who wishes to know everything about the history of railway signal boxes or the names of every soldier at the Battle of Gettysburg. It is just how certain men are.

Looked at from this perspective, it is fairly plain where the women in the case are. They are getting on with life like every wife of a man with an all-consuming hobby. They can probably see the benefits to their child, but do not particularly get caught up in the wild enthusiasm of the scheme. They certainly do not wish to appear on television or in the newspapers as mad home educators! Readers might at this point be asking themselves where my own wife was during the filming of the television clip which I posted above. The answer is that she retreated to the bedroom with a novel and told me that if I attempted to get her in front of the cameras she would behave so oddly that I would regret it for the rest of my life. Enough said, especially if one knows my wife, who always carries through with her threats. I dare say that it was a similar situation with all the other invisible mothers.

It has to be said that the long term outcome for these hothoused children is a bit variable. Ruth Lawrence seems happy enough living in Israel, although as I said there is a coolness between her and her father. Sufiah Yusof of course ended up not only estranged from her father, but also working as a prostitute. Edith Stern too fell out with her father when she became an adult. I think that it is worth looking at these individuals because, as I pointed out recently, it is these children whom the public sees as typical examples of home education. Since their fathers often present as being more than a little a little strange, this might well have the effect of teaching non-home educators subconsciously that home educators tend to be peculiar. It might also explain why I was invited to give evidence to the select committee, rather than a woman. Perhaps the effect of these high profile home educating families has been subliminally to persuade non-home educators that the typical, dedicated home educating parent is a father rather than a mother?

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This blog

Until a week ago, I was convinced that the only thing which attracted so many readers to this blog was the luminous quality of the prose which I turn out with such effortless insouciance. Sadly, this would seem not to be the case. Indeed, when I mentioned that I had been keeping this blog for over a year, several regular contributors to the comments hastened to set me straight about their motives for coming on here every day. Apparently for some, reading this blog is a distasteful duty which must be undertaken, whether or not one feels like it. I must say that this strikes me as absolutely extraordinary. There are many completely mad blogs on the Internet, some of them written by world class idiots. I occasionally come across such things and seldom bother to return. How different, how very different from the response of those who visit here and conclude that I am an ignorant fool and malicious to boot. They keep coming back for more! I have been puzzled by this in the past, but a little research shows the sheer altruism which motivates some of my most dedicated readers.

Here is a typical case of somebody who feels reluctantly compelled to come on here and express her opinions:

I started commenting on your blog only because you made some ill-informed remarks about children with special needs. I think that many other of your remarks are also ill-informed, so have felt obliged to continue to comment.

Now I am bound to say at once that I have been working with and writing about adults and children with special educational needs and disabilities for about a quarter of a century. I doubt that my remarks on the subject have been 'ill-informed'. Crass and offensive perhaps; even insensitive or unpleasant, but I am, I think, pretty well informed on the subject. Another person said much the same:

I too only come here to check and set the record straight from time to time,

These people put me in mind of Lord Longford when he was investigating pornography some years ago. He forced himself to visit various unsavoury shops in Soho and leafed through the most disgusting materiel, all for a very good cause. I imagine some of my readers in the same way. There they sit, hunched over their keyboards in darkened rooms, muttering 'Filth!' or 'Disgusting!'. But they know their duty too well just to log off and look at something a little more agreeable!

Another regular here, who lives in Brighton, has an even stranger reason for feeling obliged to visit and comment here. She is worried about the effects of what I say upon those who are just starting to home educate. She comes here, 'in case there are new home edders feeling thoroughly put-off...' This really plumbs new depths of weirdness! I am a fanatical home educator whose daughter never set foot in school. I have shown that contrary to what some local authority officers claim, it is perfectly possible to pass any GCSE at home, including the three sciences. Anybody coming here will soon learn that however repulsive I might be personally, I am living proof that home education can succeed in delivering a rigorous, academic education at least as efficient as that provided by the best independent school. How on earth will this 'put off' new home educators?

Interestingly, the parents who email me privately do not seem to feel at all put off by what they read here. A week does not pass without somebody contacting me for advice or information. I have never been told that anybody has felt 'put off' home education by anything which they might have read here. Nor incidentally have the parents of children with special needs ever berated me for my unacceptable views on disability. I have noticed that those who criticise me most vehemently about this do not apparently have children themselves with special educational needs. There is something horribly patronising about people complaining on behalf of families with special children, as though these people know better than others what is likely to be unacceptable in this field. It is true that I have had a few irritable things to say in the past about the number of parents in the home education world who claim that their children have special educational needs which are not being catered for at school and which have made it essential that their children are educated at home. Closer examination often reveals these problems to be relatively mild conditions such as dyslexia and attention deficit. Now I freely admit that I sometimes get a little impatient about this. I work with some children who have severe learning difficulties and are non-verbal, unable to walk and also have epilepsy. To hear some mother going on about her kids 'special needs' when all it amounts to is that he can't sit still and concentrate, does annoy me a bit. This is perhaps the sort of 'ill-informed' view which has caused people to find it necessary to monitor this blog!

I think that people sometimes overestimate the significance of this blog. It is nothing more than the personal thoughts of a former home educator. It is not, as I have had cause to remind folk in the past, a peer reviewed, academic journal. The ideas expressed here are usually my own and if others find those thoughts disgusting or contrary to their own inclinations, then it does not really worry me. I am of course happy for everybody to come here and comment; that's why I don't moderate the comments at all. However, if anybody really is upset by the sort of things which I say here, then there are plenty of other blogs on home education which cater for the kind of wooly-minded crank determined to avoid at all costs teaching her child. This blog is about education, education outside the school system. Such education can be, as I said above, at least as successful as anything being offered in the best of independent schools. Somebody commented here recently, saying;

Why is home education not as good as good to Eton college Webb

Well it is, or at least it can be if parents wish to put in the time and effort. For those reluctant to do so for ideological or perhaps ergonomic reasons, home education is likely to remain a poor substitute for school based education. I am hardly to blame for that; such is the nature of the world!

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Chess parents and others

There has always been a fairly strong tradition in home education for parents to push their children to develop one talent or ability to the exclusion of all other interests. The intention is usually to create some sort of genius in a particular field. Ruth Lawrence and mathematics, Venus and Serena Williams in tennis, Judit Polgar in chess; there are many examples of this, all overseen by home educating fathers. Now there is a fine line between encouraging a child in a pre-existing interests or hobby, as opposed to deciding on the child's behalf that this is what will happen. When a parent remarks of his child, ' These children are like racehorses, You've got to look after them very carefully to bring the best out of them' , one feels instinctively that this line has been crossed!

The above comment was made by the father of a home educated 'chess genius', Peter Williams of England. He is typical of the intensive, genius producing school of home educators and the path which he has chosen for his son is of course that of chess. Chess has, over the last decade or so, become very popular for this sort of thing. There are good rewards to be gained, not least a Chess Scholarship at Millfields independent school in the West Country. I used to be pretty involved in the chess world myself; my daughter used to attend tournaments and win trophies regularly, although it was never more than a hobby. There were a fair few home educators in the game at that time, many of them parading their kids like racehorses or greyhounds. For these people, chess was anything but a hobby; it was a matter of life and death. I cannot tell readers the feverish atmosphere at these tournaments. The child who lost a game would be interrogated and berated by the father. 'Why didn't you move your rook to E8? How could you have been so stupid as to lose your bishop so early on?' A not unnatural consequence was that the child who lost a game would be devastated and reduced to tears.

There are two problem with these single interest upbringings of the kind that the chess playing Williams family of Alton go in for. Firstly, there is no plan B. The child's education is typically focused upon just the one subject and everything else is very sketchy. For Ruth Lawrence, mathematics was the main thing in her life as a child and nothing was allowed to interfere with it. No wasting time playing with children her own age, or learning about the Tudors! There can only ever be a very few top people at tennis, chess or mathematics. For every child who makes it right to the top, there are many who do not. We seldom hear about these kids. The outlook for them is not very good. This brings us neatly to the second problem. When a child has been praised and told how wonderful he is and what a fantastic future career he has in the field chosen by his father, he often begins to value himself not for who he is, but for what he can do. A large part of his identity becomes bound up in being able to play chess, tennis or the violin really well. If he then fails to become the best, if he begins to lose ground, then this strikes at the very heart of who he is. And often, because of the unbalanced nature of such an upbringing, there is nothing to fall back on. Without the chess, there is nothing else; he is nothing else.

This can result in tragedy. The first child to win the Chess Scholarship to Millfields for example was one of four siblings, all of whom had been groomed for chess stardom by their mother. I attended the same chess club as them when they lived in Chigwell. They did not reach the pinnacles at which she had aimed and the result was that there was a good deal of psychological disturbance. The oldest son, as soon as he was bigger than his mother, began knocking her about in revenge for the times that she had shouted at him for losing chess matches.

There is always a risk in setting out to produce a genius. The risk is greatest when the child himself is told of the plans and begins to define himself as a genius. Those who watched the Channel 4 programme Child Genius will have seen some very peculiar children with some even more peculiar parents. The home life of Peter Williams and his son was featured on this programme and very odd it looked too. Nothing except chess and mathematics, the mathematics taught by a computer with a speech synthesiser. His only playmates were his father and grandfather; both chess fanatics. We were told that none of the children with whom the child had been at school would talk to him now and he himself said how sad this made him. Still, as he later remarked, looking at his father for approval as he said it, 'If you can play chess, you don't need school'. All the signs are that this child is not naturally gifted at chess, but that his talent is the result of many hours of intensive tuition by his father and grandfather. Despite some early promise, commentators in the chess world are dubious about his prospects for the future. Without a Plan B, things might not be looking so rosy for this child in a couple of years time. He could well be on course to become another victim of the genius producing, home educating fathers.

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A right to school

As I am sure we all know, the Swedish parliament recently approved a law which would ban home education in all but 'extraordinary' circumstances. It will be absolutely forbidden for purely philosophical or religious reasons. There are few home educators in Sweden, but an attempt if being made to fight for the supposed right of parents to home educate there. This is the Dominic Johansson case and an application has been made to the European Court of Human Rights. Those making this application know very well that it will fail, but they are carrying on in the hope of attracting attention to their own cause; the wider one of 'parental rights', not just in Sweden but across the world. The claims made will fail because the European Court is bound by precedent: that is to say they must follow decisions already made by the court in the past which clarified the law.

In Germany some years ago a case was fought all the way to the Federal Constitutional Court, which upheld Germany's ban on home education. In 2003 this case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights. The parent who brought the case argued that Germany's ban on home education contravened the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This provides that a state shall respect parents' rights to ensure that their child's education will be in conformity with their own religious and philosophical beliefs. In September 2006, the court gave
its ruling.

The European Court gave as its opinion that the plaintiff in the case was not the parent but the children. The court went on to say that children were unable to foresee the consequences of their parents' decision to home educate, due to their young age. They further stated that schools were part of society and that the rights of parents did not extend so far as for them to be able to deprive children of their place in society (Brussels Journal 2006). It was clear that there was nothing to stop Britain or any other country in Europe from banning home education entirely.
The crucial point here is the final decision was that children not only have a right to an education, they also have a right to go to school. There seem to be pretty strong legal grounds for this argument. Daniel Monk, senior lecturer in law at Birkbeck, has written a number of papers about this. The thesis is that school is such an integral part of society that it would be wrong to deprive a child of the experience. This is completely separate from any right to an education; it is the same point ruled by the European Court. Since this is an experience of life common to everybody in countries like Britain, Germany and Sweden, it would be wrong to prevent a child from taking part in school. In later life, the child would find herself at a loss when all those around her had a common framework for their memories of childhood. It would be turning a person into some sort of oddity, something of which the child herself could not hope to be aware
until she reached adulthood.

I am sure that everybody reading this has been shaped by their childhood and that school formed a very strong part of that childhood. It could hardly be otherwise; everybody on this site spent every day at school for over a decade! If I lacked that common framework which we all share, a childhood moulded and defined by school, then I might well feel myself to be something on an outsider in later life. This is what people like Daniel Monk argue and the European Court of
Human Rights agree with him. School is a fundamental right for children.

One can quite see why this point of view drives home educators mad! It hints that their decision to keep their children at home is an essentially selfish one, disregarding the future psychological welfare of their children. This is not at all how home educating parents want to think of themselves. Nevertheless, there does seem to be something in this idea. For most of us the first place where we encounter unfairness and cruelty is school. It also provides our earliest experiences of the abuse of power, boredom and various other things which we shall come across again and again in our lives. Perhaps it can be seen as a training ground for handling these things in later life. Interesting that Ofsted expressed this view recently when they suggested that it was good for every school to have at least one useless teacher; it will give children a valuable lesson in incompetent people in authority. this will stand them in good stead in later life. John Holt mentions in Why Children fail that a mother spoke to him once and told him that he was wrong to make his lessons so interesting. Her argument was that in adult life children would be
bored much of the time and the sooner they get used to it the better.

I have already discussed the possible motives of those helping the Johanssons to take their case to the European Court. I am sure that the three representatives named on the application know about the court's decision in 2006 and that this will not be overturned. I can only assume that they are going to the court purely for propaganda purposes. Personally, I am not sure how wise this is, because an unfavourable decision will simply draw the attention of other European countries to the fact that they can ban home education tomorrow if the wish and nobody will be able to do anything about it. I am not sure if this is a good idea.

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American and British home educators

I have talked before about how careful we must be in looking at research into homeschooling in the USA and then applying the conclusions to home education in this country. The very fact that the favoured name for the activity in America is homeschooling provides a clue as to why this should be. Looking at big studies in America, such as Rudner's Achievement and demographics of home school pupils in 1999, indicates what I mean by this. The typical profile of the American parent who keeps her children at school looks very different from British home educators.

The parents in these families were educated to a higher level than average. In a quarter of families one or both parents were qualified teachers. The percentage of parents who were married was higher than the national average, perhaps connected with the fact that many of these families were devoutly religious evangelical Christianity being the most common denomination. The mothers tended to stay at home and those who did work only did so part-time. This is hardly a surprise. These look like very conventional families, where the father goes out to work and the mother stays at home with the children. The whole family worship in church on Sundays. This is a lifestyle and family structure which is less common in this country. Overall, only 6 per cent of the families belonged to ethnic minorities, compared with around 30 percent nationally.

I think that if we were to poll the members of organisations such as Education Otherwise, HEAS and Home Education UK, a rather different picture might emerge. Of course in both countries there is a wide range of home educating parents, ranging from conservative Christians to left wing atheists, but on the whole, the picture is very different. This is reflected in the nature of the main organisations for home educators. In the USA are groups like the Home School Legal Defense Association, while in this country we have the ones which I mention above. Education Otherwise would probably be relaxed about a same sex couple raising a child or about abortion, while very few home educators in this country are probably in favour of regular physical punishment of children.

In America, the situation is so different, that some parents here might have trouble grasping the the sort of things which so many homeschoolers take for granted in the USA. For example the HSLDA are very passionate about guns, among other things. When the government passed a law banning the possession of a gun within a thousand feet of a school, the HSLDA was outraged at this violation of rights and supported its repeal. A lot of these people tend to be very strongly anti-abortion and anti-gay as well, probably not typical positions for home educators here. (Interestingly, the woman who runs the Friends of Dominic Johanssons group lives in Pennsylvania and is active in both fields, being particularly enraged by homosexuality). Another 'right' that many American homeschoolers are very determined about is the right to hit their children and insist that they follow the family religious practice. This is why the HSLDA is so opposed to the American ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Only two countries in the world have not signed this; America and Somalia!

For my own part, I am quite relaxed about all this. I suspect that I have a little more in common with this sort of conservative approach which tends to be slanted towards structure education than I do towards the laid back, wooly liberal attitudes which I see a lot here. I do think though that it is well for parents in this country to be aware of these differences. If you are a liberal Humanist who is all in favour of gay rights, a woman's right to abortion and opposed to guns and beating children, then it might be as well to stop a little and think carefully about the kind of campaigns which might attract somebody with precisely opposite views to your own. Otherwise, you might find yourself in some very strange company indeed and aligned by implication with some causes which you would probably run a mile from in your own country.

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A suitable education

The Department for Children, Schools and Families announced last year that the question of what constitutes a 'suitable education' was under active consideration. What is meant by this expression? Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act states that:

The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to
receive efficient full-time education suitable -
(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and
(b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular
attendance at school or otherwise

What does this mean in practice? Nobody knows because there is no legal definition of either 'full-time' or 'suitable'. Although statute law has nothing to say about it, there are some hints in precedent or case law. An 'efficient' education was described in this way by Lord Alverstone in his judgement in Bevan v Shears 1911, one of the key cases for home educators. He said:

In the absence of anything in the bye-laws providing that a child of a
given age shall receive instruction in given subjects, in my view it
cannot be said that there is a standard of education by which the child
must be taught. The court has to decide whether in their opinion the
child is being taught efficiently so far as that particular child is
concerned.

The definition of an 'efficient' education was expanded in another case, that of R v Secretary of State for Education and Science, ex parte Talmud Torah Machzeikei Hadass School Trust, 1985. Mr. Justice Woolf gave it as his opinion that an 'efficient' education was one that 'achieves what it sets out to achieve.' In the course of the same judgement, he described a 'suitable' education as one which, 'primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a member, rather than the way of life in the country as a whole.' He went on to say that this education should not foreclose a child's options in later life.

None of this is very helpful for working out whether a home educated child is receiving an education. It is specifically stated that the local authority cannot use the standard of education in schools as a yardstick. Each child must be educated efficiently, 'so far as that particular child is
concerned'. many local authorities want a clear definition that can be used when monitoring the education provided to children at home. The idea is that certain skills and knowledge would be expected to be acquired by the child at particular ages. This could mean that the child should be able to read at eight, carry out the four arithmetical operations at eleven and so on. This would take into account any special educational needs which the child had. There is great opposition to this scheme form autonomous educators. They feel that this would harm their method of education.

It would be curious to speculate upon what a legal definition of a suitable and efficient education might look like. It would include reading and writing by a certain age and also arithmetic. It might also include the study of science and history. I shouldn't think anybody could object to a framework like this, as long as it wasn't prescriptive. If the history to be taught was set out in detail; the Tudors at this age, the Romans at that, World War II next, then I can see why people might object. If though the requirement was just to expose the child to history, whether by teaching or just by visits to castles and museums, then I don't think that this would be a problem.

In the same way, if the definition of a suitable education was that the intention would be that the child could read by twelve, I should think that most parents would find that acceptable. After all I am sure that most home educating parents hope that their children will be reading by this age. In other words, although some home educating parents would be unhappy at the idea that they were compelled to teach their child, they might be agreeable to the notion that there were certain milestones which were desirable and that these would be borne in mind. Before anybody asks the question, no I am not suggesting that if such milestones were not reached then the child should be forced to return to school.

Of course I am quite sure that many home educating parents, whether autonomous or not, are already aware of these things. I am also sure that most already expose their children to various stimulating and educational activities. It might not be a bad idea though to have this set out in a formal way, simply as a set of guidelines by which an education might be judged. Obviously, the quality of education being received by home educated children in this country varies enormously. Some are receiving a good education, while others are barely being educated at all. It would be handy to have some sort of rough and ready guide to distinguish between these two cases.

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