For most, home education
is far more like university than school. It's about curiosity.
Formulating a question or thought and researching it. The parents
roll is not to formally teach but to facilitate that journey.
It doesn't really matter too much what the
child is curios about, the trick is to develop and facilitate
curiosity, kindle it like a precious flame, and ultimately
develop those critical thinking skills necessary to formulate
new ideas for so it becomes a raging inferno.
That sounds complicated perhaps, but it's really
not. It's what all parents do for their children especially when
they're small. Every time a child asks a question you start a
journey of discovery.
If parents see themselves not as teachers but
as facilitators in this way, they will see progress they didn't
imagine possible. It's exciting and fun but it can also be scary. |
Scary because as a
parent you've been led to believe children need to be steered
along a certain path, that there's a set of knowledge all children
should have. But if that's not the child's path, or if it's a
part of a journey your child has not yet encountered, you're
effectively imposing ideas on the child and run the risk, along
side millions of other children, of alienating your child from
the learning process, suppressing their own intrinsic curiosity
for the imposed ideas of others.
How often has a child asked "what's the point
in this?" Far too many I suspect. Spark a child's curiosity,
facilitate their journey of discovery, put the child behind
the wheel and they will take responsibility for their own course
and progress, because they will be intrinsically motivated
to satisfy their curiosity.
For the overwhelming majority of parents, this
is the beauty of home education. By answering questions they
themselves pose, they retain what they learn because it's part
of their own journey. Something they questioned themselves. |
We
have created a support section entirely for those caught
up in the covid crisis.
We also have a FB Forum just for you. Experienced
home educators are on hand to welcome you and help with issues
relating to your child's education at home.
We can't promise to answer every question, but
many of the issues you will face will already have been dealt
with by home educators who are the experts in educating in the
home. The group is the Home
Education UK School Closure Support Forum. now with over five
thousand members
“The totalitarian state tries to separate
the child from her family and mould her to its own design. Families
in all their subversive variety are the breeding ground of diversity
and individuality.
Hence the family is given special protection
in all the modern human rights… The child is not the mere creature
of the State.”
Baroness
Hale, President of the Supreme Court 11th
June 2008
The
Local Government Ombudsman ruled that councils must be
clear with parents of home educated children whether a home
visit is routine or triggered by concerns following Leicester
City's attempt to initiate actions based on anticipating, future
government proposals currently being considered
Many parents remain unaware that home
education is legal, or if they are aware, where to find
support. This poster could be put up anywhere parents
and children might benefit.
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EHP publishes books and kindles on many topics
related to home education and learning systems that are alternative
or complimentary to state schooling. Including books on how
and why home educators home educate.
A great introduction to
alternative education.
Many
EHP books are available as Kindles, at low prices and you
don't need a kindle to read them, there are app's for all brands
of smart phone and tablet. Build your own library of 'read
anywhere
"The respect of parent's freedom to educate
their children according to their vision of what education should
be has been part of international human rights standards since
their very emergence."
(The
Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights 8th April 1999)
Parents are responsible for the education of their
offspring regardless of whether they are in school or out of
it. In law the right to an education is an obligatory right,
it may neither be denied to, nor refused by, a child.
Thus since children may not refuse education and
there is no academic consensus on what constitutes an effective
education, we believe that the state must be flexible in defining
what a 'suitable' education is.
While the law expresses the right to home educate
as a parental right, it is my belief that, in the same way that
young people have the right to decide upon medical procedures,
a specific education should not be imposed upon them. This is
not only right in principle but in practice, since intrinsically
motivated learning will most readily "achieve that which
it sets out to achieve". Learning cannot be imposed. |