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. |
This
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.
We have created a new 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
I have been informed by InterHigh that
they continue to routinely pass families private information to Local
Authorities, regardless of their acceptance that home education does
not constitute a safeguarding concern. Their statement says:
“we will proactively contact Local Authorities
during the registration of a new pupil to ensure the safety of
pupils” and we “will ensure that the Local Authority is aware that
a pupil is being home educated.”
The InterHigh statement then goes on to say
"we know that there is no correlation
between home education and safeguarding risk."
Any family considering using InterHigh services
should consider the implications of this statement very carefully.
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 home educators have to navigate a complicated
benefits system which assumes that children are in school. Despite
many families deciding to home educate due to their child's vulnerability,
which remains unacknowledged either by state education or the
benefits system.
A universal benefits system would help with this problem. boosting
families ability to manage while they take the whole burden of educating
their children. The cost of paying UBI to home educators would be
balanced by the enormous savings to tax payers of not paying for
the school places taken up by home educated children.
If you are in favour of UBI, Please
take a few minutes to fill in this questionnaire Thank you. |

We have set up a petition allowing parents to flexischool
their children for one day a week for the coming (2020-2021) school
year to allow children, where they need it, space to deal with
a return to school flexibly. See
more here.
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.
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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