Homeschooling in Britain

24 Apr

Posted by Little Mummy as Education, Parenting

I’ve been fascinated and curious about homeschooling for a while, how it works, and why some parents choose to abandon the state system altogether.

A blog I found just today and am currently delving into provided me with a link to this article from the Guardian.

School’s out, for ever

For all the pitfalls and complaints we have about the education system the crux of the problem can be found in the following two qoutes;

She added that, “Common to all families involved was their flexible approach to education … Children benefited from the freedom to develop their skills at their own speed.”

“The choice of subjects they cover may be dictated by, well, anything. A key principle seems to be that the boys learn from what life presents to them rather than their lives being organised around a pre-determined programme.”

The teachers we have are (for the most) great, the problem is that class numbers and lack of resources prevent the somewhat tailored, child-led learning that I seem to be championing so often here. More money equals more teachers, smaller class sizes and better resources. My recent meeting with a teacher really opened my eyes to the challenges faced with managing the entire education of over 20 children. Smaller classes could easily facilitate a more open curricular with learning that could be led as a group, although the group would all need to be at a similar standard for it to work at it’s best.

I guess it comes down to money because some parents are already buying this kind of education, for the rest of us we must either make do or do it ourselves.

Food for thought on a Monday morning. What are you thinking?

2 Responses

Dave

April 24th, 2007 at 1:23 am
1

I think homeschooling is really interesting, and the opportunity to ensure your child learns truly useful things in a structured home environment that encourages curiousity and enquiry rather than jumping through hoops seems very attractive. But I do wonder about the social element - my experiences at school, both positive and negative, are a big part of who I am, and I’m not sure that the benefits of homeschooling on its own outweigh the potential personal development kids miss out on by not being with large groups of peers, coming up against authority for the first time and so on. For me, the golden ticket was that I was in that school environment, but I had a house full of books and parents who supported my bookwormish habits.
t-bird

April 24th, 2007 at 2:36 am
2

Dave, our kids socialise regardless of where they learn (unless the parents actively prevent this, which is another issue and failrly rare in “mainstream home education”) They just socialise differently. Like going to groups, meeting other local home edders for days out, sharing science projects with other families or just for playing in someone else’s back garden for a change. There are various camps and holidays aimed at home edders where large groups of small noisy creatures run in packs for hours at a time whilst their parents get down to the serious business of socialising over cups of tea. They still do the whole pecking order thing. They definitely come up against authority in various guises including learning that the rules in one person’s house/tent/caravan may be different from their own and that some people in authority are on your side whereas some will abuse their authority (as can be seen in areas where Education Authorities try to force restrictions onto home educating families that are just not stipulated within the law.)

Anyway, it’s not for everyone but for those who find it works it is fabulous. And yes, I’m biased because it’s working well for us but if I can see a point where school would be better for my child then school it would be, this is about the child after all, not the parent.