May 2024 – Stewards.ONE

Go on then, persuade me!

I beg your pardon, I don’t…

Persuade me to home-educate my children!

Why would I do that?

Well, my spouse wants our child to be home-educated and has said you’ll convince me to home-school.

That’s really your decision to make, no one can impose home-schooling on you – it’s a whole lifestyle. It takes up your time, money, home and life, it impacts on your relationships with your children and changes your family completely. You can’t force that on anyone.

My spouse really won’t be happy with your response.

It’s your marriage, not mine. I don’t want to be responsible for your child’s education, your family, or your life.

Does your husband want you to home-educate?

Yes, he’s supportive of it. But he also recognises it’s my choice, not his. More than anyone, he’s seen how much it has taken and he knows it isn’t his place to demand I do it. That wouldn’t be fair.

It’s had a huge impact on his life too, and I’ve had to have him completely on board to make it work.

So why do you home-educate?

In the beginning, I was a lot more idealistic and radical than I am now. I looked back on my years in school and just didn’t want my children to have similar experiences. At the time, Hamza Yusuf was a passionate advocate of home-schooling and gave a talk alongside John Taylor Gatto, which I listened to endlessly. Combined with John Holt and a few others, I seriously questioned if modern schooling was really the best thing for my children.

Why wouldn’t it be the best thing for your children? Billions of pounds along with hours of research and training have gone into modern schooling. Are you saying they’ve got it wrong?

When my eldest son was little he was incredibly active. He would run instead of walking, climb instead of sitting, he was non-stop, but very happy. He had an incredibly active imagination, and loved adventure stories, he completely got into them. It was a joy to observe.

One day a nursery nurse stopped me in the library and advised me to put him in nursery as soon as he was three, as there were huge advantages to nursery. My active, happy little boy would, “learn to sit still” she said, which would prepare him for school. Sure enough, she had arranged her little charges so they were all sitting down watching while she sang a song about triangles.

To this day, I don’t agree that young children need to sit still and learn about triangles, when what they want to do is play. I really believe children should be given space and time to find (and follow) their hearts, whether that’s keeping pet snails, throwing stones in rivers, watching diggers, or looking for Wally in a picture book… As long as it’s real and you’re okay with it, their wings shouldn’t be clipped by boring stuff they don’t want to do (like triangles and sitting still) at a young age.

Free range children?

Absolutely, another book I loved and would recommend is Free Range Education by the way.

Who is John Taylor Gatto?

He was an ex-teacher who won “New York State Teacher of the Year” twice because of the outstanding results his students got. Ironically, he was strongly against modern schooling as, according to him, it has been deliberately designed to render the children who go through it helpless, childish, malleable and obedient. After he’d won his awards, he spent many years telling people how he’d broken just about every rule in the book and had got the kids in his classes involved in the real world, outside the classroom.

He wrote many books, the best known is probably Dumbing us Down, and gave talks about the history of modern schooling, which he said had been designed by industrialists to break working-class unity and produce compliant workers.

Isn’t that a bit heavy? All the poor woman was doing was singing the triangle song!

She was teaching the children to ignore their natural instincts to play, move, chat and explore; those kids had to obey her and do something really, really dull that none of them would ever have chosen. If they didn’t obey; they’d be in trouble.

But what if the best thing for them, for their brains and bodies, was to move and play? All those little kids had to sacrifice the part of themselves that wanted to have fun while she took charge. They had to listen to her and to learn about something totally random and extremely simple (triangles). Face it, learning how to recognise a triangle should take less than a minute if it’s taught at the right age, and you certainly don’t need to sing about them.

The real lesson being taught was obedience?

Exactly. According to Gatto, the rulers of society want an obedient middle and working class, with just a few independent thinkers at the top to govern. School is designed to train the young, to accustom them to compliance, so they’ll follow random instructions all their lives, no matter how pointless or counter-intuitive they are.

Who’s John Holt?

He’s another ex-teacher and advocate of home-schooling. He wrote some books about his observations as a classroom teacher, but didn’t delve into the ‘machine’ of schooling or its history. He just wanted kids to be kids and to learn in a way that worked and suited them.

You mentioned this was what influenced you in the beginning, do you still feel the same way?

I’ve mellowed a lot over the years.

I’ve now seen so many families where school is absolutely the best place for the kids to be, and I’ve seen home-schooling families who have done brilliantly. I have met lovely children who thrived in school and lovely kids who thrived at home. I’ve met adults who, looking back, preferred going to school to being home-educated and ones who home-educated because they hated school. I’ve known home-schooling families where the children ask to go to school, and I’ve known school children who’ve asked to be home-schooled. I’ve seen home-educating parents burn out, and I’ve seen parents breathe a huge sigh of relief when they’ve taken their children out of school because of the stress it caused.

There really isn’t one way to educate or raise children and what works in one family, won’t work in another. For me now, it’s about doing what works, rather than radical conspiracy theories about saving my kids from being cogs in the machine.

Why don’t you put your children in school?

Because, thanks to God, home-schooling really is working for us. My children are healthy, happy and independent. I don’t think home-schooling has held them back in the long term, and they had proper childhoods without academic pressures.

Home-schooling is an alternative form of educating children and young people; it can work very well. There can be massive advantages to it. But there can be massive advantages to school too. You really have to look at your situation and decide what’s best for you.

Why haven’t you mentioned religion?

Is this where you want me to go bug eyed and start ranting about forcing my children to pray?

If you could, it would make things more interesting…

You’ve got the wrong sister.

If you home-educate, can you mould your children?

Absolutely not.

Ask any parent with adult children and I guarantee they’ll say there comes a point where you can’t tell your children what to do or who to be. They will do their own thing, whether you approve or not, sometimes they’ll do it because you disapprove. Home-schooling doesn’t change that. It isn’t a way to control your children forever.

But you will have more control over what they learn, like the Theory of Evolution or LGBTQIAA+?

Obviously, I’ve had a lot more control over my kids learning than if I’d sent them to school. I’ve delayed teaching my children topics until I’ve known they’re ready. This applies for straightforward subjects like reading and counting, and more complex topics like the Theory of Evolution.

I do think small children have a right to remain innocent and unfettered by adult issues, like LGBTQIAA+, but I also think older children need to understand the society they live in and they need to be given the tools necessary to succeed and fit in.

I’ve yet to meet a home-educator who’s tried to cut their child off from normal life and society forever and I can’t imagine the results would be pretty if they did.

If your children will do their own thing anyway, and you prepare them for ‘normal’ life by teaching them most things they’d learn in school, is there any advantage to home-educating, from a religious perspective?

When my children are at home they don’t need to mask who they are, they don’t need to pretend or lie about themselves to fit in, and they don’t have to live a double life – with one persona at school and one for home. I consider these the greatest religious (and personal) advantages of home-education.

If they want to pray, then they can. My daughters weren’t ridiculed for wearing hijab, the boys could grow beards without feeling embarrassed, they didn’t have to stand out or be the ‘different’ one in class who didn’t fit in because of our religion. In Ramadhan my children who wanted to fast could, they didn’t have someone telling them off, forcing them to eat, or eating in front of them as a ‘joke’.

Of the most important advantages home-educating offers, is that children can be who they are without being bullied or having to bow to peer group pressure.

Katie Holden

Katie is a mother of nine, none of whom have been to school. She holds a degree in Biology from Imperial College. The eldest five gained GCSEs with her before starting college at 16. She is still home educating her other children.

I want to get to the bare bones of the matter – how much does home-education cost? Do you need to be seriously loaded to home-educate?

Like Angelina Jolie you mean?

Exactly. She home-schools and she’s a multimillionaire…

And therefore, only multimillionaires can home-school?

Well, people with money to spare.

Not at all. My children have been home-educated through times we were seriously strapped for cash, renting, moving house every two years, living on benefits, arguing about which cheese we could afford or bickering about the price of broccoli.

Most home-educators I know are normal people with normal incomes, in fact they’ve usually got less money because they are home-educating instead of working, earning and building up a career or business.

How did you do it?

A lot of what we do is free; walking on the moors doesn’t cost anything, neither does Park Run or swimming in a river. Additionally, our local council runs lots of free activities for children in the school holidays, which we often take part in, many local museums are free and others will have open days where admission is free, and libraries are always free to use.

Then there are dozens of ways to do things on the cheap – we buy most of our books/toys from charity shops, car boot sales or ebay, for example. We go camping in term time which saves money, and buy annual passes to museums and the like so we can keep returning for free.

Isn’t that hard for your kids?

Not at all.

I’ve found it’s more fun to do things cheaply and needs more initiative. If you have money, you just go into a shop or buy exactly what you want online. We have to think around things and problem-solve, it’s less predictable and a lot more fun that way.

What do you spend money on?

Where we do buy something expensive, I make sure we need it and it’s going to make our lives significantly better. All my kids have learned to swim even though swimming lessons are expensive, for example. When they fell in love with road cycling, we bought them good road bikes (second hand, but they still cost a lot) but that gave them a lot of freedom and they learned so many life lessons through cycling. My dyslexic daughter had specialist tuition every week for three years, which was necessary but expensive. And I’ve also paid for workbooks, courses and exams, which all adds up, but if it helps give my children a broad education and opens options for them; it’s worth it.

Money does help then?

Of course, having enough money to afford some luxuries makes home-educating easier and more pleasant – having a car, for example, makes a massive difference to our lives. I know people who home-educate without a car, but I’d struggle.

It’s like anything in life. Having enough money helps and makes it easier, but just being rich and chucking loads of money at it willy nilly, won’t turn a bad home-educating experience into a good one.

You have a degree, is that necessary to home-educate?

No. I’ve known successful home-educators who didn’t go through higher education.

Is home-schooling easier for educated parents?

The bulk of our home-schooling, especially in the early years, is based around play, experiencing and exploring. I found being enthusiastic, enjoying being with my children and doing activities with them were essential, but a degree isn’t. When I did introduce lessons, they were so light at first that anyone who can read, write and do arithmetic could teach what I did. The main thing it took was patience, consistency and time.

What about educating older children? Do you need an education or teaching experience to do that?

Even for older children, a lot of the home-schooling we do is practical – doing projects, reading, going out, thinking about things, playing games etc. Again, I’d say that enthusiasm, time and life-experience are the most important things here and formal qualifications are irrelevant.

What about GCSEs/iGCSEs?

At the end of my degree I did know one thing; how to pass exams. Actually, if I’d been a better student, I would have known that after GCSEs but I was a late developer! When I prepared my children for their iGCSE/GCSE exams, we basically hit the past papers and used YouTube/textbooks to research whatever we didn’t understand until we’d covered the whole syllabus.

I did use the “exam passing skills” I’d learned at university to get my children through GCSEs. In this way my degree was helpful, but I think just about any adult could do the same whether they’d been to university or not. Also, there are so many online tutors and distance learning courses that you can always get help if necessary.

The last stage of revision for GCSEs does take a lot of my time and it is hard work for me and my children, so I’d say that putting the time and work in is essential, but qualifications aren’t.

You’ve mentioned time and work a few times now…

Absolutely. I’d say that every successful home-educator I’ve met (by which I mean they’ve provided a good home-schooling experience for their children) has invested a huge chunk of themselves in the home-education. They’ve given their time, they’ve been engaged and available, and they’ve put nearly everything else on the back burner.

“Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy…”

I wouldn’t go that far. You don’t have to die for home-schooling.

What have you put on the back burner?

My career.

In our family, I’ve stayed at home and done the home-schooling while my husband has gone to work and earned. Perhaps this wasn’t huge for the first five years or so, but now I haven’t been employed for over twenty years and doubt I’ll ever have a career or earn much (if anything). Meanwhile, my husband has been investing in his career and has a good income. I don’t have any regrets, but home-schooling isn’t compatible with a high-flying career.

Unless you’re Angelina Jolie.

Unless you’re Angelina Jolie.

Anything else?

Home-education has infused every corner of our lives, especially mine. A few years ago, I tried studying Arabic and was really enjoying it, but then I reached a point where I had to choose between pushing myself through Arabic and progressing, or home-schooling. I dropped Arabic.

I do have friends, but most of them are fellow home-educators or are very understanding and laid back. I don’t have a huge amount of free time, and that’s hard for some people to understand and accept. I’m not the easiest friend to have as I’m hardly ever ‘available’.

What about hobbies, me-time and interests?

Any hobbies and interests are now part and parcel of the home-education. I involve my kids wherever I can and turn my interests into family projects so the kids can join in if they want.

Katie Holden

What about socialising?

I beg your pardon.

What about socialising, your kids, you home-school, have they got any friends?

Yes.

Well, what about that kid who died, the home-schooled one, what are you going to do about that?

Erm… I’m going to keep home-schooling my happy, healthy children because it’s working really well and is the best thing for them.

Furthermore, I’m going to leave Social Services, the Police and other professionals to do their jobs; safeguarding children – whether they go to school or not. If I see a child being abused, then I’ll report it to the authorities, but I haven’t seen that in any home-educating family I know – and I’ve known a few in my time.

What about those kids in America who were chained to their beds – they were home-schooled too!

Yes, it was very sad. I hope they got the support they needed after escaping and have made full recoveries.

You don’t get it, do you? Home-schoolers are clearly a dangerous group of adults who are, at best, irresponsible, at worst, abusive.

No. We aren’t.

But…

Sadly, abused children who go to school aren’t always saved, despite going to school. Some children are abused or harmed in school. Record numbers of children in school are reporting anxiety or poor mental health because of school. School isn’t a ‘magic pill’ that will stop abuse or harm.

If every home-educator is forced to put their kids in school tomorrow, it isn’t going to make a difference to the levels of child abuse across the country. It would, however, ensure all the home-educated children who are safe and happy at home, who are thriving and love their freedom, or whose special needs are being properly catered for at home, would lose the advantages of home-education overnight.

Child protection is not, in my opinion, a reasonable or rational criticism of home-education, but is rooted in prejudice and is inherently anti-parent (as if we’re all guilty and need to be treated as such).

What about socialisation?

You mean teaching my children the norms and values of society, such as standing in queues, returning supermarket trolleys, and complaining about the weather?

Yes.

Don’t panic; we’ve got it nailed.

And their social lives?

They have friends.

Home-schooling is for rich people, not…

Not the hoi polloi, the great unwashed, the common folk.

Exactly. You need serious money to home-educate.

People from all walks of life have successfully home-educated their children.

What about their social lives?

They have friends.

I’ve been to your house; it’s a mess. Toys and jigsaws everywhere, over-crowded shoe shelves, shelves and shelves of reading books, counting blocks (in the kitchen!), tanks of fish and reptiles, chickens in the garden, cats everywhere, folders and files everywhere, coats everywhere, old exam papers everywhere, colouring in and crayons everywhere.

You’re right.

If you put your kids in school, you could tidy your house!

You’re right.

And they could socialise.

They already socialise.

Yes, but your house is a mess.

And if my kids went to school, I could spend my time tidying the house until it looks like no one lives there? I could get rid of the books, toys, projects and animals, and replace them with sterile empty space, which I’d wipe down with bleach every day between re-hoovering my clean carpets and polishing my houseplants.

Instead of doing the home-schooling, which I love, I could tidy, which I absolutely don’t love.

No thank you.

There! You said it!

What?

You said you love home-schooling.

Isn’t that a good thing?

It’s all about you, isn’t it? All about keeping your kids under control; the ultimate narcissistic parenting where you churn out mini-me kids to feed your ego.

If that’s true, then why are my children so different from each other? If I want to control my kids, why did I purposefully give them the means to establish independent lives? Why have I encouraged them to think about their futures? Most importantly; why don’t they listen and obey like automatons instead of going off and doing their own things?

I just find home-educators so judgemental, like they’re better than the rest of us.

I’m not the one doing the judging.

So many of them are personality disordered and mentally ill.

That’s not true.

It’s so unfair on the kids; not being able to socialise like kids in school.

My kids do socialise with other children.

What about teaching them independence? How do your kids learn to be independent if they’re with you all the time?

Children don’t need to be taught how to be independent. It comes perfectly naturally when they’re ready. While it’s hard for very young children to be apart from their main caregiver (sometimes on both of them) it’s remarkably easy to spend time away from your teenagers and adult children.

Incidentally, I noticed when my children were of nursery age, they were much more confident being away from me than children who were in nursery most days. When I met with friends who used nursery, their children would want to be near their mothers while my children would run off and play. I wondered if they were afraid of being left because that was normal for them.

At least your kids can make friends and socialise when they’re older and not being home-educated.

Just like they did when they were younger and being home-educated.

I met a home-schooling family and their children didn’t even have GCSE English and Maths!

I’ve met people who went through eleven years of school and hadn’t passed GCSE English and Maths; that’s why colleges and sixth forms offer re-takes.

I met a home-schooling family and their six year old couldn’t read!

You’ve obviously been to my house; I don’t start teaching the letters until my children are six (or seven).

That’s terrible. What did they do before then?

Played with their friends.

Young children need to sit down and learn, not play!

I disagree. I think young children need to play and explore, not sit down.

They’ll never catch up.

In my experience they do, if you leave the formal schooling until their brains are sufficiently developed and ready, they catch up really quickly and haven’t been squashed by too much too young.

Children in high school have qualified teachers who specialise in one subject, how can you hope to replicate that at home? Aren’t you placing your children at a significant disadvantage; is that fair?

I never set out to replicate school.

For the more formal side of educating older children, I’ve found that using a mixture of textbooks, workbooks, distance learning courses, YouTube, online revision programmes, tutors, past exam papers (and the answers) have helped me piece together courses that work for my children.

I’ve also found that by doing fewer subjects and staggering their exams, my children have got excellent grades in their iGCSEs/GCSEs. We’ve been able to focus on preparing for one or two qualifications per exam season, instead of ten.

Isn’t that unfair on school-going children who have to take more subjects and sit all their exams in one season?

Make your mind up. You just said it was unfair on my home-schooled children to not have teachers and to sit fewer subjects.

I met some home-educated children and they were so rude and ill mannered! School would sort them out.

I met some school kids who were the same; school hadn’t sorted them out.

Any last regrets about depriving your children of social lives?

None, because they do have social lives.

I’m an expert in education and you’re just a parent; you should think about that.

I might not be an expert in all children, but I’m an expert in my children. That’s more important, I think. I can give them bespoke educations that suit them and, like I’ve already said, it has worked and is still working very well for us. If it wasn’t, I’d put them into school.

Katie Holden

Home education and home schooling, what’s the difference?

You’re starting with a trick question. I’ve got your number.

I don’t get it, what’s the issue?

Well, for some there’s a really huge difference between home-schooling and home-educating.

The argument is that schooling is just one form of education and you can educate (or be educated) without doing any schooling whatsoever. Home-schooling connotes school and formal lessons, a timetable, tutors, assessments, curricula etc. In some circles to describe yourself as a home-schooler suggests you are very structured and have a “school at home” approach.

In contrast, home-education implies learning and developing without the paraphernalia of schooling. It is also called ‘free-range’, ‘child-led’ or ‘autonomous’ learning. It purposefully doesn’t resemble school at all.

Are you a home-educator or a home-schooler then?

I’m a home-schooler.

Why?

Because home-schooler has three syllables and home-educator has four.

I find “home education” a bit of a mouthful to be honest. Saying “I’m a home-educator” is, in my experience, a complete conversation killer, and if I say “I’m a home-edder” no one has a clue what I’m talking about. So, I’ve stuck with home-schooling.

What’s your style?

Baggy, bought in a car-boot sale, often stripey.

Not your clothes, your home-educating, sorry, home-schooling.

Well in the beginning, I’d been strongly influenced by autonomous home-educators; I’d read Free Range Education (which I’d still recommend to all) and John Holt, I’d listened to John Taylor Gatto over and over again. I was quite strongly “anti-school” and really believed it had some sinister purpose to dumb all children down and what they really needed was to be left to play, explore and follow their natural inclinations.

Jeepers.

At the start of our home-schooling journey there really wasn’t anything close to school in our lives.

We did so much! We went out nearly every day, I met up with other families frequently, went to the library to chillax, spent hours in museums with the kids just exploring in their own time, we did dozens of camping trips, went for long walks on the moors, the park… When we were at home we’d do baking, painting, reading, crafts, gardening, den building, and had so, so many conversations about the world, history etc.

Sounds amazing.

It was and undoubtedly it was educational – my kids learned tonnes, they were enthused and were exposed to so many different experiences. They had a ‘proper’ childhood filled with play and activities.

What changed?

I did.

That style of home-schooling was lovely for a while, but I began to find it very intense. I always had to be on hand to help my children follow their interests. When my sons fell in love with jousting and knights fighting with swords, we drove to watch knights at English Heritage re-enactments, learned about swords at Leeds Armouries, read countless books on them, made swords and shields out of cardboard etc. It was fun and my kids learned loads, especially about swords, but it was a lot of work and took a lot of my time.

The other thing I found is that my kids would get bored when we weren’t out and about, so they’d bicker. You try being at home with a house full of little boys who are obsessed with pirates and have no structured learning to do whatsoever, and you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

I’ll pass, thank you. What happened next?

I began to introduce some formal learning into our days.

Not a massive amount, but something. Perhaps ten minutes of numbers and ten minutes learning letters to start and I built up from there.

How did your kids take it?

Quite honestly? The constant bickering and fighting stopped almost instantly. I think the fact they had something to do, something that was stimulating even though they wouldn’t have chosen it, was good for all of us. They’d do their “lessons” and go off to play together, rather than fighting and destroying the house.

So, did you have a maths hour, an English hour, a science hour, then a history hour? How did it work?

No, it was nothing like that. What you’re describing is what I’d call, “school-at-home” and I’ve never seen that work well long term. Maybe some people have done it, but I’ve found parents burn out if they try to replicate school too closely.

A lovely home-schooling lady introduced me to the “Work Box System” by Sue Patrick. She designed an entire system for her autistic children, but I found it quite complicated to follow in full. Essentially, I gave each of my children a set of twelve trays (sold online for storing toys) and they had to get through their trays every morning. One tray might contain a jigsaw, for example, another a page of writing practice, some maths, colouring in, or an instruction to do an activity.

What was so good about it?

The trays meant I could organise my children so they were occupied all morning.

I could get them to do easy things when I was busy (for example, when I was changing a baby after breakfast, they’d have colouring in to do).

I could predict when I wouldn’t be busy and then I’d give them work they’d need help with. I even used to time it so that only one child at a time would need my help.

I was able to organise their trays when they’d gone to bed and I was free, I’d check their work and would get things ready for the next day when it was quiet.

It was also good because my kids knew they had to get their trays finished, so they began taking responsibility for their time and doing things independently.

What changed?

As my kids got older, they just didn’t need so much input from me and they certainly didn’t need me to leave them jigsaws in boxes anymore. We naturally slipped into having a very loose timetable.

A timetable? I thought you said school-at-home doesn’t work?

The key word there was “loose”.

The style we’ve settled in now is best described as semi-structured. My youngest daughter (aged 7) does about 20 mins of maths a day, 20 mins of writing practice and 20 mins of reading practice. Some days I’ll organise other activities or will take her out, but she’s got so many things to do at home that she can fill up her time without constant supervision.

In contrast, my 15 year old daughter (who has iGCSE English Language exams next month) started her day with an online tutorial (last minute revision for the exams), needed my help preparing an assignment on Romeo and Juliet, watched some YouTube clips on English Language, and did some work towards her Maths and History iGCSEs. She’s now completely in charge of her own timetable but knows I’m on hand to help if she asks.

Is it fair to say you start off with home-educating and build up to home-schooling?

I wouldn’t say we ever reach the point where I’m running a mini-school. By the time my children are in their mid-teens, I want them to be in charge of their studies – that never, ever happens in school. I’m just in the background to help when needed, especially when it comes to revision.

Additionally, I’ve just described how things look in the cold, damp part of the year. It looks very different in the heat of summer.

This is England.

Okay, I’ve described how things look in the coldest and dampest half of the year, when it’s grim outside and our garden looks like a quagmire from Middle Earth. The time of year when our cats remember they live here, move back in, take all the best chairs and demand room service. From late autumn to early spring we do more schoolie-type stuff.

The rest of the year, the six months where we have grass on the lawn and the cats go feral, we get out and things feel more “free-rage” – we need a break to be honest. Even when we don’t go out on trips together, the kids spend most of their time playing outside or just being outside. But after six months, I find we all want some peace, quiet and a bit of structure, so we welcome the return of winter.

Katie Holden

Do home-educated children have to do GCSEs?

No, home-educated children are not legally obliged to take any exams or work towards any formal qualifications.

So why did you do GCSEs with your children if they don’t have to do them?

Several reasons.

Firstly, I didn’t ever want my children to tell me they regretted being home-educated as it was holding them back in adulthood. I didn’t want them to say, “yes, we had fun as children, but now I’m in my twenties my options are severely limited.” I saw GCSEs as a means of giving them more options and choices in later life.

Secondly, we haven’t the means to set our children up for life. We don’t have a family business the children could work in and take over when they’re older. We haven’t a skill or trade to pass on that will enable them to earn a living. We can’t buy them a business or land or a home. Realistically, they’re most likely to be employees and many employers expect GCSEs, especially when employing a young person.

Thirdly, I wanted them to go to college when they were 16, simply because it seems like the best stepping stone between home education and the world of work. Whilst they could go to college to do a Level 2 (equivalent to GCSEs) I didn’t feel there was an advantage to that; why couldn’t they pass their GCSE exams at the same time as other children?

Fourthly, I discovered that GCSEs and iGCSEs are actually quite fun and interesting. By the time my children have started working towards them, they’ve outgrown the ‘free-range’ stage of wanting to play and run around all the time. They have quite enjoyed the structure and challenges of studying and more formal learning in their mid-teens.

How do home-educated children take GCSEs?

They have to sit exams as external candidates in an exam centre. It’s considerably harder (if not impossible) to find centres willing to accept coursework for GCSEs, so home-educated children normally sit GCSEs where there is no coursework component or iGCSEs (International GCSEs).

Will colleges, universities and employers accept iGCSEs?

IGCSEs are equivalent to GCSEs and should be recognised as such. In fact, pupils in private schools often sit iGCSEs instead of GCSES, indicating there is no great disadvantage to them. Four of my children have been accepted into local colleges with iGCSEs, one was given an apprenticeship with his, and two were later accepted to university with them.

Where do I find an exam centre?

Private schools may accept external candidates for a fee and some exam boards have an online map showing exam centres. Some companies (Tutors & Exams, for example) will hire a venue and offer exams to external candidates that way.

Do I have to pay and how much?

Yes, you do. The price really varies and it’s a good idea to ask around. The price in my area (Yorkshire) is normally around £200 per qualification, except Double Science which is approximately £400.

When should I contact the exam centre/private school?

Many centres have this information on their websites. They will normally say when applications open, the deadline for applications (after which a ‘late fee’ may be charged on top of the normal fee), and if they are full or won’t accept more applications.

If you are approaching a private school and there is no information for external candidates on their website, it’s best to email their Examinations Officer directly and ask if they accept external candidates and when/how to apply.

There is massive variety between centres, I’ve just submitted applications for my daughter to sit exams next summer (it’s October) at one local private school, while another doesn’t open for applications until December, so it’s best to be prepared and plan in advance.

Aside from money and an exam centre, what do you need?

A valid form of identification, normally a passport, along with a recent photograph of your child. One exam centre I’ve used wanted two forms of id – a passport and a birth certificate. Usually there’s an online form to fill in where you need to give the subject, exam board, course number, qualification being taken etc. And, if your child has taken exams previously they’ll have a Unique Learner Number (ULN) which will be asked for.

What about equipment?

You have to provide equipment, including calculators, and any (unmarked) books allowed for open book exams. Oh, and your child won’t be allowed to take their phone, watch, calculator case etc into the exams to prevent cheating.

When do your children take their exams?

I’ve always aimed for them to have finished their GCSEs/iGCSEs by the age of 16, so they can go to college and start Level 3 (either A’ Levels, Level 3 BTEC or TTEC) with their school-going peers.

I’ve found it really helps to stagger their exams, so they take one or two in each exam season, rather than all of them in one go. GCSE exams can be taken in May/June, although retakes can also be taken in November. Pearson iGCSEs can currently be taken in November or May/June. I’m not sure what other exam boards are offering beyond the summer exams for iGCSEs.

My children normally sit their GCSE and iGCSEs over two or three years, some in summer and some in Autumn. I’ve found they prefer taking a few subjects at a time.

How many GCSEs and iGCSEs did your children take?

When I started home-educating, the benchmark Ofsted used to assess schools was what percentage of children left the school with 5 GCSEs grades A-C, including English and Maths.

Based on that, I set myself the target of getting my children at least 5 GCSEs/iGCSEs, including English and Maths, and that they get at least a C in each. However, most of my children have taken more than 5 subjects at GCSE and they’ve got a range of grades, from 9 to 4.

What subjects did your children take?

A current target set by the government is that all children in school get at least a 4 in Maths and English, and if they don’t then they resit in college/sixth form until they do (if they never achieve this after many resits, there are other options in the form of numeracy and literacy qualifications).

For this reason, my children have done Maths iGCSE and English Language iGCSE – just so the box is ticked and they can move onto Level 3 smoothly. It’s important to note that iGCSE English Literature doesn’t ‘count’ as an equivalent to English GCSE, but iGCSE English Language does.

Due to a recent demand for Science by some local colleges, my children have also taken at least one iGCSE in a Science. Some did the three sciences separately, others did Double Science, and my daughter with dyslexia did Human Biology (I knew she’d find that interesting and she’d really struggle with Chemistry and Physics).

I’ve also sat down with each child to discuss what else they’d like to study. For example, one son really loved History, so that was a natural choice for him. It really is a matter of looking into it and deciding what your children will enjoy the most and do best in.

Great! My child loves PE…

Ah, subjects like PE are nigh on impossible to take as an external candidate.

Art?

Nope

Home Economics?

Nope

CDT, Textiles…

Hahahahaha. No.

What about Access Arrangements and Special Educational Needs?

A recently passed law dictates that exam centres can’t charge extra for providing Access Arrangements. This may sound lovely and inclusive, but it has meant that many exam centres, especially smaller private schools, won’t accept SEN candidates. I approached a large, well known exam centre months in advance to check they’d accept my severely dyslexic daughter as a candidate.

Having found an exam centre, I needed to explain her needs in depth, provided evidence (a formal diagnosis of dyslexia, her specialist tutor’s report and an Occupational Therapist’s report), and then she needed to be assessed by the exam centre, where an independent, external assessor watched her write, discussed her difficulties with her, and then agreed she needed a scribe.

I had to be persistent and had to do a lot of groundwork, but in the end it worked out well and she had a scribe, reader and extra time in exams. Without these, she would never have got GCSEs.

Katie Holden

Am I allowed to home-educate my children?

Home education is a valid, alternative form of education and an option for the majority of families in the UK. Most parents are entitled to home-educate if they choose. You don’t need to seek permission from anyone or gain their approval first – it is a legal right.

There are exceptions, such as where a child has a pre-existing School Attendance Order or if they are attending a specialist school due to special needs. In these instances, permission to home-educate does need to be sought from the Local Authority (LA).

So, can I just take my child out of school?

If your child is registered in a school, you need to notify the school that you are withdrawing your child to home-educate them – I’d recommend doing this via email so there is an electronic record of you doing so.

If your child has never been to school then you aren’t legally obliged (in England, 2023) to notify the LA that you are home-educating. However, this is a contentious issue and (I believe) the law will eventually be changed so that all home-educated children need to be registered.

I have never sent my children to school, but I did write to the LA when my son was five and explained I was home-educating. I was completely certain the neighbours we had at the time would complain, possibly to the police, when they realised my kids weren’t in school. I couldn’t have stayed hidden, so it felt prudent to contact the LA first.

Of the parents I’ve know who haven’t notified their LA, all have eventually been reported anonymously and the LA has contacted them for more information. However, I haven’t observed any negative consequences being imposed on parents who didn’t self-report; they were treated the same as everyone else on the register.

How are parents ‘on the register’ treated?

It helps to understand the law before answering this. Whilst it is the right of parents to home-educate, every LA has a legal duty to ensure children in the area are receiving an education that’s efficient and suitable for their ages and aptitudes. They must also safeguard children living in the area.

Generally, my interactions with our LA have been respectful and every year I’ve submitted a report of the educations we’re providing for our children, which has been accepted as sufficient proof of learning.

However, every LA does have teeth and by law they must take steps to ensure local children are safe, well and being educated. Where they aren’t satisfied with the evidence provided, they will ask for more. My LA can be very formal and lay out the law if they aren’t satisfied with the standard of education being provided by parents, which can feel intimidating and threatening.

What about home visits?

For a while my LA did try to visit our home by writing a letter informing me which day they were visiting, but as they don’t have a legal right to come inside our home, meet my children, or see their work, I always wrote back to say they couldn’t visit and I’d include a detailed written report with the letter.

Other people I know have agreed to home visits.

Why didn’t you agree to a home visit?

When I first contacted my LA in 2006, the home visit consisted of an Ofsted inspector observing the home education for a day, then writing an Ofsted style report on his observations, with additional advice and commentary for the parents to digest between their sobs of dismay.

At the time my eldest was only five years old, and there really wasn’t a great deal of formal learning to observe. He was learning through play and experience, we were going to meet with friends, going on trips and outings etc. I didn’t think a trained high-school teacher and Ofsted inspector would be especially impressed (or understanding) of the fact that my five year old didn’t know his letters and couldn’t write his name, but was excellent at splashing in puddles and knew an awful lot about dinosaurs.

I didn’t agree to a home visit as I didn’t feel it was appropriate to us.

Your LA sends out Ofsted inspectors?

They used to.

Then one dreadful year they assigned an educational social worker to every home-edder, without explaining what they were doing. The social worker called at homes unannounced, expecting to be allowed in to interview the children. We were camping when ours dropped by, so we came home to find a badly written note had been shoved through the letterbox. I wrote a formal complaint about the poor communication and received an apology.

Happily, times have changed and our LA now has an Elective Home Education Team which holds coffee mornings so we can get to know each other and meetings where we can exchange ideas. It’s relatively pleasant to deal with them compared to twenty years ago.

What do you put in your report?

Essentially, because I’m a belt and braces kind of girl, I write something that would stand up in a court of law. I’m not following the National Curriculum, the education we do is best described as semi-structured, so I include just about everything we’ve done over the year to prove my kids are healthy, having good childhoods, learning and being prepared for adulthood and independence.

I usually begin by outlining my philosophy and giving an overview of what model of education we’re following; to show there is method in the madness.

I outline all the things we’ve done as a family over the last year (trips out, holidays, activities, board games – anything we’ve done together which could be considered educational).

I also write a summary for each child, which includes classes, clubs, activities, lessons, responsibilities, tutors, pets, hobbies etc that are personal to them.

I outline each child’s academic progress over the last year, including any courses they’re doing, GCSEs they’re preparing for, books they’ve read, workbooks used etc. As some of my children have dyslexia, I detail what extra provisions are in place for them and explain their additional needs.

As everyone is aware, a major concern about home-educating families is that the children are being abused, neglected, or deprived of a ‘normal’ life outside the home. Taking this into account, I always mention the fact my children have seen loads of people (including health professionals) over the year – whether that’s the dentist, optician, orthodontist, friends, the congregation in juma’, clubs, classes etc. The point I make is that my children are active and engage with others outside the home, they aren’t hidden, unwell or unhappy.

Final thoughts on the LA?

I’d definitely encourage people to know their rights and be willing to assert themselves if necessary, but begin by aiming for a courteous relationship with the LA and being polite and businesslike.

Consider that the people you’re dealing with are probably nice and well-intentioned. In all likelihood they want to protect and help children, they are not evil robots who want to snatch your children away and lock them in cages.

There’s really no benefit in winding the LA up, being aggressive, ignoring them, yelling about your rights or insulting them. They might not wholeheartedly approve of your home-schooling on a personal level, but provided you can prove you are acting within the law and are fulfilling your children’s rights, they can’t legally stop you from home-educating.

Katie Holden

Home Ed. Reasons

Home Ed. Reasons

Home Edding and Money Matters

Home Edding and Money Matters

Home Ed and Socialising?

Home Ed and Socialising?

FAQ Styles of Home Edding

FAQ Styles of Home Edding

FAQ Exams

FAQ Exams

FAQ on Home Education UK Law

FAQ on Home Education UK Law

Subscribe to our mailing list