BACKGROUND INFORMATION

As many of the sites described below will tell you, education is compulsory in the United Kingdom but school is not. Many parents are now choosing to educate their children at home rather than send them to school. For some this may be due to problems at school but for many others it is a voluntary decision to take direct responsibility for their child’s education.

There are no real statistics regarding either the numbers of home-educated children, or their success rate in exams compared with the national league tables. The Department for Education and Skills funded a feasibility study in 1999 to determine whether it would be possible to obtain this information and concluded that it would not be. Estimates of the numbers of home-educated children in England and Wales range from 12,000 to 84,000.

Most of the dedicated sites on the Internet are in favour of home education and you may or may not feel you get a balanced view of the pros and cons of educating your child outside the mainstream. However, the information they do provide is extensive, and will give you much practical guidance as well as a sense of the strong support network available to all parents and carers who home school.

GENERAL ADVICE

The following sites explain the procedures for taking your child out of school and offer plenty of helpful advice once you are a home educator.

The Home Education Advisory Service (HEAS) is a charity that offers a subscription service to home educators, providing information on educational resources, examinations and qualifications, Special Educational Needs, and legal matters. Members receive a quarterly bulletin and a registration card, which enables you to get reduced rates to museums and similar attractions. HEAS also publishes leaflets you can purchase online.

Established in 1977, Education Otherwise is a self-help membership organisation comprising over 3000 families, groups and individual members. The charity offers support, advice and information to families either looking into or practising home education, and benefits from a network of over 70 voluntary local contacts throughout England and Wales.

The site is rich with information and provides a good grounding in the subject. It provides useful advice on home education for your child from the early education through to the GCSE years, and also explains the option of flexi-schooling. See the leaflets and other publications you can order from the site.

The Department of Education and Skills (DfES) sets out the conditions parents have to fulfil in order to educate children at home. It provides a good summary about the rights the LEA does and does not have over your child’s education and outlines your own obligations.

Schoolhouse Education Association provides information about home education in Scotland. A recognised Scottish charity, it offers support and information for parents in Scotland who are contemplating home schooling or are already practising it, and campaigns for the right of families to educate their children at home. It is an invaluable guide to any parent considering home education in Scotland and would be of interest to parents who are home educating in other places too.

LEGAL GUIDELINES

Most home education sites contain a section on the relevant laws, including the Education Act 1996.

Educate Otherwise has a good section which summarizes the laws regulating home schooling in England and Wales and Scotland.

Education Online (more on this site later, under ‘Resources’) highlights problems you may run into with your Local Education Authority should you decide to home educate. Their article, ‘Why Should Families Fear a Visit from the LEA?’, covers some of the confusing issues surrounding the law and the right to home education.

For background on home education under Scottish law, visit the relevant pages on the Schoolhouse site. The Scottish Executive released its ‘Guidance on the Circumstances in Which Parents May Choose to Educate Their Children at Home’ in 2001 and has been subject to revision. Read the guidance and see the responses to it from Schoolhouse and Education Otherwise.

SUPPORT GROUPS

There are several groups that offer support and advice for parents who decide to educate their children at home. The general organisations discussed above provide networks for families who are home schooling and are a good place to start:

Home Education Advisory Service
PO Box 98
Welwyn Garden City
Herts AL8 6AN
Telephone:
Fax:
E-mail: admin

HEAS members have access to an advice line for curriculum guidance and a specialist Dyslexia Helpline.

Education Otherwise
PO Box 7420
London N9 9SG
Helpline:
E-mail: enquiries

Education Otherwise has a network of volunteers who are willing to give practical, first-hand help and support to other members; the charity also operates an helpline for initial contact in obtaining urgent help in the UK on .

Schoolhouse Home Education Association
311 Perth road
Dundee DD2 1LG
Telephone:
Fax:
E-mail: info

Schoolhouse has a 24-hour information line on .

Home Education Special UK is a site put together by home educators of children with unmet needs. It features background information, articles and regular newsletters.

Choice in Education is an independent monthly magazine for home educators.

According to its organisers, the Home Educators Seaside Festival (HESFES) is the largest gathering of home educators in the world.

FAMILY SITES

Many sites have been set up by families already educating their children at home and wishing to share their experience and lend advice. These offer a lot of valuable advice and insights into home educating which are very informative, not least because most of the insight has come through first hand experience. While we don’t advocate any particular family site here, we recommend having a turn through a web ring to familiarise yourself with the kind of personal resources available on the Internet.

WEB RINGS

Essentially a web ring is a series of links on a given topics connected with one another, forming a ring. If you follow a ring it will eventually take you to all sites that belong to it.

If you would like to add your family website to a web ring so that other families will see your site it is worth signing up to a home education web ring.

Official Home Education UK Web ring – this list has all the sites within this web ring.

SOCIAL ASPECTS

Many parents are concerned about the social implications of home education. Will removing your child from friends at school limit your child’s developing social skills and leave your child feeling lonely?

Schoolhouse offers a Teen Peer Support Network for teenagers who want to be in touch with peers who are home-educated as well.

The social aspects surrounding home education are covered here with information about the impact it can have on toddlers through to older children. There are also links to further articles covering social issues.

DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES

There are different ways to home educate your children, which may be one of the best things about home education. As with independent sector education, you are not required to follow the National Curriculum strictly, although you do have certain educational obligations to fulfil. This family site looks at various approaches families take to home schooling.

HOME EDUCATION ABROAD

You can home educate your children anywhere. Specific advice for parents home educating their child in another country or for those parents always on the move can be found through the links below:

Educating abroad is covered at this family site, which gives practical advice and links for any parent considering this as an option for their child’s education.

The Travellers’ School Charity offers support to home educating travellers.

RESOURCES

Educate Online was set up to address the dearth of educational software geared to education in the UK. The site has since grown and has many pages devoted to home education, covering online and offline resources including books, CD-ROMs and software.

Schoolhouse has a section on resources for home-educating families.

The Parents Information Network (PIN) evaluates educational software and hardware for children and has the support of the DfES.

There are many other educational resources to be found online, less specifically geared towards home schooling. Several of the better ones are listed within our Homework and Out of School sections.