It’s estimated that one per cent of school-aged children are being home educated, but what is it all about? As new research from Durham University seems to show that home-educated children demonstrate high levels of attainment and social skills, Lisa Salmon investigates.

FOR most children, school is where you learn and home is where you live. But for up to 80,000 UK children, home is where they both live and learn, often with great success.

They’re home-educated children, who’ve either been removed from school by their parents, or who never went to school in the first place.

Never going to school is perfectly legal, as schooling isn’t compulsory – ensuring your child gets an “efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude” is.

While it’s clear that a substantial number of parents do choose to educate their children at home, it’s impossible to say exactly how many children are educated in this way, as registration isn’t compulsory.

The Government estimates that around 20,000 children are registered with local authorities as receiving home tuition, but that figure is thought to be the tip of the home schooling iceberg.

The real number could be anything from 50,000 to 80,000 children – the home education community thinks the figure is between threequarters and one per cent of schoolaged children.

The lack of compulsory registration means it’s hard to say whether home schooling is becoming increasingly popular, although many media reports suggest it is.

The local authority has no duty to check on home-educated children, other than when it has reason to believe the child isn’t getting a suitable education.

A Department for Education spokesperson says: “The Government respects the right of parents to educate their children at home. They recognise that most home-educating parents do a very good job, some of them picking up the pieces where children have had problems at school.

“Ministers are still considering in detail the policy for home education and whether any changes need to be made to the existing arrangements.”

There are a variety of reasons why parents choose to home school: they may be unhappy with the education offered in schools, their child may have been bullied, or it could even be because their child hasn’t got a place at a good local school.

Whatever the reason, opting out of formal education is a huge step, and many parents worry about how to give children a decent education themselves, whether they’ll be able to sit exams, and whether their children will learn the necessary social skills.

They’re understandable fears – but while there are possible negatives, there are also potential benefits to home schooling.

CERTAINLY, research from Durham University found that home-educated children demonstrated high levels of attainment and social skills, with researchers noting that a positive and secure environment, individual attention, the absence of peer pressure and the opportunity to learn through talk all contributed to positive outcomes.

Research has also found that parents who choose to home educate their children will often begin with a fairly structured education, possibly because that’s what both the child and parent are used to, and eventually relax into a more flexible routine.

Parents often choose for the education to be tailored towards what the children are interested in learning, as opposed to a set academic curriculum.

Shena Deuchars, treasurer of the home education support organisation Education Otherwise, educated her two children at home. “The child is learning what they feel they need to learn. They learn life skills, and they have time to learn what interests them,” says Shena.

She adds that because her children, Katherine and James, were never registered at school, they had no formal structure to their days.

Initially, they went to a toddler group one day a week, and as they got older they attended music lessons or gymnastics clubs, etc, which gave structure to the week.

She explains that the children learnt their maths in a practical way, by working out prices and weights in supermarkets and everyday tasks like that. “Otherwise we just did the things we were interested in doing, like growing vegetables, making an outfit for Pocahontas, or whatever.

We tended to learn in a more holistic and topic-based way.”

Neither Katherine nor James did GCSEs or A-levels, choosing instead to do formal studies with the Open University.

Deuchars points out that if a home-educated child wants to study for a GCSE because they want a job that requires it, for example, they will normally be motivated enough to do it themselves.

Katherine went on a six-month exchange to Germany when she was 14, and started an Open University German course when she returned.

She is now 18 and reading European Law at Exeter University, getting in through the points she gained from her Open University studies.

James, 16, is studying with the Open University.

As for the often-cited problem that home-educated children may lack social skills, Deuchars says: “What we tend to find is that home-educated children are more socialised than schoolchildren, because they’re not used to sitting in a group of 30 people all the same age as them, but are used to mixing with people of all different ages.”

This, she says, is because of the diverse activities they take part in during what would normally be a school day, be that visiting museums or attending sporting events, music groups and so on.

“Most people home educate because they care about their child and want to see them get on,” she says.

“Mostly we don’t teach – our job is to facilitate. It’s not as difficult as you think it might be.”

* For more information about home education, call Education Otherwise on 0845-478-6345, or visit education-otherwise.org