Home education resources for parent-teachers

Go to Sophie and Max for an absorbing diary of highlights and pitfalls of home educating.

What you discover when you click through these personal pages is that there is no right or wrong way to educate your children at home. Most of the families allow a child-centred method of learning, which means the children dictate the pace and level of what they learn. This can be liberating for the children and democratic for the parents.

Critics tend to point at home-educated children and say they lack socialisation. But the criticism is misguided. Generally, home-educated children get a much broader degree of social experience than their classroom-based peers.

Evidence shows they interact with a wider range of children and adults, and have a greater gift for being imaginative. They do tend to be less ‘conforming’ according to the social rules of a school, but by the time most home-educated children reach school, usually at A-level stage, they have already conformed to the wider norms of society.