Christmas with home education feels different. In the best way.
One of the things I love most about home ed at this time of year is the pace. We can slow right down. We can stay home when the weather is wild. We can choose quiet mornings with fairy lights, biscuits, and a box of decorations tipped across the table. There’s no rush to get out of the house. No last minute costume dramas. No...
Why community is the quiet revolution in home education
“The most revolutionary thing one can do is to introduce people to one another.” — Howard Zinn
Home education is often seen as an act of quiet rebellion — a decision to step away from systems that no longer serve our children, and to build something smaller, slower, more human. But if Oscar Wilde reminds us that disobedience can...
Creating learning that fits your child, not the system
People sometimes assume home education is about escape, or ‘running away from the system’. As though we turned away from school out of fear, avoidance, or rebellion. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Home education is not an act of retreat. It is an act of creation — a deliberate choice to build something new,...
Home educated children are not “ invisible ”: why being out of school is not being at risk.
In recent years, a troubling phrase has crept into media headlines and government discussions about elective home education: “invisible children”. It’s used to describe children who are not in school, as though being outside the school system means they are unseen, unknown, or at risk. The implication...
A photo has been widely shared on Facebook recently. It suggests that ADHD is not simply a disorder, but a different kind of wiring. The sort of wiring that may once have helped humans survive in fast-moving, uncertain environments.
It is the kind of idea that catches people’s attention because, for many families, it feels true. Many of us know children who are constantly noticing...
When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower – Alexander Den Heijer
So often, families come to home education after watching their child struggle to thrive in school. They’re told their child is behind, too distracted, too sensitive, too slow, too much. But what if the problem isn’t the child?
Oscar Wilde wrote: “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
It is a powerful line. And for many home educating families, it lands somewhere deep. Because many of us come to home ed through a quiet act of disobedience. Not the loud, reckless kind. Not...
Learning doesn’t follow a straight line What I used to think learning should look like: Workbooks. Steady progress. Timetabled ‘learning’. Educational apps. A clear beginning, middle, and end. What does it actually look like? Messy bursts of curiosity. Half-finished projects. Sudden leaps after long lulls. Ideas that spark, fade, and sometimes return months later - or not at all.
When I first began working with home-educating families, I was struck by how many parents described the decision as both daunting and deeply necessary. For those raising neurodiverse children, the choice often stems from a desire to prioritise wellbeing—after witnessing their child struggle with anxiety, overwhelm, or a lack of understanding in school settings.
