What is deschooling? For us, it meant giving our son room to breathe before working out what home ed would become. Leaving school is a big adjustment for children and parents. Deschooling gives families time to find a different rhythm, rediscover how their child learns and work out what home education might actually look like.
You’ve sent the deregistration letter. Your child is home. And...
September has a strange amount of power. The shops fill with uniform, lunchboxes and stationery. Social media fills with first-day photographs. Conversations turn to new teachers, new classrooms and the question every child seems to be asked in August: “Are you looking forward to going back?” And if your child isn’t going back, it can feel as...
How home education can help children start asking questions again
A recent article by Katy Purviance on Substack caught my attention because it puts words to something many families have felt for years: some children do not lose their curiosity because they grow out of it. Sometimes they learn that curiosity is inconvenient.
One line from the article stayed with me. Researcher Susan...
When the school term ends, home education can take its own shape
End of term is almost upon us. For many families, this time of year brings a noticeable shift. School routines are winding down. Clubs and regular groups may be pausing for the summer. Exams are coming to an end. The long stretch of July and August is starting to appear on the horizon. For home educating families, summer can...
Childism, adult power, home education, politics, and why children deserve respect before they become adults.
There is something deeply uncomfortable about the way society talks about children.
We say they are precious. We say they are the future. We say they matter more than anything. Then we complain when they exist too loudly in public. We tell them to sit still, be quiet, fit in,...
One of the loveliest things about home education is that learning does not need to look formal to be meaningful. Some of the richest learning begins quietly, with something small left within reach and a child free to notice it in their own time.
That is where strewing comes in.
Strewing is a gentle, low-pressure way of inviting curiosity....
Morning baskets have become a popular part of home education for many families, but they can look very different from one home to another. That is partly why they can be hard to define neatly.
At heart, a morning basket is simply an intentional way to begin the day together. It gives families a chance to gather, slow down, and share a few...
A calm summary of what is changing and when for home educators under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. March 2026 update.
There has been a lot of anxiety around the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and what it could mean for home educating families in England. That concern is understandable. These proposals matter. But it is also important to stay rooted in what is actually...
The Wonderful World of Ben: a warm and joyful picture book about learning beyond the classroom
Every now and then a book arrives that makes you pause and think, I wish this had existed when my children were small . This is one of those books. The Wonderful World of Ben is a rhyming children’s picture book about home education, written by Lorraine Blanche and illustrated by Tina Gedney....
What Keir Starmer said about " homeschooling " and why it matters
I am genuinely outraged.
Listening to recent comments from Keir Starmer's speech in Hastings left me stunned. To hear home education spoken about in the same breath as extremism. To hear it framed as something that needs “tougher regulation” because schools are supposedly essential for integration. It felt deeply...
