Home-Education: Aims, Practices and Outcomes
Paula Rothermel
University of Durham, 2002
Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England, 12-14 September 2002
Abstract
This research explores the aims and practices of home-educating families from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The methodology involves a questionnaire survey completed by 419 home-educating families and 196 assessments evaluating the psychosocial and academic development of home-educated children aged eleven years and under. The aim was to gain an understanding of children's education outside school. This is the first UK study involving home-educated children and their families, using diverse methodologies, broad aims and large sample.
The results show that 64% of the home-educated Reception aged children scored over 75% on their PIPS Baseline Assessments as opposed to 5.1% of children nationally. The National Literacy Project assessment results reveal that 80.4% of the home-educated children scored within the top 16% band (of a normal distribution bell curve), whilst 77.4% of the PIPS Year 2 home-educated cohort scored similarly. Results from the psychosocial instruments confirm the home-educated children were socially adept and without behavioural problems.
The home-educated children demonstrated high levels of attainment and good social skills. Common to all families involved was their flexible approach to education and the high level of parental attention received by the children. Children benefited from the freedom to develop their skills at their own speed. Home-educating parents fulfilled two separate 'professional' roles - as parents and educators. Further, in the light of these results, the concept of 'taking responsibility' and home-educating, rather than accepting state provision challenges us to consider how far we should go in accepting the 'informed wisdom' of the school norm.
Introduction
Legality of Home-education
It is legal in the United Kingdom for a child to be home-educated.
Section 7 ofThe Education Act 1996 (England and Wales) reads as follows:
The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable:
(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and
(b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.
Section 7 ofThe Education Act 1996 (England and Wales)
Whilst the school option involves formal assessment and inspection, the 'otherwise' alternative involves neither in any legislative form.
'LEAs, however, have no automatic right of access to the parent’s home. Parents may refuse a meeting in the home, if they can offer an alternative way of demonstrating that they are providing a suitable education, for example, through showing examples of work and agreeing to a meeting at another venue.'
DfEE (1998a, point 4)
It is not within the remit of LEAs to 'authorise' home-education. The choice lies very firmly with the parents.
To home-educate children in the UK, one does not need a teaching qualification nor any specialist equipment and whilst some families follow a routine for learning, others do not. There are families known to their LEA as home-educators and there are others that are not (Muckle 1997). Currently, families home-educating children in England and Wales who have never been to school, are under no obligation to inform anyone. The law states that the name of a child at school and who is of compulsory school age is to be removed from the school register, if:
'he has ceased to attend the school and the proprietor has received written notification from the parent that the pupil is receiving education otherwise than at school.'
Regulation 9 (1) (c) Education (Pupil Registration) Regulations 1995
(England and Wales)
Thus, to deregister a child the parent needs only to inform the proprietor or headteacher that they are withdrawing their child from school for education otherwise than at school. The school then has a legal obligation, according to Regulation 13 (3) of the Education (Pupil Registration) Regulations 1995, to inform the local authority of any child that is withdrawing and provide the reason, insofar as they are aware of it.
In Scotland the law in respect of withdrawal differs: under section 35(1) of The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 the education authority must:
[…] have consented to the withdrawal of the child from the school (which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld) […]
The Education (Scotland) Act 1980, s. 35(1)
Definitions of Home-education
There is no simple definition of home-education. Some LEAs might, for example, define home-educating families only as those known to, and approved by, the LEA: many families however, are, quite legally, not known to their LEA (Muckle 1997).
Asking someone to define home-education is very difficult. It is not an education that happens at home because so much of it happens outside the home. All that can really be said of it in this respect is that it is an education that does not take place wholly within a school (although many children go into schools for after-school classes) and that is not subject to the regulations, aged-based learning goals and testing regimes that schools involve.
Perhaps it is most appropriately described by a combination of two definitions:
'Home education can be defined as the full-time education of children in and around the home by their parents or guardians or by tutors appointed by the parents or guardians'
Petrie, Windrass, and Thomas (1999, p. 6)
and
'[home-education is] where the parents are committed to their [children's] education and home-educating'
(Petrie 1999)
Decisions concerning how and where children are educated and of what that education should consist lie ultimately with parents, as detailed in Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1952), adopted through the Human Rights Act 1998 into UK law, 2nd October 2000.
'No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.'
Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1952)
There are home-educators who neither 'school' nor 'teach' their children, preferring to leave the children free to follow their own inclinations, whether or not that involves any formal learning and whether or not such incidental learning would be determined as 'educational' by schools and LEA inspectors. The right of children to learn autonomously (self-directed learning) was established through the case of Harrison & Harrison v. Stevenson heard at Worcester Crown Court (1981). The judge held that the Harrisons unstructured form of education was satisfactory, holding that a 'suitable education' was one which 'prepares children for life in a modern, civilised society' and an 'efficient education' was one which 'achieves what it set out to achieve'.
Education is compulsory, school is not. The anomaly is that the government, places compulsion upon learning, which is a human instinct.
Prevalence of Home Education
We do not know how many home-educated children there are in the UK because there is no requirement that they be counted. Current estimations tend to be between 25,000 families Freely (20,000) and 150,000 children (Hill 2000).
Previous UK Research
There has been little previous research into home-educators in the UK. Previous studies have been small and have involved questionnaires (Patterson 1995; Brunton 1996; Muckle 1997), or and, interviews (Blacker 1981; Webb 1990, 1999; Petrie 1992; Lowden 1993; Page 1997; Thomas 1998).
Webb (1990) focused on home-educated children above 14 years of age, conducting twenty interviews with twenty families. She found that the two main reasons for home-educating amongst her sample were an interest in alternative education and school based problems; a number of home-educated children in her study had suffered psychologically from previous attendance at several schools, sometimes being labelled as ‘maladjusted’. Meighan (1995) supported Webb in this observation. Yet other children, those who had spent part or all of their education outside school, felt they were victims of ostracism by their schooled peers. Many of the parents in Webb’s study would have preferred an alternative school such as Steiner, had such a school been accessible to them. Some parents saw home-educating as a compensation for their not being able to pay for private school education. Webb discovered, that eleven of her twenty families had at least one parent who was a teacher: she held that amongst the home-educators generally there would be even more. Webb conjectured that children learning at home experienced true involvement in directing their learning and concluded that more people would home-educate if they knew this to be a legitimate option.
Webb (1999) involved follow-up interviews with twenty adults previously interviewed as children in Webb (1990), with the aim of establishing how such children had developed. None of the young adults was unemployed, three having graduated from Oxford University. Only about 30% of the sample contemplated home-education for their own children; a finding that contrasts with that of Knowles (1991) who found that the 10 adults he interviewed (all themselves homeschooled as children), who had become parents (n=7) had all chosen to homeschool their own children. The grandchildren of one participant were currently being homeschooled, creating a third generation of homeschoolers. Webb, however, explained that many of her sample believed that their parents had made 'sacrifices' that they in turn, would not wish to make. The sample were positive about their home-education, believing themselves to have benefited from the experience. Socially, Webb found, as did Knowles (1991), that the home-educated were at ease with a broad cross-section of the community; she described their social skills as 'often very exceptional', finding too, that the home-grown home-educated sample were independent thinkers.
Page (1997) interviewed twenty Christian families, the majority Catholics, exploring mothers' and fathers' reactions to home-education and the effect on the children of the individual attention received. He perceived the children to be academically competent and found the families to be close, with far more involvement from fathers than might ordinarily be the case had the children been at school.
Thomas (1998) described an investigation of children’s informal learning processes. The research used home-education as a vehicle upon which to base theories of children’s informal learning that could not be so well tested with schoolchildren. Thomas challenged the view that school age children need to be taught in order to learn. One hundred interviews with home-educating parents in Australia and the UK were conducted with parents describing how they taught their children and how the children learned. Thomas found that over time, most home-educating families adopted less formal learning patterns than those originally initiated. He attributed this change to a manoeuvre by the children, possibly without conscious intent, to orchestrate a learning programme to suit their needs: just as the parents of young babies respond to signals from their infant, home-educating parents were seen to take cues from their children beyond school age and in more advanced learning situations, avoiding the necessity for formal teaching. Thomas hypothesised that on entering school, children lost the art of informal learning, at least to the degree experienced by children who had not been at school. The type of learning that occurred naturally was very different from that of school; the children at home were able to freely follow streams of thought that linked in with everyday life and although this learning style was slow and not always apparent, links were gradually made that showed themselves at a later date. Thomas observed that even in formal home learning, topics of interest were allowed to surface and be discussed that did not necessarily relate to the lesson being addressed at that time. In this way children developed a motivation for independent learning. Thomas did not deny that schoolchildren also learn in this way, but that children might not need to undergo the style of learning normally associated with schools. Thomas concluded that intellectual development, particularly during early years, might happen naturally and incidentally without formal learning and moreover, if such an education was not better than school learning, it was at least equal to it.
Thomas' findings appeared to expound the scaffolding and social constructivist theories of Bruner and Vygotsky. Thomas believed that the natural learning he observed was not happening in isolation but was the result of interactions, some level of intervention being necessary, at least to facilitate the learning that enabled developmental unfolding and maturation (Thomas 1998 pp 71, 129).
Present Study
The above studies have provided useful insights into home-education in the UK. However, they have not explored the families involved either on a nation-wide basis or through a broader perspective. Further, participant numbers involved have been small. The current research seeks to redress this position by using data derived from questionnaires, field-notes, academic tests and psychosocial assessments.
Methodology
The research took the form of access to the home-educators, a questionnaire survey distributed to them, educational and psychological assessments of home-educated children and interviews with home-educating families. Questionnaires were analysed from 419 respondents (1,099 children) and 238 assessments were conducted. Whilst 100 families were interviewed, the results are not included in this research: analysis of interview data is taking place as part of a follow-up addendum report. However, field-notes from these interviews are referred to because of the qualitative background data that they add to the assessment programme.
Below is an overview of the methodology.
Survey Data:
Educational Data:
Psychological Data:
And part of the overall research design but not included in this thesis: Interview Data: N=100 home-educating families.
This research used a multimethod approach that facilitated the quality and quantity of data necessary in order to gain a comprehensive portrayal of home-education in the UK. It enabled conclusions to be drawn through reference to a multiplicity of sources, methods and theories (Denzin 1989). It was also anticipated that by using different methods, interpretability would be enhanced whilst threats to validity were kept to a minimum (Robson 1993).
As a result of reading several newspaper and magazine articles published during 1996 (Henson 1996; Midgley 1996), evidence of a British home-education movement became increasingly apparent. Reports referred to a national network of home-educators and suggested that the incidence of home-educating families had grown over recent years. A further literature search revealed that Meighan (1995) had presented a case arguing the effectiveness of home-education, while Knox (1988) had raised awareness of school phobia and Holt (1981) reflected a growing apprehension towards the school system. Petrie (1992) and Lowden (1993) documented the tension that existed between home-educators and their Local Education Authorities (LEAs). Almost a year of preliminary investigation prior to ‘official’ instigation of the present study showed that despite the work of the above mentioned writers, the available research was minimal, particularly in the UK where so little was actually known about home-educators. Access to home-educators was thus made gradually over a two year period, through:
- Conversations with home-educating families.
- Observations (participant) of home-educators at local and national meetings, and at organised activities
- Interviews with LEAs
Networking in this way, home-educators became increasingly accessible. Access was nevertheless, a very long process that engendered many hours of research and time spent in establishing trust.
Results
Questionnaires
The pattern of home-education, the motivation and the expectation
From the sample about 50% of the home-educated had been home-educated from birth and about 50% had been withdrawn from school. A common pattern was that once a child was withdrawn, subsequent children, either pre-school aged or not yet born would be home-educated from the outset.
About half the currently home-educating families did so because of their poor experience with schools whilst for the other half the decision was connected with family lifestyle.
However, whilst dissatisfaction with school may have been a true motivation for many, this was partnered with a growing sense of choice to the extent that home-education, once initiated, became a lifestyle choice; initial motivations were sidelined as families found other benefits of home-education.
About half the home-educators found home-education not as they expected. It was either more fun, more demanding or both. Nevertheless, few parents made negative comments about home-educating.
National Curriculum
Parents, whether becoming more or less formal over time, adapted to their children's needs. Confident parents tended to shun the national curriculum whilst those who were less confident either followed, or were at least mindful of it.
'Homework'
The most 'formal' work any families undertook lasted no more than 2-3 hours a day. Families did not consider Maths and Science to be problems and once need outstripped family knowledge, children tended to join further education colleges or other formal lessons, ie. online courses. Over half the families said that they made use of 'learning support' in the form of clubs and classes such as football, trampolining, dance, music etc.
Assessment
Almost half of the respondents (48%) did not assess their children and a further third that did (28%), used only informal assessment such as discussion and observation.