This morning I found myself reading an article about how there was an increasing rate of children who were ill prepared to start school. They cited children who couldn't say their names, were still drinking out of teated bottles, not toilet trained ... the list went on. The article, and the people in the comments section, went on a fierce and full force parent blaming attack. Whilst it may seem obvious to point the finger of blame at parents, it left me deeply uneasy. Life ex

The Schools Bill is now working its way through the House of Lords and then it will go to the House of Commons. Whilst the majority of this commentary will be concerning the home education impacts, there is also cause for real concern for all parents, whether their children are home educated or in school. The essence of the bill is more centralised control over our children and shifts us towards government as corporate parent. The bill would appear to wrest power from parents

Spawned off the back of reading School Without Tears, this blog post explores a different educational paradigm and its possible implications

Many moons ago now it seems, I attended an understanding autism course; autism 101 if you will. One of the main messages given on that course was that "all behaviour is a form of communication". They propounded that as parents of autistic children, one of our most important jobs was to be a "behaviour detective", to understand the root cause of the behaviour, in other words, decode the communication. SPOILER ALERT: what has become very apparent to me since then is that absol

Autonomy is considered one of three fundamental human psychological needs within Self Determination Theory, alongside competence and relatedness. Autonomy is a person's ability to act on his/her own values and interests; it equates to self governance and self legislation. Having autonomy leads to people being happier, more successful, have better social functioning, better mental health, developing a strong sense of personal responsibility and having an internal locus of con

This title kept coming up again and again as a "must read" if you are interested in education. So I bought the book and delved right in. I have to say, it's not a long book, but it's not the easiest most flowing book to read in places. But, it is very well worth persevering through. Written in 1971, it surprised me that it was as relevant (and if not more so) today as it was then. Illich offers a savage critique of industrial society with institutional compulsory schooling ge

There is a lot of talk at the moment about children's "outcomes". It doesn't take much digging to realise that authorities generally mean this to be defined as their exam results, their education qualification level or, as one report defined it, their "economic potential". Several questions mull around in my head regarding this: Do I agree with these outcomes? Do they mirror my values? Who has determined these particular outcomes, and their levels? Who gets to evaluate whethe

Well that's obvious isn't it? Or is it? It is in fact, a concept that I have been pondering and reading around for some time. The best way for me to illustrate my thoughts is through a series of statements. #1: In order to be classed as educated, you at least need to be able to write. But then I thought of people I personally know, and at an extreme example, even a famous scientist (Stephen Hawking sprang straight to my mind), who can't physically put pen to paper, but yet I/

This is a generalised open letter to all home education stakeholders. It is based on a letter written and sent to my local MP. I am writing to you regarding the recently published report from the Education Committee entitled “Strengthening Home Education”. Its recommendations have sent shockwaves of distress, incredulity, and anger through the local home educating community (of which I am heavily involved) and the national community. I am writing to ask you the following: 1.

Originally published as "Response to the Second Reading of Lord Soley’s Home Education Bill in the House of Lords – November 2017" via my previous blog site called MiniMan's Home Education Adventures. As the issue of home education registration is back on the immediate radar I thought I would republish this blog I wrote several years ago on the subject of registration which is as relevant today as when I wrote it. I have to be honest, I have written, deleted, rewritten and de

Independence. The apparent need for children to be as independent as possible from their caregivers, as early as possible, is littered throughout our western social norms, parenting advice and educational & child care establishments. It starts early with some "experts" advocating for very young babies to be independently self soothing to sleep. The internet is full of "age appropriate" lists of things that your child should be independently doing by a particular age. This is

How taking a moment to calm, be present and conscious when we are in a situation can foster connection and build relationships.

With Unschooling/life learning we learn as we live our lives. We do not grind skills or knowledge now, just in case they may be helpful, useful or relevant at some point in the future. Obviously, if some knowledge or skill is not useful now but is interesting to us now, we learn it now. I was forcibly reminded of this earlier this morning in MusicMan's football session. He was mastering a football activity and increasing speed each round. We got to a point of wondering how mu

We know that children learn far more powerfully from what they experience, than from what they are told. Being conscious, therefore, about how we are conducting our own learning is important when we Unschool. We are acting as powerful models for our children, whether they (or even we) are consciously aware of it or not. We want to be creating an environment our children see learning happening all the time. Where they can see us following our interests and passions and challen

It used to take us a very long time to leave the house. With two PDA children, getting everyone onboard, meeting all needs, getting all preparations done and everyone out, without precipitating overload, was a challenging, patience requiring, and time consuming task. Those days are, largely, in our past. However, I was reminded this week of those times, and it made me revisit my strategies from that period. Let me set the scene from this week. The weather has been glorious, w

Today, my youngest and I have been baking a chocolate cake. He had asked me late in the day yesterday, when my energies were waning fast. I explained that I really wanted to bake with him, but that I was really tired at that moment. We agreed to find a recipe, find the tins we needed and set a time to do the baking the following day. Even in this simple exchange I am mindful of the skills and behaviours being modelled, and therefore being learned and internalised. What were t

This morning my youngest was playing a video game. He had a particularly challenging task to complete and as each attempt and strategy failed, he grew increasingly frustrated, angry and negative about his performance. After a while he quit, turned away from the research he'd been doing into it, wanted to be left alone and withdrew to watching familiar videos. From the outside he looked like he was "doing nothing", was "passive" and "wasting time". The "old me" would have been

I am not a unit of product I am not something to which you “add value” I am not something to be quality assured I am a child. I am not the sum of my data set My worth cannot be condensed into one number I cannot be reduced to an arbitrary grade I am a child. I am not a blank slate, ready to be written on I am not an empty vessel, to be filled I am not clay, waiting to be moulded I am a child. I have a body, you cannot control it I have a mind, you should not hijack it I have

My youngest just came to me asking if he could have some fresh mango. I said I'd need to check whether our mango was ripe. He came over and asked what I was doing, so I explained. I showed him the mango, he felt it, we did the same for the pear and kiwi, we talked about how we could tell a whether the bananas were ripe and then ... that was it ... his curiosity was filled. He went off to continue playing whilst I sliced and diced the ripe mango. There was a moment when I cons

One of the many wonderful things about life learning has been to be able to step away from the notions of my children being "ahead" or "behind". It has been truly liberating and has allowed my children to thrive at the pace, and in the way, that's exactly right for them. Having some space from the school paradigm and relentless school curriculum pace has allowed me to take a fresh look at the idea of being "ahead" or "behind". It became clear to me that the concept only reall