Cheryl Moy

Hi, I’m Cheryl. I’m a co-founder of Educational Freedom, in 2013 I had the idea to create a site that provided everything a home educator could need to know, all in one place. With the help of Liz and others, Educational Freedom was born. In 2019 I came to the end of my own home educational journey with my 3 children at university, working or in school, though in 2021 dabbled my toes back in with the youngest being flexischooled.

Here’s our story:

I Home Educated my 3 kids for just over 10 years, I’m a single mum with a self employed seamstress business, oh and I’m disabled too. I had no idea Home Education was even an option, and the day I met a lady with her ‘school’ age children and asked, “Why aren’t your kids in school today?” was the day our lives were turned around.

Since I deregistered we have faced an EWO that was determined to con me in to thinking that there was a new law: a law that gave them right of entry into my home, and also this ‘law’ gave them the right to demand information on how I educate my children. I was subjected to an abusive phone call from another EWO too, one which ended in me having to threaten with police action. All this was within a week or two of them finishing school.

Then an EHE visit. The visit, whilst it wasn’t awful, certainly didn’t support our choice and freedom to choose how to educate our children. To make future visits easier, she told me to name and date all the children’s work, and file it in subject and date order, so she could mark it too! I hasten to add that it didn’t take me long to realise how wrong these people were, how ultra vires their behaviour was, and I decided no one would be coming into my home again to tell me how to uphold my legal duty to educate my own children.

I was then subject to a malicious allegation to social services, an allegation that included Home Educating! The Social Worker thought Home Education was illegal, I wasn’t armed with enough legal know-how to explain. So I did lots of research and talking to other people, and I learnt enough to eventually have the case closed with no concerns.
I listened to those that had been around longer than me, read the template letters they would write, and I was able to start to offer to help families that were going through similar to me.

It was soon obvious that Home Educators needed more than just Facebook groups or pay to access organisations, so Educational Freedom was born.

Now, with my eldest in university studying particle physics, my middle son working as a qualified car mechanic and my youngest having given school a try but now back home, it’s a very busy life. But I have a fabulous team helping run our website, emails, Facebook page and groups.

I want to thank every single one of you for your support to help make Educational Freedom the success it is today, as of writing this (November 2021) the site has had over 4m views, the team have done, and continue to do, an amazing job. Thank you.

Kind Regards Cheryl Moy

Liz Jenkins

I’m Liz, and I home educate my two children who have never been to school.  Though I was good at school and excelled, school did not offer the freedom to cater for my interests or abilities.

After stopping work to become a stay-at-home mum, I read about HE on a parenting forum and decided to look deeper into it.  Home Education is the perfect way to tailor education to the individual’s needs.

I got involved in the website because I can see the real need for it, especially as I am one of the parents who did not want to pay to become a member of an organisation!  There is a need to dispel the multiple myths about home education, and to make every parent aware that it is a legal option if they do want to choose it.

Not only that, I think there are three dangerous lies about education that seem to be automatically accepted as correct:

1. Learning only happens in school

2. Learning stops at age 18

3. Learning is difficult

All three of these are WRONG and need to be challenged at every turn.  School is the best place for some students, and some students do great at school – I was one of them!

 However, that alone is not enough for school to be accepted as the only place for children to learn after the age of 5.