Why are so many teachers turning to home education?
This week is home education awareness week, across websites and social media you will be reading lots of stories about home education. Many will be using the hashtags: #homeeducation #notinvisible and #EducationalFreedom
During the 2025 home education awareness week we are all hyper aware of the government plans for a home education register, restrictions on deregistration, changes to allow the LA to decide what is in the best interests of the child, unattainable details and much more. The week was kick-started by the online protest which was fantastic, lots of home education voices sharing the positives of home education and how the bill will negatively affect that. The week will close with in person rallies around the country. We invite you to use this week to share your story of home education. You can find images you’re welcome to save and share HERE
Today we are going to look into why teachers are turning to home education.
Charlie tells us: I qualified as a primary teacher in 2012 and thought that would be my career for life. I worked in a mainstream primary school, and then later a school for children with social, emotional, and mental health needs. I loved working with children; especially those children that needed a bit of extra emotional support. I had a real knack for building relationships with children who other teachers had struggled with; I believed strongly in nurturing the child as a whole, in showing them respect, building mutual trust, and in the value of professional love. Even back then, that approach felt very against the grain of the educational system.
Charlie has many issues with the current education system as it stands, including;
The pressure put on children to perform in tests, and the way that teaching was geared towards the tests. I witnessed sobbing and panic attacks during SATs.
The pressure to learn and to perform perfectly and in the same way at all times takes away a love of learning for a great majority of children and labels them as ‘behind’.
The focus on such high levels of attendance; people of all ages should be encouraged to rest when unwell (physically and mentally).
When my daughter was born nearly 6 years ago, the time away to reflect helped me realise I was no longer prepared to re-enter the education system as a teacher. In addition, my daughter struggled with high levels of anxiety from a young age (we now suspect she is autistic). I was keen to home educate but my husband was less convinced, so we found a school that promised to be nurturing and supportive of her needs around settling in, and gave it a go. 6 weeks, and a lot of trauma for both her and I. We took her out of school and began our home education journey. To add to my list of issues with the school system above, I now also cannot understand the normalisation of parents having sobbing children taken forcibly from them by a teacher every morning because ‘they will be OK in a bit’. I am my daughter’s support when she struggles with anxiety (in the same way a partially sighted child relies on glasses for instance), and the distress it caused her to go in without me was quite simply traumatic. I cannot fathom why we would want to base an education on inflicting such distress onto young children. You could literally see the weight lift off her shoulders when we told her she didn’t have to go back to school. Educationally she did well in home education from day 1, emotionally she took about 9 months to recover but is now thriving. We have been home educating for just over a year now, and it is the best decision I have ever made.
For us, home education is nothing like school. We follow no set timetable, learning happens everywhere based on what she is interested in. Just a handful of the learning experiences she’s had in the last year that she wouldn’t have had if she were in school, include;
Setting up and running her own sourdough pop-up shop (she learnt to make sourdough, made and delivered flyers to advertise, baked the bread, ran the shop, and calculated her profits).
Learning and recording a song from a musical.
A deep dive into Henry VIII and his wives based on the musical Six, including visits to the theatre, the Tower of London, and Hampton Court Palace.
Cooking family dinners, including researching recipes and writing menus.
A project on the Olympics, including trying out as many Olympic sports as possible.
As much unlimited play as possible! The benefits of learning through play are widely researched and documented.
She does spend 2 days a week at forest school where, because we were allowed to transition her in at our pace with their full support, with her knowing she could leave or call me whenever she needed to, she is now absolutely thriving.
We follow a very child led approach to home education, so she will sit only the GCSEs or qualifications that are necessary and relevant to her future. I have absolutely no desire to send her back to school however, in the interest of being child led, if she was desperate to try again (with full understanding of the reality of what that would look like) I wouldn’t stop her; exactly the same really as how we listened to her when she didn’t want to be in school. However, without vast changes to the education system, I cannot imagine that school would ever be the right fit for her or us.
I use very little of my teaching qualification in my home education; the main way in which it benefits me is that I get less judgement from other people about my decision once they think I am ‘trained’! I don’t see myself as her teacher, but as learning alongside her. She asks the most incredibly interesting questions, and we find out the answers together! I work hard to go against many of my teaching instincts and temptation to compare to what I know her schooled peers would be doing, because I believe we can be doing so much better than churning out children who all know the same information (to greater or lesser extent), but who no longer love to learn, or are capable of doing so without direct instruction from a teacher. I want my children to be passionate, independent learners, who have developed all the skills they need for whatever it is that they want to do.
Nicola was a primary school teacher as she had generally had a good experience of primary school in the 1980smyself and enjoyed a relaxed learning environment at a time when there was no assessment in the primary curriculum. Obviously this was because this was pre the National Curriculum (pre-1989).
Nicola explains: I was unprepared for starting my own teaching career in 2005 basing it on this model! Clearly things were very different by then. I mostly enjoyed the actual teaching. I enjoyed spending my days with children. I enjoyed having some ownership over my work and my own classroom and watching children have a ‘light bulb’ moment. I enjoyed the creativity that I was allowed to bring to the role (especially pre-2014 when Gove rewrote the curriculum and took out so much creativity), at that time creativity was encouraged and it meant I could create an engaging environment for the children.
The things I’d change about the current education system are probably too numerous to list but as a starting point:
Primary school-
Start children in formal education later like they do in nearly all of the rest of Europe.
I’d remove all assessment requirements including SATs.
Make the curriculum far less prescriptive.
Take out the ridiculous high level Victorian style grammar structures as well as high level numeracy concepts such as algebra. Make the curriculum age appropriate again.
Stop forcing children to learn before they’re ready.
Give teachers greater autonomy again in order to breed creativity and a genuine love of learning.
National Curriculum and endless target setting and assessment does not equal a love of learning or achievement in later life.
Secondary-
The system of high-stakes GCSEs is outdated, too highly pressured and too rigid. It doesn’t suit a good proportion of our young people as it is singularly academic and in fact is partly to blame for us having the highest number of unhappy teens in Europe.
We need a better system that gives equal weight to vocational skills and to the academics.
Too many young people (approximately a third!) are leaving schools after 12 years in a classroom with no qualifications. Further education colleges are feeling this deeply and having to pick up the slack.
I decided to home educate my own children as they had lost their love of learning in primary school and were jaded from all the constant testing and assessments. They were even starting to be kept in at playtimes to finish their work at age 5! On paper it was a ‘nice, outstanding’ school but they were bored with the topics and being forced into being sat at a table all day every day learning dry, boring content. The light went out in their eyes and I couldn’t bear it any longer. At the same time I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my teaching job and having to ‘force feed’ so much ridiculous, meaningless curriculum content onto my pupils at my school. Teaching had become about ticking boxes, meeting arbitrary targets and drilling children for tests. The obsession with results was making me miserable and my pupils too. I couldn’t be a part of it any longer. The ever present threat of Ofsted also made teaching joyless and painful.
The major differences for my children are that they have been able to rekindle their natural innate love of learning. This has been a lot easier with my youngest who was only in school for two years. My eldest was in school for 5 years and it has been much harder to ‘deschool’ his mindset and for him to reconnect with the natural love of learning he had as a young child. Unfortunately his school experience meant he associates ‘learning’ with being forced to learn, a chore and with a lack of joy. Via home education though he has had plenty of time to delve deeper into his natural interests and has resurrected some of his natural love of learning. He is now learning Spanish for fun, he’s mad on horses and has done some online courses as well as having riding lessons and has a volunteer job at the stables. He enjoys reading for pleasure and is a bright, capable, sociable teen. He’s even at college two days a week doing maths and English GCSEs.
Both children have enjoyed a life without testing and assessment thus far and are able to develop at their own pace. Sometimes this looks like learning something later than a schoolchild might and sometimes it looks like learning it earlier. For example one child is mad on astronomy and at age 12 is doing a GCSE higher level astronomy course. There are other examples though where they might be ‘behind’ their schooled peers (I use this term loosely) in terms of the National Curriculum but in my view learning is a lifelong process and if they need or want to learn something specific for a test or an interview then we will cover that as and when. This freedom to learn at one’s own pace has been a huge advantage of home education for the children. There are many more examples of this I could share.
For me personally I’ve found home education to be hugely different to teaching in a classroom. I am able to tailor the learning to each individual child which is impossible to do in a classroom. Home education has also meant I can truly see how children will naturally learn something without force and given the time and space when they are intrinsically motivated to do so. It has also been very illuminating to see how the notion of an adult imparting information to a class of children is just one of many ways to ‘teach’ or to impact learning. And that it actually is probably one of the least effective methods for truly learning something. Unfortunately for most school children the motivation to learn is extrinsic and this is both sad and unfair (as it takes away their personal, natural timeline) , it also makes learning a ‘chore’. Life is very different for me now and I do not miss the ridiculous pressures that teachers have on them these days.
My youngest has applied for an alternative/studio school for next year (year 9/10&11) to do 4 GCSEs and coding/game development. At this stage it is just an application but we’ll see how it goes. He’s very bright in some areas and is already coding at an advanced level so it’s a good opportunity but he’s unsure if a full time course is doable as he has a health condition that might make it difficult. We are hoping they will be open to a flexi-schooling application.
My teaching experience has been a mixed blessing with regards home education. Whilst it gave me some confidence to think I could home educate my own children and gave me an awareness of where to go for resources and information, in the long term it hasn’t really helped at all. I had to do a LOT of ‘deschooling’ to undo some of the ideas I had about how children learn and how children ‘should’ know certain things at certain points in their life. Learning at home is NOTHING like the teaching that goes on in a classroom. And I can assure you that you cannot replicate school at home. A good home educator will think outside of the box and find opportunities for their children to learn that look nothing like those in a classroom. A good home educator is a facilitator not a teacher. It has been a journey for me but 5.5 years down the road I can now say that my teaching experience is irrelevant to everything my family does in our home education. What it has made me sure of is that my children are 100% better off without school. It still makes me sad to say that in a way as I did love my job in the early days and I was a good teacher. I truly wanted to make a difference to children’s lives but the system was against me every step of the way. I feel deeply sad for the millions of children that have no choice but to go to school.
Hazel tells us they left school in 1977 with no qualifications. I remember in the last few days of school friends excitedly telling which colleges or jobs they were going onto. I had no idea what I was going to do. Not only had school failed me but also my parents. My mother took me to a school career office to sort out my future. It didn’t occur to her that she should have had any discussions with me beforehand. The careers officer asked me what I wanted to do. I had seen an article about farm secretary courses. I was born and raised in a remote country village so that way of life was all I knew. My mother wanted me to be a secretary to a solicitor. As I pointed out many years later no aspirations for me to be a solicitor, just an underdog. The careers officer suggested a shelf filling position at the newly opened Tesco. I took a secretary position at a car auction firm because mum said so. Hated it. A few years later I left, took up a small business course and opened my own fruit and veg shop alongside selling flowers. A customer saw potential in me and suggested a floristry course. Three years part time C & G and gaining distinctions. I found my love of learning. Whilst expecting my second daughter I undertook GCSEs in maths and English by distant learning as I was so embarrassed by my age. I was able to teach floristry in local college. Took a teacher’s cert in further education. Floristry took me onto BTEC art diploma, fine art degree, PGCE in secondary art and finally a Masters in Fine Art. I was offered the chance to apply for Phd in fine art course, but it was too expensive as a single parent. At degree I was given the opportunity to teach alongside another artist in primary schools on folk projects. I spent 2 years teaching art post 16 in college. I taught evening classes for adults mostly over 60s. I spent 2 years as a supply teacher. I still teach various art or animal related subjects but self-employed. Throughout all this I realise every establishment has problems mostly through attitude of governing, heads, or teachers themselves. I have witnessed disgusting behaviour to myself as a student whatever my age and to other students by teachers when I have been in the classroom as a teacher.
My eldest daughter shone throughout school, got a degree, was working in a bookshop and was offered a teaching post that had to be created for her in nurturing at a secondary school. She has just finished 14 years as head of her dept with a team of 16. Taking a role at a private SEN school. My second daughter was bullied at primary by her teacher and the headmistress. The county school officer suggested I pulled her out. Tried her last 2 years in another primary. Went Home Ed with her for secondary. Her English was 3 years ahead of her peers. Took her English GCSE at 14, maths at 16. I had to fight to get her onto a health and social diploma course at a college because she was home ed!! I suggested they gave her a term and if they were right, they could chuck her off the course at Christmas. Two years and a diploma later they admitted she was their best pupil as she was able to research and carry out work by herself. She was the only one in class that listened and did not play with a mobile phone all day. She completed her degree in psychology with open university, works with children with complex needs and is now studying her masters in childhood trauma. Her son is 6 and is Home educated. Half with me on a farm and half with her. We hold regular events, so he gets the chance to socialise with a wide range of age groups and does football club, ninjas group and joins in with older boys at the skate park. He studies a wide range of topics based on history, art, geography, history, English, maths etc. He knows way more than I ever did at that age. He has a bright future because we have given him confidence.
I became a teacher because I enjoy seeing children and adults reach their potential and their happiness at creating something good. I feel teachers are too interested in their careers and not the individual child. The school system is too rigid. The system broke when government closed a lot of the special needs schools. SEN kids need to have their own space. Bullying of any child by another child is wrong but bullying a child by a teacher or head staff should be made a criminal offence. My grandson won’t be going to secondary but will be doing GCSEs. Our combined teaching qualifications has helped as we can recognise when learning is enjoyable and different subjects explored. For example, we have just spent this last autumn exploring the various mushrooms and fungi growing on the lawn, how they change over the days including decaying. Something that cannot be achieved in a classroom.
Fay explains that they are an astrophysicist and former teacher. After completing my PhD, I pursued teaching due to my love for the subject, my enthusiasm for developing innovative physics lessons for children, and my desire to work directly with students—sharing knowledge and watching their intellectual growth. I trained as a secondary science teacher and later specialised in post-16 education.
I valued the opportunity to work with students and observe their potential unfold. However, I believe significant changes are needed within the current school system, including:
Changing the way science, and particularly physics, is taught by encouraging active learning where students engage directly with experiments, problem-solving, and inquiry-based exploration, rather than passively absorbing information.
Encouraging more learning outside the classroom through fieldwork, outdoor activities, and experimental learning to make education more engaging and practical.
Introducing more play-based learning in primary schools to support creativity, curiosity, and holistic development.
Eliminating teaching to standardised tests and homework to prioritise family time.
Reducing administrative burdens to allow teachers to focus on instruction.
Recognising the diverse pedagogical approaches required for different subjects.
Improving mental health support for students and staff.
Reducing school hours and allowing students to stay home when ill.
Moving away from a purely academic focus.
Actively soliciting and incorporating student feedback on teaching methods.
Eliminating excessive attendance monitoring and recognising the value of time off for holidays and family visits.
Ceasing the practice of counting medical appointments against attendance records.
Thoroughly investigating and addressing bullying incidents.
There are many more I could list, some of the above though are beyond the scope of staff and financial resources.
My decision to home educate my daughter arose from a combination of circumstances. A house sale fell through at the same time my daughter was struggling in school. She experienced daily, prolonged meltdowns lasting two to four hours after school and was subjected to bullying, which the school failed to address adequately. Although I planned to transfer her to a smaller village school, the failed house sale forced us to reconsider. My daughter refused to return to school, and after extensive research into alternatives, we decided home education was the best option. At the time, my daughter’s mental health had significantly deteriorated. She was diagnosed with daily migraines, and the school offered little support with her academic work or personal difficulties
We officially began home educating in 2024, although I had always incorporated Montessori teaching techniques into her learning since birth.
Home education allows for personalised learning tailored to my daughter’s needs, including flexibility for rest when required. I act as a facilitator, following her lead in deciding what and how she wants to learn.
One significant difference I observed was the fear-based nature of her school experience. Initially, she became distressed when encountering challenging work. Through conversations, I discovered she had been reprimanded for crying in class and threatened with punishment, which discouraged her from seeking help. This, combined with sensory overload in the noisy classroom (she often covered her ears), partly contributed to her daily meltdowns.
It took time to shift her mindset towards viewing learning as a process where making mistakes is acceptable. We now approach challenges positively and prioritise rest when she feels overwhelmed. Home education also allows for curriculum extension and differentiation based on her interests.
Future educational plans:While I do not currently intend for her to attend secondary school, I remain open to her wishes. I have always maintained that we will continue home educating for as long as she desires. We are considering internationally recognised examinations when she reaches 16, although the specific format is yet to be determined.
My teaching qualifications and experience have been invaluable in understanding the curriculum (though home educators are not required to follow it), gaining insight into the worldwide education system, and applying various pedagogical methods. However, the most crucial aspect of home education is the deep understanding I have of my child, which only a parent or guardian can possess, regardless of qualifications.
While the traditional school system works for some, it did not work for my daughter. She has flourished in ways I never witnessed while she was in school. It is unfortunate that my prior teaching experience lends more credibility to our choice to home educate in the eyes of others, highlighting prevailing misconceptions about home education.
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