An Efficient Home Education

When you start home-education in Britain everyone ALWAYS asks, 'What are you going to do about exams?' I used to think that was a bit previous when Grace was 5 and Jack was 3, but now, here I am 12 years later, living it!

My philosophy when the kids were little was: 'I'm going to give them a great all-round education and they can sort out the qualifications later when they're done being educated'. Not that anyone is ever 'done' with education, but my point was that there's a difference between education and learning for exams.

Older teenage students in Britain are forced down an academic 'A'Level track because they *might* want to go to university and the universities have stringent qualification requirements. So, younger teens are prepared for the 'A' Levels with GCSE courses, dumbed down though they may well have been in recent years. And younger secondary aged students are 'prepared for the GCSE way of working' in order not to compromise their chances at GCSE earlier and earlier. And Primary School aged children are forced to 'prepare for secondary school learning methods while they are aged about 9 and up. And so on, down to toddlers being 'prepared' for the formal school situation by a ridiculous 'early years' curriculum. The next objective will be, MARK MY WORDS, to ensure that all babies under a year have 'access' to another such 'educational' programme.

And all of that, just so that certain, admittedly excellent, universities can select from academic candidates best fitted to *their* style of teaching. The universities' expectations have always driven the way we teach children in school in this country. It was the same when I was at school. Despite efforts to have a different educational model, such as fitting students for industry or other employment or even, Heaven forfend, for LIFE, the top down, university-driven model still predominates here.

It takes a lot of bravery to say, No, I want something different for my children. I want more than their brains educated. I want 'Hand, Head and Heart' education. {g} Because as soon as you try to explain this, even to Christians, what you get reflected back is *horror* that you have decided to compromise your child's academic chances. Because, in this country, even within the church, EDUCATION reigns supreme, not CHARACTER.

We stuck to our guns with Grace. We knew what was right for her and it wasn't GCSE exams. Now she's at college she's picking up entry level and level 1 certificates from OCR and City and Guilds in various life-useful subjects such as food hygiene, child-care, first aid, Working With Others, Setting Personal Goals, Self-Advocacy as well as literacy and numeracy. It really is just an extension of what she'd being doing at home and is very well suited to her as an individual and her ASD.

It's been harder to go a different route with Jack because he's a totally different kid but what are we doing? After I swore I wouldn't being doing exam courses with him? He's doing some exam courses this year and sitting the exams EARLY! LOL! But he really is responding so well to teachers who are not me, to the small group learning environments we've placed him in for part of the week and he's EAGER, yes, I said eager, to do his homework. This new found sense of direction and responsibility is even informing the other things in his life, like Bible study, sports and chores.

I would not have guessed that this is how our HE journey would be running, back when they were 5 and 3! It's not over by any means, but what surprises me is how every year is different and that the twists and turns we're manoeuvred through have only been possible because the plans I've had have always been held LIGHTLY.

The Law on Home Education in this country says it must be 'efficient', that is, it must achieve what it sets out to achieve. Have we accomplished a Hand Head and Heart education for them both so far? An uncompromising yes.