This website is about how children learn and what education needs to be like to best help them fulfil their potential. There is so much research available on how our brains work and the conditions which help us to learn and to flourish. What the research describes – that we are wired for learning, with play the fundamental building block of acquiring new knowledge and skills and curiosity the juice that keeps us interested and motivated, that children are natural scientists and indeed geniuses – is so starkly different from the current UK school system.
Over the years schools have become more and more focused on testing, on an increasingly narrow curriculum, with more rigid requirements at earlier ages. It has moved away from what the research tells us about what we need. Increasing numbers of children and families have been finding that it doesn’t work for them any more.
This website aims to help parents and home ed campaigners access the wealth of evidence which supports approaches such as self directed learning, in particular to find the information which is helpful in evidencing this to sceptical others. As such it focuses on information available in the mainstream rather than on the many fabulous blogs on learning which are perhaps more radical in their starting positions.
This website is a collection of the information available on these topics. Each post gives a brief topic outline and then provides links for further reading. Where possible links have been provided to a range of sources, for example to different media publications or to both articles on study findings plus to the original studies themselves.
This site pulls together the evidence and information around these areas, to highlight the bigger picture. Home education is a reasonable, logical and very positive response to this bigger picture. It provides children with a personalised, effective and often truly wonderful education.
It cannot be the whole answer though, it doesn’t suit every family and should certainly be a choice, not something forced by circumstance. The whole school system needs to change, in the many ways outlined by so many people and organisations most of whom have gone far beyond criticism and outlined solutions and road maps for change. What is needed, as called for by Ken Robinson and others, is a revolution in education. And home education is an important part of that revolution.
“It is true that EHE is an issue, but it is one that highlights the failings of schooling and social services. Furthermore, it brings into relief the shortcomings of government bodies that operate without proper care or respect for practitioners and educational research. Educationally, EHE is one of the most innovative and exciting growing movements of the current time.” Dr Helen Lees