What is Home Education?

The very term “home education” is misleading, and the American “home schooling” is even worse. It is not a form of education, it is every form of education other than school. It also does not necessarily take place at home. The biggest benefit is that it is not like school: you can tailor education to your child’s needs. The most accurate term is what it was called in the UK until well into the 20th century: “private education”.

Many people have an image of HE as parents sitting down for hours with children at a desk, tutoring them. You certainly can home educate that way, but it is not a common way of doing it. not have to take place in the home. There are classes and activities and groups, both home ed specific and otherwise. My daughters had tutors for some subjects (GCSE English language and English literature and classical civlisation), did online courses, and taught themselves. Some subjects I learned alongside them to some extent.

It is a continuation of what people do with their children before they go to school, and gradually changes in line with needs to become a preparation for education or work after school age. Home education typically fosters self-discipline and autonomy, making it a far better preparation for work, university, and adult life in general.

My approach to home education has been to allow children to teach themselves as far as possible. Do fun things. Read books. Write stories. Make things from kits. Write software and setup computers from scratch. Create art - anything from drawings to 3-D animations. Of course you have to teach them some things, but with younger children even much of that can be turned into games. There are other things you an do together such as trips to historical sites and museums. These can be highly educational, and a great way of following up topics they are interested in. I plan to write further on this, but I have written many blog posts on the subject and a number of the old ones are on how I education my children.

Academic achievement.

At the time of writing, November 2026, my older daughter has started a PhD in engineering and my younger daughter is in her first term at Oxford, doing archaeology and anthropology. Both were home educated from the age of about eight or nine up to GCSEs (although there was some going back and forth with my older daughter) and then went to a sixth form college for A levels. I do not know how well they would have done at school, but how much better could they have done? They would not have followed the same paths, nor would they have enjoyed their education as much. My older daughter was the only girl in her A level electronics class. I think the opportunities to explore her interests freed her from gender stereotypes. Both of them are doing things they actually enjoy, and have broad interests beyond their specialities.

In general multiple studies show better education outcomes , after adjusting for parental education and socio-economic factors, in many developed countries. I plan to add an article about this too. This is also done in fewer hours than are required in a classroom so there is more time for other things.

Home education also allows you to tailor education to the individual. Many schools would like to do this, but HE gives you a lot of flexibility. You can go at the page a particular child needs. You can spread GCSEs out over several years (my older daughter sat her first at 11, which is unusual, and my younger daughter at 14, which is fairly common for HE). You can choose from a vast range of subjects. Both by daughters did Latin. The younger one is doing astronomy. There are options like Sanskrit and many others. Ancient history instead of the usual (modern oriented) history syllabus. Both my daughters did physics and computer science, but not chemistry or biology.

Socialising

A common misunderstanding about HE is that HE children have a problem with socialising. This actually conflates two different things. Opportunities to socialise, and developing social skills. The former can be true, but most schools make it clear that children are not there to socialise and the time available for socialising. On the other hand home education is better for developing social skills. What is better:

1. Spending you time with the same group of children, mostly with those almost exactly your own age, in the same place every day, or,
2. Meeting lots of different children, of a wide range of age groups, or,
3. Learning social skills from other children, or from adults who have far more developed social skills?

Learning to get on with lots of people of different ages, mostly adults is the skill we need in adult life.

Part of the problem goes back to the terminology. People imagine children locked up at home seeing only their parents. In fact, the opposite is true. Less time consuming and flexible timetables means for more time to do other things. My daughters have done lots of different things in different places: games, sports, cadets, art, dance and drama classes, etc.

Other things

The extra time from more time efficient education opens a lot of opportunities. Even while my children were going to school I taught them things no-one learned in school. When my older daughter’s boss (concerned about whether engineering degrees) asked a group of junior electronic and electrical engineers when they first used soldering iron my daughter was able to answer “seven”. For most people this will come at university, at the earliest, and a not a great deal then. My children learned a lot of geek skills from me: they can solder, or install an operating system. They also learned a love of reading. Other children will have different interests, and different opportunities, but there are always some.

Combined with the flexible timetable there is a lot more they can learn. They can do more by themselves: when other children are at school they can go to a shop, or go for a walk. They can take a bus to visit friends. They can do trips with parents or others.

Most of all, maybe, the self-discipline and motivation I mentioned in the context of academic study.