I do not know where they got my number from. Maybe Facebook which keeps showing me tuition related ads – it might be interesting to see where they got it from. Hopefully it will lead to a (misleading!) modification to whatever source they got it from (or at least their own database).

Having lived in Sri Lanka where tuition has long become normal for most children, I find the prospect of the same happening here to be horrifying. In Sri Lanka I felt sorry for all the children I saw going to tuition classes (not even proper one to one tuition, usually), often straight from school. Where is the time to enjoy their childhood? Not only that, spending all day studying is not conducive to good development, and is not even good purely academically – learning needs time to reflect, absorb and internalise. Constant studying promotes learning by rote.

This also encouraged (very badly paid) teachers to neglect teaching in school so they would create demand for their tuition classes. It encouraged studying to the exam rather than learning the subject, as parents paying for tuition want to see high grades. Children ask to know what will come up in the exam, and lose all joy in learning.

When I was a teenager I did have some tuition in my weakest subject, French. Less than once a week. My mother told me never to mention it in school, because they school did not like tuition because they regarded it as a bad reflection on their teaching. They (rightly) thought that good teaching in school should make tuition unnecessary.

I now see tuition becoming normalised in the UK. I know multiple people who have had or have tuition as children. I see ads all over Facebook, even highly expensive TV ads on the rare occasions I watch TV (I possess a No TV), there is even tuition available in a local supermarket (on their premises, but run by an education chain).

The phrase “education chain” should not be something I need to say. It is one of the clearest symptoms of mass produced, learn by rote education.

I think my school was right. Tuition should be unnecessary if schools do their job. The conclusion I draw from the rise of tuition is that schools are not doing their job. There is a widespread serious failure in the system. I do not have a simple solution – it needs complete reform – . At a purely personal level not sending children to school worked well for us, but this is not something most people will do, and certainly does not fix the failure in the system.

One interesting thing is that it is almost always maths that is picked on. It is very rare for anyone to argue that we should not teach literature in schools because most people do not read literature as adults, or to argue that as few people become artists or become musicians we should not teach art and music.

The problem is that maths is usually badly taught. It should be fun – most learning should be fun. For maths specifically read A Mathematician’s Lament.

It is also useful in all kinds of everyday things. For example, buying a monitor – the advertised sizes are the diagonal so if you want to compare screen areas (I do!) you need to use Pythagoras’s theorem. How much finance can you understand without maths anyway?

Edit: it also occurs to me that this is a good example of the results of people saying “maths is useless” because they have been taught it by rote, so lack the understanding necessary to see when it is needed. It is not obvious how bad a measure the diagonal is if comparing different aspect ratios unless you have a reasonable intuitive understanding of geometry. The same when people accept an “average” without realising it could be wildly misleading for anything nonsymmetrical distribution.

The other problem is that if you eliminate a subject or a topic because the majority do not use it, then you remove the path to learning for people who do use it. If you have not done school level maths (i.e. GCSE level maths in the UK) you cannot become a scientist or engineer, and you would have had the chance to know you might be interested in becoming one removed.

I think schools do not teach enough maths – only a small minority of people can understand the statistics quoted in the news. Not even the journalists reporting the news have even a basic understanding of what they are talking about. They will use near meaningless terms like “average” without specifying which type of average they mean (it is usually whichever gives the number that backs their argument).

With regard to financial education, it would be very hard to get kids to take an interest in grown up money. You would just be adding another dull subject they will not retain. Kids in school are under a lot of pressure to study what they already do – adding more is a terrible idea.

I can add a whole lot of other things kids “need” to know. They should understand computers given they saturate the world (cars, houses, everything computerised, phones that are with you all the time) and understanding the technology is empowering. Basic statistics is another. A bit of law so they know their rights and can read contracts they sign. Something about business. Something about mental health. The list is endless.

Schools cannot do everything, and should not do everything. Parents need to play a role. I took my kids out of school when they were around 8 or 9 and gave them a more complete and efficient education (less time to learn the same amount than in a classroom). It is still impossible to cover everything – at least without making life miserable. Kids also need time to be kids – for fun, to make friends and develop social skills, to see things, learn to cope with everyday life, etc.

I think in the case of finance it would be more useful to teach it to adults who can see the point of it. Lets schools concentrate on academic education to lay the foundations and teach useful skills to adults at appropriate times in their lives. The same with other practical skills.

The problem is that schools are failing to achieve genuine high standards, causing severe mental health problems, and are generally struggling to cope. Many good teachers are leaving the profession because they are frustrated. Those that remain are fixed on the short term: getting high grades in this years exams.

Children are naturally born to learn. Schools often suck the joy out of learning. The need to stick to a curriculum, to make individuals with different talents and interests do exactly the same things at the same time is simply a bad idea.

The concept I have is easiest to describe in how it would apply to children of secondary school age – which,is the age group who have the most issues with school. It also works for younger children but needs more parental involvement (simply because of issues such as transport and safety – for which there are many solutions).

The solution is simple: schools cease to be “providers of everything”. A student at a school is typically there for the same hours every day, other activities such as sports are provided by schools: a single institution dominates a child’s life.

Instead schools provide classes and facilities. Other institutions provide extra resources: libraries, for example. Many resources can be provided online at a national or international level – these already exist but they could be so much more if they received government funding.

From all these parents and children choose what they want to use. They sign up for individual classes, and access the resources they want. Children good at a particular subject can move to a more advanced class, children who are struggling with a particular subject can move to an easier one. There will be more flexibility to fit in activities outside school.

It will also improve education. Teachers can teach the subject instead of focusing on league tables. Children can be sent o the classes taught in the way that best suits them. If they prefer to self study some things, then they can do so and be given access to the books, online resources, and whatever they need. They will also have a much wider range of subjects to choose from. Consider the choice of GCSEs a typical school can offer: it is nothing like the dozens that are possible (I have not done a thorough count, but it exceeds 60 subjects without even counting modern foreign languages).

Having more choices will also make learning less of a chore: it is a chore because it is compelled. I love reading, but if I have to read a book it because a chore – and this is a good example of something schools do that kills the joy. A library is a great educator.

It is also better in terms of social and personal development. Instead of spending all day in one place with the same people of exactly their own age, they will interact with far more people in multiple settings. They will be encouraged to take more responsibility for themselves instead which is a better preparation for adult life.

I know many people will be asking whether all this will work. I know it will because I have done it and it has been hugely successful. It is the commonest form of what is called “home education”. There are multiple studies around the world proving that home education works well, and that it works better than school for poorer and less well educated families.

The differences between what I propose above and what we do is that I had to pay for everything, and because it is something only a minority of people do the resources available locally are limited (which pushes us towards remote resources).  If it were adopted as national policy the budget that goes to schools, that is currently inadequate, would be enough to provide a very well resourced system on these lines (what parents pay to do this is invariably far less than the cost of school places).

This is all written from a British viewpoint (e.g. it assumes under 16s will be aiming to do (I)GCSEs), and also based on what worked for us: parents, children and circumstances vary.

Do not worry too much.

Neither parents, not schools, nor anyone else, will do a perfect job of education. It is intrinsically messy and uncertain. You need to figure out what will work for you and your child.

Forget the curriculum.

For children not studying exam syllabuses yet, you want learning, but what they learn is of secondary importance. They need to learn to think, and to learn study skills. English and maths are important, as they are needed to study other things. Other than that be flexible, and let children follow their interests.

Look for opportunities

Use the time to do things they do not have time to do because of school.

Hobbies can be educational: even if not directly so they develop concentration and some range of skills. My daughters did a bit of electronics when they were little (they learned to solder by 7, made little kits, improvised a few things….) and my older daughter is now doing electronics A level (and planning to do a degree in it).

It may also be an opportunity to do subjects schools do not offer. Interested in Latin or astronomy?  Want to learn programming to a useful level? Interested in philosophy? Obviously particular schools might, offer subjects, but no school can offer anything like the full range of available subjects. The sky is the limit – unless you are interested in astronomy, in which case, the observable universe is.

There are now MOOCs (large scale  online courses) that, again, many adults do for pleasure. My children have done MOOCs on everything from Dante to Haskell (a programming language no one teaches at school level – but which appeals to the mathematically inclined).

Doing interesting stuff may not advance covering the syllabus, but the motivation and knowledge pays off in the long term

Be realistic about time spent studying.

School hours are not study hours: there are breaks, assemblies, recording attendance, time between lessons and so on. There is time spent on interruptions, telling kids off, and a lot more. Studying at home should be more intense, so three hours of real study (broken up by breaks) is more than enough. Less for younger children, more for those in a final run up to GCSEs, and still more for A levels.

Keep an eye on time killing habits

TV, videos, games, social media, and more. It used to be easy to just not have a TV, but there is too much online distraction for that to work. Many routers let you block certain sites and services at certain times. Very useful.

There are lots of excellent, free, online resources

There are far too many to list here, and what is suitable depends in maturity, ability and interests. Its not hard to find them online though. Oak national Academy was set up for the pandemic – but there are also Khan Academy, Wootube, Wikibooks, BBC Bitesize, and many, many more.

Give children responsibility

The more responsibility you give children for their education, they less you need to push them. I do not know it this will work for everyone, and some kids may just drift, and it will need some conversations, guidance to make it work, and will not work all the time – but when it does its easier for parents, and children are happier

Encourage reading and creative interests.

Encourage reading, encourage any other interests they have, especially creative ones. Art or music or a good book is a respite from studying, but not a lazy one like slumping in front of the TV, but feels like relaxation.

Read around subjects instead of just text books. Looking at my own bookshelves, we have lots of things related to school subjects (maths, history, physics etc.) aimed at adults who buy them to read for pleasure.

Project Gutenberg has a huge range of free ebooks – they can be read on a phone or tablet with a suitable reader (I use FBReader).

Do NOT try do everything HE families do

You may know home educating families, or read about them and be tempted use them as a model. There may be things you can learn from what we do (that is the point of this post) but we also do a lot of things that depends on the flexibility we have because we home educate long term.

We have very different choices. For example, as often spread (I)GCSEs out over several years. We cannot do certain (I)GCSE subjects (art and PE for example) so use alternative qualifications for those – but we can do a much wider range of academic subjects: anything available to private candidates, from Sanskrit to Economics. This means we have a lot of flexibility in following a curriculum to suit the individual On the other hands schools will take a lot of decisions (which subjects and exam boards to offer) which does make life easier.

At one extreme there are online schools which (in the UK, at least) are legally home education but work in almost the same way as a school does: it is just school taken online (as many things have been these days). The only real difference between that and the home schooling we have seen schools doing during lockdown is that the online schools have the advantage of being set up to work that way, and the parents involved want to do it. Personally, I see it as being school education in reality, if not in law.

At the other there is unschooling which is deliberately unstructured. Studies show it works well in practice although I am personally not comfortable with that unstructured an approach.

There is also variety in syllabus and qualifications. Most people in the UK do GCSEs, and IGCSEs (public exams typically taken at 16), but may do them early or late. However, some people do American exams, some do vocational qualifications, and so on. Some do minimal academic qualifications, some do a lot.

There is one thing that the popular view (and media and politicians) get wrong about all these approaches is the expectation that home educated children have worse opportunities for social development. This is entirely wrong: home educated children go to a variety of classes, social events, sports, and so on, meeting a wide range of people in different places: far better socialisation than meeting mostly people of their own age group in one setting.

That aside, “every kind of education outside school”, covers a lot, in addition to the two approaches I already mentioned.

Lets start with what used to be called “private education” (before American influence hijacked the term to mean “non-state schools” – British terminology is too complex to explain here for those unfamiliar with it). This is how the Queen and her siblings were educated: by tutors hired by their family. It still happens, but is obviously restricted to those who can afford it.

The obvious alternative is to send children to tutors, or classes held for home educated children. Again, these days, many classes are held online.

Another approach, just as radical as unschooling in its way, but generally more focused on academic achievement, is self-teaching. A lot of children can teach themselves if provided with textbooks and equipment. A great advantage is that they develop better study skills and self-discipline.

There are some other advantages, common to most, if not all, approaches: flexibility and tailoring education to the child. For example, a wider choice of subjects, taking some exams early (my older daughter did her first IGCSE when she was 11). There also tends to be more room for education that does not lead to qualifications: both my daughters have done online courses on subjects ranging from Dante to Haskell programming.

All these different approaches work, but how they work is very different. Differences in personal and family circumstances and differences in individual talents and personalities, also mean different HE children have very different experiences. They may mostly study by themselves, or mostly do classes, or mostly have one to one tuition. They may do entirely different combinations of subjects. Their parents may be involved in day-to-day education very heavily, or just organise things, pay bills and sign forms.

Add in the variety of exams and qualifications and you get even more variety. Imagine one child doing a variety of GCSEs in academic subjects ranging from classical Greek to computer science, taught one to one by tutors. Imagine another doing the same subjects but mostly self taught with some online courses and parental support. Imagine another doing functional skills exams (a less academic substitute for English and Maths GCSEs) and an online IT BTEC (there is such a thing). Imagine another doing Open University courses. Each may be right for the individual. Each is a very different experience, makes different demands, and has different requirements – and I have not even looked at the variety in their lives other than education.

Home education is not a way of educating, it is every way of educating bar one.

1. Those who found their children (and often themselves) were happier learning at home during lockdown.
2. Those who are scared of sending children back to school because of covid

These largely correspond to two other groups:

1. Those who want to try a different way of educating their children
2. Those who want their children physically at home, but want the school system.

The problem is with the second group. In many cases they are looking (I see them asking online) for a replacement for school, that works as much like school as possible. What they will end up is the worst of both.

I dislike the idea of “online school” because it loses the advantages of home education: the flexibility to tailor education to a child’s interests and abilities, the flexibility to take exams early or late rather than an arbitrary age, choosing from a vast range of subjects (any qualification open to private candidates), meeting lots of different people of different ages in different settings, learning study skills, self-discipline, and taking responsibility, and so on.

Some people are doing this with year 11 children only months away from taking GCSEs. They may have to change syllabus (e.g. from GCSE to IGCSE for sciences), switch to alternative qualifications (for drama or art) perhaps drop some.  I can understand why people do this, but it really should be a last resort. A good test would be whether delaying exams for an year (which would greatly reduce the problems) would be worth it.

Those with younger children have a different problem. Are they happy staying with HE long term? While you can always switch back, you need to consider practical issues such as losing school places, or going too far from the curriculum followed by schools

Covid will be gone (as a meaningful risk) in an year or two – if you think otherwise please read this explanation of virus evolution  Will you still want to HE then? What will you do then if your kids love HE and do not want to go back, but you do not want to the commitment of HE? Are you happy to stick to the school syllabus in the meantime (again negating many of the advantages of HE). Its not just that you may not have covered things in the syllabus, your kids are also likely to be ahead in their best subjects and bored in class.

What we call “home education” is what used to be called “private education” until American influence lead that to mean being educated at an independent school. It is no longer the province only of those who can hire governesses and tutors, but accessible to anyone who can afford a few textbooks, and ideally an internet connection and exam fees.

Many people have found that having children at home is good. One survey said that fathers are particular keen on it post covid. That makes sense to me, because many men are denied involvement in bringing up their children: they are at work and the children are at school. Children are happy to see more of their parents, and parents are happy to spend more time with their children.

Making it better than school takes time, effort and money (although its partially offset by things such as not taking them to school in heavy traffic, buying uniforms, etc.). It means doing things differently. Parents have to take responsibility for either teaching, or organising teaching, or ensuring children are teaching themselves. Parents have to decide on educational approaches, set/influence expectations,  help or find help when needed, and so on,  When it comes to exams you have to find exam centres, decide on syllabuses, fill in forms and pay fees. You may have to argue with an anti-HE local authority trying to bully you into sending children to school, sometimes breaking the law or lying in order to do so (it is surprising how many LAs think their policies can override legislation).

It is an amazing and rewarding experience for parents, and has worked brilliantly for my children, but you have to want to do it. If you are looking for school without a physical presence, you will instead get a second rate copy of school.

The corrections are mostly from Lucy’s notes, but I have looked at the textbook too. Not all are important for the exam, but most could be.

Most of the problems are in Chapter 8. These are what is covered below. If I find any more relevant notes, or find any other issues, I will add them below. If you spot anything I have missed please let me know.

Hacking

Hacking has meaning other than breaking into a computer system. It can also mean ingenious or cobbled together use of technology. The book’s definition is a common usage.

Cracking means maliciously breaking in into computers. The book’s definition is simply incorrect.

Viruses and malware

• Viruses embed themselves in other software, altering the executable (program) files them selves. This may include documents that can contain software, such as office documents that allow macros.
• A worm is a free standing executable that replicates itself.
• A trojan is disguised as, or inserted into something else, but does not usually replicate itself. For example, a user may install an apparently useful application and find that the developer (or someone else tampering with the distributed code) has added malicious functionality.

Pharming

Pharming redirects users from a website they want to use to another one. This may be done by editing the hosts file on the user’s own computer, compromising DNS servers, or compromising routers.

Wardriving

WEP should no longer be used. It has been replaced by WPA

Spyware and keylogging

Spyware is much broader than keylogging. Spyware might record web browser history, track media usage, and more.

Keylogging is hard to spot, and may be done with hardware (typically a recording device plugged into a USB port, with the keyboard plugged into that) as well as malicious software. Wireless keyboards may also be monitored in other ways.

Cookies

1. Are not the only mechanism for storing data in a web browser: there are also flash cookies and HTML5 storage, for example.
2. While anonymous per se, they can be used to store personal information, or to store IDs that can be linked to personal information.

SSL and TLS

Most current web browsers no longer support SSL, or even early versions of TLS.

The term SSL is still used to refer to things associated with this layer: e.g “SSL certificates”.

Hashing

MD4 is very old and rarely used. MD5, SHA-1 and other more recent algorithms are more common.

Denial of service attacks (DOS)

Attacks that flood the target usually use large numbers of machines to simultaneously attack it. These are often huge networks of PCs compromised by malware. These are called Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDOS).

There are may other attacks. For example, Slowloris (see proof of concept code) can bring down a web server by making more requests can many web servers can handle from a single attacking machine, but being more efficient at making requests than the servers are at handling them.

Free software

The book’s definition of free software is essentially based on one type of open source license, the GPL, but with an odd explanation of restrictions and the bizarre addition of one about “not producing software that is deemed offensive by third parties”).

Lots of information from the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative.

Open source includes free software, but not vice versa. The key difference is that free software can only be included in or modified to produce other free software. Some open source licenses allow proprietary to incorporate the code and remain closed: such software is widely used, for example in Apple’s MacOS X (and iOS) and Google Chome web browser.

Free software is subject to copyright laws – that is why the restrictions in the license are enforceable.

The important difference between open source software (including free software) and freeware is that users cannot redistribute (usually) or modify it.