Aspie Home-Education

Swine flu epidemics of 1976

2009-07-20T12:20:00.002+01:00

CBS documentary on the swine flu epidemics of 1976 in the U.S. Apparently it went on air only once and was never shown again. Watch it here (15mns clip).

For many, benefits flow in schooling at home

2009-07-20T10:22:00.000+01:00

"As politicians argue over school league tables and teaching standards, parents are increasingly taking their children out of the school system."

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Taking Liberties

2009-07-19T22:02:00.001+01:00

can be watched here.

Books to read online

2009-07-19T18:13:00.002+01:00

How Children Fail John Holt

Instead of Education - John Holt

Teach Your Own - John Holt

The Underachieving School - John Holt

Never Too Late - John Holt

What do I do Monday? - John Holt

Sharing Treasures - John Holt

Danger: School! IDAC Document

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling John Taylor Gatto

The Exhausted School - John Taylor Gatto

Underground History of American Education John Taylor Gatto

Compulsory Miseducation Paul Goodman

Teaching as a Subvertive Activity - Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner

Against Education: For the Abolition of School

School, Society & The Future

Deschooling Society - Ivan Illich

Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing - A S Neill

Free from School by Rahul Alvares

School is Dead Everett Reimer

Toward the Destruction of Schooling Jan D Matthews

How To Get An Education At Home Pat Farenga

None Dare Call It Education (How Schools Dumb Us Down) (1999) Stormer

The Animal School

Black and Other UK Home Educators' Booklet

Christian Homeschooling Minus the Stress by Sue Rumsley

Unschooling Media - Vanessa Bertozzi

The Montessori Method - Maria Montessory

The Education of the Child - Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Discussions with Teachers - Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner Books

Education and the Significance of Life - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Beginnings of learning - J. Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti on Education Jiddu Krishnamurti

Letters to the Schools Volume 1 Jiddu Krishnamurti

Life Ahead Jiddu Krishnamurti

Education by Swami Vivekananda

What's Wrong With The World - G.K.Chesterton

Democracy and Education - John Dewey

Fundamental Education V.M. Samael Aun Weor

The History of Education Ellwood P. Cubberley

Education for Destruction -Bessie R Burchett

AHEd's response to the EHE Review Report

2009-07-19T10:27:00.001+01:00

AHEd's link to the Briefing Paper can be found here. It could be a useful guide for MPs and others who are being approached.

Registration - what does it mean?

2009-07-18T22:04:00.001+01:00

Came across this - check it out and let me know what you think.

HSLDA's Reply to the Badman Report

2009-07-16T11:28:00.001+01:00

English Home Education: Already In Proper Balance

His name is Badman. Graham Badman. His June 2009 “Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England,” which proposes draconian changes in English home education law, lives up to his name.

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Inspection Of Homeschooling

2009-07-16T11:23:00.000+01:00

"Education is first and foremost the duty of the parent rather than the state.... Parents may delegate this educational responsibility to those whom they trust, but this delegation in no wise removes their responsibility for the education of their children.

In other words, Badman has his priorities reversed. It is not that homeschoolers should submit to education authorities - it is that, if parents choose to send their children to a collective school, rather than educate them at home, the school must still educate them according to the wishes and direction of the parents. The teacher is in loco parentis."

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Home Education Learning Platform

2009-07-11T12:09:00.000+01:00

Businessman launches new ‘school in a box’

"A BUSINESSMAN is so passionate about modernising education he’s spent ten years and millions of pounds creating an online “school in a box” for parents and children.

The Help – Home Education Learning Platform – is for youngsters who have been expelled from school, are off due to long-term sickness, or for parents who choose to educate their children at home."

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The Idle Parent: home education

2009-07-08T13:49:00.000+01:00

"It's time to teach the meddlers a thing or two about home education."

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The curious incident of the straight-A student

2009-07-05T20:00:00.001+01:00

"Alex Goodenough was the cleverest kid in his school - so why didn't he get a sixth form place? Decca Aitkenhead talks to his family about the impact of Asperger's."

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Parents of unruly children face £1,000 fines

2009-06-30T00:03:00.001+01:00

Parents could be hit with £1,000 fines if children regularly misbehave under plans to improve discipline in schools.

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Home education news

2009-06-26T10:13:00.003+01:00

This clampdown on home education doesn't help children
Fundamental changes to the law affecting the rights and the freedom of about 80,000 children may be sneaked into a bill going through parliament, after the review into home education by Graham Badman (Report to crack down on home schooling, 6 June).

The parenting police
Parents are hitting back at plans for what they believe are Big Brother-style powers to inspect home schooling.

"What [Graham] Badman recommends policing is not simply home education but parenting. Under this government parents are considered unfit unless checked and approved by an ever growing list of 'professionals'."

"So what has happened to the basic right of every citizen in this country to be assumed innocent of a crime unless proven otherwise? Under these new proposals home educating parents and their children will be forcibly inspected, even if there is no evidence or cause to believe that abuse is taking place."

Home education on the news

2009-06-24T10:57:00.004+01:00

Parents condemn plans for councils to 'police' home education
There are about 750 children in Kent who are currently educated at home. Alexander Roarke, a Kent-based trustee of the charity Education Otherwise, said: "We reject the disproportionate and unreasonable recommendations set out in this report for compulsory registration and invasive monitoring. Someone from the local authority is now allowed to enter my home, take my children and interview them without me being present...that is a power that only the police have."

Parents' anger at home education recommendations grows
Parents who educate their children at home are up in arms over the recommendations of the government-commissioned review into home education in England. Home educators are using CYP Now 's forums to lobby the government to disregard the findings of Graham Badman's review into home education. Parents are particularly concerned by Badman's recommendation that local authorities should have right of access to the home of home educated children, and should have the right to speak to each child alone if deemed appropriate, or in the company of a trusted person who is not the home educator or parent/carer.

Petition to reject the Badman Report

2009-06-23T12:05:00.001+01:00

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Reject the Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England by Graham Badman.

This report is a totally disproportionate response to a 'perceived' problem full of unsubstantiated allegations that home educated children are more at risk than those at school. This is simply not true and enacting the recommendations in this report would establish the state as parent of first resort. To allow LA staff access to private homes to interview children without their parents when there is no reason to suspect abuse is outrageous.

You can sign it here.

Bringing the Olympics back home

2009-06-20T23:08:00.001+01:00

Nearly 50 children aged from four to 15 took part in the sports day organised by the Home Education Centre, which provides group activities for home-educated children.

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Khyra 'had four visits by welfare'

2009-06-20T10:41:00.000+01:00

Welfare workers visited the home of Khyra Ishaq four times last year while she was starving to death, a court heard yesterday.

Two education welfare workers, a social worker and a home education worker all called between January and April, but only one was let in.

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TreeHouse welcomes government’s EHE review

2009-06-19T11:33:00.003+01:00

TreeHouse, the national charity for autism education, welcomes the acknowledgement within the government’s review of home education that children with special educational needs (SEN) are disproportionately represented among the population of children who are educated at home.

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Home education on the news

2009-06-18T11:39:00.002+01:00

Hey parents, leave those kids alone!
Home education is not better than school, says CAROL SARLER

Lessons to be learned from home schooling
CUMBRIAN parents who educate their children at home could face inspections under new plans to ensure youngsters do not fall through the net.

Home education on the news

2009-06-17T13:08:00.001+01:00

Parents who teach pupils at home are to be vetted
Speaking before the publication of the report, Fiona Nicholson of Education Otherwise, a home education support group, said any register would be “intrusive” on families. “There is a lot of fear that restrictions will be brought in by the back door,” Ms Nicholson said. “We are very cynical about the whole thing. We have put forward more than 40 recommendations of our own, but we doubt any of them will be paid any notice.”

Home education on the news

2009-06-16T10:18:00.003+01:00

Home education support welcomed
Helena Brydges, who has been teaching her daughter Tiffany, 14,at home for several years, said she receives exceptional support from the council.

"People have two schools of thought regarding home education, as you have the people who want stricter controls and those who want the freedom to do things their way," she said. "But we've had excellent support as the education authority come every year and they've gone through Tiffany's work with a fine toothcomb."

The state should stay out of home schooling
... the idea that there should be no opt-out available – that all parents have no choice but to submit to official control over their children’s education – cuts to the heart of the question of parental autonomy. The acceptance that parents can choose to educate their children themselves if they want to is a tacit recognition that state education is a service that parents can access for the benefit of their families. The new proposals shift that balance of power, so that state-monitored education becomes something that all children must receive – and in the case of home schooling, parents are mere practitioners, delivering an officially approved scheme of work. This means that the scope for parents to decide that, actually, the curriculum or teaching practice on offer within schools is not the best for their child, becomes much more limited.

Co-operative backs Homes Education Centre

2009-06-15T10:03:00.001+01:00

THE Home Education Centre in Chard has received a £745 boost from the Co-operative’s community fund. The money will be used to buy craft tables and chairs for the centre and the group’s chairman, Karen Turner, is delighted at the donation.

“We provide support for home-educated children and their parents, giving them access to group learning and allowing them to develop friendships and a sense of community. We are very grateful to the Co-op for supporting our work and allowing us to buy this much-needed equipment.”

Read more...

Home education news

2009-06-14T12:04:00.005+01:00

Home schooling vs. the state
This Labour government has been especially bad at dealing with difference, and its latest stance against home schooling is indicative of this lack of tolerance and understanding.

Parents who home educate children to be forced to register
Fiona Nicholson, of support group Education Otherwise, said: "If they introduce a registration system, it would completely shift the balance of power. The state is coming into family life and trying to regulate it. It is an extraordinary invasion of the family."

You can't hear the jackboots, but this is still oppression
Private life, the family home, freedom of conscience and action, have never been so menaced. But... we don't see it for what it is. It is time we did.

There's no education like home schooling
Instead of hedging in home educators with inspections, we should applaud the parents who decide to take on their children’s education rather than packing them off to school all day.

Home education on the news

2009-06-13T12:06:00.002+01:00

Parents resort to home education because state schools betray their wishes
Eric Hester: "The Government's intention to regulate – in effect, nationalise – home education is spiteful, dictatorial and simply anti-educational. There is no evidence that home-educated children do worse than those in schools. To suggest that home education might lead to abuse ill becomes a Government at a time when a state-regulated nursery is being investigated over horrific crimes."

Home schooling to be monitored by govt database?
Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "The whole purpose of home education, of course, is that people want to keep their children out of the clutches of the state and they should be allowed to do so if they want in a free country."

Even from the edge of the grave, Labour attacks the family
"The dying scorpion still has venom in its tail: this decomposing Labour government, rotting like a fish from the head down and with a maximum life expectancy of 11 months, is still doggedly pursuing the destruction of British society - the Project on which it embarked 12 years ago. Its latest assault on the family is an offensive against home schooling... the state, furious that 50,000 children have eluded its clutches, is intruding further into family life.

Government to clamp down on home schooling families
Fiona Nicholson, of support group Education Otherwise, said: “If they introduce a registration system, it would completely shift the balance of power. The state is coming into family life and trying to regulate it. It is an extraordinary invasion of the family.”

Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust, said: “In accepting the recommendations of this report, the government is signalling its intention to introduce an unprecedented level of intrusion into family life. The plan to allow local authorities routine access to the homes of children who are educated outside the school system shows a fundamental distrust of parents. If the government gets its way, home educated children will be subject to a far greater degree of individual state surveillance than children receive in school. ... The legality of going beyond that and granting local authorities a routine right of access to the homes of parents who teach their children at home is open to question under human rights legislation.”

Home education changes announced
"Education officials in the Isle of Man are looking forward to improving relations with parents who opt to teach their children at home."

Home education news

2009-06-12T11:12:00.004+01:00

Home education clampdown 'an infringement of civil liberties'
Parents could be banned from educating children at home in a move branded a "very bad day for civil liberties".

A home educated teenager gives her view
I only did my first year in primary school, and all my memories of it are horrible! I used to get really badly bullied all the time.

Voice welcomes home education review
Voice: the union for education professionals has welcomed news that the review of home education in England is recommending a national registration scheme.

Parents should educate children as they wish
Even in its current decrepit state, the Government has not lost its unappealing appetite for control. ... it arrogantly assumes that state functionaries are better qualified than parents to decide what is right for their children.

Government moves to tighten regulation of home education
Ministers today unveiled plans for a major toughening-up of the regulation of home education, forcing families who opt out of schooling to register annually ... Groups representing home-educating families condemned the moves as "draconian".

Home schools 'should be checked'
... so they want to protect them. But home education groups say the government should stop being so suspicious of them and give them more support.

Home educators made to register
The review has not found any evidence that home education was being used specifically to conceal trafficked children, or forced marriages. ... home educators say authorities should stop treating them with suspicion...

Crackdown on home-schooling as parents face annual checks and registration
...parents last night branded the proposals an 'extraordinary' intrusion by the state into family life. They fundamentally undermine parental responsibility to ensure their child is receiving a good education, they said.

'We are shocked and horrified,' said Ann Newstead, a spokesman for Education Otherwise who herself home educates four children. 'The police don't even have access unless they believe a crime is taking place so local councils will be given more powers than the police,' she added. 'This is an attitude of the state which says you don't know how to bring up your child and we need to tell you how to do it. We are told what to put in children's lunchboxes, how they should eat healthily, how we should keep them safe on the net, how they should go out to play more. There comes a point where you have to say, please don't assume parents are not capable of bringing up their own children.'

Parents face being struck off for failing to safeguard children
Local authorities will be given powers to prevent parents from educating their children at home if a child’s safety is in question, the Department for Children, Schools and Families has confirmed.

Home education parents to face council inspections
Parents who home educate their children will be inspected by council officials and ordered to send them to school if standards are not met, a Government review said today.