Could Home Education be the answer?

At a time of increasing pressures on local and national government to keep providing us with services despite the cuts that have and are being made, a new problem in schools has arisen. Just before the recent downturn in our economy, there was a baby boom. In fact, numbers of children being born is still rising. Those children are now requiring school places and placing a huge demand on schools and local authorities. This is not wrong of course, but is causing a prolonged headache for larger cities like Bristol, Birmingham and London. A recent BBC NEWS article has outlined the problem.

Every child in England and Wales is entitled to a place at school. The LA has to provide this for every child. What do they do however when there is simply not enough room for all the children. There can only be 30 children to one teacher in a classroom and with a shortage of teachers and strict rules about building, in some cases there just won't be enough physical space.

I, and other home educators I would guess, can't help wondering if home education could be the answer.

I'm not in anyway suggesting that home ed is the magic solution. I should imagine that it would be an LA's worst nightmare in fact. It's also not right for every family, just as school isn't right for some others. However, perhaps if more people knew about it and knew about how amazing the support network is, those who may have been thinking about it, would give it a go.

I speak to lots of mums who say things like "I'd love to do it but I wouldn't be disciplined enough / I'm not clever enough / my house is too small / I find it difficult to find things to do in the holidays etc" To all those people I say, look a bit deeper into it, spend some time with a home educating family, join some support groups. It's a great way of life for those who have chosen to go down this road and it would possibly help with the current school place crisis.

This is in no way meant to make those who send their children to school feel bad. Your children are entitled to a place at school and I firmly believe that it is the LA's responibility to provide. Provide they will, it just may not be in an ideal way for some families. It is to those families that I have written this to.