Home Education is legal in England, and home educators have considerable freedom enshrined in Education law.  How free it is in practice will often depend upon how informed they are about the law, and how prepared they are to argue their corner against their local authority.

The law and guidelines to local authorities cover the whole of England, but they are implemented in very different ways in different places.  In part this relates to the local experience of home education, but mostly it depends upon the personnel responsible in the authority.  Some authorities have very hands-off policies: Milton Keynes is one of these.  Some authorities seem to have very hands-on policies: Dorset seems to be one of these.

The difficulty with offering any sort of information about the approaches of local authorities in England is that many of them approach home educators on a case-by-case basis, and what one home educator will experience as an intrusive and unwarranted interference in their lives, another in the same place and dealing with the same inspector will regard as a delightful interlude in their home education.  Many unschoolers if asked to have an inspection, will prefer to provide a report instead, or may argue that the law only allows the authorities to interfere if it appears that a child is not being educated.  This choice is a difficult one to make, and will depend upon your attitude to writing reports, meeting inspectors, or getting into arguments by correspondence.

In the end, case law in England requires a parent to ensure that their education is efficient, and in the absence of any guidelines about what an educated person should know, it has been deemed that an education is efficient if it achieves what it sets out to achieve.  Thus, the best advice for any parent setting out on home education in the UK is to first sort out in their own minds what they hope to achieve by it.  Most home educators who unschool their children will not have a closely detailed list of knowledge that they want to impart to their children, because it is contrary to the whole philosophy.  They wil instead have aims which are in harmony with natural learning and autonomy for the child:  fostering their curiosity, facilitating their growth in every area of their lives, becoming happy and independent learners who turn into happy and independent adults, for example.

Writing out an educational philosophy, and keeping it updated, is an important discipline, because it provides a well-thought-out response to any casual enquiries from the authorities should that arise.  Their test of whether the home education provided achieves what it sets out to achieve, has to be judged by looking at what the parents set out to achieve.  That’s where your educational philosophy comes in.

This freedom is very important to the ability of unschoolers to be able to continue to home educate under the law.  Currently I have found very little understanding among education inspectors about unschooling: most are trained teachers and expect home educators to be following a curriculum and actively teaching their children.  A well-written educational philosophy may provide an education for the inspector, too.

If you have written your educational philosophy, I hope you will consider sharing it with us here.  I will set up an article to contain any I am sent.