Many parents don't know that elective home education is legal and successful as an alternative to school education.

[julienoshoes]

www.yorksj.ac.uk/news---events/news---events-home/news/children-dont-have-to-go-to-s.aspx

"It is a scandal that parents and children can suffer so much trauma from problems with schools and do not know there is a valid, successful alternative. Too often schools fail parents and children and one solution may be home education. It is a controversial inadequacy and loss that the government do not actively educate the country's parents about alternative educational options such as home education. State information about education keeps most parents in the dark about such options. The parents I spoke to didn't like that. We need more information in the public domain rather than relying on word of mouth. A variety of educational pathways is the right of all, not just a privileged few."

Perhaps MN could do a list of questions to ask when selecting a school, starting with advice that you don't have to select one in the first place.

SatinSandals- What teachers never teach children to do is to question school. Children may be taught to question whether a history article is from a reliable source, or how to pick the right type of internet source for homework - the average comprehensive child does not get taught to question the rules of society.

In a school council they certainly do, the whole point is to have a voice.

I was actually talking about primary schools but DCs comprehensive used to debate. They generally came out top locally in debating competitions, above the private schools. I would have thought a good school would be teaching pupils to question rules of society and everything. Children generally do, I am surprised how many parents don't have debates around the dinner table.

I think you have found the crux = a good school.

The children I teach are taught to question everything, especially me. We have lengthy discussions about HE as part of our discussion of David Almond's novel Skellig. However, we also talk about a huge range of other things - it is only part of one year of the 6 years they are at High School.

What always gets me about HE is that you have to have the educational, financial and time resources to be involved. We can't all be small holding truckers!

I find that children question everything, I don't know how you stop them, or why teachers would want to stop them.

The interesting thing with children is that you never know how things will go. I do voluntary work with classes in a range of schools and the last time there were some very difficult questions, it is what keeps you on your toes and makes me want to volunteer. I don't think I would bother if children in schools just sat passively, as some people on here think, and didn't question. I would be bored and it is my spare time, I don't have to do it. I am sure that teachers find the same.

most people know you can home ed but they dont seem to know that you dont have to have special training,follow a curriculum or prove to anything to any authority.

SatinSandals - sorry to keep going over my point. I am a parent and I would be the one choosing an education option for my children. In my school era - we were not taught to question authority and hardly taught to question data/sources of data - basically we were spoon fed facts and expected to learn them for exams. Perhaps (hopefully) schools are now producing children who will evaluate things. But my point is that I was not taught to question authority and I'd be the one who chooses for my kids.

Isn't that the problem. Some of those who use schools are basing it on not knowing about HE. However, some of those who HE have only their own experience of school to work from. We had desks in rows, lines if we misbehaved and teachers who were never wrong. Schools now are very, very different places and I am sure that there are many people who HE without realising how schools have changed since "their" day. For example, I know of a family who HE their children as a result of their own experience in the South of England. They now live on a remote island where their children would join one other pupil in the school. Yet they HE when the experience their children would get is very, very different and far more personalised than it used to be. They too have made a choice without knowing all the facts.

I would say that sums it up, Tinlegs.

Hello
Just for reference. I liked my school years. I have 2 big kids, one in HE, one in school and I just finished my term as a school Governor. So I have seen both sides of the arguement.