Home Education Links

The purpose of the "UK Home Education Support" e-mail list is to provide mutual support for UK based home educators and those interested in home education. To allow the sharing of knowledge and experience between established and prospective home educators and to establish a forum for the free discussion of issues surrounding any and every aspect of home education.
 
For more information, please e-mail:-
UK-HOME-ED-REQUEST@AOL.COM or visit the UK-HOME-ED E-mail list web pages.

The official home of the UK-HOME-ED mailing list and the Home Education UK webring, this site is full of useful information about the legal aspects of HE, local contacts, support, resources, articles, etc. Over 100 pages of essential home ed information!

The website for a book written by twenty home educating families including ours! Each family has written about how home education works for them and includes contributions from children as well as adults. There is also information on useful organisations, information about places that offer free admission to home educators, doing exams etc. and a hefty legal chapter. Much of the information is included on the web site along with activities and is well worth a visit even if you don't buy the book!

Choice in Education is a magazine produced by a group of home educators.  They also produce truancy cards with information about the legality of home education on and have been involved in producing and distributing the Elective Home Education Legal Guidelines, a copy of which can be seen on their site. 

Originally began as a family site but has grown so much in scope and content that it is now one of the main UK home education web sites. Lots of ideas for teaching maths, articles on why people choose to home educate, socialisation, legal information, parenting articles and much more. Well worth a visit!

"This is a UK based mailing list for families who home educate children with any kind of special education need (SEN). It has been started with the aim of providing support and encouragement to families who: (a) Have taken their child out of school because of his/her SEN (or have never sent them to school); (b) Are and established Home Educating family who suspect that their child may have SEN; and (c) Parents of children with SEN's who want to learn more about the possibility of Home Education."

Just go to this web page, the instructions on how to join the list are at the bottom of the home page.

EO is the main home education support group. Membership, which currently costs £20.00, includes a bi-monthly newsletter, the contact list which lists most members by area and a copy of the book "School Is Not Compulsory".  There are currently about 3500 members.

Arch exists to promote the rights of children in our society - in particular their right to be educated in a way that satisfies their curiosity, respects their opinions and fosters their choices. It is a not-for-profit organisation and we encourage all interested parties to join (free membership).

"Open Education exists to articulate and advocate an alternative view of education. Education is a natural and lifelong process that happens to all people.

Education should encompass all of life's experiences and value, above all else, the needs, wants and interests of the individual. To this end children should have an equal role in decisions concerning their education.

We reject schooling as it conceals and undermines the natural education process and can ultimately be used by the dominant ideology in our society to engineer the kind of adults that children become."

This page lists all of the sites that have signed up for the UK home educators web ring, it's probably a bit more up to date than this list!

The Home Education Advisory Service is another organisation that provides information to home educators.

A home education support group for those living in Scotland.

"The FISE campaign is being run by a group of home educators, and is not directly connected with any home education support organisation.

The campaign is calling on the Scottish government to scrap the guidance on home education."

A newsgroup devoted to home education in the UK.

Information about flexi-schooling in the UK.

Meetings and contact in and around Worcestershire.

The home page of Sophie and Max who started home educating in March 1999. Their site includes a home-ed diary and copies of replies to Sophie's posts to the UK-HOME-ED mailing list.

A guide to web resourses. I had thought of including links to web pages for different subject areas but then Jackie Turner saved me the trouble! This is how Jackie introduces her site:-

"This site is being developed with the intention of providing home-educating families an extensive guide to internet resources. I hope that this guide will also be of use to anyone who would like links to quality sites of interest to children, all reviewed and tested by myself and my family, in one place.

We have tried as far as possible to find sites offering an 'alternative' approach to learning about traditional subjects to the approaches favoured by schools. So children at school may find a different approach to difficult or boring topics refreshing and interesting!"

"The home of Joe The Dragon who travels around the world, provides games, puzzles and quizzes in his Lair and who wants to be your friend. Interactive fun for all ages. Special topics are virtual travel to Kingdom of Nepal, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and China. Many interactive Maths games are found here. Regularly updated. Newest feature - Tangrams, chinese puzzles, over 50 different ones in an interactive flash game."

The Taking Children Seriously list is a forum for the discussion of non-coercive child-rearing/education theory and practice, and for the support of parents trying to make their interactions with their children non-coercive.

To subscribe to the Taking Children Seriously list, send a message to listserv@listserv.aol.com saying
subscribe TCS-DIGEST your-first-name your-last-name
Subscribers to the TCS list receive a message about the list, Welcome to Taking Children Seriously. To find out more before subscribing take a look at the TCS web site.

The site of American un schooler, Heather Madrone.  Full of interesting articles and discussions about Heathers experiences of un-schooling.

Send an e-mail to krampf@aol.com, asking to be added to the Experiment of the Week List and each week you will be sent, by e-mail, a new experiment that you can try yourself. They look for experiments that are unusual, safe, dramatic, cheap, and fun. Experiments are also archieved on a Yahoo group, Krampf.

The Full UK National Curriculum online. Whilst home educators do NOT have to follow the national curriculum some do and others just like to check it out.

This site has lots of freeware and shareware software for children available to downoad. There are plenty of categorised lists to help you find what you want.

Quote from their site:-

How Stuff Works is a great place to come to learn about how things work in the world around you. Have you ever wondered how the engine in your car works, or what gears do, or what makes the inside of your refrigerator cold? Then How Stuff Works is the place for you! A new article gets added every week.

This site has many articles about parenting including home education and un-schooling.  Article authors include Jan Hunt, Alice Miller, John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and Earl Stevens. I quote below from their home page:-

Our vision is a world in which all children are treated with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion.  In such a world, every child can grow into adulthood with a generous capacity for love and trust. Our society has no more urgent task.

John Holt's Bookstore.

Go to this site to subscribe to the Cool Fact of the Day e-mail list. Each day you will be sent an interesting fact with links to relevant web sites.

If you want to exchange postcards with home educators from around the world, go here, add your name and address to the list and start sending and receiving the postcards.

Quoted from their site....

"The UK's only Children's Shareware Library

A well established (1991) shareware library with a special interest in children's educational programs and games. We can find something to suit your child - whether you use DOS, Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98. Useful titles for parents and teachers are also covered.

We supply quality shareware for older PCs, stocking a large range for everything from old Amstrads with 5.25" disks, 286s with DOS, or 386s running Windows 3.1. Plus all the latest titles for those with fast multimedia machines."

You will also find a comprehensive range of links, home education resource information and free clip art.

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