Unschooling mother of four, Chaley-Ann Scott, writes about the every day magic of learning through living and answers your most common questions about choosing not to send your kids to school.
Homeschooling is a legal option for parents in many countries in the world, including the US, Australia and the UK. It is growing in popularity: in the UK alone, figures are estimated at over 50,000 and these are rising by 80 per cent per year. In some areas it’s even higher – Lancashire, for example, has seen an 829 per cent increase in home schooling since 2002.
Parents cite numerous reasons as motivations to homeschool their children, including better academic test results, poor school environment, improved character/morality development, the expense of private education, bullying, objections to what is taught in school, and a belief that school is unnecessary for learning and cannot cater for different learning styles.
My own reasons for taking my children out of the school system six years ago were because our eldest daughter, Molly, was unhappy there. At the time, I wasn’t really aware of the options available to us, but I soon discovered schooling isn’t compulsory. Ensuring your child gets an education is.
Although many homeschoolers, such as myself, start off following a curriculum (often referred to as ‘school-at-home’ or ‘school-in-a-box’), many end up following the unschooling philosophy. Also known as self-directed, child-led, interest-driven, and natural learning, unschooling is not a new method of homeschooling, but a flexible approach that has been practiced since before traditional schools were established.
