What’s on: Home Education is returning!

We’re so excited that our home education group is restarting on 10th August. The group has been running every Monday 9.30-3pm with real success since Autumn 2019.

Home education/ Flexi Ed in this country

The number of people home educating in England is on the rise. Parents choose to home educate for a variety of reasons, from withdrawing a child who is suffering bullying, to choosing a less structured and more child-led approach to education, to those who want to travel. There are those that disagree with the increased testing we’re seeing in schools, and those that might have additional learning needs that are better supported in an alternative educational setting.

Home education is completely legal, requires no mandatory visits or supervision and can be a wonderful alternative for those children that don’t thrive in school.

Although their children may not be in school, learning is far from solely home-based. Children crave to be outdoors, to be making friends and experiencing new things and the plethora of groups and activities on offer for home educated children is testament to that.

Home education & forest school – the perfect fit

The Forest School Association sums up the philosophy of Forest School as being a process that ‘offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland’. This closely aligns with a predominant philosophy of home education, one in which children are given a more free-range approach to education and trusted with more responsibility than they might be given in a school setting.

Although we have a certain amount of planned activities, the children help us decide what the group gets up to. This has been eagerly embraced by children as young as six, as they plan games and things to do for the entire group.

Our home education group have enjoyed a wide variety of activities from green woodwork, including bow and arrow making to cooking up feasts on the campfire.

We’re looking forward to a flourishing new term this year, with lots of interest from new parents already we’re expecting to be busy!