Primary school children get a chance to become zookeepers and think about animals in caprivity in a theme based.
What the article doesn’t say – this approach is hardly new! Of course as the subject has been set by the teacher it isn’t really the way inquiry-based learning works best – when it follows the child’s own interests. A little taster of home education for school children though.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED13%20Nov%202009%2016%3A16%3A38%3A557
Category Archives: Education
Submissions to Select Committee on Badman Review
Those of us watching the Badman Review and the Government steps to register, monitor and control education outside school have been aware for a long time of the poor quality of the review and how it was obviously conducted to give Ed Balls the answere he wanted, rather than an independent review.
The Select Committee has now published the submissions to the inquiry into the review. The most interesting submissions include:
Ofsted wants parents CRB checked to look after their own children!
Badman seems to consider parents who home educate to be mentally ill!
And emminent Professor James C Conroy, member of Graham Badman’s Expert Reference Group concludes that “In my 30 odd years of professional life in education I have rarely encountered a process, the entirety of which was so slap dash, panic driven, and nakedly and naively populist.”
http://every-child-matters.blogspot.com/2009/11/our-case-against-change.html reviews the submissions
Mass Lobby of Parliament
Had an exciting and hopeful day at the Houses of Parliament. A big group of families – picnicing, playing, demonstrating and seeing their MPs.
We need to keep up the fight to make sure that every familiy has the right to choose the education that works best for their children. The recommendations would mean that parents would no longer have responbsibility for their children, that the state would be primarily responsible for them!
For the many children removed from school because of special needs, bullying or educational problems there would be NO PROTECTION from the very Local Authorites who have already been shown to be unable to provide a suitable education or protect them whilst at school.
LAs would be able to interview children alone, prevent families from home educating for any reason they like, without any appeal.
LAs already have all the powers they need.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acmenormans/
Home educated children snatched by authorites
Home educators in Europe are fighting for the right to choose to home educate and in some cases are having their children snatched away JUST because they home educate.
The worst offenders are Germany (acting on legistlation introduced by Hilter) and Sweden, which is in the process of banning home education.
Four children of a family that fled Germany to avoid further fines for homeschooling have been snatched from their home in France by police and accused of “being alone,”
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=112106
The desperate situation of a 7-year-old homeschooled child who was nabbed by Swedish police from an airliner as his family was departing on a move to India
hey, teacher leave us kids alone – youtube
Informal learning – a new (old) approach that works!
Informal Learning: An Interview With Dr Alan Thomas MSc, PhD, FBPsS
Children learn whatever they experience in the world around them. As Dr Thomas says “all you have to do to learn in a culture, is live in that culture”.
Parks in Hertfordshire
This google map shows Parks and sites of interest in Hertfordshire.
Please leave others to be added in comments.
Not back to school picnic news stories
Families protest against proposed changes to home schooling
Stroud News and Journal
By David Wiles » FAMILIES staged a protest in Stratford Park, Stroud against proposed Government reforms which they fear would make home education too …
Home schooling: Hey, teachers, leave us kids alone
As protesters gather in London today to campaign against tighter restrictions on home schooling, our writer, educated in a council house with her seven siblings, gives a learned riposte to those who doubt its benefits
Parents protest over tougher restrictions on home schooling
This is London.
They say the rules will reduce the risk of home education being used as a cover for child abuse. But campaigners argue the move will restrict parents’ …
BBC coverage
(39 minutes into the programme)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00mq5xg
Not back to school picnic
With the shops full of ‘back to school’ bargains, Home Educating families in Hertfordshire are joining together for a ‘Not Back to School’ picnic in St. Albans.
Across the country picnics are being organised for families to meet with old friends and make new ones, dispelling the myth that home educated children do not get a chance to socialise. This will also be a chance for families new to home education to find out about the many activities that run in the county. As well as various one off events, regular groups give children the chance to take part in sports, music, art, craft, science, history as well as making new friends. Getting together with other home educating families also gives parents the chance to network and share tips and ideas.
Hundreds of children in the county are educated ‘otherwise than at school’ be it in a structured school at home setting, or a more ‘free-range’ autonomous approach.
The gatherings also are hoping to show that Home Educating families are part of the wider community, we would welcome anybody wishing to find out more about Home Education to come along and join in the fun.
The St. Albans picnic will take place in Verulamium Park on Tuesday 15th September between 12:30pm and 3pm.
To show solidarity with similar events across the country that week, there will be a mass bubble-blowing at 2pm, as a peaceful protest against the new restrictions on Home Education proposed in the Badman report recently presented to the government.
This is what I am scared of …
This article shows just what I am scared of with respect to the Government’s proposed changes to home education.
What is to stop them using home education as a reason for taking my children away? What happens when an LA official doesn’t like my education methods, or doesn’t like that I don’t accept their methods of education.
They have an incredible potential power over us already – even now when the legal situation supports parent’s choices over education. How much worse will it be when the law doesn’t protect our freedom to educate in a way that works for our children, but only in a state approved way!