Our advocacy colleague and vice-convener of Home Education Scotland, Mark Nixon, comments in today’s Courier on home education during anticipated school closures and lockdown, his key message being: replicating school at home is ill-advised.
We don’t do school at home because it’s not a school environment and that can go on to create tension and that is what we do not want at a time like this.
He said it was “very easy to worry about children falling behind” but as long as they “are comfortable and happy” then the learning experiences would come.
He said some parents could be anxious because “they found school difficult themselves” and they are aware they “are not teachers”.
“People have been in touch asking what do I do with them during the day,” he said.
“We cook, read together, watch documentaries and discuss them. That is the kind of thing we do as home educators.”
Home Education Scotland is the new national charity, which campaigns on issues affecting home educators and works in partnership with the Scottish Home Education Forum. Membership is free of charge to those who support its aims and principles.
