If you are finding yourself googling this, chances are you are supporting a child or multiple children as a parent, grandparent, teacher - and you are wanting to ensure that you understand what Home Education really means, what it looks like, what all the jargon around it means and I want to help you feel completely clued up!

Let's start with a big one:

Home Schooling vs Home Education

In the UK, we call Elective Home Education, EHE, the act of a parent/direct carer choosing to educate their child themselves. They will not send them to a government school or private education facilities. 

They may, however, enlist online schools, curriculums, tutors, educational groups to support and facilitate learning.

Home Schooling is the term used for EHE in America.

Home Schooling is often used by parents, teachers and other organisations meaning EHE but we prefer the term Home Education as it ensures an understanding that education can look a lot different to school and most home educators will not educate using a 'school at home' method.

Essentially, although you will see it used interchangeably - accidentally/when looking at cross-border materials, in the UK it is called Elective Home Education. 

Deschooling vs Unschooling

Here is another set of words that I see people muddling around all the time too! These are both very different things. 

Unschooling is a type of child-led educational philosophy that allows the child to guide the parent on what they would like to learn about, specialise in, build skills in, etc. Parents will facilitate this learning by finding resources, activities, days out, people to meet, opportunities, having conversations, reading books, watching shows, you name it. Contrary to popular belief, unschooling is not simply letting a child get on with educating themselves without input, it is a deeply connected and collaborative way of educating that builds on mutual respect. 

Deschooling is the act of recognising and eradicating our own internal limiting beliefs, behaviours, fears, etc that come from being schooled. All sorts of beliefs stem from being in a state school, like eating 3 meals a day, work before play, needing to look, act, speak a certain way to be respected, to always be striving towards future goals instead of living in the moment, success equalling wealth. The act of deschooling is truly the beginning of truly embracing critical thinking - starting to ask 'why do I think that?' and 'is it actually true or just what people think?' among many other soul searching questions, that help you to recognise that education does not have to look like school. This helps both you and your child - especially when they are leaving school and trying to overcome trauma, resistance to school-like education, etc. 

Deschooling, in my opinion, is an urgent requirement of the entire nation - whether our kids go to school or not, to challenge the deeply ingrained poor mental health of the working/middle classes in this country caused by the expectations on us to ignore our human needs and focus on productivity at all costs. 

Curriculum vs. Resources

Put simply, a curriculum is a guide - often including activities, worksheets, books, lesson plans that help you to 'teach' a certain subject. That, in the opinion of the author of that curriculum, gives a well rounded understanding of that subject. These can be really helpful for areas you aren't particularly clued up on or if you find it easier to just grab and go with subjects instead of researching/planning yourself. 

It is, however, important to be critical of curriculums you purchase - research the author, research the topic a bit and see what you can find, as following any curriculum verbatim may mean teaching information that is not factual (incorrectly researched), it could be based on a different spiritual belief to yours and could conflict with how you want your children to feel about things - for example - a nutrition curriculum may promote weight management, or a history curriculum may be omitting important ethnic perspectives, disabled perspectives, could be too focus on war and battles when you would rather cover other fascinating moments in history. 

Resources can mean anything that helps you with home education - books, tv, workbooks, podcasts, libraries, museums, experts, etc! They are usually found and researched by you or your community. 

Teaching vs Facilitating

This one is important as so often we don't realise that as a home educating parent, we are not our child's 'teacher'. Sure, some home educators follow a more 'school at home' style and so may see themselves more this way, but for most following a more child-led philosophy, they won't. 

This may seem like semantics, but it is an important distinction. Teachers are, of course, facilitators of learning too but they take on an authoritative role - they take on the responsibility of planning, delivering, correcting, grading and keeping everyone on track with a curriculum. This is not, typically, what home ed looks like.

Home Educators are facilitators of their child's learning, we observe, we guide, we create opportunity, we help them learn how to find answers to their questions, we speak to them as equals in their endeavours, we learn alongside them. We allow our child to experience some of the responsibility of their own education, to follow their own interests and therefore we must adapt and support them to find their answers. This ultimately leads them to ask questions, to have critical thought, to be creative and resourceful in their education. 

If you are considering starting out in home education and are finding the steep learning curve overwhelming then reach out, I am a home educating parent myself, and trained motherhood empowerment coach, I offer support to families as a Home Education consultant, mentor and coach to help you to make the transition to home education with confidence, and ultimately help you to find freedom, joy and lifestyle shifts that make your whole family happier and more empowered. Find out how you can work with me or reach out today. 

About the Author

I am Kelly, a home educating parent of 2, with ADHD. I coach parents on how to transform their OWN journey within home education to embrace their own joy and find a balance that means they can keep their cool, have space, hobbies, boundaries, and banish limiting beliefs that cause them to burn out home educating their kids time and again!

If you would love to work together, you can reach out via my work with me page—or find out more about my story here.