Youngsters of all social classes do
better if they avoid school, study discovers
Children taught at home significantly
outperform their contemporaries who go to school, the first
comparative study has found.
It discovered that home-educated
children of working-class parents achieved considerably higher marks
in tests than the children of professional, middle-class parents and
that gender differences in exam results disappear among home-taught
children.
The study, to be published by the
University of Durham in the autumn, will support a call for the
Government to introduce legislation to help the growing army of
parents who are choosing to remove their children from schools.
The numbers of home-educated children
in Britain has grown from practically none 20 years ago to about
150,000 today - around 1 per cent of the school age population. By
the end of the decade, the figure is expected to have tripled. Home
education has won so much support in Scotland that more than 200
campaigners from across Britain are to march to the Scottish
Parliament next month to demand a relaxation in legislation which
makes it harder for parents to educate their children at home in
Scotland than in England and Wales.
'Home-educated children do better in
conventional terms and in every other way too,' said Paula Rothermel,
a lecturer in learning in early childhood at the University of
Durham, who spent three years conducting the survey. She said: 'This
study is the first evidence we have proving that home education is a
huge benefit to large numbers of children. Society just assumes that
school is best but because there have never been any comparative
studies before this one, the assumption is baseless.'
Rothermel questioned 100 home-educating
families chosen randomly across the UK, conducting face-to-face
interviews and detailed appraisals of their children's academic
progress, in line with recognised Government tests. She found that 65
per cent of home-educated children scored more than 75 per cent in a
general mathematics and literacy test, compared to a national figure
of only 5.1 per cent. The average national score for school-educated
pupils in the same test was 45 per cent, while that of the
home-educated children was 81 per cent.
Rothermel said: 'The improved exam
results could be down to the sheer quantity of parental attention and
the sense of long-term security that gives them... It could also be
down to the fact that families who home educate from birth had worked
with their children from the word go and without the disruptive
transition at an early age to the very different environment of
school.'
Rothermel found that the children of
working-class, poorly-educated parents significantly outperformed
their middle-class contemporaries. While the five- to six-year old
children of professional parents scored only 55.2 per cent in the
test, children far lower down the social scale scored 71 per cent. Rothermel said: 'This was really a staggering finding, but
better-educated parents are probably more laid back than
poorly-educated parents and so are less likely to push their
children.'
Alison Preuss, a mother of three, has
been home teaching for six years and is director of Schoolhouse, a
Scottish support group for parents who have opted out of conventional
schooling. She said: 'In school [children] have knowledge poured into
them, while at home they're proactive in choosing what they learn. It's a better preparation for university because they are used to
motivating themselves.
'Their social skills and general
knowledge are more advanced because they're not restricted by the
confines of a national curriculum. They can explore a huge variety of
subjects, concentrating in depth on whichever ones capture their
imagination.'
(Source)
Related articles:
----------------------------------------------------
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Movement Central Group (N-AM)
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Book Club
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Earth & Animal Activism Network
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Permaculture Information Network
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Survivalist and Preparedness Circle
* Facebook: National-Anarchist France
* Facebook: National-Anarchist Spanish Speaking Resistance
* Contacts: Other N-AM Links