Articles

Home educated teenager with no motivation? What can help

What to do when your 13 to 16-year-old teen seems interested in everything except education, from gaming and screens to motivation, GCSE pressure and growing independence.

There is a particular kind of home education panic that seems to arrive somewhere in the teenage years. Your child used to have interests. They made things. Asked questions. Read books. Watched documentaries. Became briefly obsessed...

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Moving from interest-led learning to GCSE preparation without losing what works

How home-educated teens can move from interest-led learning to IGCSEs or GCSEs

For years, learning may have felt quite natural.

Your child became fascinated by a subject and followed it as far as they wanted. A question about volcanoes turned into Geography, Science and documentary watching. An interest in Greek myths led to reading, writing and History. Maths appeared in baking,...

Sailing experiences for home educated teens with Morning Star Trust

Taking home education to sea with Morning Star Trust

Have you ever thought about taking home education to sea?

For many young people, sailing offers something that is hard to recreate on land: real responsibility, practical learning, teamwork, problem-solving, and the chance to see the world from a completely different perspective.

Morning Star Trust is a Christian sail...

What happens when children stop asking questions?

How home education can help children start asking questions again

A recent article by Katy Purviance on Substack caught my attention because it puts words to something many families have felt for years: some children do not lose their curiosity because they grow out of it. Sometimes they learn that curiosity is inconvenient.

One line from the article stayed with me. Researcher Susan...

UK social media ban for under-16s: what it could mean for home educating families

What the under-16 social media ban could mean for home educated children

A social media ban for under-16s: protection, panic, or a missed chance to make tech safer?

The UK government has announced plans to ban under-16s from using certain social media platforms from spring 2027. The plan is being presented as a way to protect children from harmful content, addictive design, stranger...

What do home educating families do over the school summer holidays?

When the school term ends, home education can take its own shape

End of term is almost upon us. For many families, this time of year brings a noticeable shift. School routines are winding down. Clubs and regular groups may be pausing for the summer. Exams are coming to an end. The long stretch of July and August is starting to appear on the horizon. For home educating families, summer can...

Fairytales before phonics: How to help children love reading

How to help children fall in love with reading. The power of reading aloud.

Learning to read is hard, and none of us like doing things that are hard without good reason. So, if children don’t see the point in learning to read, they will be very reluctant to do the hard work involved in being able to decode the jumble of letters on a page.

After all, as adults, which of us picks up a...

Inspire To Learn IGCSE Biology Hub review: learning at a flexible pace

Learning at a home education pace. Our second month.

If you are wondering what the Inspire To Learn IGCSE Biology Hub actually is, I’d suggest starting with my introductory article. That piece explains the Hub in more detail, including how it is structured, who it is aimed at, and all the practical info.

If you missed the introductory article (linked above), O is using the Hub as a...

Teaching children about money: what I wish I’d learned sooner

Financial education for children: why money lessons need to start early

I was in my late twenties before I understood what an overdraft actually cost me.

Not in a vague "it's bad to be overdrawn" way. But actually understood it: the daily charges, the interest, the way it quietly erodes your account while you're busy just trying to get through the month.

Nobody had ever...

Parent and child sitting together at a kitchen table reading a newspaper. The Home Ed Daily

Childism, home education, and the politics of treating children as people

Childism, adult power, home education, politics, and why children deserve respect before they become adults.

There is something deeply uncomfortable about the way society talks about children.

We say they are precious. We say they are the future. We say they matter more than anything. Then we complain when they exist too loudly in public. We tell them to sit still, be quiet, fit in,...

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026: what changes for home education now?

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has received Royal Assent. What happens now? The key message for parents.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has now received Royal Assent and is an Act of Parliament. The Bill completed its final parliamentary stages on Tuesday 28 April 2026 and received Royal Assent on Wednesday 29 April 2026. The Act is for England and Wales. Families in...