The Blogs
JUNE 2025
06 June 2025
13 June 2025
20 June 2025
27 June 2025
Friday 6 June 2025.
Richard writes
Week two of my three week look at home educating. Last week I looked at what you may need to think about.
This week I am going to look at the reasons you might have chosen, or will choose, to home educate.
It is possible that, like me, you believe the school system is restrictive. It is, it has to be.
The way it has to operate, and is designed to operate, is that it is, by nature, standardised. There are
standard lessons, a standard curricula, standard tests and exams. The problem with that is children are not standard.
There is no one model for a child and no one way that they develop and learn. The school system, as it is now in most
schools, does not cater for differences.
Aside from your personal view, schools do not provide an environment that is a happy place for everyone.
I can vouch for that. It didn't work for me. If you have been following this site you will know that when I was 13
I refused to go to school for a year. I ended up in a special psychiatric hospital in conditions that would, I hope,
never be allowed today. The thought of going to school terrified me. I had anxiety. it damaged my mental health although
there was no real awareness as to what mental health was.
So the actual environment may be causing your child problems. Returning to my "everyone is different" theme,
these problems do not, repeat do NOT, mean there is anything wrong with your child. It means a part of life, which it
actually forced upon children, does not suit them.
In some cases children may be excluded from school for a variety of reasons. Once again it is because the education
system cannot cope with different behaviours. If a child is being disruptive the correct approach, in my view, is not to
remove them but to look at why they are showing such behaviour. I'm not a psychiatrist, I haven't studied why people exhibit
certain behaviour. I've simply been around a bloody long time, have spent well over 70% of my life working or being a part
of education, observed and learnt from what I have seen and, I like to think, applied a certain amount of logic and common
sense to what I have seen.
To sum up, there are several reason that someone may end up home educating their child. The three I've mentioned
are perhaps the main ones. Whatever applies to you and your circumstance do not feel you are alone. Over 175,000 children were
electively being home educated last year. If it's needed, feel free to do it. If you think it right, go ahead. In my eyes the
most important thing that we, as parents or as guardians of young people should be doing is to provide them with a safe
environment, a happy environment, in which they can learn.
Back to the top
Friday 13 June 2025.
Richard writes
Final look at home educating and in this one I said I'd look at what might go wrong. However,
having written that three weeks ago, I've realised that I can't tell you what might go wrong because home
educating, by its nature and with its wonderful advantage, is so individual.
The important things is to believe in what you've chosen for your child, be aware of your child's
feelings (they might decide they want to go to school) and not to listen to the uninformed views of the outside world.
Think about what school gives a young person. It forces young, active little humans to sit still
or hours each day surrounded by people they didn't choose to be with and can't escape. It builds into them the
idea that your performance is always evaluated by someone else and that you are constantly compared with your
peers or, worse still, with predetermined norms. It puts children, during their school years, through more than
2,500 days or 15,000 hours of regulated life, being expected to progress at the same speed as those around them
with their curiosity stifled if it doesn't fit with a particular lesson plan.
You will certainly hear people say "ah but school develops social skills". Really? Socially you are
put in a group of people chosen by birthdate, most interaction is strictly managed, talking is often banned unless
you are asked a question or when you are actually free to mix in those brief moments of playground time. Social
skills happen naturally in the real world. You find someone with a shared interest, a shared curiosity, a shared
activity. Age doesn't matter. I think Molly and I prove this but, I will admit, when we met I was worried that Molly
might feel that I looked down on her because I was in an older age group. That's what is imbued in a school system.
But no, old can give experience to young; young can give a fresh look to old.
Just to finish with a little story. Way back in the 1990s, before I started to home educate my second son,
I regularly read the Times Educational Supplement. One week I read a story from a teacher who had taken her child out
of school and was home educating. Her pivotal moment, so she said, came when a child in her year 5 maths lesson, obviously
not particularly interested, suddenly raised his hand and said "miss, why do leaves fall off trees in autumn". She realised
that she wasn't free to give an answer because, done properly, the answer would have had to involve the rest of the
class and could spread over several days. It would also be useful to get outside and see the fallen leaves, do something
with the fallen leaves, find trees that lost leaves and trees that didn't and talk about so much more.
This was around 1995-6 and the obscene SATS tests were in full flow. SATS didn't ask a child to be curious only
to regurgitate, in a few subjects, what had been instilled in them. That was what she had to teach so that child, who was
suddenly interested in learning something couldn't, in our education system, have his curiosity satisfied.
We could change our system but not by tampering with it. Using a nature analogy, if a tree is dying then
pruning a few branches won't save it. You need to dig it out and plant a new one. As the late Sir Ken Robinson once said
"the answer is not to standardize education, but to personalize and customize it to the needs of each child and community.
There is no alternative. There never was". Unfortunately our education system does use an alternative of trying to standardise a child's education.
I would never suggest everyone should home educate. That is as impractical as standardising education.
But, if it's what you want and works for you, don't ever think you are doing something wrong. My son, home-educated
for most of his primary years, has a Master's degree in Law and History, is now a senior associate in a major law firm,
a published author, a public speaker and a very happy man with his own family.
Back to the top
Friday 20 June 2025.
Molly writes
Already we have reached another turning point in the year: Summer Solstice. The day the sun stands still. We have now reached
the peak of summer, a time of abundance, the abundance of light and in recent weeks an abundance of heat too!
Not only is it the month for the solstice but also the month for the strawberry moon, named appropriately as it's
the month when the strawberries are ready for harvest. A sign that we have moved on from the dainty flowers that bloomed in the
spring and onto the delicious fruits that have spent months getting ready. A very exciting time and despite being able to buy strawberries
all year round from the supermarkets, they certainly are not the same. I've now sworn to never buy strawberries out of season and from other
countries again. You can't beat the joy of growing and tending to your own plants, waiting patiently and eagerly for them to develop and
transform. When my strawberries were ready this year, I felt an urge to celebrate and rejoice, they tasted amazing! But of course, if you can't
grow your own strawberries, perhaps finding a local farm where you can pick your own might be an option. My mum and I go every year, this year
being extra special as it was Lola's first time and she sure dived into the pot before we had even left!
Did you get lucky enough to witness the full moon this month? It so happened that I was holidaying in Beccles last week, when an
orange glow caught my eye one evening. I walked across the field I was camping in and from behind a bush, I caught site of the full strawberry
moon of this month. It looked big, low and orange. I gasped at the sight, it was absolutely stunning and had me mesmerised for ages.
Summer solstice is celebrated as Litha in Pagan and Wiccan circles. A time when the masculine god of the sun is at his height and
the goddess of earth is nourished by his light, in turn bringing forth her gifts. A time when the veils between the human and faerie worlds thin,
bringing the potential for magic and blessings. Litha, like many other festivals, is a fire festival, a time to light a bonfire in honour of the
sun and perhaps even jump over it for good luck. However, if you aren't able to make a fire, this time of the year is also good for pausing and
reflecting. What have you been building so far this year? Hopefully, the intentions you set earlier on in the year are beginning to come to
fruition. So slow down, take a moment to evaluate your progress and enjoy whatever abundance you have in your life right now. Celebrate your wins
and let go of any losses.
Back to the top
Friday 27 June 2025.
Richard writes
Hi, this is the last blog in this format and I will explain why.
Our School of the Air videos will pause during the summer break. The final story from Molly will be on Tuesday
15 July and the final Making with Molly on Thursday 17 July. As this happens to be my birthday I'm guessing it must be how
to make a fantastic birthday cake but, who know, I could be wrong.
Because it's convenient to pause after the Normans, our final Have A Go at History will be on Wednesday 9 July.
PLEASE NOTE ALTHOUGH I HAVE USED THE WORD "FINAL" IT IS BY NO MEANS THE END. READ ON
School of the Air will be back, five days a week, on Monday 1 September 2025 and apart from short breaks will be
with you until..........forever (ish).
Monday will see on new edition but you'll have to wait a while to find out what that is.
Tuesday and Molly will continue reading you more adventures of Pip by Enid Blyton and this will continue well into 2026.
Have A Go at History will begin again on Wednesday 3 September and will go on weekly until 15 December 2025 when we will reach 2025.
Beginning Wednesday 5 January 2026 and replacing the history videos we will resume our culinary journey through Europe, cooking some of each country's
typical dishes while also looking at their history and a few other fun facts. The last of these will appear on July 15 2026.
Making with Molly will also continue well into 2026 and then be replaced by a new set of videos tentatively called
Walking with Molly. More details on this later.
On Fridays we will be continuing our journey through the counties and metropolitan
boroughs of England and that will end on 17 July 2026. Or, to be precise, the virtual journey will end then but in September
you can follow us on our real, actual journey taking in all the same places.
On behalf of Molly and me, can I just thank all of our followers, subscribers or just those who have stopped by and watched a
video. It is really great to know how many of you are out there and to have the occasional comment. We put in a great deal of work to research,
write, film, edit and produce these videos and obviously we can't see your reaction........except during the last five weeks my 3 year old
(tomorrow if you're reading this on Friday) grandson was over from New Zealand with his parents. He saw some of our videos on my computer and
asked to watch them. I know he is just one example, and possibly trying to impress his grandad, but he was totally enthralled with what he watched.
Seeing that joy and wonder first hand was very special.
Despite pausing School of the Air, we've decided that you should still have something to watch during our summer break and, with this in
mind, we've decided to upload two videos a week on a Tuesday and a Thursday.
From both of us, all three of us, if you've heard the occasional voice off during some of our videos, have a great summer break and look
out for our videos and then come back and join us I September. See you then.
Back to the top
