I thought that readers might like the opportunity to hear me talking about a favourite subject of mine; that is to say, home education. Here is a link to an interview which I gave on home education this morning. I am on a little over two hours into the programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0163hjr
For once, I find myself compelled to agree with my critics! Several people have asked the perfectly fair question of what on earth I am doing, shooting my mouth of here about home education in Sheffield. There are sound grounds for asking this question, seeing that I neither live in nor have any connection with Sheffield and am not in any case a home educator. There is an explanation and it is a curious one.
The researchers for the programme approached several people whom they thought might be able to speak authoritatively on home education in Sheffield. One of these was Fiona Nicholson, who lives in the city, acts as a consultant on home education and has a site on the subject called Ed Yourself. The researcher spoke to her and she refused to take part in a programme about this subject. They also spoke to Edwina Theunnison, who is a trustee of Education Otherwise. She too declined to take part. This being the case, I thought that I ought to step into the breach! If these others had agreed to be interviewed, then I would not have involved myself.
I must draw attention to the Ingle family, who also spoke. Their son did A Levels at home, which is something I could not have faced in a million years. Here is a piece about them:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/16/a-level-results-2012-home-schooling-effective_n_1786949.html