Friday 5 April 2013

An interview with BBC Radio Sheffield





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
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7 comments:

  1. Anonymous5 April 2013 at 06:52

    I can not believe I am about to say this, but you did ok, I was surprised to hear you on there, not surprised at all about Fiona and Edwina, very pleased at most of the other callers, the last two were rushed through though, which is a shame, as the DJ spent a long time talking to the school at home mum, would have been nice for a bit more balance. But as we all know it could have been a lot worse.

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  2. Anonymous5 April 2013 at 10:28

    The bright spark who was on after you made it sound like inspections are compulsory from the LA, obviously he doesn't realise they are optional. He also quoted the 1944 Education Act, as opposed to the 1996 Education Act. Perhaps Alison can train his organisation.

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  3. Anonymous5 April 2013 at 10:56

    I thought that Sara, who had a 4 and 5 year old, must have been a teacher as she talked about her children's willingness to 'engage with phonics'.

    I thought you did very well, Simon.

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  4. Anonymous5 April 2013 at 12:43

    Is there another request from the BBC floating around for an evening session?

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  5. Anonymous7 April 2013 at 18:30

    I thought you came across very well

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  6. Simon Webb8 April 2013 at 00:13

    'I thought you came across very well'

    Thanks!

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  7. Anonymous8 April 2013 at 08:04

    why did you not mention that you do not have to have home visits or meeting from any LA Webb?

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