Tuesday 19 November 2013

Home Education Heretic; The first stop for information about home education



Readers will, I am sure,  forgive a little vanity on my part. It is hardly to wondered at, since I discovered over the last week or so that some of those who could scarcely be numbered as members of my fan club, turn  first to this blog when  seeking up-to-the-minute and stunningly accurate information and commentary about home education in this country. 

I first noticed this tendency for those active in British home education to take their cue from me, back in August, last year. On August 5th, 2012,  I drew attention to the Welsh Government Assembly plans to introduce the registration of home educated children in the Principality. This was the first time that anybody in the home educating community appeared to have noticed what was being planned. I fancy I even stole a march there on La Nicholson! Certainly, organisations such as Education Otherwise and Home Education UK didn't seem to know about what was planned, until that is, I told them. Imagine that; the whole campaign about the Welsh proposals began here!

Of course, not all those who pick up on what I have to say are quoting directly from this blog. We saw an example of this, the other day, when somebody  was googling  Alison Sauer and Cheryl Moy’s names and came up with this;


http://www.helenhoughton.com/1316-a-problem-with-education-otherwise.shtml


This is only one of a number of sites which apparently cut and paste masses of entries from here and create new blogs from the material. In some of these cases, there are advertisements on the blogs, which might provide some motive for the enterprise, but in others there are not. Take this one, for example:


http://retreteverbal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/home-education-conference.html

Here are a few others:

http://mojecosie.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.dooedu.com/home-education/home-education-heretic-three-home-educating-myths.html

http://friendshipessaystudentessayssynopsis.wtc.cc/175/home-education-heretic-early-childhood-experiences-and-their/


The result of all this is that people searching for information on specific subjects or people connected with home education in this country are increasingly likely to  stumble across my own views, although not of course attached to my name. I find this pretty amusing, because I am constantly seeing my own ideas circulating through home educating lists and blogs, with many of those writing, not having the faintest notion that they are propagating the views of the famous Simon Webb!

2 comments:

  1. While you've been gloating, you missed this:

    "Ofsted warns of 10,000 missing from school system"
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24988340

    "The focus of concern in this report is not families who choose to home educate their children, but children whose education in school has been interrupted or has never properly begun."

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    Replies
    1. Replying to myself, here's a link to the report on OFSTED's web:
      http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/surveys-and-good-practice/p/Pupils%20missing%20out%20on%20education.pdf

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