But what about laboratories?

One of the reasons that teachers find home education so threatening is that it proves their services are not really as vital to society as they would have us believe. The great myth which they encourage society to embrace is that learning and education can only take place effectively within huge buildings full of specialised equipment and staffed by highly trained professionals. This is quite untrue.

I have been prompted to write this by my daughter's latest IGCSE results, which were A* in Physics and Chemistry. When friends of mine, mostly teachers and social workers, learned that I was planning to continue her education past primary age and to teach her to IGCSE level, there was a great shaking of heads and sucking in of breath in shocked amazement. Almost to a man, and woman, they said when the subject of teaching science came up, " But what about laboratories?" . The idea being that nobody could possibly study science unless they had a very large, expensively resourced room in which to do so. Well, my daughter has now acquired Biology, Physics and Chemistry IGCSEs, all at A*. What happened?

What happened was that we discovered, as others have done before us, that like every other academic subject, science can be tackled on the kitchen table just as efficiently as in a laboratory. Indeed, it can be tackled far better in this way. In a typical school science lesson a carefully conducted experiment might call for the addition of citric acid to another substance in order to observe the reaction. In the kitchen, this can be extended to the addition of ethanoic acid (vinegar), ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and then any other acids which might be in the cupboard. There is not a single part of the GCSE syllabus which cannot be pursued in the kitchen at least as well as in the most up to date and modern school science department.

I have given science as an example, but the same is true of any other subject, from Music to Acting, History to Food Technology. There is not a single academic subject which cannot be more effectively tackled at home than it can in the best school. Teachers are anxious in the extreme that this dangerous knowledge does not become generally known! The reason is obvious. The key to academic success lies not in the spending of ever increasing sums of money on electronic whiteboards and other expensive gadgets. Instead, it lies in quiet, methodical one-to-one instruction, the type of tuition which home education is uniquely well placed to provide for a child. No wonder that most teachers seem to be implacably opposed to home education on principle; it strikes at the root of their identity as uniquely invaluable educators of the nation's young people.