28 Jun

Posted at 09:27h in Uncategorized

Self Managed Learning (SML) has been extensively researched for its impact on young people. This approach allows learners to take control of their education, setting their own goals and determining the best methods to achieve them. For a comprehensive overview of the research and findings on Self Managed Learning, please download the PDF linked below. A summary of research on Self Managed Learning ...

18 Feb

Posted at 08:24h in Articles

The Times newspaper of Saturday 15 February ran a typically one-sided and vindictive article alleging that what they labelled as unschooled home education was dangerous. They took the case of one (only one) female who claimed to have been unschooled and learned nothing. She particularly raised the issue that she and others had not been helped to be literate. I sent the following letter to the Times though they have not printed it as it does not, of course, fit the prevailing lies being pushed by the media about the dangers of children not in school. "The case study of so-called unschooling...

27 Aug

Posted at 08:27h in Articles

When I was scribing for a student doing his GCSEs in the summer I pondered on the instrument that I was using. A ball-point pen – or biro as we used to call it. When I was at school we had to use fountain pens for all writing. The use of a biro was forbidden and even the slightest hint of using one would get detention. For the school the notion of not using a fountain pen was seen as tantamount to the end of civilisation. It was that serious. And certainly for public exams right up to A levels fountain...

28 Jun

Posted at 08:33h in Uncategorized

This is a common question when parents visit SML College. One basis for this assumption is that somehow schools provide a rich, broad, child-centred curriculum that prepares them well for their careers and future life. Nothing could be further from the truth as the National Curriculum is narrow and unbalanced. It emphasises academic learning and undermines the chance for young people to learn practical skills. Every survey of employers has confirmed this view. We have students who have been sent by a local secondary school to pursue their learning with us. In one example, the individual student decided that they wanted...

27 May

Posted at 14:13h in Articles

1. “They can’t be scaled up”. Some people in the educational establishment eventually recognise the overwhelming evidence that small learning communities or similar maybe can work. However, they claim the problem is that they can’t be scaled up. The assumption is that scaling means going from a small setting, which may be a learning community, learning centre or small school or whatever, to a typical large school is not possible. Therefore the whole movement is fundamentally doomed as it can’t cater for the needs of large numbers of children. Let’s look at an example of real-life scaling. When Howard Schultz found that the...

08 Apr

Posted at 20:23h in News

A Welsh Government consultation will mandate sharing of young people's data, including confidential medical data, without consent, or even their knowledge, with local authorities' education departments. This appears to be an attempt to further encroach on the parental duty to make the decision concerning, and then to secure, a suitable education for their child/ren, and in particular a back door into non-consensual data collection about children being educated otherwise than in school. This is being proposed despite the fact that the vast majority of "Children Missing Education" are known to be on a school roll, but not attending. An earlier version...