School choice

Home education or Academically selective?

The difference between Home education and Academically selective is mostly one axis: mixed ages. Home education sits toward mixed-age groups; Academically selective sits firmly toward classes of the same age. They agree, more than most people expect, on who else is there and technology at school. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Home education

Education at home with a structure you choose — bought curriculum, your own sequence, or a co-operative with other families. It gives complete control over pace, content and values, and it converts one parent's time into the school. The outcome research is genuinely good and almost entirely drawn from self-selected families, so it should be read as what is possible rather than as what is typical.

What it asks of you

  • One adult's working life, in most arrangements
  • Building a social world deliberately, since it does not arrive with the building
  • Teaching subjects you are not confident in, for years
  • A plan for the transition back, if there ever is one

Academically selective

A demanding academic programme with an entrance examination, a cohort selected for ability and for the families willing to prepare for it, and university as the explicit aim throughout. The teaching is usually excellent, the peer effects are real, and the measured advantage shrinks dramatically once you account for who was admitted in the first place.

What it asks of you

  • Preparation for entry, which for most families means tutoring and a year of it
  • A child who can carry sustained academic pressure, which not all can and few can predict
  • Fees or a move, and often both
  • Being clear-eyed that you are buying a cohort as much as a school
Side by side

Where they differ

Home education is the filled marker, Academically selective the hollow one. Widest difference first.

E1Mixed ages
classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Home education sits toward mixed-age groups; Academically selective sits firmly toward classes of the same age.

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Home education sits toward no grades, no tests; Academically selective sits firmly toward graded and tested regularly.

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Home education sits between the two; Academically selective sits firmly toward it should set up university and a career.

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows
school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Home education sits firmly toward being in it, daily; Academically selective sits between the two.

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows
free and local, or it is not an optionwe can pay, and we can travel

Home education sits between the two; Academically selective sits toward we can pay, and we can travel.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Home education sits between the two; Academically selective sits firmly toward early, and ambitiously.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Home education sits between the two; Academically selective sits firmly toward timetabled, and directed by adults.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Home education sits between the two; Academically selective sits toward a fixed body of knowledge, set in advance.

E2Outdoors and the body
learning happens at a tableoutdoors and hands-on is the point

Home education sits a little toward outdoors and hands-on is the point; Academically selective sits toward learning happens at a table.

V1A view of the world
school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Home education sits toward school should teach a view of the world; Academically selective sits a little toward school should stay neutral.

L5What a teacher is
a guide who steps backan authority who instructs

Home education sits a little toward an authority who instructs; Academically selective sits toward an authority who instructs.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • Who else is there. Both sit toward a community that shares our values matters most.
  • Technology at school. Both sit between the two.

Neither of these is the correct one

Which fits depends on what you value and on what your week actually allows — and the second of those is the half nobody writes about. The questionnaire scores both.

See which one you are already doing