Education Otherwise (EO) is a registered
charity
Charity may refer to:
Giving
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing
* C ...
based in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
which aims to provide support and information for families whose children are being educated outside school. It is the largest charity organisation in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. The organisation derived its name from the (then current)
1944 Education Act (Section 36) which stated that parents are responsible for the education of their children, "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise." This clause has been retained in subsequent Education Acts and remains a clear acceptance of the parity and validity afforded an education otherwise than by schooling.
Origins
In 1972, Royston Lambert, head of
Dartington Hall School
Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "on ...
asked Dick Kitto, who had been working there since 1955, to set up a project in conjunction with
Northcliffe School to provide education for a group of non-academic students who would have to take another year in school due to the pending
raising of the school leaving age. Kitto established a free school or
democratic school
Democratic education is a type of formal education that is organized democratically, so that students can manage their own learning and participate in the governance of their school. Democratic education is often specifically emancipatory, with ...
model for the running of the project and was impressed by the qualities of the students even though they had effectively
unschooled themselves within the school system, where they were perceived as trouble makers.
[Interview with Dick Kitto, ''Education Otherwise Newsletter'' (Number 61), August 1988.]
Kitto's ''school'' caught the attention of Stan Windass, who had been working for a
children's rights
Children's rights are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors. centre in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, through which he had become aware of several families who were educating their own children. Windass asked Kitto to become the warden at Lower Shaw Farm, for which he had just taken the lease and wanted to establish it as a centre to explore ideas for an alternative society, after the Northcliffe School project ended.
Kitto was familiar with ideas about unschooled education through reading
John Holt and Joy Baker's ''Children in Chancery'' (
Hutchinson, 1964. now out of print), together with his experiences at the Northcliffe School project. He and Windass were able to contact several families who were educating otherwise and arranged an informal network and occasional meetings, in 1975 - 1976 which is when Education Otherwise began. One of the founding members was Iris Harrison, who was in the midst of a legal battle with her local authority because she was not sending her children to school.
During 1976,
Granada Television made a
World in Action
''World in Action'' was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its product ...
programme about the group which resulted in around 200 enquiries and expanded the membership to over 50. In September 1976 the group was established on a more formal basis. In 1977, Kitto presented a
BBC TV
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 19 ...
''
Open Door'' programme about the ideas behind the organisation. This resulted in over 2,000 enquiries and increased the membership to around 250.
Kitto's ethos could be summarised as:
"...we have to ensure that education is not monolithic, centralized and directed from above but allows all sorts of different things to happen and all sorts of initiatives to be taken by pupils, children, parents and education authorities."
The original logo (based on a
UK traffic sign) was intended to represent a child breaking out of the confines of school, and pointing toward a different way. In recent years the logo has been the subject of criticism, as it is viewed as divisive and the meaning misconstrued. A modernisation and rebranding in 2020 has resulted in a new logo being designed through a design competition, which has a more modern and acceptable appearance.
Parent's Charter
In 1991, the government introduced a Parent's Charter (subtitled: "You and Your Child's Education"), which promised parents reports about their children and their schools. In 1994, a revised version of the Parent's Charter (subtitled: Our Children's Education) was issued. Page 9 included the sentence: "You have a duty to make sure that your child goes to school until he or she is 16." Education Otherwise members were concerned that this
misinformation
Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is ''deliberately'' deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn ...
should be corrected as it was being delivered to every household.
Education Otherwise appointed
solicitor Peter Liell, who sent "Letters Before Action" notices to the
Department for Education
The Department for Education (DfE) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for child protection, child services, education (compulsory, further and higher education), apprenticeships and wider skills in England.
A Department ...
and to the
Welsh Office
The Welsh Office ( cy, Swyddfa Gymreig) was a department in the Government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Wales. It was established in April 1965 to execute government policy in Wales, and was headed by the Secretary of State f ...
. A reply by
Eric Forth
Eric Forth (9 September 1944 – 17 May 2006) was a British Conservative politician. He served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Birmingham North from 1979 to 1984. He then served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Worcestershir ...
(9 July 1994) for the DfE claimed that the Parent's Charter could not be taken as a definitive guide to the law - the Charter "cannot take in every exception or reflect all points of detail". The department stated that there were no plans to issue a
corrigendum
An erratum or corrigendum (plurals: errata, corrigenda) (comes from la, errata corrige) is a correction of a published text. As a general rule, publishers issue an erratum for a production error (i.e., an error introduced during the publishing pro ...
. The Welsh Office response was a confirmation that the Charter for Parents in Wales had been revised and would reflect the fact that not all children were educated in schools.
The matter was raised by
Don Foster in a
Parliamentary Question
A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...
, which was responded to by
Robin Squire
Robin Clifford Squire (born 12 July 1944) is a British Conservative politician. He was Member of Parliament for Hornchurch from 1979 until 1997 when he lost the seat to John Cryer.
Squire was born and raised in South West London. After qualifyi ...
stating that
John Patten, the
Secretary of State for Education
The secretary of state for education, also referred to as the education secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department for Education. The incumbent is a member of the C ...
, saw no need to issue a correction or to make a statement about the mistake.
"Parents Charter"
''Hansard'', HC Deb 04 July 1994, vol. 246 cc76-7W.
As English and Welsh education law are identical, there were no grounds for the variation in the responses of the two bodies. The solicitor notified the DfE that he had been instructed to prepare an application for leave to apply for judicial review
Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incomp ...
of the decision as stated in Forth's letter. This threat caused an immediate response from the department that they "would want to find a different - in your eyes more satisfactory - wording for any further editions". The solicitor responded seeking confirmation, by 31 August 1994, that a future edition would include reference to the fact that children do not have to go to school. Forth once again responded accepting the need for a revised text: "I am, however, happy to confirm, in the light of your client's concerns, our intention that any future edition of the Parent's Charter in England will include a reference, be it explicit or implicit, to a parent's lawful right to ensure that his child is suitably educated otherwise than at school."
It was felt that this was as far as Education Otherwise could go with the matter and the application for judicial review was withdrawn. The whole process had cost Education Otherwise almost £4,000 but had generated a lot of publicity and raised awareness of the issue as many members had raised their concerns with their own MP.
See also
*Home education in the United Kingdom
Home education in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is often termed "elective home education" ("EHE") to signify the independent nature of practice from state provisions such as education for children with ill-health provid ...
*Deschooling
Deschooling is a term invented by Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich. Today, the word is mainly used by homeschoolers, especially unschoolers, to refer to the transition process that children and parents go through when they leave the school system ...
*Unschooling
Unschooling is an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. Unschoolers learn through their natural life experiences including play, household responsibilities, personal interests and curiosit ...
* John Holt
* Leila Berg
*Ivan Illich
Ivan Dominic Illich ( , ; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book ''Deschooling Society'' criticises modern society's institutional approach to educ ...
particularly his Deschooling Society
* Schoolhouse - Charity covering Scotland
*Autodidacticism
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individ ...
* Holistic education
* Homeschooling
Notes and references
External links
Education Otherwise website
{{Authority control
Child welfare activism
Alternative education
Philosophy of education
Homeschooling
Educational charities based in the United Kingdom