During the current global pandemic, parents and carers in England and across the UK have been asked by the Government to 'home school' their child/ren, and a plethora of resources have been produced and made available to assist with this. The perceived detrimental effects of being absent from school have been a driver for the Government in…

The COVID-19 pandemic quickly forced us to adapt to a new normal. As schools switched to distance learning, parents experienced increased childcare responsibilities and were thrust into new roles as teachers at home. This unexpected shift to new roles brought extraordinary disruption that becomes more challenging for families living apart,…

Home education is one of several educational options for children in Northern Ireland. Many parents decide to home educate before their child reaches school age whereas others decide following a period of enrolment within a school. In these latter cases, parents often do so because they believe that their child's emotional, social and/or…

Home education is at an early stage for the public, researchers, media and educational authorities in China. Yet the research relating to the development of home education has been entirely ignored. In particular, the literature focusing on the legal status of home education is negligible in the educational context of China. There is no literature…

This short report provides information on home education polices for primary and lower secondary level of education. It is structured in two parts: a comparative overview followed by national descriptions. The analysis shows that home education at the request of families is possible in a majority of educational systems. In many cases, parents have…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Chinese cross-border students in Hong Kong to participate in online homeschooling for three years while local students attended face-to-face schooling when the situation released. Previous studies have explored the learning challenges or educational inequity among students in online learning during the pandemic.…

Despite the achievement of the Singapore education system as one of the top performers in international achievement tests, there remains a group of parents who choose to homeschool their children. While this number is increasing, there is a lack of studies conducted in Singapore on why parents decide to homeschool their children. Thus, this study…

This study explored parents' strategies for home educating their children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) during the COVID-19 period in Harare Urban District in Zimbabwe. Embedded within international research findings on the subject, this qualitative study drew on a purposive sample of eight parents. Telephonic individual interviews,…

Soft skills are key for the successful realisation of individuals in their personal, professional and social life, but scientific research conducted on the soft skills of homeschoolers is still scarce so far. One of the most frequent questions, when homeschooling is discussed concerns the presumed lack of social skills of homeschoolers. A common…

The COVID-19 lockdown has impacted many aspects of our lives. In particular, children have experienced a rapid change in the way in which education has been delivered. In this study we aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on educational delivery from the perspective of parents. As seen within the emerging literature in relation to…

Schooling has been a site of harm for Indigenous people in settler colonial contexts, as a tool of dispossession, assimilation and separation from country and kin. However, schools have simultaneously been sites to work against this and build alternatives to settler colonial systems that nourish Indigenous futures. This article centers the…

This paper explores understandings and implications arising from research conducted into how home educating families approach learning in the creative arts. Through a series of online focus groups with 14 Australian home educating families, the authors sought to understand the strategies and learning activities that families employed when teaching…

Homeschooling, where parents take on the prime responsibility for their children's education, is a growing phenomenon in Australia. Homeschooling is different from distance education or the education at home that has taken place in the COVID-19 pandemic in that the parents make all the decisions about their children's education, including…

This paper presents findings from a study undertaken in Wales on the safeguarding of children educated at home. Findings revealed that just under a third of home educators had children with additional learning needs who were removed from school due to what parents reported as negative experiences. These experiences included the suitability of a…

Many students in Malaysia lack proficiency in the English language, from difficulty understanding the meaning of the text to inferring the text. The use of explicit instruction to introduce reading comprehension skills are also rarely employed in the classroom. This study investigated how metacognitive reading strategies and peer tutoring improved…