Why Homeschooling is the Answer

MINERVA TUTORS CEO, HUGH VINEY, EXPLAINS WHY THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO LOOK TO A FUTURE OF LEARNING IN THE HOME

engineering across essential services and infrastructure - from the design and delivery of thousands of ventilators to the building of NHS Nightingale field hospitals. In fact, over three quarters of young people said they recognised the importance of engineers to developing new ventilators, keeping people connected through the crisis and turning spaces like exhibitions centres into hospitals.

As an engineer it’s possible you can save far more lives than as a medic. This is a powerful message but one that sometimes gets lost in the stereotypes that many people still hold about what an engineer is, and what they do.

The beauty of engineering is that it is just so diverse - not just in the range of problems engineers solve but in the types of people and the pathways they take into the industry. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius or chemistry wizard to become an engineer. A good understanding of maths and science (especially physics) will stand you in great stead, but so will skills in computing, D&T, construction and electronics. At its heart, engineering is all about creativity, problem-solving, teamwork and curiosity.

Engineers come from all different backgrounds and have achieved success through very different routes into the industry, including through apprenticeships, vocational training and university degrees. Employers and organisations like EngineeringUK have responded to our current crisis by making sure that information, advice, guidance and engineering experiences are now available online and remotely. The industry has really stepped up to support young people to explore their future and potential as engineers, including by pledging to work together to make engineering careers accessible for this generation of young people. If there are upsides of our current coronavirus world, it is that for young people, accessing engineering experiences can be done at any time, from anywhere.

Skills that engineers acquire - such as problem-solving, teamwork, project management and numeracy - are sought after by employers in nearly every industry, meaning that engineers are highly employable and can easily transfer their skills to different areas. Even though the pandemic is seeing shifts in the engineering workforce, employers are still reporting skills gaps, so there remains significant demand for engineering skills, with fantastic earning potential at all levels. And with the government’s commitments to investing in infrastructure, construction and decarbornisation, and innovation, now and into the future, hundreds of thousands more engineers will be needed. At a time when young people are unsure about their futures, it is so important that they can explore career options, plan ahead, and be motivated to study. Now’s not the time to give up or feel frustrated. It’s the time to explore, plan and access as much support as possible to lay the path towards a fulfilling and secure career.

My message is that, while there are challenges ahead, there are also amazing career opportunities - not least in the world of engineering. I truly believe the future is bright for young people. Their desire to pursue careers that make a difference will bring them fulfilment and continue to help the UK engineering sector soar.

We’re used to seeing “homeschooling” in the news, but what isn’t commonly known is that compared to most countries around the world, the UK has very relaxed rules about educating your child at home. In America, where it’s hugely popular, you might expect visits from official homeschooling inspectors to check you’re doing it right. Meanwhile, in places like Portugal or Turkey it’s banned altogether. But over here, it’s remarkably easy - you don’t have to enroll your child at school, you can teach them whatever you like, so long as you let your local council know. Now, this doesn’t mean the majority of homeschooling families are throwing the national curriculum in the bin and dressing their kids in hemp. Quite the opposite. Most are in it, like any sensible parent, to ensure their child has the best opportunities in their life ahead. To do this means getting qualified. You need to take GCSEs and A Levels, study just as hard as you would do at school, sit exams as a private candidate - usually at a local “centre” - and pitch for your place at university like all the others. But coronavirus changed things. If homeeducating parents had used a professional homeschooling agency in 2020, then their child would have received their GCSE qualifications after the summer exams were cancelled. Such agencies were able to provide impartial predicted grades, which, like grades predicted by teachers at schools, the government accepted. What happened to the tens of thousands of kids who were being homeschooled by their parents or individual tutors? The government decided parents couldn’t be trusted to rate their own children, and no results were awarded. That’s a colossal shame, and highlights that the government has long had its eyes closed to alternative forms of education.

Pre-coronavirus, there was a growing feeling among parents that school wasn’t equipping students for the modern world. Common complaints include: lack of encouragement of self-learning; a dearth of communication skills mixed with technical skills; lack of creative problem-solving; and an absence of skills that might actually be useful for the workplace, such as organising your daily to-do list or calendar.

Traditional, brick-and-mortar schools are also increasingly unable to meet the flexible lives led by some families who aren’t always able to reside in the same place. And with most schools unable to support children with special educational and emotional needs, it often means homeschooling is the best way to go from a mental health point of view, too.

Now, post-Covid, most of the UK has woken up to the fact that not only is homeschooling possible, but in some cases, it might also be preferable. Many children have thrived in lockdown. Despite some tabloid horror stories, so too have parents. Even a glimpse of a new parent-teacher model was enough to prompt thousands of enquiries to our companies inbox.

The story was largely the same. Parents started seeing homeschooling as a viable alternative to school. They loved spending more time with their kids, and they wanted to know if there was a professional, regulated way to do this. Combine this with the UK becoming Zoom-qualified overnight, and our latest venture essentially founded itself. It’s an online school called Minerva’s Virtual Academy, and it teaches children (currently GCSE only) the proper curriculum through an online virtual platform, with minimal requirement for human teachers. Mentors (real humans) keep track of pupils’ progress and our students make friends with other online homeschoolers through group classes and “after-school” clubs.

So can the government learn anything from this model? At the moment, online schools like ours are private, which means we charge fees. But this is much cheaper than hiring a personal tutor to teach your children or local councils paying for expensive tutoring companies to support homeschooled kids. It’s also a fraction of the cost of sending your kids to an actual private school.

The government is backing the National Tutoring Program, led by the EEF, with £150 million to provide much needed after-school tutoring to hundreds of thousands of pupils across the UK post Covid-19. This is highly commendable. But could online homeschooling also be used to empower some of the lost “Covid Generation” of pupils, taking some of the burden off the schools for the mammoth catch-up task ahead?

The government needs to see the bigger picture. With scalable, innovative tech platforms that teach the GCSE and A level syllabus without the need for a teacher, and dedicated one-to-one mentors that support and nurture each child and ensure they don’t fall behind, online homeschooling solutions should have a part to play in the future. If traditional schools and their teachers are going to continue to be stretched, then online homeschooling done in the right way could be a solution. We may be outliers at the moment, but innovation in education is happening. I’m calling on the government to get with the program.

Hilary Leevers, CEO of Engineering UK

It’s time they woke up. Figures show that 57,132 children were registered as homeschooled children in 2018 in the UK. That’s up from 24,824 in 2013, an increase of a mighty 130 per cent. And the numbers further increased in 2019 by 80 per cent again. Why the increase?

We’re not alone. Other new companies are springing up to meet the demand. Existing solutions, such as Wolsey Hall Oxford, have been quoted as turning away a sharp rise in demand. Even Harrow School joined the party, launching an “online” version of their illustrious school a few years ago.

Hugh Viney is the founder of Minerva Tutors, whose Virtual Academy designs bespoke homeschooling programs for pupils aged 6-18, either at home or online