Christian Home Education
The Hardy family is extremely glad that over the years we have been led into Christian Education. With our older children this was through involvement with a Christian School. However, through this The LORD prepared us for the task of teaching our own children in the context of our home, family and friends.
Information on these pages is not extensive, but our contribution to a wealth of material to be found on the Internet. From time to time we expect that more pages will be added.
Foundation Project
An outline of work we covered in a 12 month period with children aged 4 to 5. Our objective was to look at familiar things in the children's lives and experience and relate them back to The LORD.
Click here to read it
It's Not Always That Easy
Mary's hand-outs for a seminar for mums at 2 Home Service day conferences in October 2003. Starts with the need to think accurately about God, ourselves and our task. Also considers why bringing up your children with a God centred world view is always going to have difficulties. Includes sheet of relevant quotations.
Click here to read it
Christian Home Education - Getting Started
One mother's expression of what she has found to be important when starting off along the Christian Home Education road. In our family it is Mary who has carried the majority of day by day responsibility to be practically involved with the childrens' education. This introduction was written in response to two families we know deciding that they too wanted to begin a similar journey.
Click here to read it
Ten Tips For Survival
A hand out which accompanied a talk given by Mary to mums on the theme of keeping going day after day. The seminar was part of the Manchester Christian Home Educators Conference, 25th. March 2000.
Click here to read it
Family Education
In 2018 Randall wrote two leaflets to encourage Christians to think about the Biblical principles concerning the education of children. They aim to stimulate careful consideration of the importance of these principles in a society which is increasingly secular. Entitled "Family Education - Biblical Foundations" and "Family Education - In a Secular Society" they are available from their own section of this website.
Click here to access these
What is Christian Education?
A contribution by Randall to a discussion on what Christian Education really is. This is relevant to much more than home education and even suggests how to recognise the difference between the Christian and secular view of maths.
Click here to read it
The Mother's Heart First
These are Mary's notes for a talk she gave in 2001 which covered three topics: The mother´s heart first; Teaching several ages at once; Character building. She offers no clever answers, no instant solutions, just encouragement to persevere, to pray, to be loyal to your initial conviction, and to keep going!
Click here to read it
Finding the Right Balance
Encouraging children to do things they don't enjoy is one of the responsibilities of parenthood. In these notes from a talk given in 2003, Mary shares her thoughts on developing self-discipline in a child's character and the value of an ordered approach to study.
Click here to read it
Home Education Under Threat
1 hour video of live Revelation TV discussion broadcast in Feb. 2010. Its subject is the threats to home education in the UK which were embedded in the Children, Schools and Families Bill 2010. It features Randall and Arthur Roderick, of Christian Education Europe, being interviewed by Lesley Condor.
Click here to view it
A Great Gulf Fixed?
Christian And Humanist Values In Children's Books by Ngaio Malcolm.
We first came across this article as a photocopy of a paper published by Christians in Education. It is a thought-provoking appraisal of developments in children's literature over recent decades. The paper we first read was in fact an edited version of an article published in 1989, by the Librarians’ Christian Fellowship (now called ‘Christians in Library and Information Services’). We have obtained their permission to reproduce the original article for use on this web site.
Click here to download a PDF version of the paper
Two other papers by the same author on similar themes were previously available on the Librarians’ Christian Fellowship website. Now that they are no longer there we have obtained Ngaio's permission to include them here. Click the following links to access them:
Children's Books in the Age of Pluralism
Still Reading Books - Teenage Approaches
Making
the Right Impression
Published in 2007 this book featured 21 ordinary British Christians families explaining why they chose to home educate their children, how they have gone about it, and how much it has been of benefit to them as families. It was published by Home Service, a support organisation for Christian home educators. Home Service since then has become the Christian Home Education Support Service. The book is no longer in print.
The chapter we wrote is called, "Christian Education - a whole life experience" and we have decided to add it to this section of our website.
Click here to read it
No
Nationalisation of Our Kids
2009 saw significant changes in the home education situation in England. In January Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, commissioned Graham Badman to carry out a review into home education in England. When Badman published his report he recommended what was essentially an annual licensing scheme for home educating parents, with mandatory home visits from local authority staff who would have the right to interview children with no other adult present. This motivated home educating families from the country, including ourselves, to campaign against the proposals. To our surprise we received a lot of interest from the media. Details of newspaper articles, radio interviews and much more is now archived on a separate blog.
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page last edited September 2018
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Randall Hardy 2018