Bilingual / international or Home education?

The difference between Bilingual / international and Home education is mostly one axis: mixed ages. Bilingual / international sits toward classes of the same age; Home education sits toward mixed-age groups. They agree, more than most people expect, on what a teacher is. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Bilingual / international

Teaching runs in two languages, often with a national curriculum on one side and another on the other, in a cohort assembled from several countries. For a family that has moved, may move again, or wants a heritage language kept alive at school rather than only at home, it resolves something no local school can. The academic programme is usually conventional and demanding; the language is the differentiator.

What it asks of you

Fees, and usually a commute
Accepting slower early progress in both languages before it compounds
A cohort that turns over as families relocate, and friendships that go with them
Supporting the weaker language at home, which lands on the parents

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

Side by side

Where they differ

Bilingual / international is the filled marker, Home education the hollow one. Widest difference first.

E1Mixed ages

classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Bilingual / international sits toward classes of the same age; Home education sits toward mixed-age groups.

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows

school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Bilingual / international sits a little toward school has to run without the parents; Home education sits firmly toward being in it, daily.

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows

free and local, or it is not an optionwe can pay, and we can travel

Bilingual / international sits firmly toward we can pay, and we can travel; Home education sits between the two.

V3What it is for

childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Bilingual / international sits toward it should set up university and a career; Home education sits between the two.

L3Measuring it

no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Bilingual / international sits a little toward graded and tested regularly; Home education sits toward no grades, no tests.

V1A view of the world

school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Bilingual / international sits a little toward school should stay neutral; Home education sits toward school should teach a view of the world.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

What a teacher is. Both sit a little toward an authority who instructs.

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