School choice

Democratic / Sudbury or Home education?

The difference between Democratic / Sudbury and Home education is mostly one axis: what a teacher is. Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward a guide who steps back; Home education sits a little toward an authority who instructs. They agree, more than most people expect, on mixed ages, outdoors and the body and technology at school. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Democratic / Sudbury

The most thoroughgoing position available. There is no curriculum and no timetable; children do what they choose all day, and lessons happen when a child asks for one. The school is run by a meeting in which every child and every staff member has one equal vote, including on rules and on staffing. The claim is that motivation cannot be manufactured and that a child left to find their own will find it.

What it asks of you

  • Genuine nerve, sustained over years, with no reassuring milestones
  • Accepting your child may not read until nine, and being able to live with that
  • Explaining the choice to family, and eventually to admissions systems
  • Fees, since almost none of these are state-funded

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

Democratic / Sudbury is the filled marker, Home education the hollow one. Widest difference first.

L5What a teacher is
a guide who steps backan authority who instructs

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward a guide who steps back; Home education sits a little toward an authority who instructs.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward the child chooses what to do; Home education sits between the two.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward when the child is ready, and late is fine; Home education sits between the two.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward it emerges from the children; Home education sits between the two.

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward childhood is the point; Home education sits between the two.

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows
school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Democratic / Sudbury sits toward being in it, daily; Home education sits firmly toward being in it, daily.

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward no grades, no tests; Home education sits toward no grades, no tests.

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows
free and local, or it is not an optionwe can pay, and we can travel

Democratic / Sudbury sits toward we can pay, and we can travel; Home education sits between the two.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • Mixed ages. Both sit firmly toward mixed-age groups.
  • Outdoors and the body. Both sit a little toward outdoors and hands-on is the point.
  • Technology at school. Both sit between the two.

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