Faith-based or Home education?

The difference between Faith-based and Home education is mostly one axis: mixed ages. Faith-based sits toward classes of the same age; Home education sits toward mixed-age groups. They agree, more than most people expect, on technology at school, when formal academics start and what it is for. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Faith-based

Education inside an explicit religious frame, where the worldview is not confined to a lesson but runs through the day, the year and the community. For families who hold a faith this resolves something no other option does: the school is not neutral about what matters, and is not neutral in the same direction as the household. The cohort is usually more homogeneous, which is both the attraction and the cost.

What it asks of you

Accepting a narrower range of families than your area actually contains
Clarity about what happens if your own beliefs shift, or your child's do
Involvement in a community, which is usually part of the arrangement rather than optional

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

Faith-based is the filled marker, Home education the hollow one. Widest difference first.

E1Mixed ages

classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Faith-based sits toward classes of the same age; Home education sits toward mixed-age groups.

L3Measuring it

no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Faith-based sits toward graded and tested regularly; Home education sits toward no grades, no tests.

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows

school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Faith-based sits a little toward being in it, daily; Home education sits firmly toward being in it, daily.

L4Where the curriculum comes from

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

Faith-based sits toward a fixed body of knowledge, set in advance; Home education sits between the two.

E2Outdoors and the body

learning happens at a tableoutdoors and hands-on is the point

Faith-based sits toward learning happens at a table; Home education sits a little toward outdoors and hands-on is the point.

V1A view of the world

school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Faith-based sits firmly toward school should teach a view of the world; Home education sits toward school should teach a view of the world.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

Technology at school. Both sit between the two.
When formal academics start. Both sit a little toward early, and ambitiously.
What it is for. 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