Home education or IB Primary Years?

The difference between Home education and IB Primary Years is mostly one axis: mixed ages. Home education sits toward mixed-age groups; IB Primary Years sits toward classes of the same age. They agree, more than most people expect, on when formal academics start, where the curriculum comes from and who directs the day. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

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

IB Primary Years

Children investigate big transdisciplinary questions rather than subjects, within a framework that is specified in considerable detail. It is the most internationally portable education available, built for families who may move, and it is explicit about wanting to produce a certain kind of person — open-minded, inquiring, principled — which is an admirable aim and also a worldview.

What it asks of you

Fees almost everywhere, and usually substantial ones
Comfort with a school that states the disposition it is trying to produce
Tolerance for a lot of process language — the framework is heavily specified
A reason to want portability, or you are paying for something you will not use

Side by side

Where they differ

Home education is the filled marker, IB Primary Years the hollow one. Widest difference first.

E1Mixed ages

classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Home education sits toward mixed-age groups; IB Primary Years sits toward classes of the same age.

C1What the family can put inwhat your life allows

school has to run without the parentsbeing in it, daily

Home education sits firmly toward being in it, daily; IB Primary Years sits between the two.

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows

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

Home education sits between the two; IB Primary Years sits toward we can pay, and we can travel.

V3What it is for

childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Home education sits between the two; IB Primary Years sits toward it should set up university and a career.

V2Who else is there

a broad, mixed intake matters mosta community that shares our values matters most

Home education sits toward a community that shares our values matters most; IB Primary Years sits a little toward a broad, mixed intake matters most.

E3Technology at school

kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Home education sits between the two; IB Primary Years sits toward built in from the start.

L3Measuring it

no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Home education sits toward no grades, no tests; IB Primary Years sits between the two.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

When formal academics start. Both sit a little toward early, and ambitiously.
Where the curriculum comes from. Both sit between the two.
Who directs the day. Both sit a little toward timetabled, and directed by adults.
Outdoors and the body. Both sit between the two.
A view of the world. Both sit a little toward school should teach a view of the world.

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