Hello! If you are reading this, then chances are you are a home educating parent, (or maybe you want to be?) Welcome!

Home educating is a sometimes scary, often exhilarating road to be on, with numerous ever-shifting priorities, and tons of decisions to make. Even at it’s best it is a very reactive existence, trying to provide the right resources to inspire learning in our children at the point where they are most receptive to them. It can also be a lonely road, trying to navigate around friends and family who don’t always understand, or worse, have negative ideas about what your life is like that don’t match your experience at all. Sometimes it takes a long time for people to ‘get it’, and in that time we, as home educating parents can second guess our instincts, and just feel plain alone.

Learning in an Oxford Kitchen is the home of the Home Ed Voices Podcast, which brings you interviews with UK based home educators every fortnight. I am committed to highlighting to the vast range of lifestyles and adventures that home educators in this country experience and raise up the voices of Home Educators themselves, as a way to build bridges with the wider community and dispell harmful negative stereotypes.

But most of all I want you to see that you are not alone on this journey, regardless of where you are right now.

As a home educator since 2013, I understand the subtle but ever-present differences between home educating in the UK and the large majority of US-based Homeschooling blogs, books, and businesses. I know how frustrating it is to read about the latest wonder-curriculum or resource, and then realize that it isn’t available in this country and will cost an arm and a leg to import into the UK. It’s a complete pain trying to find UK based alternatives when you don’t know where to every start looking. Or drool over amazing storage solutions sold in shops we in the UK don’t have access to, or that cost twice as much here as they would in the US.

With this in mind, I am bringing together information specifically about affordable UK based resources, businesses, event and membership discounts, and perks for home educators, as well as curated lists of accessible fiction and non-fiction book recommendations across all ages.

I know first hand that home education can be hard, and want to highlight sources of uniquely British inspiration to motivate you along the way.

Home education in the UK is on the rise, and there are plenty of people across the country who know exactly how you feel because they have felt the same way too.

MEET KATIE

I home educate our three children, (born in 2008, 2010, and 2013) in a house that has way too many books (that none of us are willing to part with), a messy garden covered in bikes and sticks, and which also contains two nosy chicken and a couple of thousand bees. I’m fuelled by milk chocolate, listening to podcasts during early morning walks, and pint glasses of cold water. I love a fresh notebook, cute stickers (which I have finally learned to actually use, rather than just look at), and a basic Bic biro.