Parents usually find that things do not turn out as they expected when they begin to educate their children at home. Standard teaching practices do not transfer to the home environment, according to a study of 100 families educating their children at home in Australia and Britain.

In his book Educating Children at Home, Dr Alan Thomas says most people, when they try to visualise home education, tend to see children working at desks or the kitchen table for the equivalent of the school day, in front of teacher-parents (in practice this is mostly mothers) who teach carefully prepared lessons which cover the school curriculum. Few conform to this image.

"The greater flexibility which home education allows means that a timetable is unnecessary and is usually dropped altogether. Moreover, lessons can be put off for another time if a child is obviously not learning effectively for whatever reason . . . . At home, lessons are concentrated and intensive. This is mainly due to extra individual attention and also because very little time is spent on the kind of peripheral activities which take up much of classroom time. "In consequence, lessons are short and so is the working day, generally restricted to the morning or part of it. This is in stark contrast to the current educational fashion of more and more homework in addition to school, and more and more school for children who are failing, including school during the holidays."

By far the most important difference between more formal, structured learning at home and in school, Thomas says, is that home learning becomes an interactive process rather than a series of tasks. Over the past 20 years education authorities have moved from opposition to tolerance and, in a few instances, support for home educators, he notes.

Thomas concludes enthusiastically: "Home educators give us a view of education, which, in many aspects, is markedly different from what is on offer in school. What they have learned from their pioneering experiences has the potential to bring about the most fundamental change in education since the advent of universal schooling in the 19th century."

The INTO General secretary, Senator Joe O'Toole, says the union is not opposed to home education. "We believe in choice in education. Schools do the best job, but we also believe parents should have choice. There are no absolutes in education. The ideal situation would be where a qualified teacher had a large family and decided to take time at home to teach them. I do not believe it is in a child's best interest to be taught by someone who is not qualified as a teacher.

"I would also worry about the child's right to be educated sometimes being subsumed by the parents' rights to be the primary educator. It is the child who must come first and the State must ensure that a child being educated at home is getting the same opportunities as at school."

Home-educator Barbara Boland says the INTO is protecting its members. "Sometimes I think that the people who didn't complete their own education make the best home educators, because through it, they are getting a second chance. I know of a mother who left school at 15 and who is now enjoying the experience of learning German with her 10-year-old daughter.

"Home education allows children to take their time; equally, you don't repeat stuff. Once you know it, you can move on, you don't have to fill in time."

The national co-ordinator of the National Parents' Council (Primary), Fionnuala Kilfeather, says it is the constitutional right of parents to educate their children at home but that the NPC

would also look at the rights of children to a proper education. "State criteria should be in place so that children get the kind of education that will equip them for life as well as for work. Their social development is important as well as their learning."

She says that there is a big issue over what constitutes a minimum education. "Children have a right as well as the parents. It's a question of getting the balance right."