PDA and elective home education (EHE)

Many PDA children and young people who are home educated prefer to be self-taught (autodidactic) and/or learn naturally through everyday experiences. Direct or formal teaching approaches can intensify avoidance and increase their ‘fight, fight, freeze’ response. Some key pointers around this approach include:

• Being a ‘facilitator’ in your child’s learning rather than their ‘teacher’ (i.e. provide the resources, opportunities and experiences they need to follow their interests and learn).
• Learning opportunities can be found in everyday situations (e.g. low-key discussions and hands-on experiences).
• Many skills can be developed at the same time whilst enjoying a single activity (i.e. cooking can involve, science, maths, reading, fine motor and organisation skills).
• Remembering the value of non-academic learning and life skills too.

“I have found that trusting my children to learn is key. It is such a big jump from ‘they must be taught’ to letting them discover how to learn themselves but my son learnt to read because he needed to, to understand his computer games. The skill is transferable – it doesn’t matter if he learns to read with Minecraft or Biff, Chip and Kipper! Someone described it as lighting a fire not filling a bucket …” – Claire* (home educating parent of a PDA child).

Learning collaboratively on a one-to-one basis or in a small group with trusted people can work well for some PDA children/young people. If your child would like to learn in this way you could try:

• Forming an equal and collaborative relationship so you work and learn together.
• Incorporating a meaningful activity or personal interest into what they are doing.
• Indirectly communicating instructions by using prompts or demonstrations.
• Using third parties can help to de-personalise demands, for example “the cookery book says …”.
• Leaving out a few activities your child can choose from can work well.

Being flexible and adapting when needed.

Elective home education doesn’t have to replicate school or follow a specific curriculum, timetable or time frame. The flexibility of a more free-flowing approach to education, where learning opportunities are found in the moment, can work well for PDAers. Helpful pointers include:

• Thinking about all the ways you learn and expand your skills and knowledge in everyday life as an adult. The same principle can be applied to your child’s education.
• Joining your child in their activities and interests could help them get more out of everyday experiences.
• Looking out for opportunities to indirectly help them expand on their existing knowledge/skills or introduce new ideas (e.g. share another perspective or ask an “I wonder” question out loud).
• Working with them to find solutions or ways to do things.
• Going with the flow when your child is ready or interested to learn something and following their pace.

If your child would like to follow a curriculum or aspects of one, you could try:

• Designing a personalised curriculum with your child or adapting an existing one.
• Looking at the range of online platforms, resources and learning game websites available Many offer a free trial so you can see if any appeal to your child and also give a discount for home educators.
• Theming studies or projects to current interests can work well.
• Being flexible is key and it’s important to ensure your child feels a sense of choice and ownership if opting for this approach.

“We’ve had success in the past with a nature-based curriculum where we followed the seasons and did activities based on that throughout the year, but her best learning has been self-directed through games, reading, YouTube, conversations etc.” – Katie* (home educating parent of a PDA child)

Exams are not compulsory for electively home educated children and young people, but your child can choose to do them as a private candidate. You can find out more information on the Educational Freedom website including links to exam boards.

How you record progress is up to you and your child. Records of work, activities and knowledge (e.g. photos, scrapbooks, written notes etc.) can help demonstrate progress and evidence skills and learning. The most important thing is that your child is progressing, and you can look for signs of this through the interactions, conversations and activities they take part in. Keeping some records is useful for submission to the LA for your annual check in with the EHE team.

All interests have learning elements, and it can be really motivating to engage and join in with your child’s enthusiasm. This can build their self-esteem and your relationship at the same time by learning together. It’s highly likely they can teach you something!

Below are some ideas and examples of how your child’s interests can help them broaden their knowledge and learn naturally about other topics.

Gaming: many skills can naturally develop through gaming – for example: reading instructions to progress through the levels; spelling and typing in chat, commands or code; critical thinking, cause and effect, hand-eye co-ordination, interacting with people etc.

Famous people/characters: an interest in famous people or characters can lead to your child looking into the person’s place of birth (geography); culture (history); fashion (design technology); information (general knowledge) and so on. You could help with this learning which could be used to create a written biography or spoken presentation of the person.

Sport: data around league tables, results and player stats etc. can be used to develop maths skills.

Dogs (and other animals): if you or someone you know has a particular breed, your child could send its DNA for analysis (science); research the breed, what they were used for (history); where they came from (geography); how they came to exist (biology); write about them (English); working out fractions and percentages of different breeds and then make graphs and pie charts (maths, IT); and draw them (art).

A favourite film: could lead into some art-based project or writing about the characters with maybe a focus on adjectives etc.

Learning through everyday activities: cooking or baking involves reading recipes or packets; writing shopping lists; adapting a recipe not only gives your child a choice and a feeling of control but develops their problem solving and independence skills; maths and science concepts are also covered.

Novelty: leaving new resources lying around for your child to see rather than showing them may spark their curiosity. The novelty of something different can inspire them to find out more. If they show an interest, it’s best to go with it straight away if you can, so you don’t lose the moment and learning opportunity.

Science experiments: younger children especially may love the idea of science experiments. Guiding them into researching and watching YouTube clips about science can lead to them creating their own experiments. A goal might be to help them experience a wide range of scientific exposure within their areas of interest.

Other tips:

• Breaking tasks into smaller chunks and doing the work together can be a successful approach.
• Weaving regulating tasks and activities throughout the day to help soothe their nervous system.
• Try considering what you can do outside to get some fresh air. If your child is reluctant, try finding a way to involve their interests like using their iPad to take unusual, silly photos or going on a treasure hunt.
• Exploring the possibility of joining a local home education group could provide a safe place to socialise.
• Monitoring anxiety and tolerance levels and taking time off when needed to help reduce overwhelm.

Interoception: Interoception is one of our eight senses: it’s our ability to notice our body’s signals, understand their meaning and react in an effective way. Many neurodivergent individuals have differences in interoceptive awareness, which underpins our emotions and behaviours.