School choice

Home education or Montessori?

The difference between Home education and Montessori is mostly one axis: what the family can put in. Home education sits firmly toward being in it, daily; Montessori sits between the two. They agree, more than most people expect, on outdoors and the body, when formal academics start and mixed ages. 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

Montessori

Children choose their own work from carefully designed materials, in mixed-age classes, across a long uninterrupted morning. The structure is in the environment rather than in the timetable: what is available is tightly controlled, and what a child does with it is not. Adults observe far more than they instruct.

What it asks of you

  • Accepting a school where nobody will tell you what your child did at 10am
  • Trusting a long ramp — the method front-loads independence and back-loads visible output
  • Checking the school rather than the name, which anyone may use
  • Usually fees, since state Montessori is rare outside a few systems
Side by side

Where they differ

Home education is the filled marker, Montessori the hollow one. Widest difference first.

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; Montessori sits between the two.

L5What a teacher is
a guide who steps backan authority who instructs

Home education sits a little toward an authority who instructs; Montessori sits toward a guide who steps back.

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; Montessori sits toward we can pay, and we can travel.

E3Technology at school
kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Home education sits between the two; Montessori sits toward kept out until late.

V1A view of the world
school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Home education sits toward school should teach a view of the world; Montessori sits a little toward school should stay neutral.

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Home education sits toward no grades, no tests; Montessori sits firmly toward no grades, no tests.

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; Montessori sits between the two.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Home education sits between the two; Montessori sits a little toward the child chooses what to do.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Home education sits between the two; Montessori sits toward it emerges from the children.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • Outdoors and the body. Both sit a little toward outdoors and hands-on is the point.
  • When formal academics start. Both sit between the two.
  • Mixed ages. Both sit firmly toward mixed-age groups.
  • What it is for. Both sit a little toward childhood is the point.

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