Forward!

Asperger Home Education has now been online for just over two years and is beginning to make headway in both the home education and the Asperger syndrome arenas. Traffic statistics are rising with total monthly figures more than double those for the summer of 2009, and links to the website have now appeared on a number of other websites including those of the Daily Mail, TES, and Mumsnet. We are currently one of the smaller home education and Asperger syndrome websites which means that we still have a long road ahead of us before the point is reached where home education of children with Asperger syndrome is commonplace and parents feel confident about embarking on home education if their child is unhappy attending mainstream school, or if schools fail to provide the support and services they require.

Vast amounts of time during the past 14 months have been wasted fighting authoritarian government legislation, starting with the announcement of a review into home education by the DCSF back in January 2009 and ending with the defeat of Clause 26 in the House of Lords in April 2010. During this time much progress and development in the home education movement was curtailed or put on hold. Asperger Home Education certainly was affected by all this turmoil. A 'proper' website was scheduled to come online during July or August 2009 but was delayed until February 2010.

Now that home educator's have emerged victorious following the defeat of Badman and Balls, they can finally return to what is most productive and enjoyable for them, which is home education itself. Asperger Home Education is certainly no exception to this and during 2010 we aim to turn the following proposals into reality:

1.Resource pages on the website for books, videos, and software.

2.A selection of merchandise including key rings, t-shirts, mugs, etc.

3.An internet TV channel with programmes about home education and Asperger syndrome.

4.The ability to join Asperger Home Education as a member. Currently we only exist on the internet but we aim to become a real world institution.

Other ideas suggested include resource centres for practical work and exam centres to take IGCSEs as private candidates. The feasibility of these ideas is being investigated but work on them will not commence until 2011 at the earliest.

If you happen to have any ideas and suggestions of your own then please mention them. We welcome contributions from forum members and the public.

Two suggestions

1. Educational supplies.

2. Discounts for admission to places of interest. I believe that some HE groups have managed this.

This is something I have looked into. I don't think it's a sensible idea to try and compete with existing suppliers of readily available educational materials as we don't want to become a retail outlet ourselves but if there is any demand for certain hard to find items then we would consider adding them to our collection of merchandise.



This would require negotiation with the owners of the places of interest unless they already have a policy of discounts for all children who are HE or have AS. I think that most of the discounts for HE families apply during term time and sometimes advance notice has to be given.

These are all good suggestions. My son came up with the idea of having a section to display the work and activities of HE children with AS. I think what we definitely need to do is to spread the word to encourage more families to HE their children with AS.

Many thanks to your son for that suggestion.



The million dollar question is, how? There is a bit of money stashed in a safe place for advertising and publicity purposes. The biggest problem is not how to advertise but where to advertise.

A bit of a cheeky suggestion from my son. Install a page of photos of closed down schools under the banner of 'The ones that didn't make it'. A few schools have closed down in my area in the last 10 years.

I was contemplating installing a few photos of closed down schools in strategic places in the website.