Both home educated throughout their secondary education (by me and the support of the awesome team of examiners at Mark My Papers). Ossie (eldest) from Year 7 and Ernie, actually from Year 5 (after failing the 11 plus). A teaching method that relied on copious amounts of reading, due to living in rural France without

Our Founder and Managing Director, Emma White is delighted to once again be invited to judge the Home Education Tutor of the Year Award 2025 at the National Tutoring Awards. For any tutors who would like to attend, this black tie event takes place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London on 4th July, 2025. Entries

Do we need a new paradigm for home education? Does home education have a future? If so, what does it look like?  And is a paradigm shift required? I approach these questions from a somewhat unique perspective, so providing some context might be a good place to start. On a personal level, although I loved

…And why it should be considered carefully. By Alison Nicole Blair-Bullett, former social worker and teacher in post compulsory education. Now a social science tutor, academic mentor and home education consultant. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards – Soren Kierkegaard Long before our son was born, my husband and

For any home-educated student (or their parents) studying A Levels and planning to apply to university from home this is a great listen. Ossie has just graduated with a Double First in History from Christ’s College, Cambridge, a scholarship for academic excellence to cover the costs of his MPhil and a training contract with a

Is the modern method of marking GCSE English Language stifling creativity and causing ‘Writers’ Block?’ Our Senior Moderator, an English Language GCSE examiner of over 30 years asks…. Could the electronic assessment of GCSE English Language Writing be responsible for the continued ‘plethora’ of robotic responses? Having the luxury of not being in an exam

By MMP’s Director of Home Education With the frenzy around Labour’s incoming tax changes for private schools, home-educators have an opportunity to make their voices heard… With the recent and decisive election of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, the prospect of a dramatic rise in private school fees dangles before independent schools across the UK. The

A proud parent moment! Congratulations to our son Ossie who has graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge with a Double First in History. Oswald has also been awarded the Satyendra Roy Postgraduate Studentship for academic excellence to cover the costs of his MPhil. Oswald will then move into a training contract with a London Magic Circle

And how on-line schools may provide a solution. By Emma White, Founder and Managing Director at Mark My Papers I think it is an inherent part of growing older that we constantly re-evaluate our past.  What may have pleased us at 18 we see through different eyes at 30 and again, perhaps with a changed

We are delighted that Mark My Papers will be represented at the National Tutoring Awards by our Founder and Managing Director Emma White who has accepted an invitation to serve as a Judge. These awards, hosted by The Tutors Association, encompass a range of tutoring and online learning service providers and full details can be

For anyone old enough to remember Garry Kilworth’s 1975 epic ‘Let’s Go To Golgotha!’ they may be forgiven for suffering a similar sense of foreboding when it comes to recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and its potential effects on education.  Kilworth’s story, set in the future, depicted a time travel agency where holiday destinations were

Now we are in the Easter Term, the countdown to exams has already begun. Planning ahead really helps take the stress away from sitting those papers that have life changing results. In December, our Founder & Managing Director, Emma White joined Eleanor Marker of Home Education Matters for an interview about using past papers effectively so

This year’s public exam results have largely brought disappointment to many schools and parents who were hopeful that the awarding bodies would be more sympathetic to their needs in the wake of Covid-19. Dr Helen Wright, is an experienced non-executive director with a particular expertise in supporting UK and international education companies. She is regularly

For several years now, Mark My Papers has worked closely with a leading exam centre for private candidates in Birmingham, and we are delighted to say that this centre, ARC (formerly the Academic Enrichment Centre), is now able to offer A Level science practicals. This is fantastic news. With the growth in online and home-learning,

An article by our Senior Moderator- a Lead Examiner of 25 years As Results Day is upon us and the papers will soon be in the public domain it is probably acceptable to make some comment on student responses to one of the English Language papers. The Writing section of Paper 2 asked students to

Emma White talks with Eleanor Marker of ‘Education Matters’ about her own journey towards securing places at the very best Universities…. Last month I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Eleanor Marker of Home Education Matters. Eleanor is well-known in home-education circles and has faced 15 GCSE subject alone as a home-educating parent (something

MMP’s Founder and our Commercial Director are proud parents whose son Ossie Visick was home educated from Y7 through to A Levels, is the current JCR President of Christ’s College at Cambridge University and is working really hard to make admission more straightforward for home educated students. The link below provides lots of helpful information

A personal perspective by our Senior Moderator Are we fostering a need for neediness? When schools sprayed the desks, re-opened their doors after Covid and the students returned, there was rightly some concern about how they might have been affected by the pandemic and their mixed feelings about re-joining the classroom culture. In the intervening

At Mark My Papers (MMP) we are regularly approached by home-educators who are aiming for a place at Oxford or Cambridge or hoping to study Medicine at a UK university.  For those who have adopted a self-educating approach, attempting to reach these goals comes with an extra layer of challenge because the entire process of

Emma White writes about recent changes in attitudes to home education which are a very real worry. It has struck me recently that there has been a bit of a change in home-education since the lock down. Covid served as a catalyst for many parents to continue with the pandemic induced shift to home schooling