The Education of Gifted Children in European Educational Systems: The Phenomenon of Tutored Home Schooling in England

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the problem of the education of gifted children in European education systems and to describe the phenomenon of home tutoring in England, particularly the method of home schooling, which in the last decade has gained more and more supporters. The first part of the article shows how to define a gifted child in selected European education systems and presents the main forms of education and support for children and gifted youth. For the description I used data collected by Eurydice – European Information Network on Educational Systems. The second part of the article describes the phenomenon of home tutoring in England as a specific form of home schooling. Tutoring is also the practice of a traditional master-student relationship, so characteristic for English universities since their inception in the Middle Ages. Homeschooling became popular in the English education system in the 1970’s when the first household educators association was founded in England – Education Otherwise. English homeschooling involving tutors, paid for by the parents, has been steadily evolving in the last decade. This form of children education is more often being chosen not only by the intellectual elite, or English aristocratic families, but above all by extremely wealthy parents who see home tutoring as their chance to develop the skills and abilities of their children and a chance for to change their social status in the future. For the children of wealthy parents, who themselves have not completed reputable schools, home tutoring is a possibility to catch up, to acquire knowledge and skills, so that they can start studying at the best universities in the country or abroad.