From learning key life skills to pursuing highly individual interests, a father from Chorley in Lancashire has detailed why he began home educating a few years ago
Proud dad Dale Allen thinks AI can educate his kids better than a traditional teacher.
The 44-year-old health and safety expert teaches three of the youngsters in his blended family with wife Czarina Allen, 32, at home. And he told The Mirror that while it isn’t always easy, he wouldn’t change a thing.
“I’d love to say homeschooling is easy but that would be a lie,” said Dale, the founder of The Safety-Verse training platform. “But it’s all been worth it – I wanted to create a whole new learning environment for my children. They are learning life skills and I’ve seen my relationship with them thrive.”
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Dale’s son Oliver* had been in primary school for two years when he decided to remove him overnight. “Oliver was getting into a bit of trouble in school because he was shouting out in class and chatting too much,” he said. “I found out he was being put in something called a pod, which sounded awful.
“He was six years old – I did some research and found it takes roughly three years for a child’s confidence to be permanently reduced. I took him out of school the next day, decision made.”
The next day, the businessman sent a letter to his son’s headteacher saying his young pupil wouldn’t be returning. “The headteacher told me he thought I was making a mistake and wished me luck,” said Dale.
“I didn’t want my son to fit in line, I wanted him to stand out from a crowd,” he explained. “My children all have strong opinions and I don’t want that knocked out of them.”
Two years after he began homeschooling Oliver, his younger brother Harry, five, joined in. “That was more of a difficult decision because Harry is a social butterfly, everyone at nursery loved him and his friends went to school which was heartbreaking,” said Dale.
“But by that point I’ve had an extra year to think. I’d seen the value of homeschooling and I’d seen my relationship with my older son thrive.”
The dad teaches his children real-world skills like finance, marketing, branding, software design, artificial intelligence and how to run their own businesses.
“I have to be adaptive – one day my son wants to learn about all the tall buildings in the world and is fascinated by structures,” said Dale. “The next, he is interested in cloud formations and wants to know what airplanes are in the sky that made the big long streaks.”
Dale married his wife Czarina earlier this year and her daughter Kerry, nine, has joined the homeschooling clan. “The children all have different strengths,” he said. “Kerry loves art whereas Oliver, eight, loves sports. I’ll play golf with him.”
With Dale working in the IT field, he believes AI is a great tool when it comes to teaching the youngsters. “I’d been working with IT for two years prior to starting homeschooling so I was aware what was coming and there was no way teachers were going to teach as well as AI,” he said. “The teachers really in my mind would become purely for behavioural purposes.
“The kids can ask questions to me or AI but I tend to tell the kids: ‘Listen, I’m not an expert in anything really. I can teach you but AI knows everything’. I’m the adjudicator to make sure they don’t learn anything they shouldn’t be learning.”
The busy dad makes sure his children have plenty of friends by operating an open house policy, buying a big trampoline for the family’s large garden and joking the initiative has almost become “too successful”.
And while Dale wouldn’t suggest it, if his children wanted to go down the traditional education route when they’re older he would support them. “I will support them in whatever they want to do,” he said.
*names changed
