* Marcus is a summer student working at The Royal Gazette. He attended a home school and graduated this year. Here he explains his experience in home schools and talks to some other students about their perceptions of home schools and the education system in general.

Home schools are becoming more and more popular on the Island, as parents look for alternatives to public and private schools. Last year there were 240 students attending home schools in Bermuda. Compared to the 5,430 students in public school — 2,867 in primary schools, 1,161 in middle schools and 1,402 in senior or high schools.

One of the main home school curriculums is the ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) system, a Christian based programme which works as follows:

The subjects are the same, Math, English, Science and Social Studies, but with classes like Word Building, (spelling and word usage) Literature and Computer Learning. There are also electives, including Bible Electives, Art Electives, Business and Government Electives, and other language courses including Spanish and French. The books that students use are called PACE (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education) books.

A PACE book is equal to three weeks of work. Students set goals of how much work they will do in each subject each day, and are responsible for their progress. As the student works individually through the PACE, they do checkups and a review at the end of a section that covers the material in that section.

At the end of the PACE, the student does a Self Test, which is a review of the whole PACE book, followed by a PACE test, the final test on the PACE. The pass score for a PACE test is 80 percent, but if the passing score is below that the student retakes the test until they pass.

One obvious advantage to working this way is that it prepares the student for university or college, where they are expected to be self-motivated to work through large quantities of reading material and course notes by themselves.

The working conditions at a home school are much different than at a public school as the ACE system requires that each student has their own office and each office is separated by a divider, so everyone has their own privacy.

The teacher walks around to each office and assists the student with whatever they need. Each student also has two mini flags, a Christian flag and a Bermudian flag which they raise when they want the teacher's attention.

The ACE program encourages students to maximise themselves by allowing them to score their own work. They do so by putting up their Bermudian flag and when the teacher calls their name, they ask to score. They then leave their office, go to the scoring station, and score the work that they've done in a subject.

As for the average day at a home school. It starts with devotions, then work until a 15 minute recess, and then work again until lunch. After a half an hour lunch, work would continue until the end of the school day. After the benediction, students are dismissed and go home.

Even the homework style varies. In the public system, teachers give out homework willingly. In the ACE system, the students' homework is the work that they were supposed to finish during class, but didn't. For example, if a student had to do four pages in their Math PACE, but only did two, the student would have to finish the other two pages for homework so they could continue their flow of work for the next day. Homework can also be a student taking home his PACES and reviewing them.

Extra curricular activities are mostly set up by the home schools individually.

Many Government schoolchildren do not know how most home schools on the Island function. They generally think that students learn in the same manner as they do, but that it's just in a smaller environment.

One 14-year-old said he figured the only differences between home and public schools were that public schools were free and home schools were smaller.

There was also some debate as to which type of school was generally better among the students interviewed.

A 17-year-old, who attends CedarBridge Academy, told The Royal Gazette that he felt home schools are generally better than public and even private schools.

"Yeah I think that home schools are better because they watch out for their students more," he said. "Not to say that other school teachers don't, but they have so much students to deal with they just can't help everyone all the time, you know?

"I think home school students are more sheltered too, but that can be a good thing and a bad thing 'cause when you're too sheltered you tend to get into more trouble when you get away from your parents 'cause your more eager to fit in with larger groups of people, and you're more eager to try bad things. I know home school people and I've seen it happen lots of times."

He also went on to say that home schoolchildren are accepted better by the community than children from his school, CedarBridge. He has a point. Why? In the community, Cedarbridge students have generally been stereotyped nefarious trouble makers.

A 16-year-old Berkeley Institute student disagreed saying: "Well, I think that you only get what you put into it. You have to work hard in home school just like in public school. It's just that a lot of public school people are lazy and they want an excuse for why they won't work, and they blame everyone they can, except themselves."

There are critics of home schools as well.

A 19-year-old said that he felt the home schools were for parents who hated the government system, and were looking to "overprotect their children" from the world as much as they can.

Another issue raised was school fees. Government schools are free, while home schools are not. The average cost for having one child in home school is $600 per month and students who spoke to the newspaper said they felt it should be free.

"Why should we have to pay for an education if it is required by law?" another CedarBridge student asked.

"I think it should be free all around. Government should fund all schools. Adults say we're the future, so adults should put more effort into educating us, since we're going to be handling their mistakes one day. They should pay all teachers a decent amount of money too since they're always complaining that they don't get paid enough."

A Sandys student concurred adding: "Kids' parents shouldn't be burdened with putting two and three kids in a paying school, it's just not right to me."

A home school student didn't agree though, saying he was glad that there was a price: "It makes you work harder 'cause you know that if you just laze about, you're wasting money, and nobody in their right mind likes wasting money. We all get tired and don't want to work and become super lazy at times, but when you know that you're burning $650 to $750 a month, you straighten back up and get back to work."

Despite the pros and cons, one fact remains — the reason for schools is learning.

Even though some students have come to see school as nothing but a "social tryst", learning should be what a student is really going to school for. It's ultimately up to the student to choose whether they go to school to get an education, or just attend school because they have no choice.