Alison Sauer

Alison grew up in the UK, where she continues to reside. In 1999, she was inspired to embark on the journey of home education after meeting John Taylor Gatto at a conference in London, along with the wonderful home-educated children who attended the event.

Home education proved to be both inspiring and challenging, fueling Alison's passion for advocating for children's rights to receive a more compassionate and child-centered form of education tailored to each individual and family. Her years of campaigning in Scotland and England led to her being appointed a Fellow of the Institute of Paralegals and becoming a Trustee of the Centre for Personalized Education.

During her career, she has trained Local Authorities in England and Scotland on Elective Home Education and the law, and she developed a legal framework and protocols for Flexischooling (see The Flexischooling Handbook, ISBN 1900219565).

Most recently, Alison co-founded and has been an active participant in the Elective Home Education Alliance, a collaborative group consisting of home education support organizations, academics, electively home-educated alumni, and other actively interested parties. Additionally, she co-founded The Home Education Law Project, which, along with its sister organization, The Joy Baker Fund, aims to publicize and protect UK home education-related legislation and, consequently, the families that benefit from home education.

Over the past decade, Alison has participated in numerous consultations on alternative and home education, fought to ensure private candidates have access to GCSEs, defended the rights of Out-of-School Settings to operate without undue interference after Ofsted raids, and been vocal in the media and on social media about the government's current drive to create policy based on hearsay and rhetoric rather than evidence. In 2021 and 2022, she assisted the governments of Cyprus and Jamaica in understanding home education with a view to reviewing legislation. In 2023, her efforts were instrumental in overturning two pieces of proposed legislation in England, and she was also involved in pre-consultation negotiations with the government regarding new proposed home education guidance for England.

Her vision is to continue protecting diversity in education and to promote and support networking and joint campaigning among the diverse education communities in the UK and around the world, in the best interests of all children.

In particular, she hopes to see a future where education policy and practice are based on real evidence, both psychological and pedagogical.

Alison lives in Lancashire and currently earns her living by providing services to families with autism and other special educational needs.

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