Covid-19 has persuaded some parents that home-schooling is better

EMILY CLARK’S boys did not return to class in September, when schools in England opened to all pupils for the first time since the spring. Her three school-aged sons had begun learning remotely a few weeks before everyone else did in Britain’s first lockdown in March 2020. Doctors said that her five-year-old—who had a kidney transplant when he was a toddler—might be at increased risk from covid-19. But health worries were not the main reason why six months later Ms Clark chose formally to withdraw her children from school and start educating them herself. She says that they have been happier since they stopped having to spend their days in classrooms and that, with her as their teacher, they are learning more quickly.