To think you as a parent are responsible for your child’s education.

I don’t think parents should be primary educators but it is certainly helpful if they help at home with things like reading and usually the kids that do well in class are those who have some support at home too. The reality of schools these days are huge classes with no TA support. With so many children to get round, I certainly don’t manage to hear the kids in my own class read as much as I’d like so those reading at home on a daily basis will often make greater progress than those relying on school alone. We do try to target kids who aren’t supported at home but we haven’t got the staff to replicate daily 121 home reading. As a working mum I know how hard it is but I also see how thinly stretched education staff are these days. Schools try to encourage parental engagement for a reason.

reads like journalist could have written OP

It did make me laugh that you went on about parents teaching their children and how you were going to teach them English, Chinese and Spanish and so taught them…English!

You we’re going to just learn Spanish and Chinese fluently but didn’t get round to it?!

You talk about times tables currently, but how are you planning on teaching them quadratic equations and photosynthesis when the time comes, OP?

I’m confident in supporting (not necessarily teaching) my kids in science until A-Levels, at least. I have a PhD in chemistry myself. For all other subjects, I need professional teachers.

This is also why I disagree with home school in all but the most exceptional circumstances as any home educator typically wouldn’t have neither the breadth nor depth of subject matter expertise, let alone training in pedagogy etc. that teachers have.

Ultimately as a parent it’s your responsibility to make sure your child gets an education (although given that it’s so important, the state don’t entrust this to parents in entirety). But it’s not your direct responsibility to actually be their primary educator, no.

schools are for academic education. parents for everything else, plus a large amount of support for academic education, so actually more than half of education comes from parents not school

Oh and not everyone can afford to move near a good school, my DS goes to a good school but I happened to be living in the catchment area anyway. As a single parent, living near to my family for support is more important to me than living near good schools.

Disagree.

We aren't all capable of teaching our children. I help DS where I can but I did not do well at school myself, I've got no qualifications and I wouldn't have a hope in hell of guiding him through GCSEs. That's why I send him to school, to be taught by qualified teachers who know what they are talking about. If I wanted to be responsible for his education then I'd home school.

If you saw how badly Common Core Mathematics are taught in the US, you’d teach your children as much as possible at home.

The comment about 'shapes and 123' gives away your child's age- of course you're responsible for your child's pre school education. Teaching shapes and 123 is easy. But children are at school for 5-6 hours a day and you're deluded if you think sticking a CD on in the car or reading a few books is equal to the many hours spent in the classroom with a teacher.

I've been told lots of times not to try to teach phonics or anything else before the school does it. You run the risk of doing it totally wrong and confusing your child. Also the teacher will want to lay the foundations for reading, writing and maths and strong foundations are needed because the 'house' that these skills are built on will collapse if the foundations are weak.

There are so many actually helpful things you can do to support your child in school. Like getting them there on time, making sure they're well fed, providing plenty of opportunity for developing gross motor skills (through outdoor play) and fine motor skills (providing art material, play doh, Lego) that gets their little hands ready for writing. But as for actually teaching them - leave it to the professionals.

Nice little bit of virtue signalling smugness there OP.......oh my goodness I must go, I almost missed five year old child's Philosophy lesson

I used to work in tertiary Ed & a long term study on children's education showed real success came from parents who engage with their kids learning & most important - show why learning is important by example & what wonderful things come of it.

Forcing it can cause them to hate learning. This is true ime. My DH was force fed & he shut down, failed high school & study still terrifies him. Our own DC drive us nuts with asking how this works, why.. why . WHY...... lol.

'
A child who is home educated with siblings in a different curriculum is no less educated, even though their parent may not have the ability to teach 30 children to reach government determined targets.'

Really?

How many parents could teach maths further maths physics chemistry for a level.

And if that's their area and the other child is interested in geography history art and philosophy...?

It’s also important to raise your children not to be judgemental smug twats who can’t see past their own privilege. You know, just being a decent a human.

How are you getting on with that OP?

Well yabu obv.

School is a long time. If you can be the primary person to teach them physics, history, tech, art, biology, English etc at GCSE or a level then well you're very impressive indeed.

Your approach also means that parents who don't have time/ English as a first language/ the skills to do even the things you mention are essentially rubbish parents.

We have schools they are generally good. They are there to educate. Teachers are qualified professionals.

I mean do whatever you want but judging others is pretty rubbish.

‘You are not a teacher. You do not know the tried and tested methods of introducing new concepts or following the national curriculum and keeping in line with what other children are learning.’

Teachers aren’t necessarily better at teaching an individual child though. The skill in teaching is primarily teaching groups together to a specific curriculum within a time frame.

A child who is home educated with siblings in a different curriculum is no less educated, even though their parent may not have the ability to teach 30 children to reach government determined targets.

I would be hugely impressed at you and your husband learning (then teaching your child) all 302 living languages/dialects in China. Or did you actually only mean Mandarin? Which I'm thinking you still would have no chance of doing.

‘It's horrific, and I wish parents thought a bit harder about why they're pushing their kids so hard to be academic.’

Well why is society pushing kids to be academic? Why have exams at all if it doesn’t matter if you do well in them or not?

We have far too many exams in the U.K. education system.

It’s a joint effort from both the parents and the school.
You as a parent can’t possibly be fully teaching your child if they are at school because

1. They are at school all day so not with you.
2. If you think trying to cram in a school working day into 2 hours after school then I’m afraid that won’t work. The child has been concentrating and learning all day. He or she will be tired and in need of rest, reassurance, play, down time and hobbies.
3. If you push push to cram more in your childs head even if they have been at school all week there is a real risk of turning them off learning or building resentment for the future.
4. You are not a teacher. You do not know the tried and tested methods of introducing new concepts or following the national curriculum and keeping in line with what other children are learning.
5. You have way way too low opinion and expectations of schools, even ‘excellent’ schools as you claim in your post.

Parents are great educators right from the start by engaging their children and playing with them. A lot of learning in the early years comes from playing, listening and responding to young children. Sadly I have found that listening skills , such as discriminating sounds which are so important in the pre reading stage as a foundation to reading accurately, seems to have diminished in recent years.
I often see that people are missing chances to talk to their children e.g. at restaurants, instead of communicating with their children I see parents chatting to each other and children are sitting in front of an iPad , or out walking they may be on the mobile rather than pointing out and talking about the wonders of the trees, sounds, birds etc. It makes me sad that so many opportunities for great learning are missed in this way and children are often stimulated by computer games rather than conversation.
Maybe this is not universal but would fit in with my observations over the last 20 years or so when children start nursery.
When children are older then supporting what teachers suggest will help their learning at school - plus modelling writing and showing that you enjoy reading and listening to them read will help. Teachers and parents working together will certainly help children learn.
I realise the world is changing in terms of time parents may have and it makes me sad to think how many children are missing out on those important and informal learning opportunities outside of school.
I also think that we formalise education too early on - if you look at other countries where children don’t start formal reading and writing until much later on, they learn this quickly and often with less stress. They play more and learn through this. Some children do not have the necessary fine motor skills and are expected to start writing. And don’t get me started in the phonics testing , how can a child ‘fail’ at a young age just because the can’ t read nonsense words like wholp accurately.
I think we have a lot to learn about education in this country especially how to make learning fun through play.
Apologies this post wasn’t mean to to be quite so long, I just got carried away, although I suspect not many people are going to be reading this to the end any way!

Can I also say as a teacher just how much deep damage is done to children when parents put the pressure on them to be smart. So often I see kids who have panic attacks at the thought of exams because they'd disappoint their parents. It's horrific, and I wish parents thought a bit harder about why they're pushing their kids so hard to be academic. It's all very well having good exam results but if you're a nervous wreck at the thought of simply working due to high levels of anxiety related to performance, it's not exactly useful then is it?

School is a tool I utilize in the education of my child. I selected the best school possible and actively review and supplement the school’s efforts. If the school ceases to be the best tool we will select another or even take over the job ourselves, though given our child’s personality, homeschooling is low on our list of choices.

I’m fully aware there are parents who passively accept whatever education the school happens to provide. I’m glad we have that safety net for those children.