Stop homeschooling your children.

I think a lot of people on here aren't grasping the sort of person you mean. I know the sort, like SIL, watched too many alternative online videos yet doesn't have the brains/effort to properly home educate so the kid slowly falls further and further behind.

I worked with a man that did the same, his kid was very clearly dyslexic, instead of getting the child help (pride) he pulled him out of school under the premise of home educating when the reality is the kid is working for him in several of his self made businesses so his formal education ended at 13 but the kid knows how to run a cafe 🤷‍♂️

Both these parents had limited education themselves.

Takes a village and all that Yes indeed! And despite this you think that school is the best place for a child.

An acquaintance of mine has done this with one of her children, effectively giving him a pass on life, its ups and downs.

She expects that her child will end up living with her because of his needs (so that her ex husband can’t force a sale of the family home) until he manages to meet a wife. Or until she dies, if he does not find a wife willing to look after her son for the rest of his life.

I feel so sad for her son, who is perfectly able and intelligent, but whose teenage angst is being pandered to. Much to his future detriment.

It is nit not home schooling, it's home education, and parents facilitate their child's education. Most parents do not teach their dc. Also if they can't spell then the school system didn't do them any favours.

In an ideal world I wouldn't have had to home educate my daughter in her last 2 years of school, I home educate due to a crap British education system, disinterested teachers, bad discipline, disruptive pupils, and ridiculous rules and regulations that have no bearing on a child's education, the increase in home education rates has risen 14% since September last year, and clearly speaks volumes. My daughter is thriving and doing so well, she is taking her Gcses a year early, it is hard work at times, but the easy decision would have been to leave her in a useless education system, where she was learning very little, definitely one of my better decisions.

Nail on the head!!

You are stereotyping people and making judgements about people who home school because of this. You are bound to be wrong in some cases. One of my good friends was home schooled and has a first class degree. Yes there will be lazy parents, but everyone has their own reasons. As long as the child can go to school if homeschooling isn't right for them then why have an issue with it.

It's not really up to you what they do sadly. Just get on with what you're doing.

I think your family is the exception rather than the rule @Elleherd.
They would have been utterly bored at school if they are that bright.

How did they find university?

This is it- yes there are shit HEH parents, that’s obvious because there are shit versions of every demographic.

Why do people think that these shit parents will suddenly become good ‘get child to school on time with the correct kit and do homework, monitor revision and prioritise education’ parents if their child was told to go to school?

They would just be the shit end of the mainstream schooling demographic- the ones that don’t bother to send them, pawn the school laptop, tell them to ignore the homework etc etc.

We average 14 IGCSE's per child here, including 3 separate sciences and most have done further maths, which the sort of schools open to people like us don't allow.
Generally 4 to 5 A levels (one over enthusiastic one did 7) Nothing amazing about it, they use their time well and work and play smarter, not harder.

@MariaLuna
There's something weird about people who think they know what is best for their kids if keeping them at home... (talking about religious nutters etc.).

What a strange comment!

Also, I have many single mum friends who work and home educate.

Littlemisscapable · Today 21:59

It seems unfair on children..they have no say in this and don't have anything to compare to. It is very difficult to cover a broad curriculum yourself. I wish there was more oversight of the children in these situations ..for the positive stories there must be many children falling between the cracks.

How is it be unfair? Do schooled children get to have a say?

Lots of children leave school unable to read or write. In 2013 only about 68% of exam entries were pass/4 or above.

Oh shut up !! In my local Home Ed group most kids have wonderful education , last year a friends son went on to study medicine . Some of the parents are high achievers , 3 ex teachers , 2 solicitors , 2 big business owners etc . All make amazing efforts to provide a wonderful varied education to their children ! I’m sure there are a small number who doesn’t do it well , but I’m sure those same parents would have children lacking of they where in school too as they would not be supported anyway

Oh shut up. You run an educational consultancy, yet you don't even know the legal term in the UK is Home EDUCATION, not SCHOOLING. NOR is there any requirement for tutors.

Go away and stop talking about stuff you know nothing about.

I think the statistics are something like 1 in 3 children leave school with no qualifications. That's huge.
School is an experiment that is not much more than a century old.

In my country home tutoring is not allowed.

It can hide abuse in the home and children need to be socialised in order to grow up collectively, combating racial abuse etc. (Loads of the world's children at school).

Uni choices, teenage years.... I'm glad I had teachers to guide him, and me, for his best. (He went to uni).

There's something weird about people who think they know what is best for their kids if keeping them at home... (talking about religious nutters etc.).

Having to work for a living as a solo mum I could never have taken on ALSO educating my son at home.

Takes a village and all that.

These parents and situations have always and will always exist. The 15% increase you have seen are not children for whom, if EHE were not an option, life would be settled with regular school attendance and caring parents. Most of those children would have been absent from school and running the streets anyway, they would have just been a number on a different set of statistics.

Which is not to say that EHE oversight is good- but the answers to the social problems are a lot more complex than telling them they can’t HE.

Poorly formally educated WC parent and grandparent here. Head of an extended now happily home educating family that schools automatically failed. No tutors here, just lots of facilitation.

We are the sort of family the MC look sideways at, but actually we've got as many aspirations as anyone, just a different background driving them.

Everyone's doing well socially and educationally, (inc the one with ASD who started it all) and all gone or going to university in a family where that sort of thing automatically wasn't for the likes of us.

Perhaps more importantly for everyone else, one is now a primary teacher and another a technical tutor across four secondary schools. Two of the grandchildren are entering the education sector because all of them have grown up with a love of learning and understand why some are being disenfranchised by the school system.

I agree OP. The country where I'm from doesn't allow homeschooling. I do think the UK needs more specialist schools though and overhaul its (secondary) education completely.

Home education.

I know two families who homeschooled, the children are in their early twenties now, no qualifications and they are both unemployed so it wasn't successful BUT...
Both felt they had no choice but to take their children out of school, horrific bullying that resulted in an attempted suicide and the other also due to bullying developed OCD and bulimia. The bullying was relentless and the schools (they tried moving) didn't do anything to stop it.

As if you think homeschooling is the easy way out. YABU. People don't do it for the fuck of it, it's really really hard. (No skin in the game - I say this as someone who has never done it and would only do it as a very last resort, and would hate every second of it).

Sadly my experience is the antithesis of yours.

Prior to the surge in HE , it was the preserve of the middle class , educated slightly alternative parent. With a growing number of SEN parents following suit as SEN process/provision disintegrated.

These are not the HE families I meet in day to day work.
The families I encounter have young 11-15 yr olds involved in county lines, burglary, criminal damage, extortion and blackmail . These kids are not being home educated. They are in bed asleep recovering from the previous nights excursions.
They couldn't be in a world further away from a committed focussed HE mum with a full day's activities planned and prepared.. Mum is usually pissed or stoned and also in bed while the younger kids eat cereal they get themselves.
It's completely heartbreaking. At least when they were enrolled , they were known to welfare . Now they are registered there is nothing we can do.
The 'Elective DfE home education : departmental guidance for local authorities 2019 is as wet as it could possibly be .
Basically ;
There are no set number of days or hours they need to be educated for.
There is no definition about what 'educate' means except to 'show improvement in literacy' which is impossible as there is no inspection or regulation.. so where is the benchmark !

The only way we sometimes get an SAO school attendance order - is if there is a safeguarding issue . But it's not instant and they ( parents) will usually buck up enough to keep SS at bay and thus render educational welfare toothless.

It's a travesty . HE needs regulating to protect these children from lazy feckless parents . There is no excuse although the MN posse will probably want to make excuses . I'm sorry there are none. If you want to have 5 kids (or even 1 kid) the LEAST you can do is get up and take them to fucking school in the morning.

Those actually doing HE have nothing to fear but in my area an increase in our (young offender) caseload to 17% 'home educated' from 2% 5 years ago. It needs sorting before thousands more economically disadvantaged kids are left to a life of illiteracy & innumeracy which is a pathway straight into criminality.

I don't know anyone who homeschools because it's the easy option. Everyone I know had previously been great supporters of state education. But had no choice, because the Tories have fucked up state education and have made the average secondary school in particular a absolute fucking nightmare. All are professional, intelligent and did well at school themselves. And we live in a nice area with apparently "good" schools, according to Ofsted.

Haha! Most schools cater for the average. Not talking about grammar schools or top rated comps but the majority of ordinary comprehensive schools are not going to be able to get the most out of very intelligent children. It's a case of survival, appearing to under achieve to fit in and avoid getting bullied. Excellent grades may be achieved but there's a lot more to education than getting good grades. To be honest intelligent children can get top GCSE grades with very little effort and despite quite bad teaching anyway, in the core subjects.