A wave of illiterate “home schooled” children

At no other point in your life will your social circle consist of thirty children with whom all you have in common is being born in the same September to August cycle
thats the whole point , It’s your only time to be part of a big group, interacting , playing outside, sitting together at meal times, it’s so important for their social development.
what about music lessons ? Drama ? things like sport days. Class projects ? World book day, bake sale? Trips? School plays?
you'd have to be very consistent and with a good budget and time to match all the above.

This is actually a misconception

Most college courses say GCSEs or equivalent (so could be other courses that show knowledge)
A child who doesn't achieve any GCSEs for any reason can still go to college and start on a level 1 course.

At 19 you can do an access to higher Ed course (1year) you don't have to have any qualifications to do this.
After this you can progress straight into a degree course.

Families that home Ed do not have to follow the national curriculum. Children progress won't necessarily be age appropriate IE they may be years ahead in one subject but working at a lower level in others.. some Home Ed children don't read as early but they develop other skills. Learning is often child led and follows interests. This means they are motivated to learn which achieved better results than pupils who are terrified in school

I've mentioned above someone who has done an excellent job of homeschooling her children. However, they've come unstuck when it comes to formal qualifications.

The eldest has a specific difficulty and attended senior school after the age of 16. She told her mother that she regretted having missed school in her earlier years.

The middle child enrolled in a college course and quickly dropped out. I suspect that social interaction became too much for her. She's absolutely lovely, but all of her socialisation has been with her own extended family plus a few meetings with other home-schooled children and - latterly - participation in a youth group.

The mother has a degree and also some OU qualifications.

It's a similar scenario with a friend who home-schooled her two after primary school. They both loved primary, but were unhappy at their large secondary school. They have lots of 'experiences', but little in the way of formal qualifications. The friend and her siblings come from a working-class background and all did very well at university.

The elder child enrolled in a post-16 college course, but that didn't work out.

I think many people are arguing that being 'properly educated' can sometimes happen very effectively outside a school environment.

I disagree with several of your comments - your perception of how home educated kids navigate the world is exceptionally narrow - but I agree that all children should receive an age-appropriate education, with necessary provision made for SEN.

Homeschooling is also a massive safeguarding issue. There is little to no regulation or checks in place to ensure the child's wellbeing. Plus teaching is a degree level profession for a reason - most parents do not have the skillset that comes from the years of training it takes to become a fully qualified teacher (minimum 5 for degree plus two ECT years). If you weren't quite happy with the NHS systems, would you have a go at surgery on your child yourself?

I can only imagine the parents have witnessed some of the appalling standards of teaching/ schools/ bullying and they don’t want their children in that environment.
Either that or they’re sick of the stupid school hours and it’s not worth them trying to have a job so they decide to spend their kids’ childhoods with them instead.

YANBU but the biggest victims are the homeschooled children themselves and their parents...so honestly, who cares?? It's the best example of cutting off your nose to spite your face and MN proves that homeschool parents are hellbent on believing they are superior, without considering what could happen 10-20-30 years down the line. Some may argue that it leads to increased strain on social services, raised taxes etc but that's honestly similar to blaming migrants for everything. There will aways be people reliant on benefits or social care and the system will adjust itself accordingly.

The vast majority of those kids won't end up with employable skills or any sort of ability that allows them to lead self-sufficient adult lives. Many may be due to the reasons they had to be homeschooled in first place (neurodivergence, anxiety, MH, poor social skills etc). Even lots of high masking ND adults who managed to complete the entire school and university system end up struggling with long term employment.

The most reasonable prediction is that homeschool children, many school refusers, will do fairly well in the short run. The massive cohort started during covid and haven't really entered the workforce yet. However there will be a massive crash in 5-10 years time when the dwindling economy and AI have already made employed jobs scarce. HS candidates will have no chance against candidates with a classic education, both academically and socially. They may struggle meeting new friends or potential partners. There may be more mainstream acceptance of single adults living alone into middle age, and less emphasis on traditional milestones like marriage, kids, etc.

Well of course the IB counts! I'm talking about regular, non-SEN children with no physical or mental health issues who are never required to get any qualifications at all.

I'm wasting my Saturday having a stupid discussion about the bleeding obvious - that children should be properly educated and given the opportunity to get basic qualifications that they need in order to progress. Next I'll be arguing that the sky is in fact blue.

I'm out.

It should be illegal, if the children aren't SEN or have other challenges, like severe mental health or physical health issues. I'm talking about most children, to whom those special circs don't apply.

What happens to non-SEN, healthy children who have never sat GCSEs? What are their outcomes? Almost all further training or education requires maths and English GCSEs.

What about the ones taking the IB? Sone schools do that instead

Not all schools are dozens of kids the same age though. DGs is one of 14 aged between 5 and 7

You educate them so that they can handle them, of course! Having SOME GCSEs at some grades is better than never having sat any! How is a child ever meant to progress to anything if they don't have GCSEs? Almost everything requires them, from A-levels to hairdressing courses to plumbing courses to police training.

I understand the education system perfectly.

Of course, there are some children who are vulnerable, and are never going to pass a single GCSE, in which case they should be supported by the state because they need help and it's not their fault.

I am not talking about those children. I am talking about the majority of children, who can pass a few GCSEs at grades 4 or 5 with a good educator, whether at home or school. My point is that children should have to take GCSEs, unless they are SEN.

Except for special cases, I don't see how it's legal to deny a child a qualification that they need for practically everything in order to progress.

So many low-ability, low-income kids with neglecting parents who attend failing schools emerge at 16 and are functionally illiterate.

But at least they’ve learnt the important skills / disciplines of getting out of bed, sitting through lessons that bore them, and interacting with people.

The perception that home school is for cranks is strong.

You do realize that some schools decide not to enter some pupils for exams because they don't think they will get good grades and they don't want the child effecting their achievement data

That was the case with the twins I mentioned upthread: the father was an American pastor, spreading the Word in Scotland.

This was my sister. She homeschooled all her children for the whole of school and I’ve never met young people in their twenties with such outrageous views on life and people and zero interpersonal skills. And I’m not exaggerating. My sister was no teacher. In fact she unschooled them.

All well and good, but I still think your daughter is missing out on the school experience - meeting and being with dozens and dozens of children her own age, being part of a community, school/team pride, school drama productions, school trips, forming relationships with authority figures - i.e. the teachers. Some of our teachers were hilarious, really cared about us, and we have fond memories of them many decades on. As for school not being for everyone, well you know what? Work isn't for everyone, it's certainly not for me, but I have to do it anyway, and that's what you call the real world! I sometimes wonder how home educated kids will cope with a work environment, having to turn up every day and put up with people you'd never choose to, etc. Home education is lacking in ways that even the best parent-educators can't make up for, imo.

How would it benefit children to sit exams they can't handle?

You don't seem to understand the system of education at all @Horsie

This. We are doing iGCSE and Functional Skills exams over the next 2 years and have a very good relationship with our council home ed liaison but are frowned upon by many in the local home ed groups. We aren't anti-school. We got the point that it was better we spent the time and energy in schooling at home rather than battling the school and council for the support our child needed. Our child wants to attend college for the next stage of their education and we support this choice. In fact, that is exactly what our aim was, to get them to the point where they had choices that they maybe wouldn't have had if they stayed in school with no or poor support. We have a formal visit from our council liaison each year and show what we have been doing and what our plans are for the coming year. She has been fantastic and we are also getting support from the local careers service this year. Too many are being influenced in the local groups to reject any input from the council liaison and are missing out on so much that would actually support them and their child. Any comments to suggest that they at least give this a chance are shouted down or deleted by admin.

Oh right. Home educated kids do this sort of socialising at groups and outside their groups.

Do you imagine home educated children to be literally in their homes all the time?

You have a rose-tinted view of what socialisation looks like for a large number of school educated children.

interacting with your peers on a variety of topics - either being told to work in absolute silence or being unable to focus on group work or peer discussions because some of the pupils in your class are out of control.
Catching trains and buses together, - having your bag stolen and your glasses broken in the first week of Year 7 by the year 10s on the bus.
working together in pairs and groups - see my first point
spending half an hour at lunch talking about rubbish and having a laugh - spending half an hour at lunch in the classroom, either because your teacher believes in collective punishment or because lunchtimes are terrifying as that's when the bullies have unlimited access to you
ad hoc trips to town or parks after school and generally just interacting outside of an hour of a highly scheduled activity - home ed children have friends, they're able to do all of this too.
Even getting up to a bit of mischief together. Ahh yeah, like Year 7s vaping in the toilets and Year 10/11s getting suspended for bringing drugs to school and turning the Year 7/8s into drug mules. Lovely little bit of mischief.

I was all for DD going to school and actually very anti home ed, until I taught in a (naice, very middle class) secondary school.

I think it's crackers that children aren't legally required to take GCSEs.

I don't see how the government can say that children must have a full-time, age-appropriate education but have no benchmark for that. It makes the requirement meaningless.

And you may be able to get away with not making your children take any exams, but the worlds of higher education and employment requires them, so...Imagine trying to apply for a job or a course without having taken GCSEs! Then there's the fact that this lackadaisical approach is a golden opportunity for parents who want to abuse their children. Seems that it would be very easy for a parent to deny their child any education at all, out of malice.

My daughter has been home educated since she was removed from primary school. She was unhappy there, and made little academic progress. I could have afforded to send her to private school. Instead we decided to home educate using a variety of methods. She is currently studying towards 9 GCSE subjects, and attends youth clubs to pursue her interests. She has friends and hobbies. Private tutors help her. I help her. I pay for all the education, the clubs and exam fees. I have a teaching qualification and doctorate, but do not need either to teach at GCSE level. She would have been miserable in the local school, and it doesn't offer the combination of subjects that she is interested in. If she had been a different child, I may have sent her to school. She prefers home education, makes academic progress and has developed study skills that shall serve her well at University. She is mature for her age, and helps me in the family business during her free time. I have met many families who home educate over the years, as there are local meet up groups. They are not all anti-establishment paranoid illiterate drop outs. Some choose home education as a preference, and for some families home education chooses them (because there are a lack of adequate SEN provisions in school etc). Most families self-fund the education, the exams, the books, the tutors and online schools, as it is rare for the local authority to provide any help. Local authorities demand reports from parents on academic progress periodically, and can force children back into school if they are concerned. The academic literature suggests that home educated children do well in later life in terms of career attainment. School is not for every child, and I feel glad to live in a country where home education is a legal option.

We've home educated four DC so far. We use a combination of self teaching for the subjects we're equipped for, face to face tutors for subjects that are better delivered that way - languages for my DC - and online tutors for other subjects. Online tutors are VERY competitively priced btw, and many are excellent.

We live in an area where home ed is very popular as a choice. There are daily groups, trips and opportunities both within the home ed community, and in the city/university. The numbers of families choosing to home educate is rising exponentially, and independent educational and support provisions are rising with it. There's so much more on offer now than when we started, around 18 years ago.

Our DC have a very regular life with a combination of home ed stuff and general stuff - drama groups, sports, music and so on. They acquired their GCSE's with a range of grades between 6 and 9, and are now at college doing A-levels. The home ed world post-COVID is exceptionally well provided for: brilliant exam centres, lots of academic and social support to be accessed online, for example.

The 'tribes' within home ed are very diverse, and we are not in step with all of it, by any means. Most of our friends and regular hang-out folk tread the same path as us. We're conventional people, with no axe to grind about traditional education - although it's startling how many teachers we know who home educate - and have managed to work around the home ed life, as we're both self-employed and very flexible.

As an aside, I absolutely believe there should be a home ed register. I've listened to the arguments over the years, but never heard one that convinced me that children should be able fly under the radar.

As usual, I don't recognise many of the home ed tropes I read on MN threads.

I mean my outer London Borough is no great shakes with SEN, but the councillors haven't been caught on camera saying insulting things about SEN!