A wave of illiterate “home schooled” children

I think it is very sad for the children, but I don't feel it is a concern for wider society as it still is a tiny proportion of children that are home educated in this way. What I think is more disconcerting is the number of non-qualified staff teaching classes in school, who have weak English skills and poor general knowledge. If schools were properly funded, those children who struggle at school would be properly supported through alternative provision within schools and every class would have a qualified teacher every day.

I idly wish that there was such a thing as part-time home schooling, because I think it would make more sense for us to have school focus on academic rigour and more time for us to focus on things like cooking, baking, swimming, money, cultural experiences on the fifth day.

But hey ho.

My friend does it and her kids can’t read or write. She does it because she doesn’t agree with the curriculum - YANBU

Your DBIL is atypical, and your anecdote isn't meaningful in terms of whether formal education is a good thing or not. What you describe is absolutely not the fate of most people who went to uni and got a first-class degree. Whatever he's being held back by, it's not being highly educated.

PersistentRain · Today 12:43

There’s a married couple of GPs at our practice who are HS their 5 children for ‘religious reasons’. Which is sad as it’s doubtful they will have the opportunities their own parents have had.

Why is it doubtful?

I'd be much more concerned about the wave of illiterate children leaving state schools.
And the wave of children with SEN getting no education at all in schools.

That affects hundreds of thousands more children than those being home educated.

Most who unschool don’t even know what it is. ‘The father of unschooling’ whose books they’ll praise was deeply upset his words had been misinterpreted and he simply meant not in school system. But formal education that didn’t look like school.
To do unschooling properly is an exceptional amount of work, very difficult if you have more than 1 child and no cleaners etc.
See also Charlotte Mason. Most don’t understand it and call themselves CM/CM inspired because they go on a nature walk, don’t do workbooks and read aloud to their child. They pull very blank and confused looks when you try to talk to them about Charlotte Mason. Many are actually unschoolers

It's heartbreaking when children are taken out of school for the wrong reasons, usually parental beliefs - and these are usually the very children who benefit most from being exposed to diverse kinds of people and beliefs, as they would be in school. In some cases that includes basic science.

It's also heartbreaking when children who may have SEN but could also potentially thrive are instead doomed to fail in mainstream school because of the strict rules and lack of flexibility. This isn't to criticise teachers - it's impossible to provide the kind of education some of these students need with the numbers, funding and resource available.

I think you've identified a real issue but it's part of a wider problem where children in need of support, whether that's being in school or not being, slip through the net.

I'll tell you what drives me mad. People making judgements on us who can't even get the sodding name correct of what they're talking about.

Homeschooling in the UK is when a child is registered at a school and completing the school-set work at home.

Home education is the correct legal term for what you appear to be slating.

I'm assuming you're not slating my family, as I am a former teacher with a PGCE. I imagine that passes your 'test' that I am competent enough to home educate my children.

I'm wondering if you've even bothered to look into the stats from the ONS on the amount of children who leave school who are illiterate?

I always find it amusing, that the people who are the most vocal and judgemental at home educators, are the ones who know the least about it (and can't even get the name correct).

Another point, school education in the UK is not free, we pay for it through our taxes, then school parents pay even more on top with the constant begging for funds from the schools.

That's an excellent point! So yes, under the ludicrous idea that parents should be prosecuted if their children don't reach the arbitrary standard, that should apply to parents who outsource their children's education to schools too.

I'm not sure if your statement provides enough reliable data.

There most certainly is going to be a future generation of adults with little or no education. In my experience it is not at the fault of the parents, it is the system that has failed them. 8 years I've been fighting to get my child into school, with numerous tribunals. The La's are disgraceful, they want to save their budgets, so they refuse to act lawfully. We aren't an isolated case, this is happening all over

They ask for a yearly report IF they’re known to LA. I would like this to be compulsory for all home educated children. I know people who have moved to a different county so they can be ‘unknown’ to a new LA. Some request samples of work (my county does not), but they do not have to be provided across England at least, not sure about elsewhere in UK. So it’s very easy to lie in a report, and it absolutely happens.

According to the Education Act parents are responsible for ensuring their children receive an education, so shouldn't it still be the parents that go to prison? If you decide to send your child to school you are just getting someone else to educate your child for you.

(I don't actually know the answer to your question!)

I think a lot of these kids have dropped out of the system tbh, so there wouldn’t be much data. They’re just ‘home educated’. No one checks.

Where I live homeschooling is quite popular, and I can immediately think of at least two families I know whose children are almost illiterate at the age of 9/10.

They do a lot of forest school, whittling and making bows and arrows etc, but they are woefully unprepared for the world of work.

It’s a national disgrace but the legislation seems to be so lax.

And some sort of assessment of parents who want to home-school. You’d think that ought to go without saying.

There’s a married couple of GPs at our practice who are HS their 5 children for ‘religious reasons’. Which is sad as it’s doubtful they will have the opportunities their own parents have had.

My friend is head of education in a museum in a nice area. They have a very active (and somewhat aggressive) HS group who come in. She said they are extremely competitive with each other in how amazing and academically advanced their children are. She said the children are very confident and out spoken but actually no smarter than the local PS students who come in. The parents all like to tell her their child is basically a genius though.

DH has a PhD and did post doc research, I have a degree and a masters. Some of the GCSE work defeated us, especially the English Language, and I did extremely well at school, some of it has changed so much in 30 years. Even in DHs subject he was a bit lost as different to his knowledge of it.

That's a very prejudiced view. What makes you think that home educated children don't have "proper resources available"? (And what makes you think that all schooled children do?)

I can't find the statistics for what percentage achieved the government target, but 45.9% achieved grade five or higher in Maths and English.

explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-4-performance/2023-24

I agree. You do hear about the person who was home schooled and ended up at Oxbridge etc but why is it that you hear about them? Because they're unusual!
It would be interesting to see, excluding those who are forced into homeschooling due to SEN, what proportion actually come out with qualifications similar to what they would have got in school.
Because people are very quick to jump down people's throats and say that homeschooling children can do qualifications - often saying better qualifications.

I know if I'd done it with my three they'd have been in the group getting A* in maths A-levels at 12yo but certainly for the younger two, getting them to do anything else, except possibly computing, would have been an uphill struggle, and I suspect we'd have compromised on forcing through English GCSE (for which I'd have had to use a tutor because neither me or dh would have been capable in it - despite both having top grades at GCSE in both Lang and Lit.) and done very little else.
At school dd1 got 16 GCSEs, and the other two got 12/13.

And that brings me to my next concern. I know that me and dh, despite me having a maths degree and dh having a doctorate and degrees in various science, would not be good enough to teach most subjects. We've both got a string of A grades at GCSE and A-level, but still would not feel up to it.

But the ones that I've seen/known where it has basically been parents deciding that they don't want to, even when I've thought initially they look like they're doing a good job I've seen a lot of issues:
Child of 8yo who can't read even their own name. Child whose (much recommended by homeschoolers) private tutor assured them they'd be getting top grades in English lang, getting a 3 (they found afterwards he wasn't the only child this had happened to). Children who are scared of seeing other children their age except in a controlled activity. etc.

But the thing that really makes me feel uncomfortable is that how many homeschoolers are totally against any check ups.

There's two things here.

Firstly that means that they're not fully secure in that they're doing a good job. Yes, it would be a hassle, but as they're always at pains to say how much easier it is to homeschool, then they should be able to cope with it.

Secondly, it's clear that some people will use "homeschooling" as a cover for how abused children. That is not saying that all homeschoolers are abusing, or even a majority. However some people will. And so people who are against checking up, are effectively saying it's more important to them that they don't have any check ups than a few children have the abuse stopped.
I mean when ds broke his arm, we had SS check up on us. And surely it's better that we have a few days of extra check ups than another child is sent back to abuse?
I would hope most people agree with that.

Ah, so it's the teachers who should get the fine / jail time if school-educated children don't achieve the minimum qualifications, then?

Well, I think we're talking about home education in the UK. But yes there are home educators in UK that use Christian US curriculum, but that isn't proof of the "fact" that there is "a lot of religious indoctrination" in home education.

Are you sure? That seems very low.

And no, obviously not, because the lack of achievement is despite proper resources being available to the child.

My daughter learns things like managing conflict, friendship and dealing with bullies at Guides, at two different theatre groups, at climbing lessons, during social gatherings.

@Uggbootsforever "Something HAS happened which has made children less flexible, relaxed and happy. "

I think this sums it up. I'm not sure if it's social media, TV, Covid or a combination of all these but children don't seem to be as carefree and happy as I remember my childhood or that of my DC.

We need to identify what the contributing factor/factors is/are and change it

There are quite a lot of US companies providing a 'Christian' curriculum. I used to know several families who didn't want their children in the state system because they didn't believe in evolution and thought homosexuality was evil. They didn't want their children taught differently.

I am not saying it is the norm in home schooling, but there is definitely a sub group who don't want their children exposed to mainstream ideas