A wave of illiterate “home schooled” children

You've missed the point that @latetothefisting was making. They're not saying that you can't learn things if home educated; more that school taught children can do that on top of school.

I can't remember which of my dc asked about Roman numerals after seeing them at the end of a book, but the oldest was still at primary, so the youngest would have been at most year R. They spent the afternoon setting each other sums in Roman numerals and the next day after church they discovered that some of the tombstones had dates in Roman numerals and had a lovely hour going round decoding them - and teaching the other children how to do it too.

They baked bread together that afternoon - because they numbered the bread with Roman numerals, and had plenty of time to do other things.

The point is not whether home school children have access to this sort of thing, but more that children at school have evenings, weekends and holidays where they can be doing exactly that sort of thing, but school can open them up to a different variety of things.

My dc always got a lot of maths and science because that's what me and dh are interested in, and that's often been the sort of thing debated at dinner and then looked at afterwards.
But through school they found other interests that we wouldn't have come across because they weren't on our radar. All of them came home at times with something they had learnt at school/through school friends and wanted to know more about.

But you could completely turn this around the other way. I home educate and am child led. Today, with my 7 year old, we learnt Roman numerals. We looked up the history of how they created them and why we didn’t
keep this system and its limitations. We discussed why we have a base 10 system and where this comes from which led to looking at the mathematical systems of the Babylonians and Egyptians, looking at base 60 compared to base 10. We then went to the library and found a book on maths which led us to the history of algebra and what algebra is. And after doing all of this, we still had time to bake and garden. If my 7 year old was in school, this would not be his history so he wouldn’t have been exposed to it. And do you know where he first learnt about Roman numerals? From Mr Beast! Children are exposed to so much of the world. Saying that they need school to do this is ridiculous. And I didn’t know about base 60 but I’m pretty capable of googling it and going to the library.
how have we decided that it’s important to learn about the great fire of London and the Tudors but not the Babylonian base 60 number system?

But all of that sounds like stuff kids could do outside of school? I'd expect most children who go to school 9-3 to also be taught to cook by their parents.

"child-led" learning doesn't work for anything beyond vague generalities because a child doesn't know what type of learning is out there they've never heard of! If a child has never been to school or dropped out age 12, they could have a brilliant mind for science but they are never going to turn to their parents and say 'Mum can we learn about theoretical physics' today because they don't know such a thing exists, and unless their parents took at least physics A level they won't either, or if they've vaguely heard of it they won't know how to teach it!

Same with any other subject - you could say 'well they are learning maths by helping out with the shopping and household budget' - yeah okay maybe they are, and you take the fact they are very good at basic addition and subtraction as evidence the 'unschooling' is working - but that child could have a real talent for maths and, if in the top set of a mainstream school, could be doing advanced equations and looking to develop that talent into a career in engineering or finance or whatever, none of which they can do if they never progress beyond the limit of their parents' knowledge.

I don't think our current school system is perfect by any means, and tbh probably would have preferred being home educated myself! But there should absolutely be more regulation around it.

The most beautiful written English I have ever come across is that of my husband's Indian graduate engineering students.

School has changed enormously in the last 20 years!

Academisation.
Fall in real terms funding per child for 15 years now.
Much more demanding curriculum.
Loss of creative and vocational subjects due to Ebacc.
Loss of private options due to cost increases and tax changes.
Degeneration of school estate due to capital budgets being reduced up to 90% in 2010.
Punitive attendance policies.
Shortage of teachers intensifying.
Extension of compulsory school age.
Withdrawal of Educational Maintenance Allowance.
Introduction of Pupil Premium.
Changes to Ofsted.
New SEN system from 2014. Currently being dismantled.
Closure of Sure Start.
Greatly reduced availability of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, educational psychology etc.
In wider society:
A financial crisis.
BREXIT.
The pandemic.
Greatly increased rates of poverty.

!!!

I am very interested, how do people fund it? One person needs to be teacher so can’t work (if they’re doing it properly) - what about single parents or families with low incomes? What about paying for tutoring, trips, activities etc?

I think I’m thinking about wider society. We’re competing against other nations and standards in those nations with whom we compete for power are rising. Innovations and tech are increasingly coming out of Asia and our standards are falling. We only need to look at the stats on young people out of work. Education standards are falling. Respect and discipline is poor. Resilience is on the floor. Education is the answer to that and I believe schools have to play the greatest part in that.

Yes I do think most parents want the best for their children but I don’t think they always know what that is, nor can they provide it for them. I think there is a general problem now with parenting not tolerating discomfort, in themselves and in their children. That link that the other home ed parent posted to the ball which someone organised referenced the children who are too anxious to go to school. Why do we have such large numbers of children who are too anxious to go to school now? School hasn’t changed particularly in the last 20 years. But our ability to tolerate discomfort has changed and the language we use has changed - worried has become anxious (a clinical term); trauma is overused. Normal feelings are becoming medicalised. And the knee jerk reaction to that is to withdrawn children from a school environment

Do you not believe most parents want the best for their child?
Do you not want the best for your child?

Why do you care what others do education wise? It makes no difference to you if someone uses a local school, a private school or home education.

You don't seem interested in actual knowledge and extremely or those who know about home ed

So you think most parents can’t provide a good education, but wouldn’t use state schools and would instead EHE. Right.

I don’t think it’s the answer actually. I just have a lot of worries about the quality of home education. Doesn’t it concern you as to the massive range of quality of education that is open to home educators? I am absolutely aware that schools are not perfect. I’d never contemplate state schools for that reason (I would home educate rather than that). But I do really worry about the number of children whose education rests in the hands of their parents. And my guess is that many-most parents are not able nor willing to provide a good education for their child, for various reasons.

And yet you think the British education system which has educated those same native people is the answer

Now that is funny

That’s hilarious 😂

I know, it disturbs me a lot that the non-native English speakers can write and speak English a lot better than a large chunk of our population who have never grasped even the basics of English grammar.

THE POORS ARE STARTING TO HOMESCHOOL OH NO

Yes trauma can take many forms but clearly you don't want to listen to other perspectives as you assume you and only you can be right

Yes, for some, school causes trauma. You might not understand it. That’s OK, some are ignorant to the fact, but it is true.

Trauma - here we go. Millions of men were marched over to the trenches and blown to pieces but now school causes trauma.

100%.

Do you not understand trauma and anxiety?

School caused so much trauma in my child that they struggle if we need to drive past the school.

Certain subjects cause such a trauma response in child that when you get sibling was watching a learning video at home (that older child had done in school( it caused a flashback to a traumatic event that happened while doing that activity at school.

We have looked at tutors but someone with the right understanding and skills is difficult to find because they have to work in a way that doesn't trigger flashbacks. We had one online tutor who was fabulous but this was a short term arrangement through a charity and can't be booked direct.
We have struggled to find the right people.although we do have a tutor once a week for one subject who is amazing and has had such a positive impact. We know with the right approach and right person our child thrives but the wrong person and wrong approach sends our child into a state of anxiety and crumbles their self esteem and confidence.

You are a perfect example of a tutor that would do more damage than good

Very pleased to read that you no longer teach.

They had a lucky escape if you struggle to comprehend why some DC are unable to attend school.

I used to do Supply teaching and a bit of private tuition as well. I had a call from a parent whose child refused to go to school. I still struggle to comprehend a world where that could be an option. Ok, so private lessons.

The person who had passed my name on had two absolutely delightful home-school children who wanted to learn but were Irish traveller, and the utterly zoo-like joke-shop Academy down the road had ganged-up on them (as if they were in any position to look down on other people) to the extent that they hated going to school. I got on fine with them and they, crucially, wanted to learn things. The boy was brilliant at Maths and useless at English, the slightly older girl exactly the opposite. The parents brought me in because they wanted their children to have at least an O Level in the basics and hadn't been to school much themselves. Being useless at a subject is not a problem for a teacher. That's what we're there to fix.

We made an appointment to go to do a trial lesson with the child who had been referred to me and two hours beforehand I had a phone call. Don't come. The child who "had a melt down" about going to school "had a melt-down" about having home tuition. And according to Mummy, there was nothing that could be done about that. Never, ever heard anything of them again.

Good luck getting a job.

@lifeturnsonadime Nowadays's that doesn't particularly surprise me, as I've been around home ed long enough now.🙂It might have in the past when I knew less.
Back then, we came out suddenly after growing repeated incidents culminated in plans being made for what to do when another attempt on his life was committed, and I woke up to the part I was playing in a relentless journey towards him potentially not surviving to adulthood. (I still can't believe I didn't recognize I was part of it sooner)

Ds came out badly traumatized and poorly educated. But very poorly educated myself, the only understanding of education I had was the school model, and he was so far behind in it.

CAHMs accepted him on list, as a bullied autistic child, now breaking.
Saw him once and suggested trying to get into other schools, knowing I'd done that and nowhere had a place, and discharged him, after we'd waited 9 months for help that never came.

We started trying to patch something together, and at first we tried to do 'lessons' but outdoors, because he couldn't cope with being in a room trying to study anymore. It was all associated with violence, public humiliation and failure.

Being around nature and animals was clearly what he needed, so we did that, and explored, and talked... a lot. Then started using displays about animals and nature as base educational materials and then researching around them, before doing the same with science museums etc, and making tentative inroads to get him around other children. (shattered trust and he feared further sexulised assault, having absorbed schools 'boys will be boys' mantra, over what had been done to him)

While we did that I was figuring out how to adapt exam curriculum's for him.
I was very wary of other home ed parents views that none of it was necessary, because I couldn't imagine different, and the alternatives felt like gambling tbh. And, as I'd already badly failed my child by trying to encourage them to cope with such an awful situation, I was too scared of making another mistake.

But as I started to know what I was doing I relaxed and realized liquid forces and motion (physics ) could be learned surfing rather than in a classroom setting up experiments, etc. We do things the way we do in school for economies of scale, not because they're the best method of learning.

I also started seeing that most of the other families, including the more radical, also 'kind of' knew what they where doing, (and not) and where trusting the process, just as we where trusting our process, and it was just very different routes and rhetoric around them.

Time around many different home ed'ers has taught me, the majority of children will engage with formal learning, when they are ready to engage, and or, the right way and time for them to succeed at it, has occurred in their lives.

Encouraging good MH, a love of life, and learning, activeness, and allowing space for them to absorb and grow, yields good results.

I've seen a tiny percentage of educational failure by their 20's, in large numbers of home ed, against a much bigger percentage in a similar number of school ed.

Those who make an active choice to develop independent learning always do well in education, because they learn an essential skill, that school attempts to teach to them discretely as part of striving to be in the 'successful group' rather than what home edders (of all types) have the time to do, which is facilitate a love of learning for the sake of learning, regardless of IQ, exams etc.

Two of my home ed Dc's are now (HL) teachers, and a third working in education. All have worked in a variety of places before getting snapped up by better ones.
Based on the percentage of 'failing' children they've seen in average schools, and the way many schools are behaving to try and quash issues with a few, at the expense of the majority, they are more concerned with the huge future potential 'wave' of damaged young adults with ongoing MH issues, leaving standard schools poorly equipped for the life school's supposed to prepare them for, and unable to cope with work.

@Elleherd I didn't follow 'unschooling' as a methodology but my son who school refused for the entire of secondary Ed ended up very much like this.

He did very little for the first couple of years because of his level of trauma and then he wanted to engage so i helped him pick up the curriculum for 6 GCSEs which he did adequately well enough in to get in to the local 6th form college.

His teachers at A Level were so impressed with his ability to be self motivated and to self study, his skills in those areas were much better than the kids who'd been taught GCSEs.

Another thing I noticed about homeschooling was that during covid lockdown the children of parents who did a lot of school work with their children at home jumped ahead incredibly, ie learned a lot more and more quickly than at school where interruptions and distractions take up a lot of time. And that this had a longstanding effect, once ahead they stayed ahead. That was quite interesting too.

@elleherd that is really interesting!