A wave of illiterate “home schooled” children

When one of mine went into school for the first time at 9 we had that attitude from the Head. They will need extra help etc. Teacher did assessment and said she was ahead of the class and would need time in the gifted and talented group.

Not bad homeschooling from a mum who left school at 15. The Head never forgave us.

I do know a couple of very motivated teens who learn at home through online high schools because of their sporting commitments. But these kids will always do well, as the level of drive and character it takes to get to the stage they're at in their chosen sport says a lot about them, and on the whole they apply that to their learning too.

I home educate my children.

I find it hugely concerning the amount of parents joining groups on Facebook with no idea what is expected of them, and with very little understanding of what they need to do.

You don’t know the counterfactual. My BiL is like your nephew. Still lives at home. Does a zero hour labouring job. His boss is doing everything correctly, thank goodness, as DBiL has no idea about his NI number, how much he earns, tax. Nothing. No pension.

He stayed in school, went to university, has a first class degree.

Quite a lot of SPAG on your average primary school newsletter leaves a lot to be desired.

But I don’t think education is simply about spelling. I’m fairly laid back about individual choices and I do believe we have the right to make decisions about how we want to live our lives. So I’d never remove that choice. I do believe that choice is misguided, though. School is for the most part a shared experience and when you remove your child from that you are denying them that.

I also don’t believe a group with children of parents with similar ideals and beliefs to you with your mum or dad present can ever replicate the navigations of social relationships at school.

I know three families who homeschooled their children. Two of the families worked hard at it, followed the curriculum, and joined homeschooling groups so the children went on regular educational days out with other kids. Both sets of parents were highly educated and actively improved their knowledge in subjects they were less familiar with, and it worked really well for them; their kids are well-adjusted, sociable, mature, and have just passed GCSEs with flying colours.

The other family offered no regular socialisation, didn’t follow a curriculum, and part of their ‘philosophy’ involved never pushing their child to do things he didn’t choose for himself. I haven’t spoken to them in years, but the last time I heard from them he was 7. He hadn’t yet learned to read, write, or do basic maths at all, but this was absolutely fine because “he’d get there in his own time”, apparently by osmosis. I can’t imagine how that child will cope as an adult, or how he’d have handled school if they ever decided to throw in the towel and send him to get a formal education.

Outcomes seem to depend on the motivation behind the choice. In my experience the ‘majority’ did it for the right reasons and their children thrived, but it’s alarming to realise there are other families like the one I knew; no child should be denied an education because of their parent’s politics or arrogance, especially not in a country where education is free.

I'm a qualified teacher and there is a commonly held misconception that if you are proficient in a subject, you are equipped to teach it. I've seen it on mumsnet, where someone posted an AIBU, bemoaning that she had a PhD in a certain subject and that it was 'ridiculous' and 'disgraceful' that she was being told she needed to get a PGCE to teach the subject in a school.

Many posters, myself included, explained that the PGCE literally teaches you how to teach. The subject knowledge is only a small part of it. I'm sure there are many homeschoolers who do their research, learn the pedagogy, look into new theories of how children learn, find interesting a robust ways to ensure that the age related expectations are aimed for, but it would be the conscientious parent who does that.

I meet so many parents who think their children are geniuses because they know the names of all of the dinosaurs or can recite the alphabet or count to 100, or whatever, but are struggling with following instructions or lack certain basic curriculum related skills. Bias towards your own child plus lack of expeŕience/training in educating that age range may lead to parents having a skewed sense of their child's progress.

I do think many parents are capable, but it's a big job and does need to have some kind of regulation. Even the most child centred, free flow settings will have a thorough plan of how they will facilitate the child's interests. I'm sure there are homeschoolers reading these posts who take it seriously, but I'm also sure there are others who are lazy, barely adequately educated themselves, who see it as a bit of a doss. I do think that parents have a right to educate their children if they want to, but they shouldn't forget that their child has a right to an education. The problem is the differing opinions of what an education is. It's like when people say they have a degree from the Univeristy of Life, and I think, yes, life experience is very important and useful...but it's not a degree, is it?

From outside, it seems that English schools are quite strict on unimportant things and it seems to be "their way or highway".

Uniforms and strict rules about looks, fines and prosecution for absences no-one would care about elsewhere, taking away parental decision about children's way to and from school, detentions for things that are not really a problem.

It might lead to the "wrong homeschoolers" - people who don't have a good plan, and are just getting out of it.

Teacher here and I have seen this in action! Lots of children are being pulled out to be homeschooled and it is concerning. These children haven’t built up their emotional resilience yet and parents see them finding school ‘hard’ and pull them. My sister has pulled her child from secondary and isn’t equipped to home school. She has done it because her friend has.

I wanted to be left to home educate myself. I was an avid reader and would have happily worked my way through encyclopaedia. With the internet now, there’s even more scope. You can learn to do pretty much anything.

DC in school are taught in cohorts, so it’s less efficient for an individual child. Teaching the same thing to 30 dc who are all at different points isn’t particularly effective.

Of course there are families where it’s neglectful, just as there are families of schooled dc who are neglectful. Those dc have an additional opportunity by being in school.
The average family though, I’d say if both DC and parent want home ed, chances are they will manage it.

The most important lesson is how to learn. If DC can explore subjects, learn skills and practise them, then they will be able to do the same as adults. I know plenty of adults who stick at what they already know and make little effort to learn more.

To be honest as menopause as come upon me, I can read back things I have written and see some right clangers.

No, now, know, write, right, rite, they're, their, there, ,I muddle up then and than, I muddle up thing and think, women and woman.

I keep writing things phonetically and I have no idea why and I dont see it until I read it back and then its too late

So sometimes its not that someone doesnt know, its brain fog or something like it.

Despite everything we hear, English schools are steadily climbing in the PISA rankings, so as a cohort pupils are doing okay. I’m aghast at how easy it is to pull your kids out of- anecdotally, a local child was pulled out of our primary for home education entirely at the whim of the mother. He’s gone from being an active, confident, cheery child to a kid who almost never leaves the house with no social circle.

I'm surprised you're surprised, there were plenty even when we home edded 10 years ago. Plenty who railed against anything mainstream, then plenty who had been quite happy to send their kids to school until either they or the kids fell out with someone there or kept getting in trouble, at which point they withdrew them, and fell massively into 'deschooling' which morphed into 'unschooling'. Usually with what most would deem excessive screentime and nothing that resembled education, all under the more socially acceptable banner of 'home education '. With lots of shouting about 'robot factories' and 'learning in the real world'...maybe if what you're training for is a life sat on your arse not doing much.

To be fair, the latter camp tended to be families where education and achievement weren't valued anyway, so chances are they'd have just carried on being disruptive etc in school and not amounted to much, but at least they'd have had a chance.

That said, it is hardly a 'wave' in context, more a ripple, as the vast majority of home edders in my experience are doing it for good reasons, in ways that work for their kids and families. And percentage wise still tiny enough that the 'future workforce ' is hardly likely to be impacted. Most families don't make the massive changes and potential sacrifices necessary to do it well (time, effort, money, one adult not working etc) without there being a genuine reason.

I can see it from both sides.

I have an SEN GC who is being massively failed by school. Supposedly a school in the top 1% in the UK. All the progress he makes (way below his age level) is acquired at home. BUT he still goes to school who are useless with him.

I have a nephew who was allowed to drop out of school because he couldn't cope with the social side of things (he's autistic). He had big dreams about his future and is a very clever man. He scraped the basic GCSEs (maths & English) through a LOT of family intervention, but nothing more.

He's now 30, struggling to find entry level work. He's had jobs but they've all been low paid/not great jobs. He's SO clever (like my Dsis, his mum who is a professional). Supposed home schooling (actually, dropping out) has ruined his life.

I home educate (the correct term in the UK), home school means that a child is still on school roll.
Ultimately, I think that a child’s mental health and a families right to live a lifestyle that they want to are the most importantly things.
However, I think the points that you have made are also concerns within the home ed community. There is a huge rise of parents joining Fb groups at the moment who have deregistered their children with absolutely no idea of what their legal duties are or having thought through the practicalities of educating their children whilst also working. There still seems to be the expectation that the education should be someone else’s responsibility and local schools should let the children back in to do exams. Personally, I am very worried that these parents will follow advise from the LA, use tutors and online lessons and try and provide 9am-3pm school like educate and then we will all be expected to do this. When the reality is, is for those of us who want to home educate, the world really is our oyster and we are rarely at home and learning all the time (but when we are we do phonics and maths and humanities and science, for those of you who are worried that my children receive no ‘teaching’).
The real issue is the state of the education system in this country. The fact that you commented on the parent’s grammar is the perfect example of this. If schools had the resources to teach children properly then parents wouldn’t feel like they have no option but to withdraw their children.
I don’t know what the answer is. Reports and evidence might sound like an idea, but what about those children with SEND who aren’t making linear progress or actually really do just need to work on life skills. I also think there is a joy in children being able to learn at their own pace. They are all so different. I have a 7 year old who understands GCSE science and a 6 year old that can’t recognise the numbers to 10. They are both making progress but to an outsider, neither are age appropriate compared to school.

The home education community ime is also very VERY cliquey and not always great for kids and parents!

My DC was part time school part time home school for years due to SEN (agreed with LA, school social workers as best plan) and I’m highly educated with a wide range of skills and the home Ed groups I attempted to join locally were really awful.

poor parental education. Poor attitude because we schooled part time and were still part of the ‘system’ cliqueyness. And some were so crunchy it was borderline dangerous. Anti vaxxers were common as were antiestablishment types. It was a real mix of batshittery too.

I agree if you can homeschool and have the money and means do so but too many kids need to be checked upon. Education level assessed because it’s really not fair on those children for parents to fail them.

as part of my DCs homeschooling we had tutors for maths and English (outsourced for my own sanity!) which pissed off the crunchies because I should be doing it all

and we did things like beach cleans, learning to forage, bushcraft and heritage craft days that pissed of the traditionalists.

exercise was walking/hiking. DC hated sport but would walk so that’s what we did. Turns out DC is dyspraxic which is why sport was hard and loathed! Hiking was the right choice.

" must admit to being surprised that people think they are able to replace multiple degree plus PGCE-qualified professionals."

To be fair, you can teach in private schools without teaching qualifications. Also, the skills you need to control a class of 25 or 30 aren't the same as for teaching one child. Additionally, there is a lot of information available on the internet these days to help.
None of that means I think unregulated home education is a good idea for a lot of reasons other than the paper qualifications, or not, of the parents.

There’s a family on social
media the Coles who stated the other month that they were going to homeschool. It was apparent from their posts it was so that they would make use of the brand deals that they were being offered and so they didn’t get fined. This is a family who have never mentioned education/ schooling before. I don’t even think the kids do homework. With a mother who just idolises being a wife, she won’t be showing her daughter all the other opps that are out there.

I do however think that if you are pulling your kids out several times a year to go on holiday as you’ve been offered advertising then home school. There just teaching their kids that they can do what they want- don’t have to follow rules. (Completely get one holiday and year so it’s affordable, but this is not what it is).

Agree op I've seen some people on Facebook saying they're home educating who can barely spell and I know my spag isn't prefect either but I'm talking basic words like spelling "know" as "no"

If parental attainment is the key, then a parent who hasn't mastered there/they're/there/thier should have even less right to home educate. I do think there should be some sort of standard basic education that all children should be entitled to receive. Having a teacher (whether that be in school or a parent) who has a grasp of the basics in literacy and numeracy is my benchmark. In saying that, a friend of mine went to teach in an inner London primary school and said the spoken grammar of the HT was woeful!

It's quite a philosophical question really - it comes down to whether you believe that there is value in a particular curriculum set by the state/wider society or whether families ought to be able to opt out of that in favour of an education their own way

The law in the UK is illogical on this I think. It seems to work on the basis of the former (fines for not attending school etc if registered) but then there is a right to deregister your kids aind opt out entirely with no consequences.

Personally I massively value school. DH or I could probably teach our Dds enough to do well in GCSEs and probably even A levels given enough time and space to do so (a lot of teaching expertise and experience is more relevant to engaging and inspiring groups of kids rather than individual children imo) but I don't want my children to view the world only through my lens. I want them exposed to different perspectives and to learn from a wider variety of people. I also think there's value on working and playing with kids you wouldn't necessarily choose as friends if your parents essentially had free choice over this.

When COVID happened I was absolutely gutted to lose school - for all these reasons plus the extra stuff that schools put on - plays, visits, workshops etc. I know you can replicate a lot of stuff - I follow a friend who homeschools on social media and she does brilliant things with her child in the community but she seems to come from the perspective that her way is a much richer experience for her child and I think she underestimates what school does offer. She also often bemoans the "prohibitive" cost of the things she's seeking out, and the juggle with her own work, and that slightly annoys me because she has opted out of an amazing free resource that we as a society have organised and put on for children,which she's perfectly entitled to do, but seems slightly perverse from my perspective.

I know there are good reasons to HE that can override the above, and above all I tend to think "you do you" - I don't pretend to have the final say on what's best for kids but personally although I can envisage scenarios in which I was driven to home ed, t would never be my starting point.

There should be compulsory inspections.

There are issues with schools, budget cuts, disruptive behaviour. There are kids who are bullied relentlessly and go from doing great to awful due to poor mental health.
Absolutely, home educate. I support well-done home education and definitely believe there are circumstances it is much better.
There are children who won’t achieve highly no matter the setting.
However, there are lots of issues surrounding educational neglect and home ed community can be quite cult-ish. I’ve found they’re the majority.
Every child is not better off in school, many are better off at home IF they had engaged parents passionate about their education. But many are passionate about not getting an education

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education/2024-25-autumn-term?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Turns out it was quite easy to find the data 🤣