To think that homeschooling (without additional needs) is selfish?

"No socialisation"? Do you think we're locking them all in a cupboard all day? 🤣

I don’t agree
with home schooling but my DD was taught by teachers coming to our home and online for the last 3.5 years of senior school due to ASD so not what you’re asking. Thankfully she took it seriously and even though she couldn’t cope with more than 5 subjects she did well and is now at college, it’s going ok, she finds it overwhelming being so social,
which is one of her problems, and noise/busy places, but it’s a small college with SEN facilities and she has a quiet room ro
uae when needed so it’s allowed her to get where she needs to be. But parents just teaching from home I’m not a
fan of at all, no socialisation, unless they’re teachers and able to deliver a good teaching experience to get
the child properly taught methodologies in all subjects then that’s a little different but most of us can’t do that, including, who has taught at HE level, I can’t teach at GCSE or A Level

Do you not think those exact issues happen in school, though? So even if it's not better, it's unlikely to be worse. (I know schools organise by age, so for that you could substitute level of progress/interest in the topic).

And yes as others have said if you're in touch with other home ed families there's much more flexibility to swap siblings around, whereas a y3 child who is gifted in Maths is unlikely to be able to sit in on a y6 Maths lesson for example.

And (not a home ed perspective) I find hanging around waiting time around activities or therapies that my DC do can be far from unproductive, as this tends to force not only 1:1 time between me and the other child, but also time away from home where habits are well formed - given free choice my younger two will currently opt for screen time and if that is not an option, it's lego. Being away from home without access to screens or lego means that we make the most of what is nearby, like yesterday while waiting for his brother's ball class my 7yo went out to the playground, practised the monkey bars and then the climbing wall and then came back inside to do some drawing.

With teenagers I find conversation the most brilliant tool too.

Unschooling is when the parent facilitates the child’s free learning and it is wonderful. It isn’t abdicating responsibility or just not educating. It requires effort and lots of communication and connection with the child.

I’ve seen this addressed by families working with each other - the sporty kid travels with a mate whose history-mad sibling hangs out with her brother, at its simplest. Of course it’s often not so convenient but same principle: ime home ed parents get good at asserting boundaries so are freer to offer childcare when it suits them and their kids, and can ask for same and accept a no easily. Lots of activities are organised in group chats, so the opportunities to find solutions that satisfy everyone are greater.

Are you a qualified teacher working in a state school in the UK OP? I think the education and quality of socialisation home educated children get can be vastly superior (although often different) to the offer provided by mainstream state schools.

There are upsides and downsides to both traditional schooling and homeschooling. I am somebody that experienced both.

There is nothing wrong with homeschooling, when done properly. However there is not enough oversight and sadly it's not always done well.

Unschooling is absolutely selfish and cruel, and limits the child.

I think it's easier to homeschool in primary school, whereas secondary needs much more expertise and resources.

A possible drawback to home ed that I don't see discussed much is what happens in a well-motivated, reasonably-educated family with more than one home ed child if those children have very different needs (not necessarily SEN).

For example, one child needs quiet to study or is too anxious to mingle, but another climbs the walls without constant interaction and chatter, or one child is very theatrical/sporty and would need lots of out-of-the-home practice time to follow that up properly that whereas the others would prefer to do online lessons leading to academic qualifications and then watch TV (both of which are hard to do at the edge of a pitch).

A wide range of ages is also awkward - especially when younger it is very possible to do a family topic that different children access at their own level, but there rapidly comes a point where the older ones need to go into things at a level of critical thought which takes time to explore beyond the 'fascinating facts' type of learning that everyone can share, which can be especially awkward if the youngest are too young to amuse themselves unsupervised for long.

Ime families try to find a compromise (just as they would if they were exposed to the same issues afterschool/weekends only) but with only one adult at a time to facilitate the home ed during the week it can mean that one or more children doesn't get to access the 'bespoke education' they would prefer because of the needs of their sibling(s) - either they all do the same thing all the time and lump it, or they differentiate and each child spends a lot of time hanging around relatively unproductively waiting for the others.

I must say that though I don't have a problem with people choosing to HE I don't recognise the picture painted on this thread of non selective state schools either. I have two children who have between them attended four state schools and they were full of very dedicated, skillful teachers and students keen to learn. Yes, underfunded. But very far from the violent cesspits of illiteracy alluded to in this thread (by people whose children don't attend them).

So no actual experience of home education then. The absolute privilege dripping off this post. Do you understand that many people can't afford to tutor and don't have the option of grammar school? Open your eyes.

YABVU there are a lot of parents doing fantastically well at educating their young people and producing well rounded well educated children. It might not be right for all children but it is for some.
One of my friends home educates her children. They do a huge amount of social things with other kids. They attend a local homeschooling group multiple times each week and pay for tutors in specific areas. They then go to the park or soft play for the kids to let off some steam and play together. They go on outings and are part of a network of wider homeschooling families and have regular meet ups there.
Her kids are thriving. They are fully engaged and hitting all milestones as they should. They are not yet of an age where they have taken formal exams but are working at least in line if not ahead of their school peers. At 8 her eldest is speaking 2 additional languages well enough and confidently enough to hold a conversation in said language.
They will be given the option of going to school at secondary if they wish to. Or they will continue to be educated at home with the support of e-learning platforms and tutors in addition to their university educated parents.

Not everyone has access to good schools. Not all areas have grammar schools. Violence, bullying and poor behaviour is rampant in schools just now. Schools are under funded, under staffed and more kids than ever are leaving school unable to read and write. Let some have GCSEs!

No @IndigoFlamingooo, @RealPerson has a viewpoint backed up by academic research:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/school-starting-age-the-evidence
… assuming she would also plan to make sure her child got plenty of social time, as the vast majority of home educators do 🙄

What is your supporting evidence for this view?

This just tells me you don't have much experience of actual home ed.

If anything the major downside is that it's very inefficient - it makes much more sense logistically to educate children in large groups (aka a school!) but there are downsides to group education in this way which is why some people choose to home ed. SEND is not the only legitimate reason to do it. I also don't think you can blanket paint it as better or worse than school education, though.

DS2 (autistic/ADHD/) had an LA funded bespoke package (he had an EHCP) for internet school and 1:1 tutors in subjects he struggled with (English lit and Lang and history delivered by a teacher from SS school). He took his IGCEs at the SS. I was unpaid LSA.

At mainstream he struggled as they were unable to cope with his profile whilst allowing him to achieve in line with ability. He had been assessed as having ‘genius’ level IQ but TAs were only present in the lower sets in his secondary school. EHCP specified 1:1 but school wouldn’t provide it in higher ability classes arguing it would create dependency and make him look ‘different’.

He ended up with 11 GCSEs grade 7-9 and then went to 6th form for maths. physics and further maths (A star, A star, A) and is now at uni studying masters in mechanical engineering.

This was not a selfish decision. Arguably it would have been more selfish to prioritise my own needs for a good income and pension and leave him in a school that was not wiling to meet his needs.

There’s also the mental health aspect - after half a term his GP signed him off with stress and anxiety - he was constantly being told off for behaviours related to his autism/ADHD that had been present from pre-school and during primary school (he’d had extensive SALT, OT, EP, autism outreach, social skills training, Lego therapy etc).

HE with internet school and 1:1 tutors with me as full time LSA was the best option. It protected his mental health and enabled him to achieve in line with ability. And enabled him to join mainstream education when his ADHD medication was sorted and he had matured out of certain behaviours that were a barrier to learning like not responding to his name, not following instructions, constant ‘noise making’ etc.

So a NT child who is bullied at school with school doing nothing should stay there because they don’t have additional needs?

and I hate this thinking it’s ok to homeschool send kids. People don’t want them in school with LA responsible and have no problem dumping that onto parents. I home educate a SMED child not by choice but because the LA don’t plan to educate him at all. How is this ok? And society does not give a shit about our situation. But I get questions lol the time on my other child who while autistic isn’t so obviously SEND and everyone says she should be in school. She was working below national average and bullied and surrounded horrible behaviour, home Ed she’s happy healthy and ahead of same age peers. But because she doesn’t drain resources like my son she should be in school and he should be at home?

if schools were decent then very few people would home Ed. I don’t do this willingly or happily but I do defend the right to home educate absolutely 100% as a get out of indoctrination in future should we ever need it.

Home schooling is an alternative and has pros and cons just like mainstream school does, If I could afford it I'd definitely consider it as option if I was best for my children. coming out with GCSE's would depend on the quality of the teaching, the child's effort and their ability just like it would at school.
Also home schooling doesn't mean they cant leave the house or socialise, I would imagine the parents would make a special effort for them to socialise since they aren't at school.

This is how I started! Little buggers wouldn’t go to school at 7 (& yes, of course we could’ve insisted), or 10, or 11 - I drew a hard cut-off at 14 and the beginning of y10 and for 2-3y before that age each kid had to wean off the unschooling (a synonym for a fantastic childhood) and get up to speed, ready to join mainstream. This has worked for my kids and for our family. It hasn’t been perfect, of course, but it has been wonderful.

Lots of talk about home educated kids having to do their GCSEs late etc - on the flip side, DD is 11 and will be sitting her first GCSE in May (her choice). It's not a subject usually studied at KS3 so the only resources we had when she was interested were KS4 ones, and it'll be better financially to spread out her GCSEs over the 5 years of "secondary".

Home ed also means she won't be limited by "columns" when choosing her GCSEs - e.g. I wasn't able to take History and French, which devastated me, and had to pick a subject I wasn't bothered about and didn't do well in instead because of school timetable clashes. She has more options for her GCSEs, not fewer.

The thing about home education is that you can't see inside every home that educates and I' presume you haven't done an empirical study either. So you're judging it based on Social media I should imagine. People who home educate and then wang on about it on SM I'm prepared to believe are selfish twats yes but that's probably not respresentative of home edders. Or it might be, I don't know - and neither do you.

My nephew was home educated and ended up getting a Master's degree from a top university while lots of children leave with barely a couple of GCSEs.

If I had a young child again I think I would try to home educate till they were 7 as I think they start school far too young and should be at home at that age

Same. My DC class has had 4 children taken out to be home schooled last couple of years and 2 of them followed serious safeguarding concerns that parent blamed the school for interfering with. 1 was because school raised the possibility of SEn and it was rejected. One was for more average reasons, the child just didn’t really seem to be able to fit in, or find any comfort, socially.

I think the challenge is variation. Academically it feels like it would be fairly easy to keep up with the primary curriculum but I wouldn’t fancy trying to teach secondary without external tutors. I can see it booming though as private schools get more expensive, state schools more restrictive and more options for online school emerge. Something like this for £5k suddenly looks quite attractive.
https://kingsinterhigh.co.uk/key-stage-3-online/#subjectsFilterBlock

I used to be quite anti home education due to the stereotypes but I don’t think I’d rule it out. I do think there have to be safeguards though. A girl from my daughter’s primary dropped out of education alongside her older brother to be ‘home schooled’. Both are not doing anything even vaguely academic and never will.