To disagree with home ed

I know numerous home education families, and the overwhelming majority of the kids are massively behind and have very poor social
skills (not just with kids their own age, but also they monologue over adults and cannot do simple things like share and take turns or lose at anything ever). One family in particular home school their kids in order to be able to travel adventurously apparently (and be influencers about their lifestyle of course) but in reality they’ve had one week AI in Benidorm and one week SC in Malaga in the last 4 years 🤣 their kids are the equivalent of year 10 and 11 and will sit one I-gcse apiece this year and one next year, neither of which are maths, English or science (think photography type courses). They are so far behind in all subjects that they couldn’t even drop back into school now, and the reason is that they only do one online lesson a week. That is the sum total of their education currently. The rest of their time is spent gaming, on iPads, or watching tv. They rarely go out, and when they do it’s never without their mum or dad, and the saddest thing is that at an age when they should be growing more independent and broadening their horizons in the safety of friendship groups, they don’t have any friends at all and don’t get on well with each other either.

I think I’d take the NSPCC’s advice (2025) on this rather than a singular case. They have raised the alarm and called for greater investment in safeguarding for local authorities to adequately fulfill the needs of vulnerable children in Home Education.
They have called for proportionate oversight. They are clear that this is about vulnerable children not the broader population of home educated children, but that nevertheless more support for safeguarding is needed and children are at risk.
I cannot understand why you would possibly oppose that.

I agree with you.

there is also a massive safeguarding risk for children who are not in school and may be being abused at home…. Hence why in the Uk there is not going to be a register for home schooled children.

for me. You either have to be really rich to afford to homeschool or you have to be on benefits because you can’t be at work and homeschool.

Parents start off the process of learning to read by reading to infants and young children. Teaching them how books actually work and the pleasure of stories etc.
Spontaneous ‘self-learning’ is a bit of a misnomer.
Not teaching your kids to read or at the very least supporting them in it is pretty neglectful.
Blaming schools entirely is missing the point of parenting?

Precisely.

That poor child was always known to SS, she murdered during what was the school summer holidays.

Rather than focussing on the catastrophic failings of the state in this case when they knew Sara was in danger, they blame home education. Her being deregistered was a red herring. She was murdered in August when no children were in school. Ramping up regulation on home education would have done nothing to save Sara. Nothing.

Yes? At no point did I claim otherwise.
They can just be neglected with less outward signs or community awareness given they potentially have far less contact with other people and agencies.

It is possible to self learn to read.

Schools sometimes fail to teach reading.
If he was at school and not able to read would this be due to school fault

He does not have SEN (it's a family member), but a mum who doesn't like schools or formal schooling. She's of the opinion that 'they learn to read when they are ready' and it doesn't matter how many people tell her that they need to be taught. She's entitled to her opinion of course, and her way of doing things, I just think she's 'unschooling' rather than 'homeschooling' - although if she's asked she says it's homeschooling.

If he can't read and write then he likely has SEN

if he had been to school he may have had the same outcome of not being able to read and write (this happens with some people despite being at school) and if he can't cope he may not have even survived going to school. Lots of instances of pupil suicides

I absolutely loved home educating my daughter, and now she is in the most people centred job you can imagine.

There are endless ways to HE.
The key is to find the right path for the right person.

Customise what you do to your child's individual nature.

I home educate my children. They were in school until Years 3 and 5, and honestly, the schools around us were failing them badly. They were bullied repeatedly, and despite meetings with teachers, very little changed. They would come home saying they’d spent large parts of the day on iPads or working from Twinkl sheets with very little actual teaching. It was heart breaking to watch their confidence disappear.

Taking them out of school was not an easy decision, but it was the right one for our family. Since home educating, they are now working above their expected year levels, they attend home ed groups, see friends regularly, take part in activities, and most importantly, they have their confidence and sense of self-worth back.

I completely understand that not every parent puts the same level of effort into home education, and I do agree there should be monitoring and accountability. As I understand it, the LA will be introducing stricter oversight from next year, which I support. But to dismiss home education as a whole is unfair and quite insulting to the families who pour everything into giving their children the education and support they weren’t receiving in school.

The false safeguarding concerns is when they create the image of children being at risk from home ed.
Classic example is the awful case of Sara. This has been blamed on home education

In reality - she had been failed by the safeguarding processes from before she was born. These happened for years and years before she went to school and while in school. Nothing was done despite risks being known.
If the measures already in place aren't properly carried out then the schools and well being bill won't actually help those most at need. It will however, further dilute the resources

But it's easier for the LA to target safe families than to deal with real at risk cases.

People are neglected in all environments.
Home educated children and not more at risk of neglect than schooled children.

Don't see many posts calling for an overhaul of the school system.
A lot of posts complaining about the costs of disability and a lot of posts about problems in schools

I have a foot in both camps. I flexischooled my eldest for two terms (he was being disruptive at primary, went back to full time school when he had matured a bit) and homeschooled eldest DD for six months due to illness. I would have liked to have homeschooled her throughout secondary, where ADHD made her life hell, but I was a single mum with five kids and I HAD to go to work.

However, I know one adult who was homeschooled and one child who is 9 and being homeschooled. The adult is unable to cope with day to day life despite having been homeschooled for idealogical reasons not SEN, and still prefers to be at home with Mum at the age of 30. The child can neither read nor write (idealogical reasons for homeschooling there too) and is dragged along with Mum to whatever activity she is currently on with, which isn't homeschooling in my book.

All those jobs require you to he hard working, flexible, work long hours and interact with others. Most can be very tough at times. You need resilience and the ability to make decisions quickly. Not so easy if you have spent most of your education years being privately tutored and every need catered for. We have many parents who say their children can’t cope in mainstream school and all the rules etc - most are back within a few weeks.

I don't disagree with home Ed from an educational perspective, some dedicated parents are capable of pulling it off but it's really the social side that I would have a problem with - I can't see how denying your child the ability to build a social circle in their early formative years is going to bode well for their social skills as they grow up.

‘False’ safeguarding concerns?

There are education and safeguarding risks with home ed in the UK, different to safeguarding risks in schools.

The number of DC in home ed affected by poor quality education, neglect or worse will be small, but proportionate state measures to try and find and help DC at high risk seem justified . Don’t know if what the government proposes is that, mind you!

i certainly don’t find the extreme testing and exams regimes in schools proportionate!

I have no problem with home education at all apart from this push back against safeguarding.

On your point 3 - home educators don’t necessarily know more about those that do neglect their children under the guise of home education than the rest of the population. Those saying they do are almost by definition not part of the same HE groups.

On your point 4. - some of us care about ALL children who are being failed both at home and in school. You’re making a big assumption there.

I felt like this, then in high school my child experienced a very traumatic incident in school - the school were good and supportive mostly, but DC struggled so badly I would have homeschooled to the best of my ability in a heartbeat. (She wanted to carry on at school but I’m not sure it helped at all.)

Yeah, it would just basically be a really shit school 😅

The main reason I home educated my eldest was that we had the opportunity to travel the world with his father’s work. If I’d had to take him to a building everyday, there would have been no point to home educating.

🤣🤣🤣

a. No way would the LA fund this
b. Some children have had such bad experiences in schools that part of the issue is going anywhere near the school building
c. Home ed means you can educate outside the box. This could be at anytime of day any day of the week and in any location. Being stuck in the building would rather limit options

Let me get this straight

1. People should not have choice to choice to home ed despite you having the choice to send to school
2. But SEN kids are disruptive and ruining school for my kids - so SEN can be home educated because that's better for non disruptive pupils.
3. Non home education parents feel they know more about home ed than those with actual experience
4. Posters are worried about safeguarding and education if home educated people but they also don't care about the pupils being failed in schools and their well being being damaged by school.

That's usually how the threads go every time someone takes a swipe at home ed - but rest assured the labour government are working at removing rights under the cover of false safeguarding concerns

1. It will be harder to home ed
2. SEN pupils will receive even less support
3. SEN pupils will be one a problem in your schools because a. Home ed will.be harder and b support reduced.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I live in a deprived area. I moved here 6 years ago and I was distraught at the schools on offer. My then 6 year old DDs only option here was a failing school.

The staff were good but they were limited in what they could do. They spend most of their time managing bad behaviour.

So we did work at home too, had tutoring. She did so well that she took the 11 + and thankfully got into a grammar school 40 mins away (she was the only one to take it, we aren’t in a grammar area and that’s the only super selective girls grammar within 90mins). The secondary schools here are failing too, we would have moved hell and high water to have got out of here if she had failed.

Some schools are fighting a losing battle. They are in areas, like here, where a lot of parents still see school as the enemy and and pass that to their children. We have parents fighting in the playground on a weekly basis, parents smoking weed in pjamas on the school run. Their children will never do well.

Mine do, because I put the work in at home and because they knew that, my DDs teachers went the extra mile with her at school. I wasn’t slapping them and screaming at them at pick up and I made sure my daughter respected them too.

And it says something about my awful experience of home educating my eldest that even when faced with a school like that, I still didn’t want to home educate my younger two - I couldn’t face the bullshit from other home educating parents again.

I think schools should have home ed buildings attached. If parents want to home educate then they go to the building with the other home educate parents and educate. That way they are still involved centrally in their education, the child is safe, they are socialising etc etc.