I home educate my children, ama

[househelppl]

I haven’t been keeping up with with AMA threads (though I read a few and thought they were interesting) so apologies if this one has already been done.
But if it hasn’t, and you have any questions about home education, ask away!

Do you worry about your children not getting to participate in a broader social circle? Or are the things you currently do with them enough? And how old are they?

What are your children doing right at this moment?

Do you think all home educators should have to at least register with the LA so some checks can be made that children are getting an education (and for safeguarding in most extreme cases)?

How do you do chemistry experiments with older children?

How old are your children and do you plan to HE to 18?

Also, what about university? Do you think they will find a transition to classroom difficult?

Following as I was home ed from age 6-16 with 3 terms at different schools in between. Interested to see your take on it.

Did you do well in school? Do you consider yourself to be very bright?

Are you qualified as a teacher? How will you cope with a range of subjects? In a school your child would be taught by subject specialists - do you think you can do the work of those specialists?

What was the reason you decided to do this ?

Do you ever get any upsetting or hurtful comments made regarding this choice ?

Do you work? If so how do you manage your childcare needs?

(I plan to home ed and this worries me slightly! I'm currently a childminder and happy to take he kids but I don't know many who are and I'm retraining!)

As far as I can see, maybe 4 types of HE exist

1. The educated parent, often an ex-teacher, who believe from the start they can educate their child better, so child doesn't enter the school system
2. The parent who would prefer to use the school system, but the school system doesn't suit the child, e.g. bullying, anxiety, SpLD etc
3. The ultra-religious who doesn't want their child influenced by others
4. The 'feckless' who can't be bothered to get their child to school so claims to HE instead whilst doing little.

Would you agree? And which type are you?

"In a school your child would be taught by subject specialists - do you think you can do the work of those specialists?"
Not the case in most schools local to me, the sciences and maths are being taught by teachers who know as much as the kids and I know it's the same elsewhere (especially as there are often threads on here about it!), I can't speak for op but it's a part of the reason we've decided to go down the home ed route.

Do you feel you offer your child(ren) the equivalent of a traditional education?

Oh wow, wasn’t expecting such a quick response!
Do you worry about your children not getting to participate in a broader social circle?
My children did go to school previously and honestly, they have a much broader social circle now. In school they were with a group of children the same age and from a similar geographical location. I also noticed that at school children would mostly socialise in same sex groups. With home education they mix with a variety of different age groups and my three girls play equally with both genders. They have friends from a massive geographical distance, a lot of home ed groups share activities, trips and meets etc over counties which means that their social group is broader and more diverse in terms of the type of families we spend with.
They definitely do more socialising now than when they were at school. Life is busy with a general group, meet, trip, tuition group or play date every weekday. Usually more than one of these.
how old are they?
They are 7, 10 and 15.

Will your child be actually able to pass their GCSEs and do you think they will resent you later on?

Some of pressure-points about school that many home educators (that I know) dislike - assessments, SATs, bad behaviour from other students, structured timetables - are mirrored in the world of work. Do you think your children will be able to make that transition to a much more formal setting easily, and what do you do to prepare them for it?

What are your children doing right at this moment?
They have formal tutoring at the moment, hence me mnetting!
It’s a lovely local centre, very reasonably priced, with sibling discount, which is great for me with three. Most counties have some kind of tuition group/centre or somewhere that shares facilities with a college etc so that home educated children can have some kind of formal education if they want it (but I’ve also seen very big success stories of children who had no formal education).
The centres are often run by volunteers (often parents of grown up home educated children who know how difficult it can be to access formal education and exams). They bring in qualified teachers for a wide range of subjects. Prices are pretty low as we spread the cost as a group and classes are small which is great.
I know this might seem like school bashing, which I’m not because I realise that school is the right fit for a lot of children. But my children struggled at school a lot because of the noise and distractions and bullying. The home ed classes are lovely because the children come to learn (often choosing the subjects they want to take) and are calm and engaged and mature. I’ve never seen bullying or cheekiness to the teachers or messing about (however when we get to the park later for a meet there will be lots of clowning about!) I love though that they seem to have a real enjoyment and appreciation of learning.
Sorry, wrote a bit of an essay for that one!

Do you think all home educators should at least register with the LA so that checks can be made that children are getting an education (and safeguarding) (sorry didn’t type the question out in full, on phone so can’t copy and paste.

This is something I could talk about for a long time so it’s going to be very difficult to sum it up succinctly in a quick post.
There needs to be a massive overhaul with the way the LA makes checks on home educating families. At the moment the LA person allocated to checking home education provision isn’t there in a full time role, I guess there isn’t enough funding to make it a full time role or perhaps not enough work.. anyway, I digress. The home ed allocated LA person is usually also working for the department who traces children who are truanting and tries to get them back to school. I can’t think of the name of the department now. But basically For most of the time the person in the role is going out to homes to visit children who are refusing to go to school and trying to engage with them about returning to school, checking on their welfare, seeing whether they need help from social services etc.
Therefore when this person comes to see a home educating family they are often still in ‘get them back to school’ mode. They have no qualifications, experience or understanding of home education that makes them qualified for the job. They often call at people’s homes unannounced, are rude and intrusive and ask for things which are outside of their remit and legally they aren’t required to do. That is a generalisation of course. We initially had a lovely lady who really understood the benefits of home ed. However she moved to another post and a new lady came who really overstepped her mark.
If LAs want to inspect us then they need to employ people who are respectful of one education. Where it isn’t a role shared with one where they are trying to get truanting children back to school.
It seems bizarre t

Do you find being in the company of your children most of the time, hard?

Eek sorry. I pressed too soon before I’d had chance to proof read. Basically the way the system works at the moment isn’t working. A lot of families are really upset about how they’ve been treated by their LA. An LA man actually let himself in to my friend’s home recently.
Another problem is that a lot of home ed families don’t follow the national curriculum. I know most people think the national curriculum is the golden standard for education - I was one of these people - but honestly, it’s not. There is so much missing from the national curriculum, not blaming the schools of course, the nat cur is written by a government bod who often has no experience of teaching or working with children! Although to be fair, if you’re teaching 30 odd children then you can’t really make the curriculum too broad.
Anyway, one of my children became really interested in astronomy. We had so much fun with this, going star gazing with the local astronomy clubs, visiting the sky dome and presentations at the local uni, building our own solar system, watching documentaries. Very little astronomy is in the national curriculum, yet it’s the foundation of life!
How about World War One? How incredible is it that unless a child decided to take gcse history they will never study such an important part of our history if they’re at school. It isn’t on the nat cur!
Languages too, my children are learning languages which aren’t on the nat cur.
What I am trying to say, in a very rambly, long winded way, is that how is an LA person going to jail usage our provision as we aren’t all following the same curriculum / any curriculum at all.
So one LA person might come to my home and love that we are exploring a vast variety of subjects not in the curriculum. But another might come and decide they don’t like that we aren’t following the national curriculum. And apply for a back to school order based on this.
In my experience and experience of friends the LA can be judgemental. Not just on your education provision but on your home, whether you’re married, your income etc. His isn’t really any of their business and doesn’t determine how well a parent is going to home educate.
Will post a bit more about this soon. Sorry for split posts, I have a lot to say on this matter, as you’ve probably guessed!

Oh wow, full of typos. Sorry. Bit embarrassing that I’m representing home ed here and making mistakes all over the shop 🙈 In my defence, I’m on my phone and it’s really slow as the memory is full so just typing a post is proving difficult. I’ll reply properly on my PC later.

Great thread.

Feel bad asking this but I'd love to know if you get a break from your kids and if not, how do you cope? My only break from my dc is when they're at school so that's the time I try to do my chores, go to the gym and generally have some 'me time'! I always wonder how home educators cope?

Still not home on PC so hopefully this will make sense as typing on my phone isn’t easy at the moment..
Continuing on from the question regarding whether LAs should check on the education and welfare of home ed children.
I tried to say, in a very long winded and complicated way, that checking on our education is problematic because 1. The current LA people are not usually experienced in home education and are often very anti home ed, largely due to their other role which is trying to ensure truants attend school. Although there are exceptions they are, in the majority, from my experience and the experience of others I’ve spoken to, intrusive, rude and act unlawfully and outside of their remit.
And

1. Because most home edders don’t follow the national curriculum so what exactly are they going to test us against?

With regards to welfare. It’s a question I keep asking myself and going round in circles. Because - Why do we need welfare checks? Children up to school age who are at home don’t require people going to their home to check on their welfare.. There have been lots of children in well known media cases who’ve been abused and killed by their parents and who were at school, their abuse totally missed by teachers. There was one case of a home educated boy who was neglected and died of scurvy however he was already known to social services and they failed him. The fact is, home educated children aren’t hidden away from the world. They are seen by dentists, doctors and tutors. They are out and about and seen by the public more than schooled children I would argue. We have neighbours, friends and family. And if a home educator was abusing their child a quick check of their welfare by the LA isn’t really going to show anything because they are going to cover it up for the time the LA are there. I guess what I’m saying is that home educators aren’t more likely to abuse their children than parents who send their children to school. And just because a child is at school it isn’t a guarantee their abuse will be spotted. And home educators who abuse their children would still likely be caught and reported to social services by neighbors, friends, medical professionals etc. I don’t know, but the thought of a stranger coming into my home having never met my children and with an anti home ed agenda to check on their welfare fills me with dread. The only other group of people who are on a register and whose movements are checked are people on the sex offenders register so it’s kind of offensive that people might think that home educators should be treated the same way. But then what is the answer? I guess maybe an annual check by a GP for all children. I know this would be a massive cost to public money but I do think it would help eradicate abuse for both children at school and home educated children. There’s a lot more to say on the subject, it’s a big area of debate but I’ve rambled on for a long time so I’ll move on to the next question. It was a great question though teen.

How do you do chemistry experiments with older children?
I don’t! She goes to ‘science club’.

Do you plan to HE to 18?
I’m hoping not. My eldest who’s 15 has been studying and sitting GCSE exams for a couple of years (a great thing about home ed is that you can take GCSEs at any age so at 15 she already has three, less pressure than doing them all once!). We are navigating our way through it successfully. She studies some subjects at home with me and goes to the tutor group for the ones I’m not very confident with.
I have no experience with A Levels yet but I’ve heard that it can be a more difficult stage to navigate.
My eldest dd is planning to go to sixth form college to study A Levels. A lot of home ed kids do this. The problems in school are often less so in college - the children largely want to be there and have chosen their subjects so happier to be in class learning. There also tends to be smaller classes.
If my younger children wanted to study and sit A Levels at home I would try my best to facilitate it but in all honesty I don’t know if I could. I guess it would depend on the subject. If it was a subject I was qualified or experienced in then it would be easier. Otherwise there are tutors so it could be doable.

Thank you for your long reply to my safeguarding question.

I would think that HE aren't more likely to 'abuse/neglect' children than other parents, but that maybe adults who are abusing/neglecting their children might be more likely to HE as that way their children are kept more isolated so there is less chance of discovery. iyswim?
I certainly think that is more than the most basics are going to be checked re the actual education the checkers would need more training. I would be a bit unhappy if a child wasn't learning to read/write/do maths, but other than that provided they are clearly learning something it doesn't matter what. In fact it is good to have people who have learned different stuff to the NC.
(ps DD2, y8 currently doing WWI. Since starting secondary she has gone straight through 1066-1918).