I'm a radical unschooler AMA

[OutOfControlSpirals]

I'm a radical unschooling mum, which basically means I've taken the principals of unschooling, where a child is free to learn what they want, when they want, and applied it to every aspect of our lives. So my children have the same freedoms that I do when it comes to eating/sleeping/learning etc.

@Clairetree1 really good posts Claire. You have said time and again that there's no reason that HE can't work but the parents have to bear in mind the practical side of it - ie time limits for when qualifications are to be gained in order to be useful, difficulties in getting on apprenticeships and the fact that free education ends at 19!

Ive said before that was my experience, I gained good GCSEs but they could have been excellent, I dropped out due to problems outside of school. When I tried to get back into again in my early 20s I couldn't afford to do A levels or even improve my GCSEs. I have through luck and hard work managed to get a good job I love - but I cannot progress higher as I do not have a degree. There are other jobs that have interested me but I do not have the level of qualifications needed.

I'm sure someone will say life's not all about work - but as another poster said, if you've not been poor, real poor, worrying about rent, deciding whether you put money on the electric or eat that night poor then maybe a good job isn't such a worry for you.

It's also a hell of a lot easier to learn under the age of 25. The older you get the harder it is.

I want the best for my son, like all of us do for our children. I don't want him stuck in a job he hates but I don't want him going hungry when he's older. I did it, it's not fun.
My DH doesn't particularly like his job but it pays very well (he has a degree...) and as he says, it's just a job, it means we can have a nice house, eat good food, go on days out, spend quality time encouraging our DS's interests and hobbies, have FUN.

Nothing wrong with HE but just be practical about it, make sure don't accidentally miss opportunities.

One question - to all the HE on here: were you HE? Was your partner? And what level qualifications did you and OH achieve (whether HE or not)?

So, I haven't read the full thread but thought that I would give my answer to the qualifications questions.

I HE/he'd 4 of my 5 kids. Ds2, who has Aspergers, got into a SWAP Access to Sciences course armed with nothing but a portfolio of essays he'd written on subjects that interested him (everything from water issues to Buddhism and endangered species to the Scottish Wars of Independence and beyond). He graduated top of his year in a science degree from Scotland's top uni, having been the first person ever to get accepted onto a science course there from an access course. DS3 has dyslexia and dysgraphia. He basically talked his way into college based on an interview and a core skills test. He is now studying for an HND in Sound Production. DD is about to embark on an Access to STEM course at college based on nothing but a ten minute interview. The interviewers had never come across an HE 'd applicant before but were extremely impressed by her eloquence, erudition and experiences that they had no qualms offering her a place on the spot. She wants to be an aeronautic engineer and has done since she was about six.

Our HE has almost always been very unstructured and child led. We have no routine apart from a bit of maths and English every day for they younger ones and some science and history a few times a week. When they reach secondary age, they are almost complete self directed. Even in schools, kids choose their subjects at 14, so they don't have to continue with things that they aren't interested in.

There are more was to access qualifications than just traditional school. And there are also more ways into jobs and careers than standard qualifications as well.

He's 15. It's working very well for us in that he has multiple SEN/SN though is very bright. He just absolutely could not cope in a main stream environment. He was self harming, retreating into mutism, his self esteem at not being able to fit in was rock bottom, he was coming home every day covered in bruises and abrasions from being restrained. So taking all that into account pretty much anything I do is better than that. We are about to study some soft GCSEs - IT, General Studies etc just to get him working more formally and without fear, he has a deep rooted actual fear of maths and that was a big trigger for him in school. I don't know what happened to I still that but it did so we have to work round it. I have already approached our local FE college and he will only have to pass basic maths and English tests to get on the courses he wants plus they have strong SEN support AND he has an EHCP even though we Home Ed so hopefully things will work out. But if they don't then he will do OU. He already does some of the free courses.

This link takes you to an american organisation that campaigns for better oversight of HE. There are previously HE adults talking about the negative impact on them.
I think HE can work.But sometimes it is a disaster.
And I do think some He advocates promote HE when it is not appropriate. I always remember the thread on MN where a mother struggling to get her young kids to school on time was advised to HE. She seemed keen on the idea. That seemed a disaster in the making to me. Someone struggling with the basics of getting kids up dressed and to school, will likely struggle with providing a suitable HE.

www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/tag/negative-testimonial/

Your kids sound amazing lessstressedhemum. Lovely to read those success stories and I have to say I know of many similar in our community here in London.

"While it sounds impressive that I completed a western civilizations course focused on unifying trends in mythological narratives around the world and completed two national novel writing challenges before the age of 18, what that description hides was my complete lack of scientifically based science classes, my minimal mathematics abilities, inability to diagram a sentence or define an adverb, and complete lack of study skills."

"I was educated at home by my mother, from 1st through 8th grade (no preschool or kindergarten), and went into community college instead of high school at the age of 15. To an outsider it would have appeared to be a success, as my two younger siblings and I began college at an early age, but we were far from ready for the demands. The reality is that when I began junior college, I only had an 8th grade education and had to frantically struggle to catch up, both with my education and with social skills."

“My mother . . . read to us a lot and corrected our grammar constantly. As a result, my siblings and I all have excellent literary skills. However, both of my parents were sorely lacking in the area of math and science. Since they were the only source of academic support that I had access to, I did not have access to a proper math and science education.*

@HollyGibney thanks for the details, I hope all goes well, and good luck to you.

Thank you

Psicat, I have been (and am) that poor. We live hand to mouth and every month is a worry about the rent/council tax, many weeks I have no money for food shopping and things like new shoes for the kids are always a source of stress. I HE because I had to. I have three kids with ASD and one with reading and writing issues. We were incredibly badly treated by the LEA and the schools and my kids were given no support at all, so, quite simply, the could not stay in school.

I have a good degree from one of Scotland's top unis. I also have two chronic illnesses which mean that I can't work. Dh works for a government quango and is ridiculously underpaid for the work he does.

My kids are/were a bit older than kids leaving school when they started college/uni but it hasn't affected them in any way. It has actually been a positive, tbh. They have had time and freedom to really decide what they wanted to do and to mature to the point that they were ready to do it. DS2 and 3 were both 19 when they went to college, DD is 18, almost 19. She will ve almost 20 when she starts uni, just like DS3. DS3 is 21 now and doing his HNC. In Scotland, there are no tuition fees for Scottish people at Scottish uni's and no college fees either, at least for young folk entitled to bursaries (I don't know about for older people.) So education is still free and readily available and there is easily accessible funding either through college bursaries for courses level6 and lower or through says for level 7 and up. I don't know if that is the case in England, though.

@Clairetree1 I've been helping to improve access to qualifications for home educated children, and helping people to move on to formal education, for 9 years now. This has included liaising with the DfE, colleges, parliamentary groups, and exam boards. I've heard from literally hundreds of families and have often followed up to check how their children settled into sixth form, because it provides valuable information for other families about how diffferent options work out. I'm interested to hear your experience, but it some aspects of it seems quite different from what I've seen in 9 years specialising in this area, and I wonder if you have an unusual demographic there. I'd like to emphasise that I'm not hostile and am very keen to hear more, but want to also give a different perspective.

I'm afraid it's OT from the OP as it's not really anything to do with 'radical unschooling', but regarding home education generally. There are many different approaches within home education and some families, for instance, have withdrawn their children from schools where low expectations or class disruption meant their children were not being pushed, while others wanted a more relaxed childhood.

Could you tell me how many home-educated pupils you've had? I ask because it would presumably be a relatively small sample size, as there just aren't that many home-educated children who would go to one sixth form in any one area. Even thinking of, say, City and Islington college, which is one of the largest in the country, to my knowledge there have been only 2 or 3 home-educated children there each year for the last few years - and HE kids travel across London to go there. I know that several of those former HE kids have been top performers in their year groups and have had Oxbridge and Russell Group offers.

Regarding spreading out GCSEs, it's very rare to hear of a college having any problem with this. The head of department of one very large sixth form actually laughed when I asked him if it would be a problem, and asked if anyone had seriously ever suggested such a thing. Ditto with the 12 year old getting an A* in maths sort of thing. I am on HE qualifications support forums with literally hundreds of people whose children are doing applications in every year, and we tend to get only one or two who find local colleges worry about spread out GCSEs. Mostly their concerns are whether English IGCSE meets the 16-19 funding requirements, which it does.

Home educating families generally spread GCSEs over several years because of the cost. Even if you self-study from textbooks and online resources, exam fees alone for external candidates are usually around £150 per qualification. If you use distance learning courses then they can easily be £300 per subject. For many families, if there isn't a good local entry point for year 9 or 10, then spreading out exams to meet sixth form entry requirements is a good option. The overall workload can be the same; if someone at school takes, say, 10 after studying for 5 years and taking all the exams at the end, this is arguably the the same overall workload as someone who condenses each course into a smaller time frame and takes, as an unusual example, 2 a year for 5 years. The total time and total qualifications is the same. I agree that the exam stress is greater when taking them all at once, but on the other hand, children who spread exams out have to take an exam intended for 16 year olds at a younger age and we know they are disadvantaged by this, on average. There is a trade-off between reducing the pressure by spreading exams, and being disadvantaged by taking them early. I assume this is why the vast majority of sixth form colleges have absolutely no problem with applicants having spread out the exams.

When HE teenagers have taken a favourite subject early - yes, often maths - there's often discussion about how best to keep the subject up if they are intending to study it at A-level. It's something that the home ed qualifications groups regularly brainstorm. My son entered the UKMT maths challenges, and worked through A-level material, before finally taking an additional maths qualification the summer before sixth form just to show that his maths was current. He also went to do physics and chemistry A-levels, despite having taken those exams several years earlier. He went to a selective sixth form and they were perfectly happy with him working through revision books covering the GCSE syllabus as a refresher before starting the course. Other home educated children have done science projects, CREST awards, and the language olympiad, to keep in practice with their subject. I'm not suggesting that all home educated teens do this before going on to A-level, but they are examples of what motivated teenagers can do.

I do agree with you that spread-out exams present a different sort of challenge, and I have seen children who do struggle with the workload at sixth form - but then, so do many children who've been through school. In fact, the home education qualifications support network often ends up providing assistance to teenagers who have been through school and didn't get the qualifications they needed, and can't find local options for retake courses so want to self-study for resits.

I know of many former home-educated children who do extremely well at sixth form and who are commended for being self-motivated and hard-working. It's not necessarily that home education has taught them that, but certainly when my children went to sixth form, they were already used to doing the sort of independent study that was expected for A-levels. Of course, there are also plenty of children who are home-educated because they have SEN or mental health problems, and the transition to sixth form can be tricky for them.

My time in home education has taught me, mostly, that:

• You can't generalise about home educators, because there are SO many different approaches, and different families. If you know ten, you still don't really know what the next ten will be like!
• There is a reporting bias in all things. We tend to hear about the success stories and the disasters. There are plenty of people in the middle who are getting along perfectly nicely. This tends to go for home education and for school. We have to compare like with like - the reality of home education with the reality of the particular school on offer to each child.
• When home-educated children settle into sixth form well, everybody forgets that they have a different background, very quickly. Teachers forget (if they ever knew at all). Peers forget. When you get to uni, particularly if it's a high-performing uni with lots of international students, nobody cares - everybody is from such a different background anyway.

@HattieAndHerBoy
I didn't read OP's posts that way at all.

What I gathered is that a lot of parents feel deeply threatened by those who do things differently.

OP isn't doing the usual state school, exam-focused, mortgage-obsessed thing and it seems to rile those who are.

Maybe we're not as thrilled with the norm as we'd like to think?

@HollyGibney
I just don't believe there are are these multiple families who arrive fresh faced and excited to join main stream for sixth form only to be turned away, devastated and disappointed with nowhere to turn. Eight years of HE and immersion in the community show me that this just is not true.

Yep, 18 years of immersion in HE here, in a large HE community, and 9 years specifically involved in qualifications and FE support, and my experience echoes yours. In the vast majority of cases, HE teenagers join mainstream education at 16 without any of these problems. However, I am keen to hear about cases where there are problems, because it's by analysing the problem situations that we can learn more to help the HE community and help parents of younger children make informed decisions.

When comparing like with like, it makes sense to compare HE with school educated kids with involved parents. We know that having parents who care about your education and are involved makes a big difference to educational attainment.

Clearly, my last post around have said that DS2was almost 20 when he started uni and that DS3 is 21 and doing his HND. To many DSs to keep track of. Ds4 is still only 15 and has no clue what he wants to do yet. He has ASD and selective mutism, so he might have a way to go before he is ready.

@DieAntword - otherwise are you saying there’s no way to manage a more vocational tragectory as a homeschooler?

Yes, there is a way - many home educating families have done it.
You can, for instance:

• Do GCSEs at home and go to college at 16-19 to do vocational qualifications OR A-levels, if you meet the entry requirements. Many home educated teens do this every year.
• Join a part-time college course for home-educated teenagers to get access to some vocational qualifications at 14-16, or core GCSEs. THis is different from the 'direct recruitment' schemes aimed at school children. Provision varies around the country though; in some places it's great, whilst in others it's basic or non-existent.
• Some colleges will allow you to mix and match courses, eg one near me had a HE teen taking art Btecs from age 14, spotted his potential so got hom in the A-level class for another subject at age 15 too.

Have a look at The HE Exams Wiki for lots on how home ed families approach qualifications.

I home educate and have for about 9 years now. I'm very much more on the structured side and I don't think anyone would call me an unschooler. I strongly disagree that just having a literature/resource-rich environment and attentive parents is enough for all kids.

I was not home educated and neither was my spouse. We're both university educated in different sciences. We live in an area in an educational black hole - the two catchment high schools we are in the overlap for are awful. Their most recent results were 10-19% of students to old-money-C level or better for English and Maths GCSEs and the rest of their results are pretty similar. I think "missed opportunities" pretty much describes what is happening to all the kids around here. Schools are shrinking free time and activities because of the grades but the results keep getting worse. In order to do much of interest, the things I did as a kid like sports and dance at school, I have to go far out of our area regardless if my kids go to school or not.

We now have a UTC which got 36% for English and maths in their first year which my older two are intending to attend from Year 10 which does have more extracurricular but those are struggling to pull in students to the point some in other parts of the country are closing so who knows if it will be an option when my youngest gets that age. Our local college runs a GCSE program for 16-year-olds with only 5 GCSEs, but they still get better results and have better reported pastoral care. The options around us are ever changing and I think many of us need more options than we have because our local schools aren't there to do it. With my local catchment options are more known for violence and self-harm being overlooked and abysmal help for students with additional needs, I don't see my kids as missing much.

As someone who attended a 'junior' community college in the US, I was told at my entrance test that I took at 15 that most graduating seniors at 17-19 don't get a full pass (and therefore have to take classes that are below college level which is a financial problem as they aren't usually covered by aid or scholarships). It is not surprising someone who hasn't finished high school level education would struggle, it's a big jump up for everyone. Plenty of kids in school are struggling with qualifications and jobs. While I agree that some who home educate are irresponsible, I think the idea that it's between that and a great school misses out the reality many of us are facing.

I find your posts very positive NewElthamMum. It's great to hear that this research and work is being done as I know that personally I felt very abandoned when we decided to HE. All routes had been exhausted for ds and frankly they seemed glad to see the back of us. We engage with our local authority and our contact there is just lovely but I have wondered if we just got lucky and this was the exception rather than the rule. I know many parents are unwilling to engage and have had negative local authority experiences. It's great to read of so many positive outcomes as you describe them because this is what I see myself and I find myself really frustrated by the way home ed is presented on these threads and in RL really.

NewElthamMum. I have to go out now but may I PM you later? I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on possible routes for my ds, I have detailed our current situation in an earlier post. Many thanks

because free education in this country ends at 19, its not indefinite!

That's not the case, @ClaireTree1, though I do strongly agree with you that it's best to make the most of the UK's generous funding up to age 19.

Adult education funding at age 19-23 (25 if you have an EHCP) entitles you to free education until you have the equivalent of 5 GCSEs and 2 full A-levels, whether that is in vocational qualifications or A-levels. The courses must be drawn from an approved list which is a bit more restrictive than that available in 16-19 education, but still, there are many hundreds of courses on there.

Adult education is funded according to the qualifications you hold, not the courses taken, so if you take a course and fail, you can still be funded to take another until you pass.

If you are over 23 , or already have sufficient qualifications to meet the national minimum offer but want more, you can now take out an Advanced Learner Loan. This works just like a student loan, ie it functions more like an extra tier of tax which you start to repay when you earn over £21k or so.

Incidentally, if you are still under 19 when you begin a programme of study then you are still funded to the end of that programme even if you turn 19 during it - even if it's a 2-year A-level course. It's at the college's discretion whether to accept candidates at this age, but it's fully funded if the college chooses to take them.

This is for England - the situation for Scotland and Wales is slightly different but I have not had to research those.

Full references are here: he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/Adult_Education

@HollyGibney feel free to PM me. I have kids in school now and am very enthusiastic about the positives of school as well as the positives of HE, so I like to think I'm balanced .

@crunchymint wrote When comparing like with like, it makes sense to compare HE with school educated kids with involved parents. We know that having parents who care about your education and are involved makes a big difference to educational attainment.

You are so right there. Some of our best home-ed projects were activities that we'd been shown by parents whose kids were at school, but who were still doing all kinds of fun and educational things with them outside of school hours.

The advantage of home-ed for me was the flexibility and the time to do what we wanted. The balance of pros and cons changes over time though, and is specific to your family. If you want your kids to get a good set of qualifications, I think it's a lot harder to do it from home ed - a lot of work for the parent as well as the child. It can be very rewarding and can allow your child to specialise in the areas they love - great if they are committed to sports, art or music, for example. But in the teen years it's a very different experience from younger home-ed kids spending hours climbing trees and getting muddy feet and being cute. For one thing, when you get to 14 or so, no matter how great your parents are - you generally want to spread your wings a bit!

Also agree that HE should be properly regulated.
Clearly some parents and kids make a success of it but I think many parents are (perhaps unintentionally) doing their kids a disservice by not working towards the kinds of qualifications that they will need later in life.

One question - to all the HE on here: were you HE? Was your partner? And what level qualifications did you and OH achieve (whether HE or not)?

I went to government school then college which I left before I finished in order to move to where I’ve lived for many many decades after getting married whilst at college. I was actually quite horrible doing that to my parents because finishing my education was their condition for me marrying when I did.

My husband was not brought up in the country of his birth. His father had moved his family from there due to so many of his siblings dying in infancy. He was a shopkeeper who had probably learned to read from the Koran. My mother in law could barely read. All 8 of their surviving children went to school and by the time it was my husbands turn there was money for a private day school. A good one. It’s not in Europe. All 8 children we’re educated and my very far sighted inlaws educated the girls as much as they did the boys. All of them went on to be successful professionally.

One by one the siblings were sent back to their home country after being called back by the new ruler who requested that all educated nationals living abroad returned home. If there was money available they went by plane and if there was none they went by a wooden boat on a journey that took 3 weeks. My husbands journey actually took 2 months due to being stuck in the doldrums and the boat repeatedly breaking down. They’d actually been given up for dead till the sailed into port one day.

My husband went on to have a very successful career that’s too identifying to mention. He then started a second career, our business, and that’s even more successful than the first which is a good job because it was started to provide the lifetime of care that my son will need at a rate of 2-1 care round the clock with a 3rd person on call just feet away.

I’ve always been a stay at home mum though I did at one stage have my own business. It didn’t last long because I was very conflicted about my son so a year after opening I closed and didn’t look back. I also preferred being with my grandchildren. I’m glad I did have the business though because I can see that when I’m no longer here my son will still be ok with his siblings and his home based care team.

I have lots of children and all except one have gone down the traditional route in education. Not that it was easy for two of them but I’d never have been able to teach them all they needed to know in order to get the jobs they have so school it was. All of the children are considered to be what’s called high achievers and that’s great but no person is the sum total of their education and professional achievment. My children can be arseholes just like everyone else.

My boy, well he’s my young man now, has outperformed us all simply by being him. If you knew him you would love him.

Reading that back it all sounds very easy but nothing could be further from the truth. There have been many twists and turns among the way and 5 years ago my marriage of a lifetime broke down. There really is no fool like an old fool and I was no match for a secretary younger than some of our children. Or perhaps I was but I knew it could never be undone.

Thank you @NewElthamMum13 for debunking some of the clearly exaggerated claims made by @Clairetree1

"the nonsense of someone rocking up at 16 to do maths, who hasn't done any since getting the A* at 12... this is pretty typical of the problems we encounter. And the parents don't anticipate any problems being accepted, it can come as a very nasty shock to them"

Is Claire seriously suggesting her school would struggle to help a child who has achieved an A in Maths GSE to obtain a Maths A Level?! I'd love to know why the parents were able to support their child to get an A but her school are not? Even if the child had done zero maths for 4 years it really wouldn't take that long to catch up.

I wonder what efforts the school has made to support all children who are struggling or not from conventional backgrounds?