I home educate - my DS has never been to school - AMA

[OvertheUnicornRainbow]

My DS is almost 13, always been home-educated and is thriving. Ask me anything

Why is that, why are you so against a parent educating their child in the way that’s best for them?

I can't speak for jane, to whom this question was addressed, but I think my concern is around who gets to decide what's best for the child. As someone else said above, I have never met an HE parent who thinks that they are doing a bad job, but I have encountered quite a lot of HE adults who don't feel that HE was in their best interests.

Of course, I know you could say exactly the same thing about a school education - it's equally a decision about what is best for the child, which the child may or may not agree with later on. The difference for me is that it isn't just the parents making those decisions - there are a multitude of people involved in monitoring and improving the quality of the education on offer, including teachers, school leaders, governors, external inspectors etc. I don't know how you could possibly recreate that diversity of perspectives and the synergy that comes from that in a HE situation.

Are there any downsides to home Ed?

@alexa HE is about providing the child the opportunity to study in a way and at a rate that best suits their aptitude, that’s the main benefit of it. As opposed to a school environment which must follow a pre-designed trajectory for every child regardless of their ability to access it in a meaningful way.

School education works on the assumption of average cognitive development, HE allows for individualised approach’s.

No sorry I am not going to start an AMA about being HE. I will simply be attacked. It is happening on this thread as I am accused of saying things I did not say.
HE parents tend to get very defensive if anyone has any criticisms of HE. I get it. It is like criticising a parent's parenting. But it rarely makes for any useful discussions. Three adults who are HE have posted on this thread saying it was not a good experience, one adults has posted saying it was a good experience.

@NotYourTypicalNerd - glad to hear he is doing well. There are definitely pros and cons!
@CallarMorvern - ah, bless her. I hope things improve - murder would not be good!
@janemaster - I'm afraid your information is very outdated. I'm not home-edding my DS because of a bad experience at school - it is because this suits him. I actually went to an excellent grammar school.
Outside assessent can be done by tutors, teachers. I mean a parent could also use an online test or written curriculum test. I don't think it is that hard to assess your DC.

The fact of the matter is though that school education is not tailored to the that fall outwith the “normal” standards, so regardless of how many individuals are involved in education not a single one of them will be as interested or as knowledgeable about a child’s development or educational proclivities as the parent.

Decisions on curriculum are made country wide, that set up is never going to be as beneficial as a HE parent tailoring learning to their child’s needs.

I understand why some parents HE. The state school system just isn’t well set up for kids who need extra TLC. You only have to look at the sn boards to see what parents experience.

@OvertheUnicornRainbow how do you ensure that what he learns is accurate/up to date? There is a whole load of guff on the internet so how do you avoid him learning "science" according to flat earthers, creationists etc.

Thanks PinkyU, but that's not really what I was asking. (And in any case, it has not been my experience that school caters for average cognitive development only, despite the fact that my dd is an academic "outlier", but I accept that this will depend on the school.)

My question was not about the benefits of HE, which are fairly obvious, but more about how you can evaluate its effectiveness. In the school system, this is a responsibility that is shared by many people, including parents, teachers, school leaders, governors, external inspectors and a multitude of other stakeholders, so there are lots of checks and balances in place. I can't see any of those checks and balances in place for an HE set-up, so I wonder how parents can be sure that they're doing a good job and meeting all of their child's needs without that breadth of perspectives and shared responsibility.

That's not to say that some HE parents aren't doing a fantastic job of providing a well-rounded education for their children - I'm sure that they are in some cases - but I'm not clear on how they know that this is the case, or on who would hold them to account for any areas in which the quality of education might be lacking.

Sounds to me like you're saying that home ed has evolved to become more like school - just a more flexible version.

The delivery of home education is completely different to school and unique to the needs of the individual child. That's the whole point of doing it. But home ed and school obviously have something in common: delivering an education.

I'm afraid lots of school teachers use a lot of textbook material.

How do you know? What evidence do you have of this? Of course, on GCSE courses it may make sense to direct students to certain chapters etc (the books are written to support the courses after all) but it would be an unusual teacher these days who said "copy the info on page 10 then answer the questions". Ofsted would certainly have comments to make about such an approach.

The fact of the matter is though that school education is not tailored to the that fall outwith the “normal” standards, so regardless of how many individuals are involved in education not a single one of them will be as interested or as knowledgeable about a child’s development or educational proclivities as the parent.

Yes, of course, the parents will have a unique perspective on their individual child, which is what they bring to the partnership with the school. However, I'm not arguing that parents should be excluded from the business of educating their children at all, merely that (in my view) it's better to combine parental insights and perspectives with those of professionals who might have a different range of insights and perspectives.

@Booboostwo - how old are yours? Classes for all ages here.

@atankofskunks - well, as many as the DC gains from. There is much more scope than just museums. Ok some teachers may be experts in their field - many not. My DS can access courses at colleges/universities run by people who work in the field or have Phds - in my experience they are more experts than school teachers. But obviously he has access to both. Does your DD not do any educational visits or anything like that? Courses run in museums are usually run by local historians who do that as a job and are extremely knowledgable - no need for a script!

@JustForTheTasteOfIt - I was talking about something very specific when I said that and I stand by it. The whole point is different things suit different people. I'm afraid many have shown a complete lack of respect (and so much ignorance) to home-edders. I lose respect for those that mock, don't read my answers and make things up to match their agenda. And yes, I am a bit stressed! However, I respect all parents for doing the best for their individual DC.

I think the trouble with the debate is while most who home-educate have been to school and know what it is like (it can be good fun, some great teachers - but no, not lots of experts and lots of textbook teaching) most parents of schooled DC have no idea about home-ed so come up with so much inaccurate stuff. I was actually a TA a long time ago. Teaching involves a lot of disciplining and a lot of slogging through the curriculum - that is a negative, unfortunately. But if you get an amazing teacher and school they can make learning really fun!

The biggest challenge is just having to organise everything yourself - it can be very hectic. But I find it hugely rewarding too. I don't really have worries now but I think when he was small I worried - is he going to learn to read etc. I worried about him making friends. But it all came good!

not a single one of them will be as interested or as knowledgeable about a child’s development or educational proclivities as the parent

That very much depends on the parent. School isn't a two way process- it's very much three way and decent parents will always be involved in what's going on for those 6 hours a day. Education doesn't then end when they walk out of the school gate of course. Parents have a huge role to play in educating their school educated child.

Have you ever encountered a bad home schooling situation? What, if anything, can be done to assist if we do have concerns?

it's better to combine parental insights and perspectives with those of professionals who might have a different range of insights and perspectives.

Maybe if those professionals involved had more training and understanding of different needs it would help. But often they don't, and alongside trying to manage behaviour and educate a class of 30 or so children, some children end up getting ignored, left out, and simply not receiving the best education that they deserve to have.

Parents have a huge role to play in educating their school educated child.

Exactly. It sometimes comes across on here as if HE parents assume that the parents of school-educated children simply outsource the education of their kids to the school, but that simply isn't the case - it's a partnership, in which each of the different parties brings something different to the table.

Does your DD not do any educational visits or anything like that?

As previously stated OP, she is currently on a coach heading back from a week in Europe with her school. She has done countless educational visits with schools (primary and secondary) and with us in her years at school, has had countless visits from a range of people TO her schools and is taught by some great teachers, several of whom have PHds (not that that is necessarily a measure of a great teacher) every day of her school life.

The professionals involved in assessing a school are assessing how the school delivers the pre-designed curriculum as a whole. They are assessing the school, not the children. They are not looking at each individual child’s attainment, wellbeing, opportunities to reach their potential.

They look at, on average, how well the school performs.

Personally I have no interest in how a school perform on average, I’m interested in how each child is catered and cared for, there is no way that even the best school are catering and caring for every single child that attends in the best way.

The best standard to check how a child is learning is:

Are they progressing?
Are they happy?
Do they enjoy learning?

Even the most average HE parent has the ability to observe these points. Schools however are not in the best position to assess these elements on an individual level, nor address them effectively and efficiently should a child be falling short.

Maybe if those professionals involved had more training and understanding of different needs it would help. But often they don't, and alongside trying to manage behaviour and educate a class of 30 or so children, some children end up getting ignored, left out, and simply not receiving the best education that they deserve to have.

OK, so that's one of those situations in which the parents would need to step in and advocate on behalf of their child, or if things are really bad, they might decide to move the child to a different school.

My question is about who steps in and intervenes on behalf of a home educated child who is simply not receiving the best education that the child deserves to have? Who, apart from the parents themselves, is evaluating that education and identifying the gaps?

That would be my worry about HE. I think I could do a pretty good job of HE overall, but who would see the things that I would inevitably miss? Who would point out the flaws in my approach? Who would hold me to account (apart from my child at a later date)? Who would bring ideas to the table that I simply wouldn't have thought of?

I think janes posts are important because home educating isn’t always going to be a good experience the same way that going to school won’t always be a good experience.
I don’t think every home educating parent does a good job, I think it would naive to think that. In the same way not every school is a fantastic place with nurturing teachers and endless resources some home ed parents are thrown into it because of difficult circumstances and they are a like a fish out of water. It has been noted by the current children’s commissioner that most parents who choose to home ed do provide a high quality education, it’s those who feel they have no other option who tend to struggle. The thing is we all get put into one group.

It is such a big and personal decision that people naturally get defensive over their choices. When you home ed you are questioned by random people about it on a regular basis while going about your day to day life. Sometimes people are genuinely interested and I am always happy to chat and answer questions and sometimes they are bloody rude, just last night a woman at the till in a supermarket told me she didn’t approve of home educating and didn’t think it was right. That’s her opinion but she didn’t really need to be telling me that while I was simply buying some milk with my son.

@Nearlyalmost50 - yes, valid points. As you say school does not serve many DC - the 50% figure is awful. But of course home-ed or the home-ed provision their parents could provide might not be good, either. It's a shame.
@janemaster - I would say there are many pretty poor very determined single parents home-educating. It's not just for the well-off but it makes it easier.
@atankofskunks - wonder if you were educated in a school? You're not a very good advert for it, I'm afraid. I quite clearly said nothing of the sort was said! The education centre he goes to is registered with Ofstead. But not all HE provision is as there are so many different types. But always DBS from my experience. I know the teachers are good as I've seen them teach, I've seen the results their students have got, I chat to them on a regular basis and see the work they set/mark etc and I know my DC and others are happy in their class. How do you know your DD's individual teachers are any good? What if one was not good - what could you do?

For those saying that they’re also HE their In school children, where do your children get down time?

They spend a minimum of 6 hours a day in school, then what, 1-3 hours of homework/revision after school (depending on stage), then as quite a few have mentioned, clubs/activities.

Are your children then spending hours at the weekend being HE?

Schools are absolutely required to look at progress on an individual level - seems that you're making some assumptions here that are long out of date?

And in my experience, the wellbeing and personal development of individual pupils is also taken very seriously - and this will be increasingly important under the new ofsted framework.

How do you know your DD's individual teachers are any good? What if one was not good - what could you do?

I could speak to the head of department, the head of year, the headteacher, Ofsted. I could move them to another school if I felt so strongly about it.

Putting your child into school is not a passive thing OP. Your job doesn't end when they are 5 and plod into a reception class! And yes, of course I was educated in a school (as were you). I have already listed my qualifications. I'm curious as to why you feel that I am not a good advert for proper schooling?