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

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

I'm not sure who this question is aimed at, but to be clear, I'm talking about working in partnership with the school in order to ensure that my dd's needs are met in school - not hours and hours of hothousing outside of school hours. In my dd's case, this has involved working with the school to ensure that she is adequately stretched, but I know many other parents who are in dialogue with the school about a whole range of different needs, whether academic, social, emotional or whatever.

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

The EDUCATION that HE on this thread are discussing IS down time to most people, that's how! Visiting a museum, going to educational events etc. These are fun things for most people. Local to where we live, for example, is an annual science fair run by a university with lecturers presenting and activities for pupils of all ages. We go every year because it's FUN- we don't wrap it up as our children's schooling for the week!

What specifically in his autism makes you think that a school setting isn’t right for him?

I’ve met a lot of kids with autism and not a single one of them would be comfortable with “There is no typical day.”

I don’t have autism but I too would struggle to learn without structure and routine like you describe.

So I’m wondering what sort of traits he has that makes you feel he’s “thriving” but wouldn’t in any school setting, mainstream or specialist school.

Schools are required to look at a cohort of pupils in terms of attainment which is then extrapolated to represent an entire school, assessments are based on curriculum outcomes, generally around literacy and numeracy. As far as I’m aware there are no current country wide assessments on wellbeing within schools.

So whilst assessing schools can be helpful in terms of looking at attainment as an overall, it bares little insight into individuals attainment or wellbeing within the school, this is particularly true of individual child with SEND.

@pinkyu What I do with my DCs out of school are more unschooling, so you follow the children's interests. So when one was obsessed with Egypt we went to visit mummies, bought a beautifully illustrated book about Egypt, watched suitable documentaries on it, etc. Also taken our kids to museums, galleries, ballet, opera, public talks - latest Bill Bryson talking about the body. They also do martial arts. They do not need all weekend for downtime.

@janemaster yes, any educational visits can be done by HE kids but there is more scope just due to time. 10 hours includes Art but not Karate.
@MaddieElla - he's not planning on studying medecine. I guess that was just my life experience. But obviously we will check everything out before he makes a choice of exams etc so no not limiting him atall
@atankofskunks - to be fair he's not studying that much every day. But he really enjoys it. I was similar but a bit older, I think. Obviously if he wants input then he gets it. 6 hours is only an evening or a morning.
@FrivolousPancake - my DD does it in addition to school to but it is completely different to her DB's experience. How do you feel I am doing him a disservice?

@janemaster you “unschool” your schooled children at the weekend? You can’t see the irony in that?

6 hours alone studying is a very long time OP. I would be worried about the mental health of a 12 year old spending 6 hours studying alone every day.

AlexaShutUp - within their budget and the curriculum though. I am delighted with my eldest"s mainstream state education. I am also proud of the mainstream school i work in and the opportunities the children get. But i have also seen how badly an inadequete school can do with a child with SEN and holding a school to account for this is almost impossible - especially an academy.

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.
Been there, done that, it's not good for children to bounce round schools and have to start again either.

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?

Not an unfair point. The fact that there are so many different home ed resources and groups, both on a national and local level, does provide a way to exchange ideas and resources. There are always options of online classes where people are struggling with certain topics. Although home education doesn't have to follow the curriculum anyway, what it does need to do is provide an education. The council doesn't have an automatic right to inspect unless they think a child is not receiving an education. The problem is that many inspectors are not particularly well educated themselves and can be opposed to home ed, so understandably people do not want to invite them in to their homes. A better approach would be to recruit inspectors who are educated, can provide support to children / families and agrees that home ed can be a positive choice would be a way of dealing with this problem.

Progress measures are based on the aggregated progress data for each individual child - based on their individual starting point and the distance travelled. These are then analysed with a particular focus on children from a range of different cohorts - SEND, higher learning potential, pupil premium, ESL etc. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it is of course supplemented by teacher assessments of individual children, carried out by experienced professionals, on top of the parents' own assessments of how well their child is doing, how happy they are, how their social skills are progressing etc.

It cannot simultaneously be easy for an average HE parent to make these assessments, with limited comparative data, and impossible for dedicated teachers and loving parents to make similar assessments of their school-educated children, with a wealth of data at their fingertips. That just doesn't make sense. The fact is, school educated children have more interested adults looking out for their progress and well-being than those who are educated at home.

@pinly I know it is not unschooling I am trying to explain the approach I take.
I am going to leave this thread as I am fed up of being ridiculed. I always am if ever I express concerns about HE. I hope all your DCs will be happy with the schooling they had as an adult, but I do think good HE needs a lot of self critical analysis and an understanding of what can go wrong.

I do think we need to mention on this thread the very real risk that accepting HE as some kind of norm presents to be honest. Children who do not come into contact with school at all are in a very vulnerable position in terms of their safety and well being. Schools are well placed to monitor pupils and to ensure their health and to take steps to safeguard them if needed. Children who are home schooled don't have that protection and so are potentially very vulnerable.
In answer to the pp who asked what protection there is for children who are being badly taught at home the answer is simply none. Any parent can withdraw their child from school (or never enroll them) and give little or no education from that point if they wish with little or no monitoring. It's actually scandalous.

@atankofskunks has your child (or even you) never become so obsessed or engrossed with a book/topic/game/numerous other activities that they’ve lost themselves for hours at a time? Never?

I know when I’ve become so lost in a book I look up and find 3 hours have passed in an instant, I love it when it happens, to be so all encompassed in something.

Yes @PinkyU. What's your point?

I don't take my teenage daughter to museums, galleries, the ballet and stuff on weekends because she's exhausted being at a very demanding grammar and also she wouldn't be seen dead with me! Surely the time for this constant parent initiated activity-doing is earlier in their lives? Once they are 13 plus, then parent supervised activities must take a back seat to them getting out there and travelling themselves by bus, taking up volunteer places, going out with friends, joining clubs by themselves and so on.

I do think school takes up a lot of children's energy and doesn't leave as much time for other things, especially given how much they learn (or rather don't learn) in a given week. I remember thinking this when I was at school, that I could get the learning done pretty much in one day and it was just stretched out to five days making it extremely boring. I hated school though, especially the 'peer socialization' aspect which apparently was one of the great things about it. But I went to a rough comp and so the peer socialization was of a fairly forthright and not terribly relaxing variety, it did improve as we got older and could avoid some of those lovely peers.

@janemaster - to be fair I never found studying lonely. I'm an introvert as is my DS. I can imagine an extrovert not liking to study alone - and of course with home-ed they have that choice. However I was just trying to give a rough answer to how much he studies - but this is not everyday. I didn't say most of his social interaction was not with peers. I can only answer for my DC his friends and peers that they definitely have their own life seperate to parents and have seemed to develop naturally as teenagers.
@PointlessAddict - I think the most important think is to know how to learn, how to study, how to research, where to get answers. I don't think you have to be academically intelligent to do that and of course not all DC are academic, either. But providing what your individual DC needs is the most important thing.

atankofskunks I actually agree with this, I think HE should be monitored, a register kept and no child should be allowed to simply just be deregistered/or never registered and disappear.

A better approach would be to recruit inspectors who are educated, can provide support to children / families and agrees that home ed can be a positive choice would be a way of dealing with this problem.

Yes, I agree with this. I am not opposed to the idea of HE per se. For some children, I think it is absolutely the best option and I'm sure that some parents do it very well. My concern is about the lack of challenge and accountability. Not all HE parents will do a good job, and that isn't fair on the children concerned. I would be much more supportive of an approach to HE which involved some form of mandatory external evaluation, to be carried out by suitably qualified individuals with a good understanding of different approaches to HE and its potential benefits.

I don't think that those external inspectors should be there to tell parents how they should be educating their children, but I do think they should challenge the parents to demonstrate how their approach is meeting their child's needs, and if the parents are unable to demonstrate this effectively, there should be some intervention in the best interests of the child.

My point is why be concerned as to the mental health of the op’s son for studying/reading for hours at a time if you say that your own child does so also?

The problem is that inspectors would need access to a child's home and HE parents would more likely than not refuse it. A parent who has opted out of the system would probably not wish to opt in for the purpose of inspection.

Because @PinkyU she doesn't do that on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis. Six hours is a very long time and if my child spent six hours in their room alone even as much as a few days a week then I would worry about them.

A parent who has opted out of the system would probably not wish to opt in for the purpose of inspection.

Sure, which is why it would have to be mandatory.

You didn’t spend hours in your room away from your parents as a teen?

6 hours several days of the week at 12? No. I was at school