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

@Hercwasonaroll - how do you know what the visits are like? You don't. People in the home-ed community do know so you'll just have to take my word for it. You might not understand why they cause issues - but a perfect example was given by the EWO on this thread. She believed home-ed parents must have teaching qualifications - she would hassle a family about that, threaten them illegally. That is what they are known to do. They disrupt DC's education. Why would you allow that to happen to your DC? As I said they can get to know the home-ed community in other ways as a few councils do. But just to talk about my particular DS - a stranger coming into our home and questioning him - yes, he would find that intrusive and stressful.

The thing is, it seems to me that both OvertheUnicorn AND Shineynew can be simultaneously right - because they are looking at two, almost entirely discrete, subsets of the totality of home educating families.

In OvertheUnicorn's statistically small community, HE is generally done conscientiously and well, and involvement with the EWO is (by reputation) difficult and probably unnecessary.

In Shineynew's case, her sample size is larger but statistically skewed - those families she encountered as an EWO were, by definition, those where there was a concern, and her later work puts her into contact primarily with those for whom HE has not enabled the children to pick up the necessary 'entry tickets' to the next stage in education / training.

They are both incomplete views of the totality - but the difficulty is that there is very unreliable evidence concerning the totality of HE, and so many different views can be simultaneously held, and be simultaneously true of small groups.

Secondary school educated pupils will by definition need less educational visits than HE students though surely as every day they "visit" school where they will be taught by experts. They will still go to places of course to see buildings and meet individuals and have experiences but the need is massively reduced by virtue of them being in a school with lots of people with degrees in a wide array of subjects (as opposed to at home with one person who knows about some things to some, unspecified level)

They disrupt DC's education.

Oh the irony

Of course, to HEs you need no qualifications, knowledge or experience at all but you will still be able to do a better job than any school can

You fail to consider, unsurprisingly, that home edders are all very different people with lots of different skills and qualifications. Your judgemental attitude is showing again. Luckily, the law doesn't agree with you.

@cantkeepawayforever - the law is already in place to deal with unsatisfactory home-educating. Setting up a supportive EHE service is possible.

Who did you request it from?

Tbh, I can't remember. I think the council had a Homed Ed team, and I contacted them?

The law may be in place, but if it is very hard - as it is - for anyone to access HE families to assess whether the quality of education is unsatisfactory (and therefore quite easy for a family determined to do so to hide its unsatisfactory nature), the law has few teeth.

@OvertheUnicornRainbow

a perfect example was given by the EWO on this thread. She believed home-ed parents must have teaching qualifications - she would hassle a family about that, threaten them illegally.

I have absolutely no idea where you got this from. I asked for your teaching qualification in response to your request for my qualifications. At what point did I say I would harass you or threaten you illegally?

Seriously, this is paranoid stuff and Only serves to prove my point further.

@cantkeepawayforever - I think it's possible, yes. I think home-edders to tend to be up for travelling, though.
@atankofskunks - no he doesn't just interact with HE kids, as I've already said and yes my DD knows his closest friends. But my DS doesn't really know my DD's little school friends and she doesn't get to meet all the DC he does during his education as she's at school! Kind of obvious.

But my DS doesn't really know my DD's little school friends and she doesn't get to meet all the DC he does during his education as she's at school! Kind of obvious.

Do they never have friends over in the school holidays or evenings then?

I think home-edders to tend to be up for travelling, though.

Again, you mean 'the home edders that you know tend to be up for travelling', I think?

Ofsted inspect schools, why should HE be any different? There should be some kind of check that HE is taking place.

Students and staff in schools find ofsted stressful. It still has to happen.

I don't disagree with HE as an idea. I think for some students SEN provision in school is so bad that HE is necessary. I do think there should be more checks having seen local families in soft play, parks etc daily and with 7yos who can't write.

@atankofskunks oh the irony

Oh the naievity!

What's your definition of thriving?

On what basis naive OP?

I’ve already answered that!
Not that I can see. You say a lot but most of it is generalities. You’ve said almost nothing about how you teach and what you teach for, which suggests to me that you don’t really know much about teaching. You’ve also said nothing about the practicalities of managing a teaching load so huge no one else other than HE parents ever takes it on. This in itself is really telling. Either HE parents are teaching superheroes, achieving more than any other teacher in any other setting or they are cutting corners.

I think the kids are teaching themselves using the internet and text books in the main, then attending some groups, based on what's been said on this thread.

@Whattheother2catsprefer - sounds cool! There is a home-ed day every year at a stately home where the DC can dress up and do reenactments. We haven't tried it this far!

@Shineynew - I'm afraid you are showing on this thread your ignorance. You can't claim to be any kind of expert with the things you are saying. This is why people don't want to see you. Open your mind, do some research on home-education and the law around home-education. Look at how you interact with the home-education. How could you do things differently? What do councils with a better relationship with the home-ed community do? If you really care you would be willing to put the work in. You say I prove your point that parents do not prioritise their child by home educating - can you explain how please?

@Booboostwo - you have an unusual idea about home education - I'm not teaching a class - it's not the massive work load you suggest. No need to cut corners, atall. But do you want me to write pages and pages of the minutae we do! Ask me something more specific and I'll try to answer. But how to I prepare and teach everything single thing is a bit much! That's fine if you think my DS is achieving inspite of my teaching but it's working for us!

Shines, why should op have to demonstrate teaching qualifications in order to be able to teach her child at home, when many private school teachers don’t have QTS and neither do all teachers in academies?

I don’t HE but my dh and I between us have every core GCSE (English bac) to degree or A level. I don’t think it would be suitable for my dds, but I’m sure we could get them GCSE passes

@cantkeepawayforever - the answer is not to make home visits compulsory but for the LA to work with the home-ed community. To create contact that is acceptable to both parties. To actually learn about home-education and understand it.

I'm pretty impressed with all the angles we're covering here!

Do you plan lessons OP? Do you have a scheme of learning that you follow? Do you record data and do any kind of simple analysis of it to see in a measurable way where any gaps are and then do you plan lessons that will fill those gaps? What sort of tasks do you set and how do you choose them? These are all the most rudimentary of teaching and planning considerations and it matters not one jot whether you're teaching one student or forty.

@atankofskunks - insulted because you went to school? No. Pointed out how contradictory it is to be blindly advocating for school...when as a school user you struggle to read and comprehend my posts. Yes!