Wow! What a load of misunderstandings, some deliberate!
I home ed one of my children, school wasn't right for him, he struggled academically, socially and mentally. Since leaving school he is more confident, has made friends and enjoys his life, no more suicide attempts! He has moderate autism among other conditions. It's the best thing I've ever done for him.
He learns: maths, english lit/lang, science, spanish, art, history, geography, CDT, engineering, life skills, ethics, politics and social skills. He has PE classes outside the home and a number of other classes. He's would be in year 6 practising for SATS at this point and learning little other than how to pass his SATS, as my eldest did when he was in year six.
Our local authority has a very supportive Home Education Officer, who has visited and assessed his education. Every home ed family I've met in our area sings his praises and are all ready to engage with him.
The LA to the South of us has very Anti Home Ed officers and this leads to most people refusing to engage with them.
To answer other people, I am a single parent and have given up work to home ed and therefore we're on benefits for the first time since I left school, it's not just for the wealthy and many local home-edders live very simply lives where costs are pared down to fund their children's education.
As for who safeguards the children? The answer to this sadly is no-one, for the majority no-one needs to but for the minority of children it would benefit them. I'm all for the protection of children, they deserve a good education without their parents/inadequate schools getting in the way. The same way, I believe, parents shouldn't be allowed to withdraw their children from sex ed classes or refuse vaccinations for them, children have rights.
As for trips, he has many and varied occupations and trips, much more than at school. Before he was withdrawn from school he typically got one trip per term and maybe one outside group coming into school. Now we have a trip whenever it supports his learning, this could be two a week or two a month depending.
He has to learn things he has no interest in and do things he doesn't want to do, after all as an adult we have to do these things all the time.
He has a small group of friends that he meets up with once or twice a month that he's had for 8+ years, he's also made some new friends through the classes/activities he attends who he sees several times a week. He also meets people everyweek who are new to him, so all in all what it would be like in many workplaces.
His learning takes place at the correct pace, pushing when he is capable of being pushed and revisiting subjects regularly. to ensure he's retaining the knowledge/skill. We have a 50/50 split of what he needs to learn and what he wants to learn, with little overlap!
As for those commenting on "experts" at schools, my eldest is the same age as OP's son. He goes to a mainstream school where many of his classes are taught by a teacher from a different subject presenting a power point, with no specialist knowledge or interest in the subject. The children are offered a multitude of trips but most are financially out of reach to most families.
My younger children go to a local primary school, it's incredibly small and all activities: play time, assembly, dinner time, after school discos etc are split into either single class or two class events as they cannot physically fit in more children. My home-edded son mixes with a wider variety of children than my younger schooled children.
Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to answer all points/questions made by others.
I don't think that all home ed programmes are perfect, I don't think all schools are either.
P.S. I've never met a home ed family that wave their religion around, this doesn't seem to be an aspect of home ed in our area.
If I've made any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, I don't really care, people make mistakes all the time the written word is not the be all and end all, the way you treat other people is!