I home educate my 3 children

[LilyTuesday]

As the subject title says! I have found myself answering lots of questions over the years, once people find out we home Ed our children… but they are probably being polite and not saying how they really feel about the idea of choosing to never send a child to school…. So AMA if you’ve ever been curious!

8 gcses, grades 8 and 9.

@HospitalHelp all achieved in y11 or over a period of time? Are you prepared to say in what subjects and how many of those were the result of external tutoring? I'm struggling to believe that you as a parent taught your child all of those subjects to that level in year 11 with no professional involvement.

Can you also say in which year these qualifications were achieved? Your child is in sixth form I believe?

No? No. OK.

My kingdom for some moderation on this site.

You can struggle to believe all you like. We did them over three years. Her schooled friends did them over two before anyone says anything about staggering them being a bad thing. I accept that it might be a problem for admission in some colleges as a pp mentioned that it was at hers but we checked with her desired college if it would be acceptable for them and it was.
The subjects were Eng lit, English Lang, maths, biology, environmental management, history, astronomy and French. We used tutors for astronomy and French and neither had teaching degrees. We did all the rest ourselves with, as I said, course materials from the exam boards, past papers, field trips, lectures and talks by subject experts, bitesize and YouTube.

Quite

it WAS an interesting thread until a few people decided they really needed to prove it’s their way or the highway

Off to bed people, there are one or two here who seem a bit overtired..

@HospitalHelp presumably if they were over three years and she is now at sixth form college she did not sit exams in all of those subjects due to Covid. Is that correct? How did teacher assessed grades work for home schooling at that time?

Agreed. I’m tired of trying to prove to a stranger on the internet that my dd had a decent education. Hope anyone genuinely interested in learning about home ed got something from the thread but I’m out now.

Ok, fair enough if you don't want to answer. My understanding is though that in 2020 and 2021 the majority of homeschooled students didn't receive GCSE grades as exams didn't happen and teacher assessed grades were impossible due to them not being in school and having a teacher. I was interested to hear how you had got around this given your child's excellent exam result.

Just quickly before I bow out, home educated students are able to sit exams in January and the autumn as well as the summer so we dodged the covid issues.

X post, answered above.

That's not true for the majority of home educated young people as universities value the skills homeED students have that school children don't.

Anecdotally, a friend of mine is a uni professor and involved with admissions into his department. He says that home Ed students are viewed very favourably and they understand that their qualifications may look different. This is because their experience of home Ed students is that they are self motivated, independent learners who generally do very well.

I know Home Edders often say that universities and colleges value home education students who do not have traditional qualifications. But in every recent instance I have seen where this is claimed, the individual student did an access course, aimed at those without the necessary qualifications before doing the usual university or college course/.

I don't think anyone has doubted that teaching in a school is really hard, and you need to be well trained and prepared to teach 30+ often disengaged children of mixed abilities, something they're not very interested in, with a limited time allowed and lots of external pressures.

Luckily, home ed is nothing like that.

I

DH says the same (he was uni lecturer and admissions tutor for years).

I know many home Ed students who went to uni without doing an access course. One is a barrister.

I have a home educated child and a school educated child.

Unlike some of the children mentioned above, neither of mine are likely to get 10 8s&9s at GCSE. I'd be more than happy with 5s&6s and hope they don't want to go to university as we can't afford it and I doubt it's worth it anyway.

My home ed child is currently being assessed for autism and isn't in school as it isn't suitable for him. Special schools locally are also unsuitable due to his needs and academic ability so we are home educating. I'd say many/most of the home edders I know are in a similar situation.

I imagine DS will probably go to a home ed college provision part time from 14 and do 2-3 GCSEs a year over two or three years. If taking his GCSEs over 3 years is ruining his chances of getting into Oxford then we'll just have to live with it.

You are not alone. I posted already but we are not even looking at exams let alone university. I am lucky if I can get DD to leave the house just now so academic progress actually isn't much of a consideration. People make huge assumptions about home edders it the truth is I took mine out of school because her mental health was so poor and she is so vulnerable that it was the least I could do to protect her.

All the focus is on how will you get them to take GCSE and achieve but actually that simply isn't for some children. Mine is academically able and despite being largely sheltered can hold a conversation as if she is an adult. She can't speak outside of the house though, she can't do what the majority of 13 years olds can do. Her anxiety crippled her and removing the pressure has eased a lot of pain.

Sometimes the usual way is not the right way for your child. It isn't for mine. Her older siblings did go through school, and university.

Mental health is the most important thing. I think schools forget that sometimes with the pressure on exam results and league tables.

Another thread where people are offended by people making different choices.

School is great for some kids. Home Ed sounds like a lovely experience for some too. It also sounds like a life saving experience for some kids. I'm not gonna get upset about that just cos my kids are in mainstream education.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, it's been really interesting.

Ha ha.i think you are deluded
Universities have to be fair to all applicants.How can they judge your kids' applications against someone with good grades and an academic reference. How can they know your kids can cope with the course?

Of course you can get by, and even thrive with few or poor qualifications, but you are drastically reducing the chances of this and the choices available to your dc by home edding.

Unfortunately for a lot of children, school is not somewhere they can thrive and learn and they will not end up with lots of good qualifications.

Im potentially interested but don't know where to start! My DD is in Y5 and we have a dearth of good secondary options (and she has ASD).

Questions are:

1. Where the hell do you begin?!
2. Do you work and if so, is it possible to fit around work?