My children are home educated AMA

[NotBackToSchool]

With all the talk about rising numbers of home educated children and increasing pressures on attendance with fines for parents, I thought there might be interest in a typical day for children who haven't gone back to school this week.

My kids as KS1 and KS2 age.

We started this morning with my younger child getting in to bed with me to read her current book - a ladybird 'read it yourself' version of Heidi.
My older child read the 4th Harry Potter book in their own bed.

After breakfast they both did a maths video lesson before I started work as a childminder.

We're using the book 'The Tiny Seed' this week to learn about seed dispersal and made seed collages.

They mostly played with their friends all day and we went to the park.

This afternoon one of them has a dance class, and later we'll be finishing off the Lucy Worsley Six Wives series on iplayer (SIX the musical obsession!)

Everyday is a bit different generally but today was pretty typical! If anyone wants to know more then just ask.

Do they know their tables?

I can’t really see how you can be home schooling your children if you work as a childminder.

How do you envision this model working as the children get older, and you have lots of small children to look after while also meeting the needs of older children in such a way that they can pass exams?

One of mine is taught at home with online and tutors who come to our home, but we don't teach her ourselves, I don't have the capabilities at those levels , or time (full time). It's lovely having her home but she doesn't socialise much (autistic with sensory processing disorder) so would love some ideas about how to tap into home taught kids for her to have a friend or two

There are lots of different approached to education and some are more formal or structured then others.
I would say we take a semi-structured approach - so some things such as maths we are aligned to the national curriculum and we do use formal methods like video lessons and workbooks.
Other things like history or science, I ensure they have lots of opportunities to learn about what they are interested in by taking them on trips or to workshops, visiting places, providing books, documentaries, doing hands on experiments.
My role isn't really a teacher though - I facilitate their learning. If they need a teacher for something they go to a class, either online or in person (like art, dance, musical instruments - not my thing at all!).

If you are willing to outsource music, dance, art to experts…

… why not maths, English, science etc?

Why do the former require a teacher, but not the latter?

Are you a qualified teacher?

Even school children are only at school 30 hours a week.

Similarly if a child comes to me a couple of days a week, there's still an awful lot of time for them to be at home. I don't have any minded children of any age, educated at school or home, who come to me full time.

Time will tell if your approach works. If they end up with worthwhile careers then great. The only problem will be if it doesn’t and then there’s no going back.

Are the authorities normal with you or they flooded you with scary emails about their so called proclaimed they know best what is in the best interest of the child?

Looking into the future, how do you plan to make sure they're adequately educated to a high enough degree to take on GCSEs if there isn't a particular 'structure' that you're working round? Would the decision to take GCSEs be yours or theirs? And what if they didn't want to take them and the impact that may have on their future careers/lives?

Maths - my older child learned about prime numbers to 100. My younger child's lesson was more a recap/revisit of previous learning about counting to 100 by making 10s.

Reading - my youngest particularly challenged herself with a text she found difficult

Science - we looked at the different kinds of seeds we eat as part of our diet and different kinds of seed dispersal. My eldest already new a bit about this and enjoyed sharing their knowledge

History - we found out about the story of Anne of Cleeves and discussed the reliability of historical sources in terms of whether she was really ugly.

Not to mention developing physical and social skills.

I also HE. I am reluctantly having my third HEing experience following disastrous high school experiences (two children are now adults and both working full time).

My question is how do you keep your cool when questioned by people who don’t understand how HE works and insist that your child’s day should look like a day at school and that you should be highly educated?

My second child had very little in the way of academic education, yet on testing at 16 showed to have progressed in English and maths (the only things needing to be assessed prior to college) at the same rate as his school-going peers. If you create the right environment children learn. School for many children is an harmful environment and I’m so pleased we are able to opt out of it. I just wish people could understand that school isn’t the only way, and that school actively damages a large number of children.

No they both went to school in the first couple of years and can return to school any time they want.

I'm confident in covering maths, English and science. I can't teach anyone to tap dance or play the flute.

Something that worries me about home education is the lack of exposure to different cultures, views and just outlooks generally. How do you ensure your children don't exist in a monoculture? Do you worry their worlds are quite small?

Also I know one family who home educated and the kids have done well academically but as individuals they are very hard work, there were few rules and boundaries at home and as adults they are spoilt and basically believe the world revolves around them. I don't think this is true of all HE kids but with your particular model, where they are primarily allowed to follow their own interests, how do you help them learn to do the parts of life they don't want to?

So is this your first year of home education? Not sure how they could have been to school pre COVID for a few years?

I don't know all my tables yet
My older one I'd say has a reasonable grasp of them and my youngest only knows 2s, 5s, 10s.

It sounds like you are doing a great job. I'm not a fan of home schooling, though. I work in a school and have found that the kids who have come back into lessons after being home schooled can't deal with the social sides of things. Please, please make your kids socialise with lots of different kids!!

what are worthwhile careers? what about the minimum wage jobs which everyone on mumsnet is scared about being short staffed also.

I'm not home schooling and don't follow a school model :)
Luckily I don't work 24/7 and neither does my partner so we aren't short of time at all.
As my children have got older they have become more independent in their learning.

We are HE - both of us have NO GCSEs !!! We’ve already seen 2 dc through private GCSEs and they got level 8s and 9s!

We had/have a very structured timetabled approach in school hours as find that works better for our dc except one who needs forest school and is a very visual and hands on learner and he just does 3 days at forest school and then 2 totally unstructured days where he chooses his activities.

This is exactly the same as school though isn't it?

Don't 1/3 of children at school not pass their GCSEs? That's an awful lot of parents you could say have taken the wrong approach and now there's no going back for them.

I work in a school and have found that the kids who have come back into lessons after being home schooled can't deal with the social sides of things. Please, please make your kids socialise with lots of different kids!!

Most children I know who are home educated are HE because they are autistic or for whatever reason couldn’t cope with school. They couldn’t cope with the social side of school anyway.

After school most people don’t encounter socialising in the same way ever again - where else are you crammed together with others of the same age and expected to get on with it?

No, my eldest was at school before covid, and my youngest did nursery and reception at school after covid.

it is true and it happens
I don't see the logic in forcing kids to go to evil places and shoving mental illness pills down their throat, when you can just have them home and they be happy and flourishing