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.

As an adult who greatly suffered in both primary and secondary schools, I wish I had been home educated.
The bullying I experienced was so intense it led me to take an overdose as a pre-teen.
I failed all of my GCSEs, because I was so miserable at school I mostly just stared into space waiting for the hours to go by until home time.

I started working in a shop full time within 2 weeks of finishing year 11.
Almost 20 years and 4 jobs, 2 apprenticeships and 9 promotions later I'm in a well respected job I really enjoy.
I was able to resit some of my GCSEs whilst being paid (McDonald's apprenticeship in my teens).

I can honestly say all these years later i still struggle with my self confidence due to the bullying, unfortunately it's something I've never been able to shake fully.

I now have a toddler and find the idea of her being subjected to what I was absolutely terrifying/rage inducing.

During Covid my son, who does fine at school and just got great GCSE results, could not be motivated to do anything other than play computer games or go to the park. Any suggestion of anything else did not go down well. I was a part time key worker, but he could have stayed at home. I ended up sending him to school just to get him to get up and do something. He was 11/12 then. How do you plan to make sure your children remain interested in learning as they get older and how will you approach it if they refuse to do anything that resembles learning.

I’m so sorry for what you went through.
What isn’t recognised enough is how toxic the school environment can be for so many (I’m an ex teacher). in my opinion it’s an artificial environment which just breeds competition and a toxic pecking order culture.

Re your toddler, just so you know, school is ‘opt-in’ not ‘opt-out’ in the UK. You are perfectly within your rights to keep your child at home, not make an application and just carry on what you’re doing now. No-one and no ‘official’ body has any authority over you or your family ✨ do what you think is best.

Was that to me? You can post it again.

Unfortunately in many counties, the LA has very limited powers if a family doesn’t want their involvement. I’d absolutely home ed my children if I didn’t need to work so this certainly isn’t a dig at home education (which can be vastly superior to mainstream if done right imo) - but it does concern me the current lack of oversight that LAs have. If requested, the family has to demonstrate ‘ adequate learning’ but I have no doubt with all the available resources online that would be easy enough to do without actually delivering any of it as they have no right to home access.

That's a shame, I think lots of children really struggled during covid.
I guess we can never really know what the future holds.

Most of the homeschooled children I know are very used to being around people of all ages, and are equally comfortable talking to adults, or to children (their own age but also older and younger). In my experience, homeschooled children recognise the old and the young as fellow humans.

School kids often see adults and children of different ages as part of some kind of power structure, rather than as potential friends or potentially interesting people to talk to.

Random thought here, I notice the same with Privately educated kids - they xan communicate and adapt well to all ages in social settings

My question, OP - I would HE if I had more money as I would bring in tutors and do all the extracurricular stuff going, is this common in families who don't enter their kids into Child Genius on channel 4? 😂

IME most people don't use tutors or if they do it's when children are preparing for GCSEs or A Levels.
I know a couple of people who have tutors through EOTAS and one who has family support that pays for some tutoring.
It's a bit more common for families to club together and get a tutor to work with a small group of 4 or 5 children together to split the cost.

How do you know your eldest was reading the Harry Potter book accurately, with comprehension?

There's more to literacy than just 'reading'.

How do you know what maths skills they learnt? Did they have the opportunity to apply what they maths to real-life situations?

Doesn't really sound like they did any actual learning...

Sounds like you're depriving them of an actual education, particularly as you are working as a childminder at the same time!!!

What’s your plan for your kids at secondary school age?

This is spot on...!

I home educate my teenager.

Anyone who worries about socialisation - here's my thoughts;

At school they are with the same group of children, same age group and often same ability all day.

My home educated child hangs out with people aged from birth to the elderly. He goes to an armed force cadet group, St John ambulance, youth club, as well as all his friends who are a mix of fellow home edded kids and schooled kids. I've barely seen him this summer as he has been out almost every day with friends.

He comes along to PTA meetings with me, we go to a local care home where he chats to the residents, he listens to readers in a local primary school. He can literally talk to anyone of any age, articulately and thoughtfully.

Good home edders also expose their children to a massive range of experiences. For example, we have visited a local mosque and Hindu temple in recent months where he had a tour, ate with the community and learned an incredible amount. In top of that we go to museums, open days, tours at fire stations and ambulance stations and we regularly go and talk to people at various settings to find out more about what they do.

He's done sports days and forest schools with local home Ed groups.

When we are at home, we have a fairly structured day as that works best for him (and me!). We use a mixture of online group tutor sessions, me sitting working with him through exam board syllabus and self facilitated learning. He's just turned 13 and has already completed an environmental management course and will be studying for an icgse in it this year. He wouldn't have that opportunity at school.

We have to send yearly reports to our LA showing what we do and how we can show progression.

My son knows more about gardening than I'll ever know (all self taught), understands taxes and marketing a business, he can decorate, do lots of basic diy, can plan and shop and cook meals.

Most of his peers who are just starting year nine can do next to none of that, grunt when talked to by an adult and spend their lives outside school glued to a screen.

Home education definitely does not work for everyone. You have to have a child who is self motivated and determined (one of mine would be terrible at being home educated so goes to school!) , and you need to be too. But for a lot of children, home education works perfectly.

@thefamous5 that sounds wonderful ❤️ your DS sounds amazing and really thriving.

I'm thinking about it but have an only child. Do you think this is suitable as they won't have siblings to socialise with and how do you make sure they mix with other children? Thank you ☺️

Definitely possible you just need to put more thought into socialising than most school parents do!
I would join your local home ed groups on facebook and see if there are regular meet ups near you. Are there any farm or forest schools or home ed co-ops or childminders you could use?
Lots of home ed kids also go to after-school type groups like Beavers, Rainbows, church youth groups, or join local sports teams.

@NotBackToSchool hope you don't mind another question... what would you do to enable home education if you weren't a childminder and had an office based job for 35 hours a week?

I think it would be hard - there are learning communities or farm/forest school settings that cater to home educated children but usually they will do a max of 18 hours/3 days a week.
Maybe if you had two parents working 4 days a week each, or one doing weekdays and one weekends, and a mix of wfh and childcare.
It also depends on the child's age - it would be pretty impossible to work full time and he a 5 year old, but a focussed teenager working on gcses might be quite happy to work alongside a wfh parent.

If money was no object you can employ a governess!

How so, if they’re now KS1 & KS2 and Covid is what prompted your homeschooling? My son was in reception when Covid hit, he’s now going into year 5, so KS2. So your (and my) KS1 child was preschool age during Covid.

My youngest went to nursery and reception after covid :)

I have always been very curious about homeschooling. I don't think it would work for me and my dc but I admire those who do it.

1. do you think anyone can homeschool or do you have to have a certain level of money, intelligence, qualifications etc?
2. do you think "lockdown learning" that school children did when the schools were closed was similar to homeschooling?
3. how does unschooling/more casual homeschooling work as the children get older? Do they carry on only doing the subjects/activities that interest them?
4. Is it common for homeschooled children to do one or 2 gcse's at a time and over a longer period of time rather than 8 at once at the end of year 11? Do you think this is easier? Is there a skill in doing 8 GCSE exams at once that children who spread them out aren't capable of? Or is taking 8 gcse's at once a bad idea?
5. Do most unschooled children take gcse's and then go to college or do many finish homeschooling at 16 or 18 with no qualifications?
6. I see many unschooling families in Instagram where the children seem to be mainly paddling in the river and playing board games. Do you think that's all they do or do they do maths and history etc too, just not in the photos?

This isn't home educating.

There isn't any real educating happening.

Walks in the kids, arts and crafts, video lessons and enjoying a story all complement a proper education but are not education.

In the woods *

Its not for me and I wouldn't want my DC to do this, but quite frankly it sounds like your children are learning lots and are happy. The way schools are with burnt out teachers and so many children who can't behave, your way is probably better 🤷🏻‍♀️

So their day at school today was reading in bed and going to the park then a bit more reading ??? Ok