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 you do regular testing to ensure they are at the level they need to be for their age group?

I'm a childminder and have two children in primary both Ks2. Your day sounds like what my own children do in summer holidays. My children are great with the tots when we go out but no way could they cope with it all year round as they need children their own age. How do you manage that? The January lockdown was the worst time in my life when I had to homeschool my own children whilst look after 3 toddlers. I found it pretty impossible .

Secondly how do you teach them skills like time management? In my previous job the only teenage temp I had to fire was a homeschooled boy who just couldn't turn up on time. Not saying all homeschooled children would be like this of course.

I'll have a go at those if the OP doesn't mind! I unschooled my kids, who are now 24 and 18.

1. Due to cost of living it is getting increasingly difficult for families to make ends meet without two full-time working parents, and expected working hours on Universal Credits are pretty high. When mine were young, most families who were determined to make it work could do so. Now that is less true.

I don't think you need qualifications or academic talent. You do need to be prepared to hunt down opportunities and resources.

2. No. Firstly, in lockdown homeschooling, schools usually called the shots and there was no flexibility for parents to adapt to their kids' needs. For example, my younger child was in no way ready to learn to read when she was 4/5/6, and it would have been awful for me to have to make her attmept it when I knew the time wasn't right. Second, of course lockdown was lockdown with all the additional challenges that brought for everyone: being shut up in the house without access to friends and activities, and in many cases parents trying to work from home as well as educating their kids. That was hugely difficult.

On the other hand, there were some families whose kids had never been happy at school and who thrived without the weight of school attendance on them. Lockdown gave them confidence that they could be okay without school. Some of those people then moved to home ed.

3. It can go either way. Some families move away from unschooling when their kids are 12 or so, and make it clear it's now time to be working toward GCSEs. Others continue to let the kids choose. Given a free choice, many kids will choose academics, but others don't.

4. Yes, it's common to spread exams out and actually pretty unusual to sit 8 in one year. Spreading them out lets kids focus better without all those subjects to balance. And it's more flexible: if the child doesn't seem ready for a certain subject when planned, then they can postpone. Being a brilliant multitasker is definitely a skill. I am not convinced it's a skill everyone has to demonstrate. I am highly academic, but I would not like to juggle 8+ subjects and sit all the exams in the same season. I never had to do that at uni or in any of the jobs I've had since.

5. Most unschooled teens I've known have chosen to do some GCSEs, usually fewer than other kids though. They tend to do the bare minimum to get where they want to go, whether that's college or a job. Remember that some kids are unschooled because of their special needs, and that those special needs may make GCSEs inappropriate for them anyway. My younger child is highly unlikely to be capable of GCSEs.

6. I think both of your theories are right. Younger kids in particular usually choose to spend most of their time learning through play rather than formal learning. Also, sitting at a table is less Instagrammable than paddling in the stream. But it's hard to imagine a child not doing ANY maths or history, given that it's all around us, so no, they aren't ONLY paddling in the stream!

how do you teach them skills like time management? In my previous job the only teenage temp I had to fire was a homeschooled boy who just couldn't turn up on time.

By letting them get fired from their teenaged temp job! 😂I am serious. Kids learn by trying and failing. I'm sure it would have been preferable for you if this particular lad had learned time management by getting school detentions instead of wasting YOUR time. But from his point of view, the lesson got learned just as well by losing his job.

My older child was pretty good at time management, but still missed trains to see concerts, got the raised eyebrow from the sensei when walking in to the martial arts dojo ten minutes late, and had to walk home from town after missing the last bus. Now they are grown up they don't have that problem so much anymore.

Can't speak for OP but this is actually one of the reasons why I choose to Home Ed. I began because my eldest DC needs weren't being met in mainstream but I had also found that I was uncomfortable with the focus where we are on religion in all aspects of learning despite it being a supposedly secular school (NI), also how biased it was. We learn not only about different cultures around the world and that there are many religions not just one or two but we also learn about the situation here without the bias that was coming across in school plus we are free to delve deeper into any that particularly interest them.
It's also something we can take a cross curricular approach with incorporating not only pshe but also history, geography, music, art, literature, science and cooking, sometimes even languages (each child has chosen a different language to study as a result of their own individual interest from studying different cultures)

I’d love it if secondary schools were opt-in for specific courses, like colleges. My kids would go p/t to the ones they wanted/needed, kids who wanted could be f/t. Teachers could teach kids who wanted to be there instead of everyone’s time being wasted. So much time/life is wasted in schools, teachers’ and kids’.

I’ve huge respect for teachers but they’re put in impossible positions. And our system, with public exams that must fail 40% of each cohort is stupid.

Are you a registered childminder or an 'independent?' If the former, how do the activities you do each day meet with the EYFS framework as well as suitable objectives for the older children? I imagine everything you do is probably independent/alternative as I can't see how you would choose to work within a tight framework when you are 'anti-school'. I hope you have appropriate insurance in place at least.

I think most parents in an ideal world would like some kind of hybrid between the rigours of the school curriculum and the freedoms of home educating, but most have to choose one or the other and a mix of financial constraints and need to work, lack of confidence in their ability to teach and concerns about their children's futures and achieving appropriate qualifications mean most plump to school. HE is perfect for children with ASD, and co-morbid conditions such as anxiety and ADHD, but most children do benefit from the structure and socialisation of school and learning from a trained professional.

but most children do benefit from the structure and socialisation of school and learning from a trained professional

There's no evidence one way or another about that. People tend to assume it must be true, because otherwise why would schools exist? But schools were never designed to promote socialisation, and there are aspects of the school social setting which are positively harmful for socialisation. Schools were set up to deliver an efficient education in a time when many adults didn't have the knowledge or resources (books, internet etc) to do that themselves.

Some home educators like to trot out research about home educated children outperforming their schooled peers on academec and social measures, but I don't think we can make any meaningful claims because they HE kids a self-selected (or parent-selected) group who aren't typical of the general population.

However, while we can't prove that home education gives better outcomes than school, we also can't prove the opposite. There are certainly plenty of individual examples of children who have done really well both socially and academically through home education. I count my older child among those. I feel their social skills are particularly strong, and they are top of their class at university. Home ed does not have to be the option of last resort which is reserved only for kids who are atypical.

How many friends would you say each child has and how often are they mixing?

How do you organise yourself? Do you flick through the national curriculum then have a plan for the year/month e.g. we will end up covering the tudors in history this year or we’ll learn all these geographical terms and then get it to happen more naturally?

How many hours/days a week are they with other tutors for things?

How much time do you get to yourself per week?

Also what are your kids currently most interested in?

“but most children do benefit from the structure and socialisation of school and learning from a trained professional

There's no evidence one way or another about that”

This would be just as valid the other way around. Schools are a great environment for some children, but most would benefit from the relaxed timetable and enhanced autonomy of home ed.

They see other children almost every day. I'd say one has one close friend and then several other children they're friendly with and play with on a weekly basis but they're not the most sociable child and like lots of downtime.
The other has a group of 4 or 5 close friends they see a couple of times a week and face time with in between, maybe another 4 or 5 friends they see less often and then also neighbourhood children they play with and children they see at clubs and classes. I guess maybe 15 children they'd count as friends or invite to their birthday party.

I don't follow the national curriculum except our maths programme does. We use a nature curriculum that's quite seasonal and festival based and other than that just do what interests us.

They don't have any tutors.

I don't really have set time to myself but I suppose just whatever time I want at the weekends and after work.

They're interested in all kinds of things, science, baking, sewing, history, arts & crafts, theatre/musicals.

I'm not sure what an 'independent' is, I don't think that's a thing in England anyway. I'm not anti-school :)

No, I don't have an interest in what level their age group is.
I use some assessment when we need it, for example assessment at the end of maths unit to check understanding, or I used the phonics check to see if they had any gaps there. I've used reading age assessments just for interest really.

I love the idea of nature curriculum! Where did you find it? Do you have lots of HE friends and a decent community? I think I’m worried I’d find it isolating as I can be a bit of an introvert. Do you have a set timetable eg every Monday is outside play and science, maths is every morning, swimming class is Friday etc ?

No they don't go to school

Keep coming back to this thread as I'm fascinated by it.

I managed someone who had been home schooled who we unfortunately had to fire. In my career they're the only person I've ever had to fire.

They were fine at the work - but as soon as they did something wrong an were pulled up on it they behaved really strangely... Can't get into the specifics, but lots of arguments with team members, outright lies about other members of staff that were proven to be lies, and in their eventual disciplinary (remote) call, their mum joined the call to defend them! They were in their late 20s, so not a teenager.

Once it was found out they were home schooled our HR department said they always have more workplace issues with adults who were home schooled as kids.

Do you think that's just a stereotype, or do you think home schooled kids are less suited for a structured workplace?

I’d love to know this but I also wonder if the more the correlation than causation argument that kids who are homeschooled often have issues that mean they need homeschooling eg mental health, neurodiversity. It sounds like that guy was just a bit off. I guess some very weird, insular families! I’d like to think this is less the case now as many more families homeschool since covid so it’s a whole range of people. Tbh my son is ND and if homeschooling him gets him a job I’d be so happy even if he ended behaving like that guy 🤣 I’d never get on the phone though!

Another question! I feel like it’s often very religious people (especially in USA and Canada) or very alternative types. Do you feel you fit into either of those groups? Is it a range of people these days?

I don't know enough home educated adults to come to conclusions about what they are like at work to be honest.
The home educated children we know are all pretty normal but with a much higher percentage of children with disabilities and neurodiversity compared to the general population. I imagine that probably influences the stereotype that home educated children are weird or have poor social skills. They would have been viewed as 'weird' or 'different' however they were educated.

I have found that stereotype to be somewhat true in the US. (I'm not so familiar with Canada.) Not here in the UK at all. It seemed to me that very few "average" Americans would countenance taking their kids out of school no matter how ill-suited school was to their child's needs. By contrast, here home education is something that ordinary parents will sometimes do if they feel there's no other option.

Sometimes one set of families appears to dominate the local home ed scene and so at a glance it might appear that all home educators are like them. But often there are lots and lots of families of a different "type" who have simply not successfully sought each other out because they think there's nobody like them.

Personally I haven't found this diversity of backgrounds to be a problem. I don't have to agree with the parents' views in order for my kids to be friends with theirs. We can all go on museum trips together and take our kids to the park together. Of course, when I'm with my "tribe" - the people like me - it's relaxing and I can let my hair down, which is quite nice.

our HR department said they always have more workplace issues with adults who were home schooled as kids

I do think that's probably a stereotype. Given that maybe 1% of children are home educated, how many such people will a given HR department have encountered? Even in a large company, it can't be many.

Anyway, how would the HR people know? Do people really list their school on their CV? Home education doesn't feature on my eldest's CV, and wouldn't tend to come up in workplace conversations.

but also fluent Arabic

I find the fluency in Arabic interesting. How did you manage this. Is Arabic spoken in the home?

That’s interesting. Did you find people easily to mix with?

Personally yes, it was easy for us, but I know not everyone experiences it the same way. I live in an urban area, so there are plenty of HE families to meet and loads of activities on offer. One of my kids has a natural social talent, understanding what makes people tick, always seeming to say and do the "right" thing instinctively. The other has special needs and while her social skills aren't perfect, she likes everyone and therefore nearly everyone likes her. Both of them have a great many friends.

But then, one of my kids has a close friend whose behaviour can seem aggressive, and his mum feels they are often unwelcome wherever they go, in both HE and non-HE groups. The mum reckons she has autism herself, and so smoothing her child's social challenges can be extra hard for her. It's only since he became a teen that he's found/made a good friendship group. In fact, he has half a dozen friends round at his house right now for the evening. That would have been hard to imagine just four years ago.

So it has been tough for them. No worse than school, which was disastrous, but still lonely.

@NotBackToSchool

OP - what does Ofsted think and is homeschooling mentioned on your Inspection report?

Who do the minded parents think?