Attitudes towards home education

[JudgedAgain]

In the last week I’ve had 3 comments about my dd ! In the past we’ve had comments too and I think maybe people don’t understand a lot about it ?

We don’t follow school hours - dd does 2-3 hours learning each day of core subjects and the rest of the time she decides what she does.
We are flexible in that she can switch days round and work on weekends to have ‘time off’ during the week. Last week she wanted to go shopping so we did this - we had 3 comments when out about why she wasn’t at school , one from a taxi driver and 2 from random people one of which said I’d should be careful as we ‘could be reported ‘ 🤦‍♀️ it’s not a legal requirement to follow school hours !!
We had gone on a weekday early as dd has many health issues and ASD so we like to go out when it’s as quiet as possible for her .

In the past I’ve had comments basically saying home education is an inferior option , that we ‘gave up’ that dd isn’t socialising enough (she doesn’t want to !) and how I should be following school hours as she’s not doing enough but if you factor in break times and moving between classes, assembles etc the core learning hours are very similar.

It’s just frustrating to feel judged and like I shouldn’t be out 9-3 with dd people think she should be in a classroom or at home at a desk working I think.

I home educated my eldest until he was 9. I’ve heard it all.

People who negatively comment don’t like things that are outside of their own normal. I found they took my decision to home ed as a slight on their decision to send their children to school. Or they didn’t understand it, therefore, it must be wrong.

And people generally have no fucking clue about home ed. 2-3 hours is heaps.

If I spoke to friends about home ed (usually instigated by them), I would then get a monologue about how fantastic their dc school was.

I just learned to live with it.

It was really uncomfortable Ive suddenly realised that a school age child out between 9-3 is noticed by everyone!!!

My sister homeschools her 2 girls and has done for years so I've had quite a good look into this world by now. She is very academic and expects her girls to achieve. The reason they're homeschooled is because the local school is dire and they can't afford private.
Anyway, throughout the years we've had lots of experience with other homeschoolers, especially the Facebook ones. The level of hostility these people have towards local authorities is insane. No one is allowed to post that they've had a great visit from the LA, or that they've happily provided information, the moderator will say, please dont do this, not everyone is nice.
Additionally, I know lots of kids are failed in school and are not doing much at all in the classroom, however the amount of parents bragging that their kid has done jack all all day is mind boggling. This isn't one group. This is multiple and has got 1000x worse since lockdown.
This obsession with unschooling is ridiculous. They aren't unschooling properly. They aren't schooling at all. There are parents dragging their kids to various sibling appointments all day and bragging about it online, frankly bullying the LA if they as much as raise their eyebrows at it. There seems to be a new obsession with playing with crystals instead of teaching them to read. I could honestly go on and on. It's unbelievable until you see it. There is actually a group now that is purely there to 'translate' your kids unschooling activity into the equivalent learning. Eg went to the hospital appointment with sibling would be: jack went on a trip to read sings in the real world. Jack learn time keeping and how to tell the time between two point. Jack learnt to sit still in an area they need to be quiet in. Yes, these things are valuable but they are not things an average child doesn't get on top of school.
Sadly, the hate towards the home ed community will magnify if these parents aren't reigned in. They are making the normal folk like you and my sister look like nutters.

It drives me mad. People have very negative attitudes towards HE. My daughter is HE not through choice (she didn’t get a place at a suitable school so I have no choice) I posted on here a little while back and as soon as I mentioned my daughter was HE I got so many negative comments, someone even told me I wasn’t fit to HE as I had made ONE spelling mistake 🙄 (I’m fully aware how to spell the word I hadn’t noticed the mistake.)

Yup.

Christ, the amount of times we were asked “why aren’t you at school?”

You say they are home educated and you wither get looked at like you have three heads or get nasty comments about how they should be at home learning.

My friend home eds, I totally get why, school was absolutely the wrong environment for her dd.

People don't understand, as a rule.

We have found it works really well to have set hours with planned subjects but to also allow dd to choose what she does so best of both worlds. She always chooses to start work at 7 or 8 am as wakes up super early - then she finished early and picks her own activities- she often without any prompting chooses activities that are educational like watching documentaries or films of books she’s read , painting etc so it works well.

We do happily give the LA samples of work too which is frowned upon I’ve realised by a lot in the HE community but we just want the least amount of hassle so happy to jump through their hoops!

I'm a primary school teacher.

Children spend an hour a day doing literacy and an hour a day doing numeracy. A couple of hours a week doing geography/history, an hour doing science, 2 hours of PE plus ICT, music, PSHE etc etc. They have stories read to them, sit in assembly, play and eat. Spend half an hour a day in registration etc.

They spend around 4 hours a day in lessons which are not tailored to them specifically but consider the needs of all the children and all abilities in the class. Lots of time is 'wasted' on behaviour management. They spend around 20/30 mins per lesson actually working and the rest is input.

I think what you're doing sounds great, tbh.

Thank you 😊

We had a nice chap from the LA visit once a year. He had a cup of tea and ds showed him what projects he was working on.

It was just a box ticking exercise for him and honestly, we spent more time chatting about dogs as we had the same breed.

I could never admit those visits to some of the other home educators I knew though, I’d have been shunned.

@JudgedAgain You sound great. My sister has finally found people like you who she's now befriended and feels a lot less alienated. When she posted in one of these groups that she has sent LA samples of work and even took them up on the offer of support, as the LA was offering free maths and English tutoring and she thought people might like to try. She got over 60 comments of people sending her borderline hate and the moderator of the group got in touch with her to say she'll be asked to leave if she does this.
They supply many parents with pre written replies that are extremely hostile and invite hostility from the LA. Almost all of these people started home ed after lockdown. I have absolutely no doubt that some LAs are assholes. That's the case with everything though isn't it. Ultimately their job is to safeguard the children and it actually scares me what some of these kids seem to be doing at home. They are doing less than they would, even at the worst school.
Unfortunately this is the bit of home ed that most people now see. It is inviting yet more hostility into a really amazing community. I applaud any parent who homeschools. It is incredibly difficult to do well, but it is so lovely to see happy children who are doing well. I wish I was in the position to do it, and support my sister any way I can.

I've found the opposite. We planned from start to home ed and we've had almost entirely positive comments. A lot of the comments were that they wished it was an option for them. I now have more colleagues and family members who have started home ed after being colossally failed by the school system.

We lived in a very rural area at the time though, not many people the local schools had about 50 in an entire school, so I guess that’s why they used to do home visits, not so many kids on their books!

Yes i made a mistake on a fb group mentioning it once. The thing is I want the easy life for us as we have a lot going on so if the LA ask for examples of work to show the progress then I’m very happy to do that ! Arguing because they apparently don’t have the power to insist i worry will make us look difficult ? But other HE then said that people like me make EHE officers give people like them a harder time. I think I’m just in it to educate my child but they have taken on a different role alongside to have their freedom to not be questioned/prove anything maintained

I don’t have a problem with HE and those who choose to do it, for whatever reason. I have limited experience of a family member, who chose that for her eldest child. If that’s what suits the child’s needs, then that what’s best for them.

It must be limited to a certain extent though, by the time a parent is able to give to it, so it’s self limiting to a particular group. I’m sure that it’s really annoying to have people querying why your child isn’t in school, but the majority are in school during term time and it takes a while for people to get their heads round a different form of education.

I do feel very out there and alone as we obviously aren’t in the school system and I don’t fit in in the HE groups I’ve tried so far I think I’ll keep looking. Our LA are great we had one visit and do a yearly report with examples of work and they let us know they are there if we need them but they don’t pester us at all

I see it from the other side as I work for a local authority.

It's very difficult when you have a child with additional /complex needs who is never seen by any professional not to wonder what is going on. Remember most safeguarding concerns about children are raised by schools so if you don't have that a massive piece of the jigsaw is missing.

It's far from uncommon for parents to say they are home educating when their primary motivation is that no one sees the child. Some of those children are being abused/neglected. That's why the duty for LAs to check was introduced in the first place.

I've also seen extremely religious families do it when they don't want the child to have any exposure to other views/beliefs.

I get why a genuine, dedicated home educator would find it objectionable and not understand why they have to justify themselves or what business of the LA's it is but a significant minority of home Ed set ups are not in the child's best interests hence the suspicion.

that's very revealing isn't it, that other HEers think you will 'make them look bad' if you demonstrate to the LA that you are actually educating your child!
and worse that the moderators collude in whipping up suspicion towards the LA
I completely accept that HE is necessary for some children and can be a positive choice but if your child reaches 16 without the basic academic and life skills that their peers have, you have disadvantaged them seriously, so I think it's very reasonable that the LA should be taking an interest

This is why we’ve been happy to have a visit and give samples of work etc but the vast majority of HE groups are very against it but I feel that is just going to cause suspicion surely ?! I got told by supplying samples of work I was making life harder for other home educators as the EHE officers then think they can ‘get away with it ‘ with everyone 🤦‍♀️

yes because all jobs I think require at least the core subjects maths and English at a certain level so we are working towards that but it doesn’t seem to be the norm

@JudgedAgain My sister felt lonely for a very long time. The girls are nearing end of primary and she's finally found a couple of families she's clicked with. This is through educational trips organised on Facebook. We've found that people who go on those generally have a pretty similar attitude in terms of level of education and liaison with LA.

There is definitely a sense of political activism in these groups. You can't control us etc. My sister was told the exact same thing, you're making it difficult for us as they'll expect the same. The scary part is, we didn't even send much. So if they can't send that, what on earth are their kids learning.

@StillWeRise There is a scary amount of kids going through school and not getting any qualifications at 16, so I can understand why these parents have this view though. No one cared when my child wasnt doing anything at school, why do you care now type of thing. It's a complex situation but there is definitely an air of political activism between these parents. Almost like proving a point that they're better than the institution.

I wouldn't be so rude as to tell you my opinions about homeschooling

Most of the home educated children we kept in touch with did maths and english GCSEs and some others if they liked and then went to college at 16 for further study.

Some went at 16 and did english and mags gcse along with a btec.

Out of all of them, ds is the only one not at uni and he went to school from year 5 (well, he’s doing a job where you do a degree apprenticeship, so he will have a degree but he’s working in an emergency service job with it, but his home ed mates are reading English, Economics and engineering).

What I meant to say is, just because they didn’t do the massive amount of GCSEs that schooled kids do, it didn’t hold them back. All anyone really cares about is maths and english to progress.