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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be interested HOW a teenager is being home educated when both parents work?

88 replies

tessa231 · 22/09/2011 09:16

and didn't get further than GCSES (if that ) themseleves....
no no tutor

yes judgy.

OP posts:
noddyholder · 22/09/2011 11:35

It is none of your business you sound a bit of a busy body. Get on with your own life and leave others alone!

marfisa · 22/09/2011 11:42

If parents aren't up to ensuring that their child is receiving an education, that is a grave enough matter for SS. SS can contact the relevant educational authorities, but the family clearly needs psychological support as well. And if SS concludes that it's not a problem, well, so much the better.

It boggles my mind, frankly, that HErs are so unwilling to admit that home educating parents could ever be incompetent. There are plenty of incompetent school teachers - why no incompetent home educating parents? Apparently home education is so fantastic that merely deciding you want to do it means you can't possibly go wrong. Just making the decision to do it ensures your success. ???

carabos · 22/09/2011 11:42

Isn't one of the benefits of HE that you don't have to teach "subjects" as such and a lot of HE parents want to provide an education that is not in any way "curriculum based" ? Obviously the children need literacy and numeracy skills, but outside of that, what? I say this because I know a family that claims to home-educate, but their kids run around outside on their farm all day helping with the animals. I believe they can read and write, but that's about it in academic terms - who is to say that's wrong?

PotatoSkins · 22/09/2011 11:43

I have started a thread about all this, to try to convey more facts about HE and reasons why the OP here should not presume that the child in question is having no education.

PotatoSkins · 22/09/2011 11:44

here

Maryz · 22/09/2011 11:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

squeakytoy · 22/09/2011 11:47

If parents aren't up to ensuring that their child is receiving an education, that is a grave enough matter for SS. SS can contact the relevant educational authorities, but the family clearly needs psychological support as well.

Easy to say, but try living that life with a 15yo who will not go to school. Oddly enough, that teenager is now 10 years older, has his own business, and is a lot wealthier than any of his friends back then. He just did not like school, did not like authority, and would not go. SS would not have been able to force him to go either.

marfisa · 22/09/2011 11:50

Maryz, how awful that the school system failed you in that way. Sad

cornsillx · 22/09/2011 11:52

mind your own business OP.
You sound horrible by the way HTH

worldgonecrazy · 22/09/2011 11:54

I have met several HE teens. Most of them were being educated and were delightful children. One had a mother who thought HE consisted of allowing her son to play computer games all day and didn't socialise him with other children as they "bullied" him. The reality was that he had no idea how to socialise with teens and genuinely thought that the world did revolve around him - in fact he was probably one of the most obnoxious individuals I have ever met, and I place most of the blame for that on his parents. Education isn't just about academia, it's also about teaching children how to take their place in society and interact with that society. Maybe the OP has come across another child like this? SS had been involved with the family I am thinking of but hadn't actually done anything to help the situation.

PotatoSkins · 22/09/2011 11:57

Thqat is unfortunate worldgonecrazy, but I am sure you could say the same for a child who has attended school, not fitted in and spent the evenings on computer games, not socializing. That would be a different issue, and not down to HE alone.

Wabbit · 22/09/2011 12:00

It's how I was educated during my teens - didn't do me any harm, learned to play guitar, make an electric guitar, ride and care for horses, cook, my sister and I wrote fiction, songs...

It's called child lead learning

Riveninabingle · 22/09/2011 12:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Vallhala · 22/09/2011 12:09

marfisa, agreed that there MAY be other issues which ARE of SS interest when a child is feared to be missing from education but the responsibility for ensuring that he receives a FT education, at school or otherwise, is with the Local Authority's Education department, generally the Ed Welfare officer and then the Inclusion Officer and NOT with SS, they would not be the correct people to contact in the first instance if the concern is purely educational. The primary responsibility for a child's education is, of course, with the parent.

TotemPole · 22/09/2011 12:12

I believe they can read and write, but that's about it in academic terms - who is to say that's wrong?

carabos, if that really is the only education they are getting and they are capable of more then that I'd say that is wrong. It's limiting their future choices.

On the other hand, they could also be learning about the science of animals and behind farming. Learning more than children at school do about these subjects.

Maybe they are doing more academic stuff in the evenings.

you do not need a degree to teach your own children. In fact, you can do it without any qualifications.

PotatoSkins, I realise that. I was asking/wondering why teachers need one, if it isn't really necessary.

PotatoSkins · 22/09/2011 12:14

Totem - they would need the degree if they were going to teach as employement in a school or college etc. Otherwise, to teach your own, then not necessary.

Vallhala · 22/09/2011 12:22

Additionally marisa, I don't think that anyone here has claimed that no HE parent is incompetent.

Many HE families/former HE families WILL tell you though that often LA's are incompetent, that they can put unlawful pressure on parents to prevent them from HE-ing and that the public can be very judgemental and are very often extremely ill-informed about HE.

"You HE?"....

"Is that legal?"
"Why was she thrown out of school?" (She wasn't).
"You have to get the school's/LA's permission for that!" (Oh no you don't!).
"You HAVE to teach the NC" (Er... no!).
"I'm not taking the grandchildren out during a school day, I'll get stopped by the police, it's against the law." - from my mother.
"You should be at school!" fecking constantly, seemingly by every other shopkeeper in town.

And a letter from my LA reading like this - I paraphrase but it's factually accurate, "You must meet with our Ed Welfare officer, along with your child, at a time and date to suit us, bringing with you samples of her work." (Nowhere in law does it say that I must do ANY of those things).

"We have received information that you intend to HE. It will be put before our panel for them to consider your application to HE on X day" (No LA has the right to "consider" my RIGHT to HE and I do not have to, nor did I, make any such "application").

See? If the LA's can't get it right, you can imagine what the rest of the population's like! Maybe the parents in the OPs case are as pissed off with it all as I was.

AMumInScotland · 22/09/2011 13:34

The difficulty for HE parents on a thread like this is not that they can't believe any "HEing" parent is failing, but that so many are judged by people who know nothing about it, when they are in fact providing a suitable education for their child, which just doesn't happen to look like school.

They come onto a thread like this to defend the people they know (including themselves perhaps) who get this sort of judginess all the time, from people who just don't know anythign about it.

That doesn't mean they can't imagine a family where the teen is getting nothing, doing nothing, learning nothing. But they know the risk of judging without knowledge.

And the OP is (fair enough) not giving any detail about what she knows of this family which is leading her to judge. So HErs are not going to say "Tut how disgraceful" without being sure that it actually is disgraceful.

pinkstarlight · 22/09/2011 13:57

you dont have to educate a child during school hours it can be whenever if we are talking teenagers there are on line schools.

noddyholder · 22/09/2011 14:18

Glad to see this still going as I have something else to add in favour of HE fwiw. The boy we know is now at the same college as ds and is very very smart and doing well. Today I left the house before ds and saw his friend the HE one waiting outside mcdonalds where they all meet before college. He was signing to another student obviously deaf and I said hello and stopped to chat because I know he has a sister who is not deaf and he told me it is just something his mum taught them!

Feminine · 22/09/2011 14:31

When will people understand that school does not fit all kids.

NEVER has.

My 13 year old despises school ,I have had a battle getting him to school since 2003!

What he has selftaught himself is extraordinary ,he already could enter the world and make a very nice living.

Its not as simple as demanding a teen attend school ,it is a complex situation.

YABU :) there is no way you can understand what his parents have organized for him ...he might just be learning very nicely in a non-structured way.

I am still very much of the mindset that most of school is structured for females anyway.

I am personally looking in to un-schooling in the near future.

Original poster
tessa231 · 22/09/2011 14:52

Noddy - I've sent oyu the background info.

OP posts:
spiderpig8 · 22/09/2011 16:22

Sometimes it's just pragamtically better for a child not to be in school.The parents can't get them there.the teachers can't control them .The kid is miserable and clearly not remotely interested in learning and the other children are disrupted by them.

julienoshoes · 22/09/2011 16:30

"To do home education properly is very hard work."

Nope! sending unhappy children to school......now THAT is hard work!

I own a local home ed network webopage and yahoo email support group.
I've known quite a few teens educated very successfully in the circumstances quoted by the OP.
Yes IMO opinion you need involvement from an adult-but this doesn't have to be 9-3 Mon-fri in term time.
The teen could be saving his questions till his parents got home. He might be learning/playing/socialising on line/watching TV/DVDs/reading during hisparents working hours and with the parents involved in 'after school hours' and at weekends.
You'll be astonished how well motivated a HE teen can be, when they are following their own interests.

You don't need to have a broad and balanced or 'well rounded' curriculum.
You don't have to do anything that looks like school at al

We home educated completely autonomously all the way through our three childrens' teenage years-all the way to Further Education or Higher Education in fact, without doing any formal work whatso ever. The children didn't want to, so we didn't.
Instead we facilitated their interests. We didn't nag them to do anything. We didn't try and motivate them. We didn't have to. Allowing them to follow their own interests and learn through living life, is a very efficient type of education.

Like hundreds of home ed young people we know personally who were autonomously home educated they are now very successful at University level/self employed or employed.

For my children, being on their own in the day like this, wouldn't have been ideal-but it would have been doable and a would have been a whole lot better than being so unhappy in school they wanted to die which was the reality of why we took them out of school.

PotatoSkins · 22/09/2011 16:35

julie - would love you to come and post on the other thread. With all your wealth of experience, there are questions that may be good for you to answer