To wonder how ordinary people afford home schooling?

[toptramp]

I do have respect for people who home school. It is not for me principally because I cannot afford not to work and also I love my job too much to jack in in. I wouldn't like to work at home.

Do homeschoolers rely on a working partner, working at home, benefits or charities to fund their home schooling.

For all those who work from home- how do you balence it with schooling your kids?

I sometimes feel that mabe it is good to go with the flow of the child but could a child teach herself to read or write for example? Is it possible to school but also facilitate the child's interests?

toptramp my DD could already read & write by the time I took her out of school, but she did teach herself to code HTML when she wanted her blog to look prettier! If the child wants to learn something then they will - your parental involvement may or may not be necessary.
I found it quite easy to cover most 'school' subjects doing a project about something she was interested in.

Everyone I know (I know a lot - I'm into my 10th year now :) ) who home educates is a pretty ordinary person! If you want nitty gritty numbers - we're based in a South East commuter town, have four children all home educated (one secondary age) and a net income of about £600/week including child benefit (it has been more than that & there have been a couple of redundancies in the last 5 years too - they were tough but we managed).

We are frugal. When we decided to do it we downsized so have a smallish mortgage. We run one old banger, no expensive addictions , holiday with other HE families in the UK, don't have TV (do have a lot of computers though), do most things off season. There's a strong local HE community (we knew this when we moved here) so we don't have huge amounts of travelling do to - that's often a huge cost for HE families.

DH works full time but if we need something extra I do a bit of tutoring - I can't manage it regularly without getting overwhelmed but as the youngest children get older I'll do more. I won't return to my original career when they've flown the nest but do have plans (long way to go still).

I still think it is cheaper than school fees!

Going with the flow of the child doesn't mean you just chuck them in a room full of books at 4 and let them get on with it (though maybe worth a go) This style of HE is where the parent is the facilitator rather the the teacher - ie setting work , having a curriculum and timetable. Rather more a 4 year old says I'm interested in dinosaurs - so they do things about dinosaurs - read books, draw, tell stories, go to museums etc - a bit like the foundation phase is supposed to work but doesn't because you have too many children and not enough staff. Other interest just follow on and reading and maths just sort of come about naturally as most kids say at some point - I want to read the book not you. It can be later than in school but is very often quicker an easier because the child is motivated and has made a choice to read.

I'm sure there are some fully autonomus HE who can explain it much better than me !

I personally do a mixture as It works for my DS

Can I ask a "silly" Q about home schooling please ?

I dont want to be starting another thread.

If you HS, does your LA award you the pupil bounty to provide resources etc that a school would get in funding?

No there is no funding at all.

When it comes to GCSEs we have to pay for exam centres (usually private schools because state schools won't let us enter as external candidates) as well as the exam fees & tuition etc. It can also make it difficult to claim child benefit for 16-18yo children still studying at home.

Most home educators don't want any funding.

troisgarcons - No - once you de-register in most cases The LEA give you nothing (or hassle and grief in a few cases )

Saying that I get some tutoring because I my son has SN and I know of a few other family's who do - but we a very few and far between.

think I better qualify that

"most home educators I know (well all of them) do not want funding".

Though many would like it to be a bit easier to sit exams at local state schools.

afoggygrotto - do you think that's because they fear that with funding would come interference ?
Must say I wouldn't turn down the funding that my DS would cost to keep in residential school ;)

Yes - at a minimum requirement to follow that national curriculum ... thin end of the wedge & all that! For others it is a point of principle - parents who opt out of the state system in favour of private schools for example don't get funding so why should parents who chose to home educate?

I think it is different when you are talking about children with SN & SENs quite simply because very often there is no "efficient full time education suitable to age, aptitude and ability" available to them. One of my children is disabled & there is no state school within 15 miles that would even approach acceptable for him. We've saved the LEA and absolute shit load of money by doing it (very successfully) at home. As our EHE inspector now realises after I gave her an absolute earful last week.

I laughed at the poster who said HE parents don't have to pay for lunches or uniform, btw. I pay for everything my children need to do with their education, there is no charitable fund or grants for home educators, and I do also feed them lunch each day

You don't have to buy a uniform, and homemade lunch is cheaper than the £10 per week. If you aren't eligible for free school meals and uniform grants then those particular costs will be higher if you send the DCs to school rather than HE. If school trousers get a hole in them, they need replacing. Regular trousers get a hole in them, wear something else. Then I countered that by saying that other outgoings will be more.

mewantcookiesmenocanwait, do you have to prove that you HE? It hadn't occurred to me that you could get a discounted rate.

argh typos ... it's late, sorry!

some places ask for a HE card - EO or one of the others, our local HE group just made there own up! Most places take your word for it. A few places only if a group get together but most places are happy for individual families to go in at the school rate.

There are a few schools things (Big Bang, Primary Maths Challenge, Young Writers) that let HEs join in an a school if we go as a national group - there are yahoo groups around organising those.

argh their own ... I really am going to bed now!

One thing nobody has mentioned - the law regarding homeschooling is that a "full time education" is 12 hours a week. (or it was when I did it.) The school I withdrew my DS from pretty much ignored the law when it came to the deregistration period and some other things but I "let" them because I figured that if the LEA ever gave us any grief, I would have a legal comeback with them in the wrong from the word go. I got some good advice from various organisations and went into it with my eyes open, and knew what was legal and what we wanted, and I was prepared to fight tooth and nail to get it. As luck would have it (and we were lucky, there are some horror stories about other areas) we got an excellent LEA liaison educational social worker (only needed if a child has attended school then been withdrawn to homeschool) and it all worked out really well.

afoggygrotto, thanks for explaining.

Ok so I've only been home educating for four whole days, so I can't really speak from much experience yet. I was only working very part time before anyway, and we're very lucky to be able to get by ok on my DP's wage. I'm not a big spender or shopper (other than decent food and wine); I buy all my clothes out of charity shops, drive an old car etc. I do think that having time to shop wisely and hunt out the bargains saves you money. There's a good HE community around here, and things like swimming lessons are cheaper for HE than they were at school. I know it's going to cost more than it did when DD was at school, but we'll make huge use of the library and internet. I've just splurged the remainder of my own money on an ipad, so we'll be using that a lot for HE too. It was this article that sold me on the idea of an ipad. There are SO many educational resources on the internet, it's just mindblowing.

But yes, HE isn't a choice that everyone can afford to make, unfortunately.

I only ask because we have a few HE children on our school roll ....ok, its secondary school and in the main they are "school refusers" and thus become HE - we (the school) continue to get the funding because they are effectively dual enrolled. It's not something I get involved in other than to book their GCSEs and arrange their subject leaders to moderate/mark coursework. This has becaome a lot more difficult since the introduction of CAUs. By and large, they have a home tutor one hour a week to check progress.

As I say, these are "school refusers" as opposed to parents who have made a reasoned decision to HS.

Nonetheless they are on the books as HE.

I (wrongly???) assumed that HE worked the same way for all - as in dual enrolled and a school oversees everything.

Do the LA have to check progres of HE students? Do parents get Ofsted-ed? Do the requirted levels of progress apply? who verifies the parents are capable of HE? What defines HE from truanting?

Sorry so many questions but it is an area Im not familiar with at all.

If a child has never been registered/enrolled at a school (so HE from the word go) there are NO checks on them whatsoever. It is not compulsory to notify anyone at all, or to do anything. These are the children that tend to cause the "concern" with LEAs as obviously nobody is quite sure just how many of them there are, or what sort of education, if any, they receive.
For a child that has been registered at school, the LEA have a duty, and the parents are legally obliged to show "that the child is receiving a full time education suitable to their age and abilities". The parents do NOT have to let anyone from the LEA into their home, nor are they obliged to let them meet with their children. Quite how you would provide the necessary proof otherwise though, I'm not sure.
Every LEA is different, and quite a lot depends on the individual social worker assigned. Ours was lovely, she came once every six months, prearranged, and chatted informally to DS while he showed her some of his work. He chose what to show her, and she asked him questions and they talked. That said, we were obviously doing the work, he was progressing, and he could talk about what he'd done articulately and intelligently.
She would toddle off and send us a letter a couple of weeks later with her "findings" ie - yes he was being educated and no he wasn't truanting.
In cases where they are not satisfied the child is receiving the "suitable education" the LEA must go to court and apply for an order requiring the child to return to school. They must then find a school place for that child, and if the parents don't comply, they are treated as any other parent who just doesn't send their child to school would be, and sanctions can be applied, up to and including a jail term.
There is no legal requirement to follow a curriculum, or to have a qualified teacher for the child.

troisgarcons the kids you mention sound like they are Education Other Than At School (EOTAS) rather than Elective Home Education (EHE). The difference is that EHE families have opted to retain full responsibility for their child's education and they aren't on any school roll, works the same as sending a child to private school in terms of funding - ie, LA is not responsible for it. EOTAS children are supposed to be in LA schools, but the education is not suitable for some reason - sometimes illness, or SEN or as you say, school refusal. Because they're in LA provision they're entitled to tutoring or an alternative placement.

I home ed, and run my own business as a single parent. I work out of the home when my daughter is with her dad, and do a few hours from home on things like advertising/admin type things when she's sleeping or otherwise occupied. If I have a lot of work on my family will help if possible or I pay for additional childcare - I planned to home ed from the start so I built my business up this way intentionally.

We get by on a shockingly low income, but I ask for memberships/annual passes/magazine subscriptions etc for presents, and with very careful budgeting (and I'm very lucky to have really low housing costs) we get by comfortably enough that I we're able to spend most of the summer at different camps and have a pretty decent standard of living.

Can someone actually define how much it costs ro HE your child? Is it possible to HE until secondary age and then go to school?-do universities recognise HE?
(Not wanting to put my youngest through school after reading some MN posts)

It is quite possible to go to school at any time. My friend's DC went into 6th form as the first school experience. Many can go to university without school-if they have the ability.
It costs what you actually miss in lost earnings.
I think that you are reading the wrong posts on MN if you are put off schools. Lots of DC do well and love it. I adored it as a DC and would have gone at weekends if I could! My DSs were very happy and still have friendships today that have lasted from the infants. You have to decide what is best for your DC.

NO experience, but given that the posts in the HE forum always stress what a wide social life their children have and how often they get taken to meetings and trips out, I imagine it would come quite expensive unless you live close to things; you probably have to rearrange your priorities quite a bit. But then if something is important to you, that's what you do. My parents didn't HE, but they ran the whole family budget with the one goal in mind of having money over for travelling and books. Worked all right for us.

stuffthenonsense - Everyone home educates differently so it's hard to say how much it costs in general terms. It depends on which path you take and what you choose to do. It can be done quite reasonably or you could go daft and spend a small fortune if you were so inclined.

I home educate my 13 year old ds, after taking him out of school at the start of Y5 due to severely unmet special needs (AS/ADHD). I was effectively a SAHM because of illness - I receive IB which bumps up dh's full time factory worker's wage, but we're still far from wealthy. My illness doesn't affect my ability to HE and in many ways it's better managed than when I had to do school runs and battle with homework etc. He's far calmer and more at ease now, has made massive progress in three years, hence he's not so challenging to my health as he used to be.

We manage financially because we don't have any major outgoings - his education is by far our biggest expense. We live fairly frugally, don't have big holidays or household mod-cons, buy clothes etc in sales. I agree that you save a lot by not having to buy school uniform, shoes, school trips and 'voluntary contributions' to various events, plus we can go to places of interest at off-peak times and save money that way.

But that said, ds was being so harmed by the education system that we'd have pulled him out of school even if our financial situation was completely different. Somehow we'd have found a way, even if it had meant living off soup for the next ten years .

BTW, lovely to read a home ed thread that hasn't turned into a barney. Makes a very pleasant change .

stuffthenonsense: Can someone actually define how much it costs to HE your child? Is it possible to HE until secondary age and then go to school?-do universities recognise HE?

It costs as much as you choose to spend on it. We spent very little until they were about 8 and 10 - swimming, gymnastics, dance, skating classes (not all at the same time and I'd have been paying for those even if they were in school). We also attended HE groups (usually only cost of hall hire divided by the number of families attending) and trips - local ones were usually free and I'd have been paying for those at a distance had a school organised them. I paid for craft materials (but we made Christmas cards, gifts, etc.); cookery materials were just our normal food budget; we used the library extensively and asked for magazine subs, books and other items as gifts from GPs.

More expense came in the teen years as their interests got more expensive (e.g. musical instrument lessons and OU courses).

My DD is now in second year at university studying law (she did OU courses instead of GCSEs and A levels). At her (phone) interview (in German), her HE activities (especially a trip to Japan with an HE robotics team) were all that the tutor was interested in discussing. BTW, she has more experience than her housemates at budgeting, cooking and running a house. She also has more experience of independent learning, preparing essays and presentations, and working in groups.