That anyone can provide a decent home education for their child

[akaemmafrost]

If they are inclined to?

I have no choice but to HE ds, he has multiple SN and is unable to function in any of our local schools.

Every single time I tell someone I get or a mixture of both. Nine times out of ten I am asked if I am a teacher? No, I am not.

With access to a library and Internet AIBU to believe that anyone who is inclined to do so can provide a decent Home Education for their child?

I've been thinking about this for quite a while now, why the shock, judgement and sometimes downright horror whenever I tell anyone I HE? Is it really so scary and unbelievable that I can provide this to ds without being formally trained?

It seems to provoke incredibly strong opinions, even from complete strangers, which they feel they must strenuously share with me usually. So just wondering really as I can never really ask them.

DaveMccave.

Yes, I totally agree although I could add the time element. I found there was so much time that could be managed better and believed that I could facilitate dds learning in twice the time it took her school teacher to do this. Working 1 to 1 with somebody can achieve far more than 1 to 30 with different learning styles and abilities.
For dd it is the freedom to choose what she wants to learn, when she wants to learn it and at her own speed. Not having to stop and change subject when she has gained an appetite for a particular subject, just to conform to an institutional demand.

It benefits all of society to have a well-educated populace. You don't pay taxes in on the basis of what you personally get back from the government. You pay taxes to have provision of services to all regardless of your individual need or lack thereof. Or else child-free people could just as easily start clamouring for a rebate on their taxes.

Others who could equally ask for tax refunds: filthy rich, non-smokers, people who live off-grid, folk who never go sailing offshore, etc.

lljkk.

I'm sure those having no choice but to H.ed for whom the system have failed won't see as state education benefits all of society.

We are fortunate to have chosen H.ed but for some there wasn't a choice.

Sorry Streaky and Morethan I should probably declare myself as being a LP back footed into HE with a child harmed badly enough the school declared him unfit to continue, (later converted to how brilliant HE can be) and am just repeating my understanding of the system as delivered to me by the DWP.

Morethan, you're right that state school shouldn't be considered as free, but in DWP terms it doesn't matter how many decades you paid in, if you need benefits you're in beggars can't be choosers territory, and HE is a choice as long as an LEA will offer a minimum of a PRU place, no matter how unsuitable or harmful, it's still a place and therefore ?childcare needs can be met FOC by the state? in DWP terms. They are unbothered about educational or MH outcomes, you have a place you can put your child while you work, that you don't need to finance.

It isn't 'many parents who have to work, won't have the choice,' it's they'll be in the same boat as broke LP's choosing HE currently; hard choices.

They'll either have to be imaginative in taking whatever they can find in night work, unsocial hours, etc, work as HE childminders, be successfully self-employed, or join the unofficial economy, but parents who want or need to HE enough, will find a way to do it as many ill equipped to easily manage always have.

Just

I could see you weren't being judgemental. It just seems unfair but I must admit that much of the cuts do, so we are different in this respect.

You are right of course about being imaginative where work is concerned, but my family circumstances don't leave me free to work, so even though I do choose not to work, I couldn't anyway even if I wanted to. My dh works nights, days, weekends and away and not with much notice for each. So limited is an under statement.

sorry should read NO different in this respect.

natwebb - I'm sorry if my post offended you.

I'm glad your experience as a teacher is so positive. I reserve my awe and greatest respect, though, for the teachers who do operate in the circumstances I described. I assume that you do not deny that some of them exist?

However, no matter how wonderful your charges may be, the implication that because you are 'fully qualified' you can meet the needs of each and every one better than a HE parent is staggering, given:

a. the constraints of the curriculum,
b. the fact that you interact with them in a group context
c. that you only have them for a few brief hours a week

whereas a HE parent can tailor the content, approach and time taken for each task and overall, to the needs of the particular student.

The result is that you come across as supremely arrogant and it says very bad things about you the regard in which you hold your charges' parents.

And yes, I do think that the curriculum has been dumbed down to the point that, in the words of an old don of mine 'you just have to turn up on time and sober to pass'. Admittedly, that can be a challenge to some teenager.

Oh dear, there I go again with my 'negative view of young people'.....

I know lots who HE well. Most HE kids come out with better grades then main steam state educated kids. I also know one or two who HE very badly though.

HE can be very social and organised by teh way. Or it can be free range and sometimes isolated.

I HE DC and shes doing brilliantly. She had a couple of brilliant support teachers when she was at school but the rest just couldnt cope with her SN and other difficulties.

As she has SN she cant and wont do the 'normal' curriculum, but what she can manage.
Yes it does help that

1-Im a fulltime carer for her therefore have the time and

2-I'm a qualified teacher but as OP says you can get plenty of resources online or elsewhere and plenty of people can do it.

Its the best decision I made for DC and shes doing fantastically. No disrespect to SN schools and units, but for my child there wasnt the sufficient help she needed (where we live, not all schools are as here) and this was my last-but best- option.

and I will HE till shes of age, plus Ive been offered by the ed panel in my area when shes older she could do a days life skills at a local college...if she can manage.

meanwhile, Im teaching her homeskills like cooking (limited) and other things.

and she goes to sunday school at church and a couple of clubs for socialising.

I have never seen a school or teacher who could offer the type of education we expect and our dd expects for herself.
I have a lot of respect for good teachers and feel they do a good job with the system they are dealt. However, if like us you do not like the system then the teachers operating within this system are part of the problem, not the solution.

Yfronts I totally agree its up to the parents and dc to make sure they socialise. Personally we haven't noticed much of a difference really. Except dd has more true friendships some who go to school and some H.ed. She still does the same activities she did when at school but has added more H.ed groups.

higglepeahomeed.blogspot.co.uk/

I follow this blog and am completely jealous and in awe of this woman and her children. I wish I could do it but doubt I could and actually I think my children have other things to gain by going to school and me supporting school.

My children go to school and I believe that schools need far more parents to support them in the work they do, I wish some of the people who home schooled (hate the term home educate personally as feel that I also home educate; its not like they unplug their brains after 3 o clock after all) would be more involved with the education system as I feel we could really benefit from people who are actively engaged with their child's education.

This isn't a rhetorical question; does it always serve children best if their education is perfectly tuned to them individually? Are there advantages to them having to wait a while and ruminate or pull their socks up and try to catch up? What about learning as a shared experience (with lots of peers rather than just your parent/small group)?

Oh and imo for all its faults, the NC is the minimum to which a child is entitled. I think people forget how dire schools could be, pre-NC.

That's the thing Jenai my ds can do none of the things you mention, he CAN'T wait, he can't catch up and no one was interested in adjusting the NC to ensure that he could. Yes he's entitled to the NC but he wasn't getting it and I think that until the amount of children falling through the cracks is addressed then HE is not a choice for them but a necessity.

NickNameGrief I and others went way beyond the norm to try and improve the quality of what was on offer in our last school for all, and did make a difference, but it wasn?t what the school wanted, so for myself and other parents everything was a huge and exhausting battle, and a majority of parents polled were generally dissatisfied, but believed themselves powerless to change anything, and ultimately it wasn?t enough of a difference and I wasn?t prepared to sacrifice my ds?s future.

I and other home edder's prefer home educated to home schooled, because there?s already enough confusion over what constitutes education, without the implication that it should resemble or relate to what is done within schools.

Jenai nothing wrong with 'waiting a while and ruminating', but a lot wrong with being told they can?t learn anything new for a whole year and must just repeat yr 6 while others get to the same place, which is what the yr 7?s who came in with level 5?s got told.

?Pull their socks up and catch up? assumes children to just not be trying, and simply needing to put in more effort, which is fine if that?s all that?s happening, rather than not be understanding and needing unavailable assistance, and for us there wasn?t really ?learning as a shared experience? in school unless you count learning how difficult it is for a teacher or cover supervisor to cope in mixed ability classes that are out of control.

You may not know many SEN children are actually denied proper access to the NC in many schools, and how many ways there are of doing that, even after their parents have fought to have it specified on a statement.

Many parents have good schools available and choose HE anyway for a variety of reasons, but for a fair proportion of us it?s the only chance our dc?s have of reaching their potential.

I'm totally with akaemmafrost.

Wasnt a choice but a neccessity, and tbh its no one elses business wether HE children socialise with others or not, and how little/much. Or how much time they spend with their parent.

some people make it sound like our children are imprisoned or something akin to child abuse by assuming they are isolated from the rest of the world and will suffer socially when they are adults.

Thats utter tosh. and its each to their own.

I went to school, was so shy and timid I was bullied and had no friends, and I'm quite an isolated person and thats what school did to me.

I wish my mum had HE'd me, she was a teacher too.

My ds has a circle of friends now that he never had in school, he was in such stressed out shape there that he couldn't even sit on the carpet for more than 30 seconds. He was self harming, attacking others and with just a few tweaks this could have been prevented eg they set his work station up against a radiator. In common with many autistic children his sensory issues mean he cannot deal with extremes of temperature, they cause him to melt down. All it needed was the desk to be moved a metre backwards. I asked every day for a term for this, it was never done, the classroom couldn't be arranged to accommodate that apparently. Even an NT child would have moaned about it, ds couldn't even verbalise how uncomfortable he was. Something that simple would have made all the difference.

He runs round with his friends now, he makes friends at soft play and the park and their mums are when I tell them he's autistic. He never made one friend in three years at school .

My ds could have accessed the NC in a much more meaningful way but they wouldn't let him.

morethanpotatoprints Mon 18-Feb-13 13:36:02
Cory.

"My apologies if I read your post wrongly. I thought you were saying that the problems you had with the relationship of mother and facilitator were insurmountable. Not that you were managing fine despite this. "

Just to clarify: we manage fine when she is able to attend school. But we do badly when she has to be educated at home because she resents it.

I don't think it's because of how I handle it: she resents the very fact that she has to ask me to facilitate when what she wants is a different set-up. It rubs her nose in what she can't have iyswim.

Most of her friends are in school all day and we haven't got the transport to make HE meet-ups so for us it is an isolating life.

So in that sense I think it is pretty insurmountable, just as making me feel good about losing my job 10 years ago was pretty insurmountable. I wanted a new job, not being told that being a SAHP meant greater freedom and that lots of other people hated their jobs.

We are all different.

No, I don't believe that 'anyone' with an inclination can do it successfully. I imagine that some people do it very well and others struggle hugely. I don't have a huge amount of knowledge in this though. But I do wonder what a parent does when they have 3 children of different ages, say 4 years apart like mine, and how they can HE all of them at the same time?

Actually, I wonder how my bf's parents would have coped: immigrants with a very poor command of the local language and very little education in their own.

Access to a library and the internet is all very well, but not all adults can read. And many can't read English. So how do you facilitate your child's learning if you know nothing about books or reading and haven't actually got the reading age to find something by googling or understand a Wikipedia article?

I think many people could HE. But possibly not everyone.

Cory.

We used to live in the sticks when our older 2 were little. I also didn't have transport and it was a lonely enough existence anyway as dh worked long hours and was frequently away. I wouldn't have H.ed these 2 dc as they needed the social side of school. I know what you mean here, it just wouldn't have worked in this case.
Its different with dd though as now we are in a large town and she is always out at some activity or group. She is very sociable and thrives like this, but they are all different as are parents.

While I have no problem with home education, I think you are being massively unreasonable to say that everyone can do it with the internet and access to a library! If you'd said anyone could do it with unlimited amounts of money and access to tutors to fill any gaps they might have in their own skills set then ok, maybe I could agree with you.

I am a qualified and experienced teacher and I could not home educate beyond age 11 because my maths, physics, chemistry, foreign languages and art are not good enough. Beyond GCSE I could only confidently teach the subjects I took for A Level myself which seems a little unfair to a child wanting some choice! I can't imagine there are that many people with the skills to teach everything from the internet alone.

The other thing I think is important is the ability to teach. I don't think you necessarily need to be trained in this but in some people it just isn't there at all.

When I was a child I was lucky enough to have two parents with the skills between them to help me with any schoolwork I got stuck on at home.
I could go to my mum with anything in English, humanities or languages and she would patiently talk me through it and demonstrate it until I understood it. She was a teacher.

I could go to my Dad with anything maths or science related and he would look at it, stare at me in bemusement and tell me the answer. When I asked him why he'd get all confused and impatient before coming out with something like 'well, it just is.' He had the knowledge but he couldn't teach at all.

Apparently (I've never met one but I've been assured it's true) a significant proprotion of students leave our education system unable to read and write with confidence. While that's a shicking inditement on our schools it also doesn't fill me with much confidence that those same people could successfully homeschool.

I think most people could cover basic facts. But making information interesting, holding a child's attention, understanding why a child is struggling or where they can be stretched - these are skills that not everyone would have. I'm not suggesting all teachers can do these things but neither can everyone who home educates.