AIBU to think thisDy is setting her kids up for a big fall

[Sadoldbag]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520667/Unschooling-children

I think the daughter couldn't hack school due to not ever having to follow any rules

And this is not a new wave of parenting it's as old as time it's called bad parenting there have always been children and always will be who are allowed to do what ever.

Sadly these children tend to struggle when in any formal environment also I wonder why any parent who has no job due to there own lack of education would not want better for children

Homeschooling can be fantastic how ever I think these children are not getting the education or structure they have a right to

grennie

That I do not know,because I have never asked. But I do know for a fact without a doubt that this child had already received their results before their 14th birthday. Interestingly as a condition of being able to use the available facilities the child is prohibited from disclosing their age.and is now plodding through a geology degree.

I do know someone who has a science degree (a 1st class BSc and PhD from Cambridge no less), but I'm not going to text him to ask the entry requirements to satisfy an MN thread I'm afraid. I attest that it can be done though. Maybe someone who has done it personally, or has a child who took that route will come along and provide extra details though?

Why is home education and a science degree a combination that specifically interests you - do you have a child who you think might prosper outside of their current education arrangement, but would want to assure their path to a science degree isn't encumbered?

*ensure

doh!

It interests me because I can see the value in home education. But I had always assumed the one area home educated children lost out in, was science. I actually can see that you can do geology better out of the classroom. I love geology and you can learn about it far better by actually visiting places where you can see various phenomena.

But I studied 3 sciences at A Level and I remember a fair bit of lab work.

I'm home edding my ASD DS.

Autonomous education is not suitable for him, as the very nature of his disability means he needs more scaffolding & structure than the average child. You could say we are at the opposite end of the pedagogy spectrum through sheer necessity. However the methods I use are not those practised in all but a very few state schools either.

However if my DS learns best via directed, precision teaching then I can easily see how a different type of thinker might thrive best doing the opposite. Neurodiversity is something to celebrate not abhor, as it's those individuals at the edges of the bell curve who invent new things, and forge new advances for the rest of us in so many areas. (We are constantly being told how Einstein's brain was structurally different from the norm for example!)

Mainstream state education is designed to suit those children who sit in the middle of the bell curve - that's great for the majority, but may help to explain WHY 1 in 6 who leave 12 years of compulsory school without the functional numeracy and literacy skills they need out there in the modern world. I met one to many NEETS to want to sentence my child to that fate without putting up one helluva fight.

It may not be fashionable to say so, given that we have entered the era of the nanny state - but parents almost always instinctively understand their own child's unique learning style better than anyone else. Home education one of several legal options for those square pegs in the round holes of the state school system.

The Queen was homeschooled - her social skills are universally acknowledged to be beyond reproach .

As for specialist subjects - well my DS is a science geek, and homeschooling via a live online school is giving access to the specialist science teacher he wouldn't get in a state school aged only 9. Technological advances make it possible to go all the way thru to degree level at home nowadays in most subjects. It's worth pointing out that just because education is being delivered at home, it doesn't mean the parent has to teach every single subject. Tutoring is a growth industry even for children who do attend school! (oh the 11+ angst!).

Academy's are not required to follow the national curriculum or to employ qualified teachers so the quality standard that parents used to rely on just doesn't exist in many local authorities now (many have all academies at secondary level). Schools vary too from Summerhill, to the local comp to Eton - not all are created equal by a long shot. Gove has officially fallen out with Ofsted as quality control has become a political football following the recent failures of several free schools and academy chains.

One of the reason I often hear for Home Ed is to protect children from the lack of discipline in London schools, rather than the opposite, as a pp suggests.

I posted on another thread, broadly about adults that I had come across who had (left a religious cult and) been either home schooled, or more likely had been to an illegal small school in someone's house with no secular education and the parents told the inspectors that they home schooled. These adults could barely speak english, and were finding employment very difficult to find due to lack of skills - including that they hadn't met anyone outside their cult.
There are (quite rightly) measures of how effective schools are at educating, and whilst I can see that in many cases homeschooling results in the children having an adequate education, IME there needs to be some control to ensure that parents can't exercise what I would term "educational abuse" on the children. I don't think therefore that homeschooling should be an automatic right.

Actually I agree that there should be some kind of checks that children are learning. I did read one person talking about being home schooled who didn't learn to read until he was 15 and still struggles with his literacy.

Seeing as we're going in for anecdotes, a uni friend graduated from our RG uni with a first in Politics and Philosophy, having been entirely autonomously home educated, with 2 GCSEs and having even illiterate until the age of 11. He won awards for having the highest mark in both departments.

It seemed to me that he was much more adequately prepared for university level teaching than my friend who attended one of the 'best' state grammars in the country. HE friend was used to taking responsibility for his learning, for seeking out the answers, making links between what he knew, for critically questioning things, whereas the Grammar friend struggled with the concept that there wasn't always a single 'right answer', that we weren't sponfed and coached towards each assessment, that there was no magic formula for answers to get the marks on the exam.

Grennie But there are plenty of 15yo in state education who can't really read, and many state educated adults who are functionally illiterate. Of course that's not a good thing, but there's no saying he would be able to read if he was at school.

It's interesting that home educators are often held to much higher standards and have to achieve more than state education to be considered sufficient.

1 in 6 of all school leavers not functionally literate or numerate. Only 2.8% of all children have special educational needs serious enough to be statemented, so that leaves a disgustingly high number of young people who effectively been failed by the state system imho.

I am NOT saying that state education is bad per se, just that if you realise you are the parent of a child likely to become one of the 1in6 you'd be crazy not to at least investigate the alternatives to try and avoid that fate for your child.

The kids will be Ok. Because the article will be totally untrue.

Get a 17p bottle of pop.

Drop some mentoes in to it (outside the house).

Instant science experiment. There's loads of science you can do at home, you don't need to be in a lab to do it.

People who say they're home schooling their child when they're neglecting them are in fact just neglecting them. Plenty state school children neglected too unfortunately.

Yes some kids leave school functionally illiterate. They shouldn't. Nobody is holding HE to a higher standard. There is lots of testing of kids and schools to try and make sure that doesn't happen. There is no checking of HE to make sure that doesn't happen.

There are good and bad schools, and good and bad HE

So what if she decided she would HE before the child was school age, nobody needs an excuse to HE or a reason

the children having an adequate education, IME there needs to be some control to ensure that parents can't exercise what I would term "educational abuse" on the children. I don't think therefore that homeschooling should be an automatic right

Far more school educated children are subjected to wider forms of abuse,so I say ban schools and ban children

Generally HE is held to higher standards. Not officially, as in measuring, but if children are performing below the expected norms for their age in any area for HE children it is generally considered to be a fault of their education and there are often comments that they should be in school.

It happens the world over. In some Eastern European countries, HE children have to attend annual tests. If they perform below average, they are forced to attend school instead. But why? They might be below average at school as well. There's little leeway given in assessing the abilities of HE kids.

I find global attitudes to HE really, really interesting.

EduCated - But in the UK there are no tests or real checks. And how would anyone know if HE kids are performing below average? Unless it is an extreme case such as an older child not being able to read or write at all, I can't see how anyone could judge HE kids performance at all.

My self-absorbed sister,studying for her MA,has used this route to ensure that she doesn't have to bother to get up in the morning,to look after her DC's.

I'm in France. We have an annual 'inspection' by the school authorities where (if allowed by the parents, which they mostly are) they test the children relative to where they would be at school. If the inspector deems that the child is not 'on track' to have achieved ALL the objectives that school children are expected to achieve by age 16, they can force the parents to send them to school.

On the other hand, if they are at school and failing the objectives, no one suggests they should be home schooled. Or even change schools.

How is that for being held to a higher standard?

You're right, there's no official checks, but if you look at some of the comments on HE threads on here, and on any other forum, it's clear that people judge HE kids 'abilities' and compare them to what they expect them to be doing, whether those judgements are accurate or not is anyone's guess.

Shoop.

So what are you doing to prevent your sister neglecting her children?

If you know she is not providing them with an education then you should report her, once a welfare or CME report is made the LA are able to notch up intervention.

Needs.

I imagine that all the authorities have files like the Yellow Pages,on the situation.
The eldest DN has ASD,and was found a place at a fantastic boarding school. Ostensibly,this was to give my sister time to concentrate on the welfare of the younger DN. Instead,she keeps him home by extending his half-term holidays etc. They are up all night and sleep all day.
I can no longer discuss her DC with her,as the last time I commented she told me to 'fuck off'.

So if he is registered at a boarding school and she is extending his school holidays then he is not a home educated child.