Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Why does home schooling appeal ?

456 replies

SeptemberFlowers · 26/01/2014 09:36

I myself would be far to scared to do it with my dc's as I'd be needing to reach for the Wine most weekends of having to teach them curricular that I was shit at at school.

Why does it appeal to so many people ? There are a few children in the next village (live in a rural location) who are HE but only because their mother doesn't trust other adults with her children. I know this an extreme case but the only one I know personally.

How would you know your child is learning all the correct syllabus for different subjects ?

OP posts:
TheBigJessie · 27/01/2014 20:34

Also, Mellow. I already mentioned the OU. I am not denigrating the OU. It's the only degree I have any chance of getting now, but the OU has no entrance requirements. Getting into the OU is not really on a par with getting into a "top university".

It's open to everyone. That's the point. To offer education to all, without barriers.

MellowAutumn · 27/01/2014 20:34

They way schools teach to the test worry me far more

MellowAutumn · 27/01/2014 20:36

Try the Russell Group Big Jessie - they seam to want to spesifically attract candidates from non traditional route and some even mention life experience etc . I do see many offer a foundation year

teacherwith2kids · 27/01/2014 20:37

Put it this way, Mellow - I am an ex HEer and a supporter of the right to HEm, but as an ex-research scientist I would not quote that paper in support of my position, having looked into the methodology a little more....

saintlyjimjams · 27/01/2014 20:37

I don't think qualifications or not is a home ed thing really is it? I've vaguely thought about home edding ds3 if he doesn't get into his first choice school but would fully expect him to emerge with 10 or 11 GCSE's at decent grades (that many because he is academic and will probably want to go to university to study something academic and it's easier to do that if you play the game exams wise).

Plenty of kids leave school with bugger all qualifications and plenty of home edded kids finish education with the qualifications they need. It's a bit daft to suggest schools send every child that passes through their doors out into the big wide world with excellent exam results, just as it's daft to suggest home edders never do.

saintlyjimjams · 27/01/2014 20:41

I personally don't see the problem with doing things later. I've taught plenty of adults with first degrees who made the wrong choice and have had to go back, get extra A levels to then go and do the degree course they should have done in the first place. I suspect I would have made very different choices with a few more years experience before university as well.

MellowAutumn · 27/01/2014 20:44

teacherwith2kids - you could very possibly be right I am not a scientist but there is lots of other research out there and I've seen/know lots of Hedders and yes have seen some feral children being unschooled but the majority as you are probably aware are committed and knowledgeable parents - many of us choosing to HE because the State system has failed our children.

I have not researched higher education at all except via google for 10 mins here - but have mentioned some personal experiences and know lots of HE teens who have way better study skills and internal validation than similar aged schooled children.

I have kids in the system and out of the system but will defend my right to choose ;)

Commander6 · 27/01/2014 20:45

But I dont get why some parents want to make it soooo difficult for their kids, socially or all the fuss by trying to get by using a different route.
Unless SN.

If your child is getting bullied is there not help for that?

I well remember my dear mum just saying years and years ago, if you get bullied, just ignore them. Ignore and ignore. The bullies just get fed up after a while.
If the bullies get no reaction, they stop. And they do.
That has worked for me and countless other people down the years.

My kids got put in a cupboard once. They came out, laughed and just got on with the day. That was the end of that. The bullies didnt bother to do that again. No fun for them!

Commander6 · 27/01/2014 20:47

saintly. I too know people who made the wrong degree choice. It created a mess. But they did go back again, but went to a different country to avoid a new set of fees.

Commander6 · 27/01/2014 20:47

And they still are not earning anything yet.

teacherwith2kids · 27/01/2014 20:48

Mellow, the issue is that you linked to that paper - or a report of that paper - as evidence that on average HE was more successful from school. When the methodology is questioned, you simply move your argument to a different ground.

Your new ground may be entirely valid, but it doesn't address the issue with the paper that YOU quoted as evidence.

MellowAutumn · 27/01/2014 20:53

Commander6 - why do you think its hard ???? Do i have to repeat it again personally my kids are all taking exams - actually a year early (as they do in some schools) - lots of Hedders take exams.

Our kids socialise all the time and NO very often in schools their is bugger all help for a child being bullied - I have seen 3 kids in the news committing suicide over bulling - sure there is more , read some of the threads in relationship and hear how peoples lives have been ruined by being bullied in school.

Do you think we are all sad hippies living in caves ?

Personally I run 2 business have a perchance for high heels and handbags and have a cleaner :)

saintlyjimjams · 27/01/2014 20:53

You sound a bit naive about 'how to deal with bullies' Commander.

teacherwith2kids · 27/01/2014 20:54

Mellow, to decide to HE on the basis of personal experience is absolutely fine - that is exactly what I did too.

However, to say to opponents of HE that HEd children do better than their schooled counterparts, and to quote Rothermel's research as evidence, is flawed.

TheBigJessie · 27/01/2014 20:54

The ignorance in your post astounds me. Your inability to grasp the magnitude of the issue may have me in tears of rage or laughter.

Firstly, the Russell Group is far larger than that. There are 24 members. Only 15 of those are mentioned as having a foundation year available for any course. Did you notice the University of Oxford on that list of foundation year providers? No? Funny, that. If you have not read it, the range of participating courses for each university is narrow. Mine is certainly not there.

Even if it was, I am a mature student with a family. Missing out on education as a child means that I have to catch up as an adult. Which means education has to fit in around boring things like having minimum wage jobs (to earn the money for part-time A-levels, amongst other things), and I didn't want to hold off on getting married and having a family until I'd totally caught up, as that could mean waiting until I was 40.

That means I can't drop everything to apply to a random Russell Group, for a course that isn't the degree field I want to do, and that yes I am restricted to the OU.

TamerB · 27/01/2014 20:55

She posted the questions to the parents who did the tests, entirely unsupervised and posted them back!!

TheBigJessie · 27/01/2014 20:58

www.russellgroup.ac.uk/our-universities

TamerB · 27/01/2014 21:00

If you are living on an island I can see that you would have to go down alternative routes, but if you have access to good schools with graduate scientist teachers why would you not use them? Why make it difficult?

TamerB · 27/01/2014 21:03

I think that Alan Thomas, who was doing research at the same time,was more to be trusted on controlled tests.

TamerB · 27/01/2014 21:07

The girl that I know whose mother is confident that she would get her university place without formal qualifications decided, a year late,that her mother was wrong and has gone to do A'levels. Very wise. She can do them- why not just do it?

teacherwith2kids · 27/01/2014 21:08

Tamer,

For those of use with 'non-school shaped' children [my DS's first head has luckily been proved wrong in her prediction that he would 'never be suited to mainstream school], or children who don't firt the schoolls currently available to them, HE can be the only viable option for a short or long period.

As it happens, a home and school move afteer HE to repair the damage caused by his first school worked out very well for DS - now in year 8 in a mainstream comp and flying,. But I can see thast the solution is not so simple for many.

(It was access to specialist teachers and specialist equipment at secondary, in fact, that was always the sticking point for us for long-term HE - but there are those who work with / round these obstacles sucecssfully.]

However, I am definitely of the camp that says HE works for some children, some of the time, not all children, and not all of the time. Whe it fails, it can fail badly - and the fact that a proportion of children are failed by schools is a completely separate point.

morethanpotatoprints · 27/01/2014 21:15

Jessie

it is hard working towards a degree when you have dc and you really have to take the best option you can to fit in with family.
I know how you feel having had the education system of the 70's completely let me down.
It can't have been easy that it was your parents, but it wasn't easy going to school every day and being caned, or having the slipper.
The worst was the verbal and mental abuse the awful names the teachers called me.
The child bullies felt so sorry for me they left me alone.
I left school with nothing but made sure I did some good things with my life and then went into education during my 30's.
I wish H.ed had been considered when I was young, my parents were the only people who tried to help me.

maparole · 27/01/2014 21:23

It seems to me that what this thread is boiling down to is a marked contrast in different people's interpretation of "education".

Those who are vehemently against home ed seem to regard childhood education as a very linear process of getting as many qualifications as possible as quickly as possible and then using those qualifications as a springboard into a job that pays as much as possible.

I would suggest that those more in favour of home ed (or more correctly, in favour of the right to choose) see childhood education as a journey of discovery, with many side-roads, little used paths and no-through ways to be explored along the way.

Swipe left for the next trending thread