To ask what is your instinctive response to hearing a child is Home Educated?

[NickiFury]

I am really interested to hear general opinions from everyone and hoping for some from professionals such as teachers etc. I really want to know what people think because in the main in RL, the response is overwhelmingly negative. I've had people threaten to call SS on me because ds isn't in school, been told it's "weird" and seen this face a lot.

Now to me home education is a totally normal thing but I suspect this is only because we are immersed in this world and know lots of other HE families (you'd be surprised how many are out there).

What has made me think about this was a friend telling me today that people in our community know of me and ds without ever having met us because we are notorious as that woman who doesn't send her kid to school .

Btw I also have a child who does go to school and is doing well but no one seems to gossip about that.

So what would YOU think if you someone told you their child is home educated?

Thanks .

I didn't talk, ppplease. My bruises were hidden. Nice summing up though

No that's crap about not being able to be a foster parent.

More crap should add

pomegranate
Did all that happen recently, or decades ago?

What about PE?

And it wasnt crap. I am pretty much 100% sure that was the case with SS up to 6 years ago.

It wasn't decades ago

And the point I am making is that if I can't afford it then the government and therefore the tax payer would have too - this is not something that sits comfortably with me.

It isn't now, ppplease. You should check current facts.

and you seem to be a brand new poster today pomegranatedays.
So I dont think I will post again to you.

I agree that all parents should have the option to have one parent at home until children are ~12, older if there is a specific reason e.g. special educational needs.

I don't understand why there is often so much vitriol aimed at this opinion. It IS valuable for children to have a parent at home. It doesn't mean everyone should do it, (I wouldn't, I'd go mad) but everyone should have the option. Children seeing parents work because they want to and enjoy it is far more positive than children seeing parents hating work and resenting it.

What about PE?

What a vile question, ppplease. I'm not lying you know. And I'm not going into detail for you. My earlier answers should suffice.

I'm not a brand new poster. I've namechanged because I'm talking about a sensitive topic that I don't want to be associated with my user name. MNHQ will verify that and are welcome to.

Oh that's a good point. I would go into school with black eyes and bruised face, more than once, looking back it was quite clear there was something going on at home. I remember truanting once and being caught. I begged my HOY not to tell my Mum, near hysterical, clearly terrified. She didn't you know because she obviously knew there was something more going on. Didn't do anything else though. I was physically abused throughout my childhood and nothing was ever picked up on.

People on here talk as though schools are this pinnacle and area of protection and that's just not true.

You've got one widely known example of a HE child being abused and murdered. There are hundreds that attend nursery and schools and it is never picked up on or dealt with.

powderherb The truancy patrol was never a problem for me. Never been stopped by them in my life. My mother just got fed up with being asked by fellow shoppers, check-out staff, and people on the bus why her child wasn't at school.

No-one asked her that if she had a little girl in gingham with her though. Also, second-hand summer school uniform used to be very cheap

Cant be bothered to check.
I make it a personal rule not to take any notice of goady first time posts.

Home educators are allowed to foster! They might be expected to send the foster child to school though. Although my parents did home educate three (iirc) of their long term foster children for a while (two siblings out of a three sibling group, one only child).

Re truancy patrols - I have just said that I home educate, and due to our culture of believing people unless there is some evidence that they are lying, that is all that is necessary, no checking I'm on a list. (I wasn't.)

My son was desperate for a gingham dress when he was little, not sure why he loved them so much!

There are hundreds that attend nursery and schools and it is never picked up on or dealt with

Link to data supporting this, please?

I work in CP and family support in two schools. You'd be amazed at what we pick up, how many hundreds of families we help though difficult periods in their lives, how we refer on to other agenices such as Young Carers, CAMHS, Home-Start, National Family Mediation, Children's Services and so on. None of us is a trained SW yet we do all these things and educate the children at the same time. Not something we should be criticised for, IMVHO.

Atia

I'm goady because I corrected you? Ok. And because I objected to your questioning...

I thought you weren't going to respond to me anyway. I've explained why I name changed, which I thought would be understandable. Obviously not for you.

That might be right Atia. Would be interested to know. The HE people I know who do foster, send their foster child to a school.

I'd rather you left me alone actually, as you said you would, ppplease.

They werent up to six years ago Atia. That is what at least two foster workers told us.
Sounds like it could have changed.

The reason they were nt allowed to foster was give that, if we were HEs and fostered a child, basically additional checks could not have been made on us by the school system as regards looking after the fostered child well.

Perhaps it is now changed to HEs can foster, but the fostered child must go to school?

Do your own data checks Rhonda as THATS the only thing you bothered to comment on from my post.

Interesting. Does anyone know -do fostered children have to go to school? My guess is they do, but that is just my guess.

My initial response is that unless the child has significant reason to not be in school, then they should be. In my limited experience, the decision to home ed has often been more about the parent than the child.

I'm sure the flexibility is great- but it doesn't allow children to experience having to do things when they don't feel like it, at least not to the same degree as school children. It's an important life skill to learn how to be around people who you find irritating sometimes.

I also can't imagine how it is beneficial for children to always be the number 1 priority for the adults in their lives, rather than part of a group who needs to wait their turn and not always get their way.

Also, how do home ed children learn to deal with difficult social situations such as bullying and balancing negative peer pressure with fitting in? These problems are not exclusive to childhood, but this is often where we learn to develop strategies to deal with these situations.