to ask if you would consider home education?

[SundayBea]

Have read a lot of articles recently on how the numbers in home education have 'exploded' and it's on the rise by 80% a year apparently. I know of three families I think quite highly of, two of whom are ex-teachers whose children have never been to school and their children seem to be having an exceptional upbringing and education with so many fantastic experiences and opportunities. Also know of two other families who have withdrawn their children from school because of problems with their respective schools and I'm less certain of how successful it is going to be for them. Also know of several colleagues and DH's cousin who have DC under 5 who are debating not registering them when the time comes. Is this a big thing now or is it just coincidence I know of so many families like this? I was just wondering what the general consensus was.. when I mentioned socialisation one of my ex-teacher friends showed me the Facebook group she is in for her local home education community and I was amazed at the plethora of groups, classes, meet ups and outings with hundreds of members.. just for her local county! Have been debating with DP what to do about schooling at private school is unfortunately out of the question on our current salaries.. I'm now feeling like I've discovered a whole new option I hadn't considered? Sorry if this is rambling, only getting a 5 minute lunch break today!

Absolutely not. My DH and his siblings were homeschooled. DH has come out of it best (with, I think, 6 GCSEs?) but freely admits that his DM had run out of steam with his siblings which means they have no qualifications at all and no evidence that they've actually ever learned anything. It has put them in a very difficult position in terms of doing any further training or education. Also, I think that there are/were socialisation issues as it wasn't 'enforced' which means that his DB (particularly) who would rather have stayed in playing computer games did and as such was well into his twenties before he'd contemplate doing 'normal' things - like getting a train on his own or go for a drink after work with people he didn't know.

I'm not saying that all homeschooling is like that, mind. I'm just saying that I've seen it done badly. And that puts me off (also, no patience or inclination).

I can't imagine how I would find the time to prep stuff to then spend the following day educating them.

You kiss the point of homeschooling if you try to just replicate school!

*miss, even.

I'm a private tutor op! I don't have any at the moment but I've worked with home schooled kids in the past. Lots of parents are scared by GCSE maths and science. It's a nice job working with lovely kids who for whatever reason school just doesn't suit.

Matildathecat DH earns a decent salary, my low grade civil servant job is very low pay.
Shesgotlionsinherheart yes I see what you are saying, I think you do really need one parent who is able to stay at home

I couldn't afford to home school, even if I wanted to.

No I wouldn't. Even if I could afford it I don't have the patience and creativity that many home educators seem to have and I'm too unorganised!

Well its hypothetical for me as my DD is left school and at Uni, but no I would not have because:

a) the social aspect - although having read some of the answers to this thread I realise that it is possible to cover that angle

b) DH and I both worked full time, but even if we didn't neither of us have any teaching experience and wouldn't know how to go about it. We might be useless teachers.

c) Even if we managed to cover primary level stuff I would think it would be hard to offer the same range of options, facilities and expertise to teach all secondary level subjects.

We know of a family with five children who home educated. Academically they seemed to be doing well and the eldest then won a full scholarship to attend an independent girls' secondary school. She quit within a year because she was just so unused to the school environment.

No way! My dc love school. I'd also end up a frazzled mess if I home schooled I'm sure!

5foot5. That's kind of the point. What's the point in homeschooling if you're just going to recreate school? The point is to teach the children how to learn themselves, not necessarily at desks but in the real world. I did 12 GCSEs at school. Did I need to?! Might I have been better off doing 6 or 8 and had more time to properly understand what I was studying?

My daughter was bullied at her state senior school and we took her out and sent her to private school.

Now she's home educating her three children. They are having the most amazing life. As a pp said they are here , there and everywhere. Loads of friends, lots of different events to go to. They ate all extremely bright, very confident, sociable children.
They are 11, 8 and 6. The eldest taught himself to read. If you can manage without an extra salary, drive and have a good he group nearby I would do it in a heartbeat.

You can take advantage of term time cheaper holidays too.

Yes. We have a child who is homeschooled, the others go to school. It works for us. School just wasn't right for ds.

It isn't about replicating school at the kitchen table. There are many many methods. For us, we do the core subject then project work or immersion in subjects he is interested in. He has a diploma in English grammar completed online, is working toward an it gcse and is doing ks3 core work. He is technically in year five.

GCSEs are not a problem you can sit them as private candidates. There is also more then one route to university. Many home ed kids attend a tutor or go to a 14-16 college for GCSEs. Open university is also an option for many.

Re prep work, it depends what style you choose. There are all in one curriculums that you can use, both free and paid. There are online learning platforms, free and paid. There are workbooks available. I use an amazing tracking system that I enter the work into at the start of the term. Each day ds logs on and his work is there for him. If we have an outing or project day or whatever the system just kicks that lesson to the next slot. It took me only an hour to do all lessons from now until the end of the school year. There is a bit more prep involved for the non core subjects but we work on that as and when.

Re working, many many parents work from home, or work evenings, or run their own businesses. I work 20 hours a week out of the home.

The largest rise in America is the techy families. There was an article about it recently. I will see if I can find it.

Yes, I have a dd at school and I home educate my son due to anxiety who developed school phobia. He was always unhappy at school from age 4, he's 7 now and we've been home educating since October. Best thing we ever did, he now loves learning again the way he did before he turned 4, his confidence has grown and he's so much happier. I'm in an area with a very large home ed community and there are not enough days in the week to do everything. He works in groups for some subjects like Maths and English. He does trampolining with lots of home ed children, we go to lots of park meet ups, he has more time for piano which he loves. He does beavers and has singing classes at the weekend with other children. Home ed children are always socialising. Lots of museum meet ups as well and lots of different work shops and the advantage of home ed is that they aren't expensive at all. I'm lucky though as I'm able to work part-time with the support of my mum and sister. Lots do use other home ed child care and share the child care between them. there is so much support in my community and judging by the uk home ed group there seems to be support in all of them.
My dd loves school but one size doesn't fit all and this works for my son.

I recently watched the secret life of children at Christmas. A child featured was homeschooled and out of all the kiddies he was the most disruptive, couldn't engage with them (at times) and seemed to have little social skills with his peers. Probably not the best example to give I suppose, but I truly believe (unless there are really genuine reasons to homeschool) that children are better off at school.

Re teaching, it is more than that. If you are coming from a system that leads you to believe you cannot reach your child, why are you putting your children back into that same system?

It is, along with core work, teaching a child how to find the information they want, think critically about the information and its source. look for bias and make an informed decision about that information. That is a valuable life skill. If I think about, say, history, I remember pretty much none of what I was taught at school. However, recently events in the news have prompted me to look things up and I have learned far more about it than I did at school. Mainly due to interest. How many people use the list of England's kings and queens in daily life? Even scientists who use the data daily do not necessarily know all the information of the top of their head. They have programs to do that, or they can look it up. What they need is the informational make an informed guess at what the outcome of an experiment would be and why. So theory but not lists of facts.

The current curricula is decided by peopl who look at what children need inthecore subjects. I agree with this. But the noncore subjects is taught based on what can be differentiated and easily taught to a class of 30 students. One to one or three to one (or however many children you have) it is entirely different. They don't just skim the subject but I,merge themselves, taking twists and turns and the material can be accessed in totally different ways for those who don't necessarily get along with staring at a book.

Janeymoo, that child has SEN.

This is the article I was referring to.

www.wired.com/2015/02/silicon-valley-home-schooling/

Yes we though about it - but they all took to school and loved it. DH wanted to try that with school to start with though wasn't opposed to home schooling.

We thought about it again upon moving - actually depending on the places offered it might have been best choice but we got offered nearby places and again they took to school with places very well.

We were less keen to try at secondary level - where subject knowledge would have come in much more. We looked again as if we hadn't moved when we did we'd most likely had a really bad secondary found an option for an on-line private school which would have been back up I suppose.

I suspect the internet makes it much easier now than prior decades - finding other groups, accessing information and finding support.

Excuse my typos! :)

Also, as they get older, as you have taught them how to learn you are much more hands off with their lessons. So no need to worry about gcse level subjects you can't remember how to do.

Sorry for going on, it is a subject I have been researching and thinking about for years, but took a while to convince my husband!

janey do you not think those issues were part of the reason the parents chose to home school rather the result of him not being in school?

Janeymoo50 I saw that programme too. The little boy had been taken out of school, he had SEN of some kind although was clearly as bright as a button

No way. I would be useless - far too crabby and I struggle to get my kids to put their shows on.

• shoes

Hell.No.

All the respect in the world to those who do, though.