What are people's thoughts regarding home education? I myself have strong feelings about it. Wondering if AIBU

[HomeEdwoes]

I have personal experience of HE. I went to primary school but didn't go to secondary school at all. I was home educated primarily by my mum during those years. While I don't think of it as abuse, I feel that I missed out on a crucially important part of life by not going to secondary. I view those years of my life as an empty space where school should be. I consider not going to secondary to be the biggest mistake of my life and feel it still affects me as an adult in my twenties. I very rarely discuss it with anyone as it's a very sensitive subject for me.

Though I am sure that there are plenty of HE children who are thriving, I do find myself questioning the motives of parents who do decide to HE. I can understand doing it if the child has special needs that a school would not be able to meet, but that didn't apply to me. I did not have any SN. Also, it concerns me that parents who HE are not required to inform their local authority of their decision, and LAs are not obligated to monitor HE children in their area. I feel that all parents who HE should be required to register as home educators, and they should also be subject to occasional inspections as schools are. I feel the current system allows children to fall completely off the radar, with no monitoring taking place to ensure they are receiving a suitable education. Can I ask what people's thoughts are about HE generally, and whether you agree or disagree with my points?

I wish I had been educated at home by my dad. I hated school so much and bunked off all the time so I may as well have been taught at home.
My dd is taught at home because she will not step foot inside a school for love nor money.
She has autism and her school anxieties were so bad they were not only affecting herself but they were affecting me, the pupils in her class and her teachers. Best thing we ever did was take school out of the equation.

I went to a very crappy comp.

Some random thoughts...

What's so magical about being told facts by a teacher as opposed to reading them? (Referring to the comments about feeling sorry for "self-teachers")

I would send DS to a school like this www.altschool.com/ but as I can't I see HE as the next best option.

We do intend to encourage him to learn science comprehensively, but I think it's better to know about "dinosaurs and astronomy" properly than sod all about any of it as most people seem to.

I admit that I've changed my mind about HE as a result of what I've read on MNet and can see that it can work really well for some children. However, I do agree that I'm not so sure about it at secondary age. I understand doing it if you child is really unhappy at school/being bullied etc. However, if that isn't the case, I'm not so sure. My DCs' school has so much in terms of equipment and facilities eg science labs, DT equipment, music and drama studios. I'm not sure how you would teach those subjects at home.

I like the idea of home ed. I was home educated for a time. For some children it is the best option. However I wouldn't home educate my own kids unless it was last resort and the only option. I feel like I wouldn't be able to meet all their needs by myself to provided a rounded education and not limiting their options for the future.

Tbh, schools are a very odd version of socialisation. In what other areas of life is your peer group determined by what month of what year you were born in, you can't choose what to wear, you have to ask permission to go to the loo, achievement is based on remembering random facts, you have to stop concentrating on whatever you are looking at every hour to move down the corridor to do something else...etc. Not in the least conducive to learning. I have no issue with good primary schools...at least the project based curriculum tallies in with how our brains work, but I dislike nearly all secondaries intensely. Even my very nice public school.

My kids are home educated. We are open to them going to school if ever they choose to (and we never badmouth or put school down in front of them), however so far they have shown no interest in going to school. They are thriving both academically and socially, mix with both school children and other home ed children and have a social life which is the envy of many of their school friends. They are involved in numerous activities both home ed and mainstream and are happy, bright, engaged children with a love of learning. Of all the people we know who are or were home educated, all of them are thriving and I haven't met a single one yet who regrets not having gone to school.

By contrast, I was miserable at school, was severely bullied by both pupils and teachers, could've done well academically but didn't because of how unhappy I was. I moved schools and although the second school was marginally better, by then the damage was already done. Like the OP, my experiences as a child still affect me now as an adult and if I could go back and change it I would never have gone to school.

Whilst i'm sorry that the OP feels they had a poor experience of home ed, I don't feel that their experience is a reflection of home ed as a whole, any more than my experience was reflective of all schools. Home education, just like school, is not a perfect model; done well children will thrive, done badly they won't.

Not all children will suit home ed and not all will suit school. However, it is my experience that most parents who choose to home educate are doing so precisely because they value their children's emotional wellbeing, and so the children are given a large say in their education and their opinions are valued highly. It is certainly not my experience that home education is something done on the whim of the parents with no thought to how it might impact the emotional wellbeing of the child. The vast majority of home educating parents are open to their child trying or going back to school should they ever want to, whereas how many schoolchildren are given the choice of whether they'd like to be home educated?

Can I garauntee that my children will look back on home education and feel it was the right thing for them? No. But they will grow up knowing that their opinions and choices were always valued, and that's something that not all children are lucky enough to have.

I don't think there needs to be stricter regulations around home education, the current regulations are more then sufficient. LAs are allowed to make informal enquiries about the educational provision children are receiving, and if they believe a suitable education is not being provided they have powers to issue a Notice To Satisfy, and if neccesary a School Attendance Order. Welfare concerns, as with any other child, are the remit of Social Services and it's worth noting that far from being invisible, home ed children are actually UNIQUELY visible, generally being seen by a much wider range of people than many school children. It's also worth noting that whilst schools are inspected by OFSTED, many schools with a good OFSTED rating are riddled with bullying and other problems, and many schools with a poor rating are nonetheless full of happy thriving children.

Could some home ed children 'slip through the net'? Perhaps, although it is worth noting that in the (very few) Serious Case Reviews where home education has been a feature, the children in question were already known to numerous agencies including Police and Social Services who failed in their duty of care. Numerous schoolchildren have also slipped through the net, Daniel Pelka being an obvious one, so school isn't a garauntee of anything. A one hour visit a few times a year from a Home Ed advisor is unlikely to pick up anything which the Police and Social Services can't.

I also agree with ExAstris that it can be easy to view something like this through rose tinted classes, a sort of 'grass is always greener' thing. It's interesting (and shocking) though to see the amount of children in school who are suffering from low self esteem and mental health issues. Just as I am sure there are some people who, like you, were home educated and wish they'd instead gone to school, I know there are huge numbers of children who are miserable in schools and are desperate to be home educated.

You only have to Google 'school makes me ...' to see how a lot of children feel about school, the most popular searches being 'school makes me cry/feel sick/cut/want to die/feel stupid/feel sad/feel anxious'.

And if you look at some of the YouTube videos by home educated children talking about their education, the vast majority of the comments are by school children saying they would love to be home educated and that they are miserable in school. The desperation in some of their posts is heart wrenching.

OP, YANBU to have your feelings about your own experience. It sounds as if your parents chose HE for their own reasons rather in response to your choices or experiences. And that the HE environment they created was not happy or fulfilling for you.

So they got it hopelessly wrong, and negated what is presumably one of the main benefits of HE: to create the environment and learning experience that is right for the particular child.

And actually, this may or may not be school. Anyone making broad sweeping ideological points on this thread (or the other HE thread in Active Convos) or reacting solely to their own experience surely is in some danger of making the same mistake.

I have big issues with state ed - target culture / national curriculum the stuff the gvt forces on schools and teachers. If my DC went to a school invented and run by me things would be very different! However, I have to say that in our community, all the kids seem to be very happy, progressing and growing as young people, in a range of schools, where there are no reports of sustained or serious bullying, by and large they are enjoying their learning, and doing well academically at their own levels. This is amongst the 20-30 families amongst my friendship and acquaintance in S London. These are kids now in Yr 10. I know about the vast majority of kids who were at the primary and only know of one who has not thrived and the causes there were definitely home, not school.

So, while I completely understand that HE is best for some families and children (and the one HE child I met was awesome...in confidence and knowledge- she has gone into school now, at her own choice, for GCSEs) and know that of course some kids have horrible experiences on some schools , not all schools can be tarred with the same brush and the climate in secondaries has shifted over the last generation.

I worked in London comps in my 20s and swore I would never send a child of mine to one. 20 years later, I have not been in one that would scare me.

Have you talked to your parents about your choices and experiences, OP?

Some children are He'd due to religious sheltering - this always strikes me as particularly isolating and parentally controlling.

The internet is a fantastic resource for home educating parents-if they are of reasonable intelligence there is no need for pupils to self teach. The performances of home educated children post school often bears out the truth of that.

There is no need to provide an ofsted 'excellent' style of education in a home environment. It has other strengths and there are other ways to learn. For children who are miserable/overwhelmed at school, they may be too stressed and distracted to benefit from that wonderful education (which cannot be tailored to their needs as well as it can be with smaller numbers at home).

There are definitely advantages both ways and we owe it to children not to get on any one hobby horse by dismissing out of hand something that may be right for them.

This is a repeat thread, why do you feel the need to have this discussion again, OP?

OP, maybe the key thing is that HE works best when the DC wants it and the parent has the resources (time and or £) to fund it.

One of mine was ready to finish school (had completely disengaged) by the start of Y11 but was too young to simply drop out and get a job. She left school after a term and we got her tutors in subjects she was interested in. At the time, she only bothered to complete one GCSE (maths) but found work as soon as she was 16, doing a job that she enjoys.

At 19, she is doing foundation level OU course alongside work, with a view to studying maths full time at uni. Yes it would have been simpler / easier for her to do GCSEs and A levels at school, but it wouldn't have worked for her.

I was home educated between the ages of 8 and 15. Along with my little brother.
We had no problems at school, or learning difficulties. My parents had several reasons for their decision, each one valid.

My mother was a brilliant teacher and both her and Dad made it an enjoyable learning experience. They were strict but fair.
They were subject to inspections and each time the officer left satisfied.

My parents made sure we had plenty of friends and leisure time and arranged activities with other children. We never felt isolated.

I have nothing but good memories of my childhood education and plan to home educate my own children.

I can see at primary HE could work well. But at secondary either the children do not cover the breadth of subjects, or they get sent to private or HE classes or tutors, or they have to learn it online in a course. I can't see how studying online could possibly be better than being taught in a class

There is a boy by me who I see up the woods with his mum every day when I walk the dogs. He looks so happy as my own son, the same age, struggles with school quite alot
But
I just don't have the patience to home school

"I know many home educators. Most are "rigorous" when it comes to what they see as important stuff to know- crafts, the arts, arithmetic. Science is usually skimmed over, except dinosaurs and astronomy. "

This is what I see in HE as well. Usually HE children that do do science properly, go back to school when they are older.

Any evidence to back up that claim cleaty? It's not true in my experience.

If you do chemistry GCSE, you need access to a lab for assessments. Anyone with a scientific bent does Chemistry and Physics GCSE.

I can see at primary HE could work well. But at secondary either the children do not cover the breadth of subjects, or they get sent to private or HE classes or tutors, or they have to learn it online in a course. I can't see how studying online could possibly be better than being taught in a class

Cleaty, I think this has been answered for you on the other thread but some people don't want to listen if they don't like the answer. Both my DDs got 10 excellent GCSEs in a wide breadth of subjects, most of which they taught themselves. We had no tutors and no online courses. Many home educators cannot afford those things anyway. We are not at all unusual.

"I know many home educators. Most are "rigorous" when it comes to what they see as important stuff to know- crafts, the arts, arithmetic. Science is usually skimmed over, except dinosaurs and astronomy

Well, once again, both my DDs gained GCSEs in all 3 sciences at home, DD1 (who is stronger in languages, humanities and the arts) with A,B,B, and DD2 (who lives and breathes for science) with A* A A.

DD2 has indeed gone into 6th form where she is doing all 3 sciences at A level. However this is because of the system (you cannot take them outside of a school environment as the practicals have to be school assessed) rather than because she couldn't have got any further at home.

It's very frustrating when people who don't really know home educators - and certainly don't mix with a whole community of them - generalise, talk rubbish, and disregard answers which don't fit their hypothesis.

Cleaty, no, you don't need a lab. We managed all the experiments at home.

Cleaty, home educators take IGCSE, where you are assessed on the practicals you've done at home through an extra written paper.

DD2 is outstanding in her 6th form class at Biology and Chemistry practicals and the teacher is constantly calling the class over to look at her results as they are so good. I think this is because, for example, working with a cheap Tesco microscope rather than one that cost ££££ makes you very meticulous or you don't get the results!

Like you, the teachers had many preconceptions about her before she started, mainly negative. They've had to change them rapidly. At the end of last term she was called up in front of everyone and received an award for most outstanding Biology student. Home ed has served her rather well

No, you don't need a lab.

Many home educators take iGCSE but it is perfectly possible to take GCSE's in all sciences at home.

I really enjoyed school and thrived in a busy environment. I know dh was relentlessly bullied and hated it though.

Home education is Something I have thought about for my children. I don't have the confidence or patience for it. I think one of my children would do well being home educated, the other does very well at school and loves it. Little one not in school yet.

I don't have strong feelings about it, I'm sure it works well for those who do it. And I know there are lots of He groups out there and the children definitely don't miss out on socialising with other children.

Slightly off topic but what about a level science? Is there a way of doing the practicals at home? If so, is it looked down upon by universities for top courses such as medicine? I'd be very grateful to know if anyone can tell me.

Sorry you are right, I looked at IGCSE online.
Personally I would prefer to work through this in a class of others though, rather than by myself at home. It would take a lt of commitment to do this at home, and I would not have had that as a child.