To think home schooling should be better monitored?

[Mollymoo78]

One of my FB friends from my toddler group days has announced on FB that she's home schooling her four year old. She was always very very attached to him and never had a moment away from him ie a night out. She breast fed him well into his fourth year and carried him in a sling when he got tired. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm genuinely wondering if her decision to home school has more to do with her being reluctant to let him go.

Her comments on FB are "well I have no precise plans as to what I'm going to do but they learn through play at this age anyway so it doesn't matter". I just felt quite uncomfortable reading that. It all sounds very vague. My dd has started school recently and loves it - the socialisation with her peers and older children, the physical activity, getting independence and rewards for her achievements. She's playing yes but she's also being taught to read and write. But what if this boy isn't given these things - who is going to be checking up on the education he's being given?

I don't mean to put a downer on homeschooling - I've no doubt it's the perfect option for those whose children don't gel with school but shouldn't you at least try school first? Am I wrong to question this in my mind?

The numbers registered as HE are increasing. Nobody knows if this is down to better registration or is a real increase.

There are no guarantees that all children will get the education they should even with the oversight in mainstream education. I have seen my DCs waste a year with below par teachers where I've wondered if my DCs would be better off at home. If schools fail to pick up on this how can inspectors pick things up at home.

No-one can be an expert in all subjects.

No-one needs to learn all subjects

I am in the UK. The site I posted also has details of children who were being HE, who were abused and died at the hands of their parents. I had never heard of these cases in the media.

WorraLiberty

Always happy to chat, in fact I really enjoy chatting with people who ask genuine questions and are searching for genuine answers. It is quite refreshing to face that, than preconceived (often ill informed opinion).

I do think you have hit the nail on the head. My own experience of monitoring in Australia was exactly that. A tick box exercise.

In saying that, I have had a daughter just finish college. Her college, received outstanding OFSTED results. Yet, her course was handled atrociously, and she personally wasn't placed in an A-Level English class until 6 weeks into the beginning of term. That being just one of the concerns, many parents raised with the college tutors.

Surprisingly, the parents in her course weren't asked to fill out feedback forms on behalf of the college. I suspect if we were, they wouldn't have received outstanding.

So even fabulous cough institutions have a way of manipulating OFSTED to receive the results they want, by selecting who they ask to feedback information. Again, a tick box exercise.

I suspect there is no utopia and failure and success happen wherever there are people.

What I meant was that teachers in secondary schools are asked to cover lessons for absent teachers, you know like supply only in house!

Teachers from different subject areas cant teach the class so they are effectively baby sitters! Its completely irrelevant to home ed and the OP anyway because anything a home edder doesnt understand they can look up and learn with their child or find someone who does understand to help them!!

To be fair, I don't see any problem in the social aspect.

As PPs have said, HE kids will share exactly the same parks/clubs/streets etc as schooled kids.

I imagine being HE isn't going to stop kids from joining Brownies/Scouts/Football teams/Netball teams etc.

EON

Over the years ive noticed obvious increases and decreases in amounts of HE kids.

They tend to correspond quite well with changes to SEN rules/legislation/procudures/attitudes or changes to how schools are run or percieved to be run and things like current policy on bullying that sort of thing

Withdraw children from society?? Rubbish!

My children regularly see the GP, dentist, eye doctor, paediatrician, and OT. They participate in clubs at the YMCA, home ed groups, sports groups, meetups with other children/families/friends. We go on outings regularly that are related to our studies. We loosely follow the National Curriculum, while adding in other things as we go along that the dcs express an interest in (for example, bees and pollination following a discussion about bees recently). They are much healthier and happier and their education is moving forward quite well (better than it was in school).

If we require assistance, we have many resources from which to choose and we utilise them as needed.

I'd recommend taking the time to learn more about home education before criticising it.

The socialisation arguments do annoy me. My son couldn't cope with the enforced socialisation that his school provided, it made him ill. Being shoved out into a noisy playground with a hundred other kids, many of whom bullied and goaded him. Being able to control his socialisation, leaving when he has had enough, is far better for him.

What I meant was that teachers in secondary schools are asked to cover lessons for absent teachers, you know like supply only in house!

Very rarely IME.

The school just calls in agency teachers to cover absence and those teachers will specialise in the given subject.

Besides, where are they supposed to find teachers in house who have so much time on their hands?

Half of British women cannot identify where the vagina is.

Half of Britons can't spell simple words

Half of Britons struggle with the apostrophe

But yeah, let anyone educate

Its a complete myth that HE kids dont socialise! In my area there is some sort of group or meet up every day! We choose which ones work for us.

What is the goal of more monitoring?

Is it to prevent abuse and neglect?
Would more monitoring actually achieve that? How?
Should SAHP's with kids below nursery age or not in any form of childcare also receive this monitoring? If not why not? The risk is equal?

Or is it to monitor the quality of education? But what is a good education? If I chose to send my kids to Summerhill to play all day that would be okay but to keep them home all day to play is not?

If I choose the local Steiner school and they haven't learned to read at seven that's okay but if I home educate my child and they can't read at seven that's a problem?

If I choose a Christian academy that teaches evolution as a theory that would be okay but if I home educate my kids to 'shelter them from secular views' that's an issue?

Also even if we could agree on what is a good education, what would we do if a child is not achieving required standards? At present the responsibility for ensuring a child is adequately educated lies with parents, if a child fails to meet the required standard should we prosecute the parent? Or issue a school attendance order? What if a schooled child fails the same test? Prosecution or forcible home education?

Monitoring home ed is fraught with difficulties. Frankly the real bottom line is parents are allowed to make decisions for their children unless those decisions lead to death or significant harm.

I can feed my child crap, choose not to vaccinate them, smoke around them, co sleep against the SIDS guidelines, send them to the failing school down the road and never help with homework and no one will do a single thing about it.

We do have lines as a society, if If I allow my child to become grossly obese, fail to seek healthcare at all or don't provide them with even the most basic of education then the state will intervene. There is already monitoring of home ed possible. If concerns are raised they can be investigated and the LA can make informal inquiries and issue an SAO if not satisfied. Normal child protection procedures are possible. We've chosen the line we think gives the best balance of protecting children and protecting the freedoms of parents to do what they think is best for their child without state interference. I think further monitoring will create more issues than it solves.

I am sure some HE kids socialise a lot. I am not against HE.

HA!! Worra not in our "Outstanding academy"!

MindSweeper I can't really say much about that as I'm American. I don't have difficulties with any of that stuff.

I do make the effort to teach my children both British and American history, which is great. We're working our way through the American Revolution right now.

MindSweeper

And why is that?

Let me guess, the failure of an education system?

Rofl

*So even fabulous cough institutions have a way of manipulating OFSTED to receive the results they want, by selecting who they ask to feedback information. Again, a tick box exercise."

After nearly thirty years of teaching, I know this is absolute rubbish. If headteachers could select who to feedback information, every school would get a grade 1.

Jumping in on a tangential point without reading the whole thread. Someone on page 2, I think CaptainSubtext spoke of knowing or knowing about a family where births of children are unattended and unregistered. If this is what you believe to be true, then I strongly urge you to inform relevant authorities of your suspicions. It is a fundamental human right of all children to have their birth registered and this should be done inmediately after birth. It is the most basic ant most efficient protection that child has against a whole host of abuses including human trafficking, babies-for-sale, and more 'mundane' issues like neglect or maltreatment. It horrifies me to think children in our countries are not registered - if you even suspect this, you have a huge moral duty to report it. Not being registered correlates with far higher levels of abuse. There are no benefits or benign reasons NOT to register a birth. Please please do something if you even suspect this situation might exist. Imagine an abused child or teen, isolated from society, seeking to escape and they don't even have a name or 'exist' anywhere. Terrifying.

Just reading the thread through but following with interest.

We plan to home school our dd. We are members of the thriving he community in our area and I'm not going to lie some of them (imo) are bonkers.

The main reason we want to home educate is the one to one teaching. I don't want my DD to be afraid of mathematics the way I was at school, a few pps have mentioned dc slipping the net- well I totally did in maths and I was in mainstream school!

Only a couple of home edders I know don't allow visits from the lea, from what I can see its mainly the parent's anxiety and fear of the establishment, its quite sad because they get really scared when letters are dropped on their door steps.

ginger but no-one is going to come on here and admit they do none of that are they?

I am in the UK. The site I posted also has details of children who were being HE, who were abused and died at the hands of their parents. I had never heard of these cases in the media

That an American site and you can't really compare the UK with America.

The NSPCC has a section on their site that has all the published SCR's for the UK. If you are interested in the subject they are worth a read (not plesant reading but informative) to the best of my knowledge there has not been even one SCR for a UK based child who was HE and totally off radar, there are a few that claim they were but when you actually read them they all were already recieving attention from safeguarding services and the overwhelming observation in every single one is missed opourtunities where if correct safeguarding procudures were followed (or the competence of the person doing so was not in question).

I cannot even think of one where this was not raised as an issue in the SCR

Since most people attend school it isn't really a ringing endorsement for the education system that so many Britons can't do those things.

But MOST people are in or have been through formal mainstream education mindsweeper. Worrying isn't it?