to get annoyed when a home schooling parent...

[00100001]

... can't spell?

My SIL home schools her daughter.

But all the time, she is posting "I just thort of a new idea..." or "We just need to get threw this..." or ^"I love home schoolling" etc.

Just makes me twitch.

So what to HE parents do about science and experimentation? How do you learn chemistry A level at home?

Interested. We have talked about HE our son as the local primary is pretty terrible and DH and I have a bunch of qualifications between us - he's good at teaching, was a tutor for a long while. However it just seems like bloody hard work with no real qualifications (as pp said above) for the kids at the end of it.

I can understand why people HE in some cases but to be honest I think it's a band aid for specific problems in the education system (lack of SEN facilities, bullying, poor local schools) and not an adequate alternative in itself.

My problem is that children need LOTS of teachers - different approaches, different skills, different knowledge and different relationships. I wouldn't feel comfortable being both a parent AND the primary source of learning. It would be confusing. Children need different environments.

What age is she?

I have no idea how parents have the patience to home school. 2 hours homework a night is enough to drive me round the bend!

Many HE kids do their 'A' levels in college.

But there are other options:

Many areas runs science groups where families band together for resources. You'd be amazed what can be recreated outside of a school lab.

Plenty of HE children take GCSE's as external candidates.

Spelling in schools is AWFUL!!! generally. I think if i sat at home and taught my children they would actually be better at it.
This is coming from a primary teacher!!!
The problem is, the curriculum is so full of other stuff that you don't often have the time to focus on these areas [ believe it or not] and because of target setting, you need to get them through the sounds. You haven't got the luxury to keep going over sounds until the children get it so its a sound a week regardless.

What percentage of h.e dc go on to get 5 gsces or more, A levels? What percentage go on to uni or a professional job?

Well no-one can provide those figures because they havent a clue how many children were or are currently HEd

Presumably a Home School association has those figures though? Or some data?

My son has additional needs and his experiences at mainstream school were awful and extremely damaging. When we started home educating we were glad to receive an LA visit, mainly because I wanted someone in the 'system' to listen to how badly let down we had been by the school and have a bit of a rant about it really.

However as time has passed and I have had chance to reflect I won't allow any further visits into my home, to check our work and assess us in any way. I think the education system needs to get its own house in order first, particularly with regards to how children with SN are treated and I feel indignant at a system that let my child down so badly seeing fit to judge me. We are looking into specialist provision at the moment but if we can't get a place I will home ed DS permanently rather than ever make him set foot in a mainstream school again.

To the pp who asked about science and experiments, we pay for DS to attend a fortnightly science group run by a qualified science teacher. She does practical experiments with the children as part of her lessons.

Home educated children can and do take traditional qualifications. I don't know what percentage of home ed kids go on to higher education but out of the hundreds I know in real life and online, they almost always have done so and done very well.

There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding home education and also a shocking amount of attribution bias - if a home ed kid does well it's apparently in spite of home ed, whereas if a school kid does well it's apparently because of school. If a home ed kid doesn't thrive it's apparently because of home ed; if a child at school doesn't thrive that's apparently in spite of school. When someone says they feel being home ed impacted them negatively people talk as if home ed is intrinsically flawed, yet there are hundreds of thousands of people who were impacted negatively by their school experience. Everyone claims to know a weird or strange or awkward home ed kid (funny that when there are so few home ed kids about), yet the world is full of weird awkward people with poor social skills and the vast majority of them went to school. My advice would be to get out and meet some home ed families in real life before making any judgements.

I have two SIL's who are teachers. One has been an acting head teacher for over a year. Their lack of knowledge about anything that wouldn't feature in OK magazine is astounding.

A home school association? Why would they have those figures? No one has to inform a home school association that they wish to deregister their child from state education. They could have guesstimates sure but actual data?

I home educated 2 of mine for 7 years - we lived in a very remote place at the time. Eldest got 10A*s at GCSE and is on course for 4A's at A level. She's also just about to do the Cambridge assessment. Younger one has just started Year 10 and is in the top set for every subject. Youngest is in Year 3 and doing just fine although I only home edded her for a year.

Quite frankly people choose Home Ed for many reasons, their choice, you choose what's best for your own child.

My children have all gone to school.

The first school was terrible for teaching spelling - only thing done to teach was random and confusing weekly spelling list that sap their confidence however hard they tried - and where incorrect spelling weren't pointed out as spelling would emerge.

Current school does teach spelling but via computer s - which research I've read is one of the less efficient ways.

So we've had to step in to teach spelling - fine by DH has long jobs with long hours and commutes and work away a lot - so it's down to me. Me - a person who's spelling is so bad it did finally lead to me going through process and being diagnosed as dyslexic.

Luckily there are lots of very good spelling programs out there - which I've had to fit round school with tired worn out children to correct their poor spelling. So I don't think it's impossible for a poor speller to ensure their own children spell well as the OP seems to be suggesting.

I think spelling wise we'd have worked on it correctly from the start if we'd home schooled and certainly would have picked up problems faster as we'd have seen their work.

While we don't homes school - I'm aware that to the internet just how many good quality resources are out there and in some ares very good home schooling networks - so in many respects I don't think it ever been easier to provide good quality schooling at home.

Not for us though in the end - despite both DH and I having not just degree but post gradate one as well.

I do think finding fault with spelling in an e-mail is an odd way to decide a parent isn't fit to home school - though maybe Op has other reasons to think that.

I'd home ed in a shot if I lived on the mainland. There are so many homeschooling co-ops there.

You can have your kids learn maths from someone with a maths degree, spend part of every day gardening/farming, have them mixed in with kids if the same ability rather than age (if that's your thing).

Unfortunately we live on an island and it's looking like ds's class will only have 2 other kids his age in it. The year is combined with another year and there will be three kids in that when he joins. So a class size of 5.

I'm a secondary school teacher with 20 years' experience and even I wouldn't consider myself suitable to home school my children. I sympathise with parents who home school because of major bullying or other issues. I also sympathise with those who home school because they think that there's a lot wrong with our education system. I agree, but I still think the vast majority of children are best served by being sent to school.

As for the spelling... I wince at teachers' incorrect spellings too. But not everyone is a good speller, even if they are a great teacher. If you weeded out all the imperfect spellers from the already dwindling numbers of teachers in this country, we'd have even more of a shortage crisis than we do already.

People would comment that my son was 'quirky and odd' if they met him, no doubt attributing it to the fact that he is home educated when it is actually because he has autism. In fact quite a large number of the families I have met who pulled their children out of school have done so due to additional needs (either diagnosed or not) and lack of support and bullying as a result. Something to think about maybe when labelling home ed kids as 'odd' when their 'oddness' might be the very reason they have to home educate in the first place.

I really dont understand, when every other aspect of child development is documented, that this one area is all so vague. Parents seemingly left to do exactly what they like, no standards, no guidelines, no evidence of if effective.

You don't need any monitoring or training when you decide what you feed your child - something that many would say is far more important than their education. Would you be happy if a forthcoming government made you do this? Perhaps a compulsory meal report once a week?

Don't be too quick to judge people based on their spelling.

My dp is a nuclear physicist but his spelling is atrocious because he's dyslexic.

"Nearly half of poor children are unable to read and understand books, newspapers and websites by the time they leave primary school, according to research released by backers of a major new campaign to wipe out illiteracy in Britain." (from a report published by Save the Children in 2014).

YABU.

The posters on the HE board here seem all seem very good, providing a rounded education for their children but I worry about the others. The religious families teaching creationist bullshit and others who may not give a shit or may start with good intentions but don't have the finances or time to provide a rounded education.

It worries me that some home schoolers seem massively against any kind of monitoring- it feels like it's an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude. They don't want to be on the radar so let's disregard the children who may be not getting an education or even worse (there were two posters on the recent thread who were abused and they were not on anyone's radar because of home education).

Not remotely comparable.

Absolutely comparable. You just expect to be told exactly what to do with education but to be left to your own devices with diet. Anything that doesn't fit that norm sounds absurd. But it's your responsibility to educate your child (by sending them to school if you want to) just as its your responsibility to feed them. There is no need for the government to interfere with either of them in any way unless you are clearly failing - in which case I'd say that diet was the far higher priority.

*Sorry, you think this woman read the MN thread or a similar debate, and amended her previous understanding that the word was 'thought' to 'thort'?

Yes, you should be sorry for that comment*

Why? You said the thread and discussions like it might be why this woman is confused, I'm saying I think it's unlikely!