AIBU to ask for your opinions on home education?

[MooMooTheFirst]

For background-

I am a primary school teacher that currently teaches nursery and have felt increasingly uneasy about the school system in the UK over the past few years. I've got a 13 month old DS. I am confident I can deliver education at primary level up to year six.

The idea of home education has always seemed 'other' to me but I am slowly starting to feel like it would be right for us.

This isn't a goady post, genuinely looking for a variety of opinions.

I would not wanrt to claim, Booboo, that all teachers have at their fingertips all the methods they will need, all of the time - you have only to read some of the education threads to realise how many cling to highly outmoded or discredited approaches or who fail children who don't 'fit the standard mould'.

However, good teachers do at least have access to expertise...

As I said before this may well be an ideal that is difficult for teacher to achieve (because they are underfunded, or undermotivated, or whatever), but nonetheless it is not clear why it would then be an easy ideal for parents to achieve.

The first year I lectured I had to write down all my lectures as I had to think through all the materials and order them in my mind first. I wrote 100,000 words of lectures in one year. 15 years later I could walk into the classroom and talk on any topic in my expertise with no preparation. I had no problem adjusting to questions, problems and changes of direction arising from the students and I could even experiment with teaching ideas on the go. But it took that long to achieve that in one subject.

Admittedly that was at a much higher level than primary. If you asked me to teach philosophy to primary kids I could walk in the classroom now. If you asked me to teach English language I would need a year to prepare and would want to take a course as part of my prep. If you asked me to teach history, geography, English, art, music, sports, etc I would begin to panic. If you asked me to teach maths and science I would run away crying.

So e.g. when teaching a child who is dyscalculic (could not add or subtract 1 to or from any 1 or 2 digit number in late KS2 except by laying out that number of objects, physically adding one more or taking one away, and then counting all) I had access to a specifically-trained TA, an Ed Psych, some reasonably expensive practical equipment and a teacher with specific expertise who guided me through a year's worth of plans, integrated within a class of 30.

The child ended the year able to carry out all 4 operations (x,+,-, divide) in their standard written forms for numbers up to 4 digits. I would never have manged it without all the expertise and advice, and i would never have managed it as an HE parent.

(I say 'never managed it as an HE parent' because i have been an HE parent, and I genuinely can't see how i could have accessed the expertise I needed to that year as a parent - or not without it being extraordinarily expensive)

Have read a few of these threads, always strikes me that surely private schools should be an option too? It's not just state school system vs home ed. as the op is a teacher, and as a family can live without her wage, she can afford private primary (it will be even more affordable if she goes to work at the same school as most give staff discounts or free places).

Private schools tend to have significantly smaller class sizes and don't have to follow the national curriculum. There are very different approaches in different private schools, so worth looking around for less "pushy" one.

This approach means the OP doesn't have to give up career/pension and as a family if you are used to the expense, it'll be easier to cope without if you later home ed.

Invisible,

It depends a lot on the reason for HE - for families with several children, the finances just don't work (I agree this does not apply to the OP); for families with a child with SEN, provision in private locally may be worse than in state.

When returning DS to school after HE, I looked at all schools, both state and private, where we were moving. None of the private schools were anything other than discouraging, given his recent selective mutism and possible ASD traits, despite him being very bright. Definitely a polite but definite feeling of 'not our kind of child'.

Private may be an option for some, but certainly not for many. It wouldn't be for us, financially for one. But also because we have no problem with our local school. It is a small village school highly rated by ofsted, with caring staff and a fabulous reputation. If we were going to use a school, we would use it very happily. But we don't want to use a school, full stop.

We may reconsider come secondary, we will see.

Would it be so difficult for a generally well educated parent with access to the internet and perhaps even a university library (open to local community where I live) to research various methods of teaching reading? I don't intend to try, but I don't see why it would be that hard.
When dd was diagnosed with a genetic condition I did not find it at all difficult to get hold of the latest research on her illness though my own specialism happens to in humanities and I had never read a medical journal before.

Not to mention all the expertise that can be found through HE forums these days.

"Would it be so difficult for a generally well educated parent..."

Are all HE parents generally well-educated? i agree that quite a lot are, but is it a safe assumption to make about all?

I was not making any assumptions about all HE parents. There seems to be an assumption that no HE parents would be able to read the same kind of material as teachers would have to do in the course of their training. Which is rather ironic since this thread was started by a primary school teacher.

I'm well educated and a teacher at a different level and I would find it difficult. Some subjects I might just about cope with a lot of hard work and preparation, others I would have no hope in hell.

I am not sure why your example of finding information on a medical condition is relevant, but I may be missing the point. If you mean that most people can access facts that is probably true but of course there is a lot more to teaching than the teacher knowing the answer. If you mean that most people can access information about teaching techniques that is also true but fairly useless. Reading about something is not the same as putting it in practice, or even knowing whether it should be put into practice.

But the OP is a teacher so presumably she has pedagogical skills. And ime quite a few HE'ders do have pedagogical skills acquired in different ways.

I am absolutely not saying that every HE parent is going to be brilliant at the job. But individual objections might not apply to all parents. That's all.

Pedagogy is more important when you start working with multiple children. But, for fear of generalising, the majority of people who home ed are the type to research ridiculously.

Tbh, having done teacher training, it really isn't rocket science. And the skills needed to provide a suitable educational environment for your own children, who you know better than anyone, are totally different. It is really rather pointless to labour the point, but teachers do tend to simply because of their experiences. Which is natural of course. But the two things are chalk and cheese.

I can imagine this, witsender, having been coached as a young child in various subjects by people with either no pedagogical training or no pedagogical training relevant to my age group. 1-2-1 is a very different thing from having to juggle a whole class.

My DM did have training as a Sixth Form teacher but I have actually never met anyone who was better at teaching small children and adapting what she did to the individual child (large extended family so has been called on many times). My DF otoh, though a very successful and popular Sixth Form teacher who had published excellent text books, was rather less successful with young children because he just carried on exactly the way he had been taught to teach a different age group. Adaptability is a very personal thing.

People are not generalising on this thread cory just making points that might apply to some cases and raising worries that can, I am sure, be countered in many cases. The OP is a primary school teacher which does give her a huge advantage for primary - my point might still apply to non-primary school teachers and teachers teaching outside their area of expertise.

Pedagogy is more important when you start working with multiple children now this generalisation is clearly not true. There are different challenges presented when teaching large groups, e.g. lecture theatre, small groups, e.g. classroom or seminar, and one to one, e.g. tutorial or HE. Even a beginner teacher who has taught across group sizes will have noticed this immediately.

And of course an HE parent with more than one children will be teaching a group but across different levels, a serious pedagogical challenge all by itself.

Nothing wrong with home schooling as long as the child is getting their social aspects elsewhere such as an after school activity. My cousin didn't get this and really struggles socially as an adult as a result.
It's really hindered her in so many aspects of her life. Her parents meant well as she was taken out to avoid the bullies but there were alternative repercussions.

To clarify, I think that much 'classroom pedagogy' is not relevant to HE.

Also, many children, as long as they have a natural desire to learn, or have this desire developed within them, and are exposed to reasonably reliable and varied sources of what they want to learn (books, internet etc if not their primary educators, whether that be parents or teachers), will learn. The HE child who learned to read in school via phonics would, had they been in the 'other' 85%, the majority of children who will learn to read pretty much however they are taught, have learned to read using the methods their parents used.

Where specific expertise, or access to expertise, becomes much more important is when a child really struggles - when they are in that % of children who learn to read using phonics but don't using mixed methods, when they are acutely dyscalculic. It is harder for 'the average HE parent' [maybe not an ex-teacher, who may retain contacts and have previous practical experience to call upon] to access this expertise in a practical rather than theoretical form.

I have to disagree can't. I think it is exactly when a child needs teaching by different methods to the norm that home education comes into its own because schools simply do not have the time and flexibility to set up individual teaching plans for each student whereas for a parent at home they can use methods to suit their child.

Disclaimer:haven't read the whole thread.

I'm not keen on home Ed in general but think for a minority of children it might be the best option. I know for sure that I couldn't do it, I think it takes a lot of skill and ability to adequately teach a child, especially your own child, and I certainly don't have that but am very impressed by those that can.

I do think there's a socialisation issue, NOT that home Ed children don't get socialisation but that its more likely to be controlled by the parents which in my opinion presents difficulties in exposing children to playmates and experiences outside the parents' bubble.

I understand though parents considering home ed considering the state of education in the UK. I live in Finland so would be foolish to pass up DD's chance for top notch education though.

OneinEight,

It's difficult, isn't it, because it can work both ways.

For the child I taught, the method that is the norm in schools was successful where the methods used at home had failed.

For some of the SEN children i have taught, the advice and experience available to me was something that many HE parents might not have been able to access - and although some could have been known about / happened upon / applied by an HE parent (and of course within HE could have been applied for much more time each day, whereas we are constrained by the timetable), some were not.

However, for children who struggle in school for other reasons - and I speak as a past HE parent of a child with anxiety-induced selective mutism - I agree that HE can deliver exactly what the child needs.

I personally know three children who were HE. It's worked out in that they all did well in exams including a degree and have great jobs. One of the children seemed fairly young socially in their teens but it's evened up now.
If things hadn't calmed down for DD in her final year I would have been tempted.
No way would I have considered it for primary school, both mine loved it and it was a great experience in a the main. So glad we are done with secondary school, awful.

I feel I am not succeeding in putting across my point and my posts are coming across as adversarial and enimical to HE. I have no problem with HE. What I want to say is that teaching maths is not enough one has to teach the student to love learning about maths (and English and art and whaever). This is a difficult thing to do for parents and for teachers.