To think there should be an approval process to allow parents to HE?

[abacucat]

Children's education matters, it is incredibly important and affects the rest of their life. I think it is fine for parents to Home Educate, but I think there should be an approval process before parents can HE. This will check the parents are actually capable of doing this.

Actually, as a former HE child I think many of your fears stem from ignorance. With the advent of technology, children are able to do a lot of learning online. Some areas also have homeschooling "co-ops" where parents will take turns teaching groups of children based on the parent's expertise.

Socialization isn't really a problem for most HE children. In fact some studies have shown that these children are BETTER socialized! First of all, it's important to remember that many HE children have siblings at home. If you think about it, putting children of the same age in a group to socialize is really a very artificial construct. In most families, unless there are multiples, children don't have siblings of the same age. HE children are socialized every day with their siblings. Most HE parents also have their children involved in various activities - we were in Guiding and Scouting, music, and sport, for example. Many areas also have support groups for HE families so the kids can get together.

zzzzz

Well, tbf, a combination between you and Cycling.

Cycling suggested that anyone failing to provide the legal requiremet for education should be reported, and after making a comment about it being everyone's responsibility to report neglect, you stated that failure to provide this education on its own was neglect.

I am genuinely interested as to what you feel the 'full time, approprtiae education' should look like to the 'potentially reporting outsider' to meet the legal standard, especially as many of the HE choices made by parents look very much like 'failure to provide education' FROM THE OUTSIDER'S POINT OF VIEW. Inviting all such outsiders to report all HEers whose education looks non full-time and non-appropriate to the LA and SS seems to me to be a way of opening the floodgates in a very worrying way, compared with which registration or approval seem positively light touch...

The legal bar is an efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude and any special educational needs. I'm not sure where a child's interests came in to the legal definition - my oldest has no interest in writing, I still make him do it daily.

A child's education is important and neglecting that is something that should be brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities. The authorities involved in education have the set criteria. That is an entirely different issue to registration and approval which makes no guarantee that the child will be educated - the former is just that the LA is aware of this and the latter is the parent put forth sufficient evidence that they would try. That doesn't mean they do. Parents who are registered can still be questioned. I'm registered and have submitted reports, portfolios, and dealt with having my ability to education my kids questioned repeatedly.

So yeah, if you have concerns that a parent is not fulfilling their legal requirement to ensure a child is getting an education, contact an LA. All kids deserve a strong position, including home educated ones. There aren't really other options if you think this is happening to a child - requiring parents to register won't fix the problems, it will just make it easier to calculate and discuss the issues.

So your view would be that many forms of HE which don't LOOK like education SHOULD be reported, just in case they AREN'T education?

I'm going for about 50% of the HE group I belonged to following a form of HE that didn't look at all like education....

Do YOU see educational neglect in many of the - IME fairly typical - HE scenarios I listed? Because from an outsider's point of view, many don't look at all like education, and quite a lot look like neglect.

As many others on here my ds is he because of various issues. The school practically bulldozed dh into home edding him because they couldn't be bothered to deal with his issues and his attendance was affecting their figures.
SS are aware of all the issues in our family but deem dh a responsible parent and ignore all the referrals they get.
So - we get no help for him, MS school failed him and you suggest that there should be a registration system? I can't see any school agreeing to that as they are only too keen to get rid of those they fail that then adversely affect their figures.
I abhor the lack of knowledge on he - I had one police sergeant telling me that we were failing ds because, altho he had gcses, he would undoubtedly have got better results were he at school so we were failing him in that he was not achieving what he was capable of. I would say that applies to a huge percentage of pupils in schools....

can't What do you think happens when you report? Do you think the book is thrown at us whenever anyone says our education methods look wrong? With all the issues of underfunding and overwork, do you think the LA and SS are chomping at the bit to get home educators who do things a bit weird? (which I would not classify kids being put to work or used as domestic labour as)

As someone who has had this happen and has had both the LA and SS explain it to me - what actually happens is that they will check if there are recent records. All the reports and things we send are stored for this purpose. If there are, nothing really happens. If there are no records, that's when an HE parent will likely get doorstepped or get a letter asking to confirm they are home educating. That's when most HE parents are registered. If the records are old or there are additional concerns, we'll get a letter asking for further information. If SS is contacted, they will pass it on to the LA (so don't contact SS unless you also have other concerns) if it is education related otherwise they will deal with it.

I've had this - medical professional tried to contact SS on me for my kids not being in school, they were told that my kids are registered, medical professional said my kids were also dirty. SS is keeping that on record in case someone else makes the same complaint but are currently consider it being made up. As part of their duties, I recieved a letter that there had been a report on my children being dirty (which we then had a nice conversation over the phone about and how I found out about all this - the lady was the most relieved sounding women that I wasn't angry at her which is kinda concerning but she was happy to explain everything to me).

Enforcement is important but acting like it's this horrible thing to report - or that registering/approval is somehow an alternative for enforcement - doesn't help anyone - home educated kids or kids missing in education. I mean, if you report 50% of your local group, your LA might just write you off so I might focus on who you're most concerned about first, but yeah, if you think it's that big of an issue in your area and the kids are being neglected, report.

Personally, while I may strongly disagree with the educational methods of others (and I think many blow a lot of hot air about how they do things/what their kid is doing that doesn't really line up with reality like many parents), no, I don't really see educational neglect in those around me. I do see children with disabilities whose parents are struggling to provide after their schools repeatedly failed them and I see teenagers who are making it very hard on their parents but - as zzzzz said - I think the idea that we just accept educational neglect because we home educate is off.

I can't remember who asked what and who said what. Several posters are saying that you know a home ed family where the children definitely aren't being educated. How can you be so sure? I can't tell you what education "should look like". It can look like a parent taking a child for a walk, but they're actually having a debate about Brexit. Or it can look like they're shopping but they're actually looking at Tudor buildings in their town ….If you aren't sure what education should look like you can't know if a child is being educated.....

If the LA finds that parents aren't complying with the law they can serve a School Attendance Order and the child will have to go to school. I don't think SS deal with education.

As for what full time is the Government guidance for LAs says "There is currently no legal definition of "full-time". Children
normally attend school for between 22 and 25 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year, but this measurement of "contact time" is not relevant to elective home education where there is often almost continuous one-to-one contact and education may take place outside normal "school hours"." assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288135/guidelines_for_las_on_elective_home_educationsecondrevisev2_0.pdf

For more general information about home education these websites might be helpful:

www.educationotherwise.org/index.php
edyourself.org/

I think HE can and does work very well but it can also be used as a cover for abuse, neglect and exploitation. Tara Westovers book “Educated” is a good illustration of that.

Absolutely and while you’re at it there should be approval process to have a child. Maybe a permit. We could all be inspected every year on how many vegetables are in our home dinners. We should also send all babies to smiling classes from 10days old and to crawling classes. Parents simply can’t be trusted.

Yeah I know many of the most vociferous HE people don't care if HE children are being educationally neglected or abused. Just as long as no one from the state has a legal right to visit and ask them how they are educating their child.
Personally I prefer to listen to the many adults who have been HE who talk about being abused, educationally neglected, under socialised. I used to think these were very rare in HE, but there are a lot of adults around who talk about this. And in any of these thread on MN any adults who were HE and had a negative experience are pretty much dismissed by this crowd.

Yeah I know many of the most vociferous HE people don't care if HE children are being educationally neglected or abused.

How on earth can you know that?

that's how some he parents here on mn and in real life come across...

I’m always surprised by just how many HE families MNetters know personally. I didn’t know any before I was forced into HE, not a single one. I know loads now from going to groups and seeking them out but have still never just come across a HE family in every day life despite living in a city with a larger than usual HE community. Yet on MN almost every commenter knows not just one HE family, but two or three or four and almost without fail those commenters know the family well enough to observe over time and form the opinion that those families are not providing a decent education.

Agreed. Just how many home educated adults do you know op? And through which channels? Because I'm 37, and know precisely zero people my age who were HE. It just wasn't known about in the same way and was massively unusual. My parents sent us private because they didn't like the local state schools, they were pretty switched on and didn't even know HE was an option.

CarolDanvers
I suppose it depends where you are.
I didn't know any until I moved somewhere where it would seem HE is really popular and there's lots of open chatter about HE. It wasn't a big city either.

In the area I currently live, I don't know of anyone.

Some areas seem to have more HE than others I think.

No there shouldn't be a register or anything along those lines. The majority of people that home educate are doing fantastic jobs, their children are well socialised and are lovely, intelligent and sociable children. My two young children are educated at home. We are out every day (with out fail) visiting people, museums, swimming baths etc. I refuse to send my children in to a failing, oversubscribed and tyrannical system where their individual needs and interests are not being met. I know lots of home educated children that have gone to University and become successful.

Also children have more chance of being abused physically or/and emotionally at school rather than at home. This is a fact.

I suppose it does depend on where you are. I’ve moved and lived in various locations quite often though, due to my old job and still never met a family that were home educating. I knew it existed of course but never knew anyone personally.

I know one family (my cousin is the mother) who home ed. Their daughter couldn’t read when she was 6 (dunno about now because we’ve not been in touch since then). She’s very much hippy autonomous education sort. I want to home ed but honestly I’d be concerned if my kids couldn’t read by the time they were 4 let alone 6. I’m pretty sure kids with no issues pick up reading in a literate environment before they start school usually so if mine don’t I’m going to assume there are issues and find strategies to mitigate them.

But if you had a 2 year old who couldn’t talk you’d not just be like “oh well they’ll probably pick it up sometime” you’d be hot on the tail looking for early intervention services and speech therapy and trying to get it sorted. I don’t see why I’d be any different with reading since it’s just as important and you will miss out on so much without it.

My (adult) brother is functionally illiterate (due to dyslexia and mild autism) so I’m really wary of just hoping for the best.