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.

Many kids in school aren’t reading at six. Haven’t got time to find the stats but wasn’t there huge concern a couple of years ago at the amount of kids actually leaving school unable to read or write who had somehow managed to slip through the net through all the years of their school career? Some Home Ed kids read later, that is true, I know some. I know one who wasn’t reading confidently at 9 but is now doing GCSES at college and doing very well.

Many kids in school aren’t reading at six.

Well yeah, as I said my brother is one of them. Even at 18 he still couldn’t really read (like it took massive concentration and more than a sentence at a time was too much for him).

Most children ages 4 can’t read. A percentage of school children age 6 can’t either. There is also no evidence that early reading is an essential thing. Plenty of Europeans countries don’t attempt to teach reading before they go to school age 5/6 or even 6/7.

I’m a teacher and my children aren’t home educated. But this thread just proves how successful our educational ideology has been at propagating itself as normal or even the only correct way. As many teaches can testify, there is plenty very, very wrong with our current national ideology. Please question it. Question your assumptions.

Parents who choose to follow child development experts rather than politicians are the sane ones, I think.

My point is people shouldn’t be blasé about it. Maybe your kid will just pick it up in a few years or maybe they have a learning disability that means they’ll need a decade of intervention to get to a basic level. In advance you don’t know and you’ll kick yourself if it’s the latter when they’re an adult.

Every child's needs are different, it's ridiculous to expect them all the be on the same level with learning. My daughter can read, draw and write beautifully for her age (6) and has been reading since she was three. My son (3) however has no interest in trying to read as he just wants to take things apart and she how they work (just like his dad who is an electrician and a dab hand at building anything and everything).
There is too much pressure on children in school these days and it's causing them a lot of mental health issues and stress.

Most children can’t read fully at four... most can only read some words. If you are expecting your kid to read Harry Potter at four there’s a high chance you’ll get a bite of a reality sandwich in the future.

My nephew couldn't read at age 7. His mother is an english teacher.

Tbh a child wasn’t talking at two I’d check the hearing first.

Most children can’t read fully at four... most can only read some words. If you are expecting your kid to read Harry Potter at four there’s a high chance you’ll get a bite of a reality sandwich in the future.

I’m thinking more like peter and Jane or puddle lane type stuff not Harry potter.

Of me, my husband and two best friends we all learned to read between 2-3 years old. I’m not saying that everyone will be reading by then just if they’re not that warrants more help not just ignoring it and putting your head in the sand and hoping that they’ll decide to learn on their own one day. Maybe they will but what if they don’t, or worse can’t?

Well.... I HE a large family and use the same style of learning (differentiated obviously as needed).

Dd1- read at 3/4 basic books (now at uni, sciences, doesn’t read for pleasure.
Ds1-read at 5/6 basic books (now at uni, maths, a bit of reading for pleasure)
Ds2- read at 5/6, now age 9 reads constantly, loves books and writing stories for fun
Dd2- approaching 7, doesn’t know any letters at all. Have tried a lot, she obviously has some learning difficulty and has more help- but does love learning still and goes to local clubs happily with her peers. Spoke at 4.
Dd3- approaching 3. Knew the alphabet at 2, can count to 20 and occasionally manages to blend simple words. Knows all letters by sound and name securely and has excellent speech (from listening in on the extra games and support her sister has had she’s learnt it all herself)

I think all the above tells you is all children are different, whether at home or school. I’m probably your most typical HE parent. Semi-structured, mix in after school clubs with school peers as well as HE groups- just have an extra set of friends. I’m happy, enjoy learning, money can be a little tight but we still generally manage to do most we want to with budgeting, care and a bit of reality. Pretty average family, bar the HE bit

The majority of kids aren't even at school at 4, let alone reading
😂

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

You do know school educated kids with switched on parents do this kind of thing too? It is important, but it is not enough.

Quite a few parents I know actively resist teaching their young children reading/writing/numbers and basic math because ‘that’s what they go to school for’.

Non HE parents.

Children's education matters, it is incredibly important and affects the rest of their life

That is why I HE my ds as the school he went to weren't interested in teaching him.

Maybe schools should think about this instead of writing children who don't get stuff immediately.

If your DC has dyslexia and struggles to learn to read by age 6 or 7 then there is no provision aside from 10 minutes per day reading with a TA and once they get to senior school there is none.

Trying to get a diagnosis is an exercise in futility. No one wants to do the diagnosis. In my area you can only get a Ed Psych if you have a recommendation by a teacher so if you HE you can't do anything and schools just push if onto the next school.

Neither of mine spoke a word at 2.

DD was over 2 and didn't utter a word. She just used to point at things.

Suddenly went to nursery one day and came out speaking like an adult.

Ds equally was nearly 4 until you could understand him.

Didn't think it meant there was anything wrong. Friends ds had only learned to sit up by 20 months and wasn't walking at 2.5 years. He is at university and walking and running around with no problems.

Apparently he was just a lazy child

Children develop at different rates and by the time they are teens the vast majority can walk talk read and write.

I think that some bona fide Home Edders are quite naive. “I’m doing a great job, and all the other 40 HE families I know are doing an adequate to excellent job under difficult circumstances therefore there’s no reason for the state to interfere”.

But the people who pulled their Y7 daughter out of school for intensive housework and childcare study aren’t going to be in your HE group. The parents whose son is in an unregistered school doing religious study ten hours a day certainly won’t be in your HE group. The parents whose children have been sent abroad for forced marriage won’t be there, because the children aren’t there. And the parents whose teenaged sons are playing XBox all day because they’re simply unable to make them attend school are unlikely to be in an HE group (they might be if the underlying problem is special needs or bullying - won’t be if the problem is parental indifference or hangovers).

And that’s without talking about physical abuse.

I’m happy to believe that most bona fide home educators really are doing the best for their children, but I think we need more registration so that all children can be accounted for, and a bit of spot checking as well. HE parents will need to give up a bit of their freedom in order to safeguard the children who simply aren’t in school.

Also the ability of LAs to push struggling parents into “HE” for problematic children, even when that’s a total fiction and simply code for “get him off our hands - don’t care what you do with him” needs restraining - which will take money of course.

Of course some “home educated” children really are in schools - just not schools that would pass an OFSTED.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43170447

Children's education matters, it is incredibly important and affects the rest of their life

Indeed. That’s why I barely slept for two years when my child didn’t have a suitable school place and they couldn’t provide one for him and when he was in school, it was rare than an hour would go by before I recieved a phone call requesting that I pick him up or even to let me know they’d lost him...again.

"And the parents whose teenaged sons are playing XBox all day because they’re simply unable to make them attend school"

So how would having a registration system for he solve this? Schools don't care / can't help and don't want these children on their books as they are 'ruining their figures'

How do you propose this is solved- you need proper solutions rather than throwing another hoop for parents to jump thro.

You cannot physically make a young person go to school. I have sat in the car with my dd with her in the middle of a panic attack physically unable to get out of the car. And help is non existent....
So please start coming up with proper helpful solutions instead of labelling us 'bad parents'

“Also the ability of LAs to push struggling parents into “HE” for problematic children, even when that’s a total fiction and simply code for “get him off our hands - don’t care what you do with him” needs restraining - which will take money of course.”

You do know that this is one of the things the LA checks for after a child has been deregistered from school. Even if you decide not to physically meet with the LA , this will be checked via the written ‘evidence’ submitted about your educational provision.

At what point did I label you a bad parent SpringCats? Reread my post. Yes I have personally dealt with school refusal due to special (mental health) needs and yes it’s really fucking tough.

Registration on its own probably wouldn’t help with simply negligent parenting and it certainly wouldn’t help with mental health related school refusal - it’s aimed more at children who disappear from the system completely or are placed in illegal schools.

That’s reassuring wheatymint, because I don’t have personal experience of that bit of the system, I’m just going on hearsay.

Are you saying that it’s not the case that local authorities and school sometimes collude to push “difficult” children into HE despite the fact that the parents have insufficient resources/capability/enthusiasm to facilitate that? And that there are checks in place that would prevent it?