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.

Most of what is taught in schools is basic, because that is the kind of education most children need.

Most of the more difficult skills are taught by parents at home (regardless of whether the parents home educate or not) because schools don’t have the capacity to teach those complex skills in a classroom setting.

TeenWolf,

It seems to me that, essentially, all parents who HE do so due to a mismatch between what the 'mass education system' provides and what they want for their children.

For those who - often reluctantly - HE their SEN children because of lack of suitable support in mainstream or provision of Special School places, it is quite simply a scandal, and a register system combined with some indication of 'reasons fro HE' would be an effective way of revealing its scale and scope and thus allowing everyone to obby for it to be changed.

For those who HE to maintain a particular cultural identity or 'micro societal norm', again registration - not approval - would show the scope and scale of the need for sensitive mainstream education or educational outreach.

For those who HE their children because of bullying or educational problems in the mainstream school they last attended, registration would allow Ofsted to be alerted and inspect these establishments (Many state schools are good. Some are not. Failure to protect, or provide for the educational needs of, a child so that their parent decides to HE them should be a factor that inspectors take into account in triggering an inspection and reaching a judgement).

Then there are those who HE out of conviction - those who find the structures of school too rigid, the expectations not age appropriate - and again, registration can help to start to sift these from the tiny, worrying minority who home educate as cover for neglect.

Registration, done properly and sensitively, should help HE to eradicate the stain of the tiny minority who use it as a cover for abuse or neglect. Done badly, it could further erode the already fragile trust many HE families have in 'authority', and allow the small minority of abusers to hide even more effectively.

Titty surely that just reinforces the argument the PP was making. I'm very well educated ( have a very good PhD) but wouldn't feel at all qualified to teach my child many subjects which my child should be exposed to.

If someone is illiterate themselves they have no hope at all of teaching their child basic, very important skills.

Children need a learn a lot before then start school, but it would be very difficult to make all parents of babies and toddlers go through an approval process.

Home educated children don't need to follow the National Curriculum , so it would be difficult to know how to test parents.

Also, some people would say that if you've been to school yourself you should be able to pass that knowledge on......

I agree.
I only know personally two families who home educate.
One is a very spoilt disruptive child whose own parents say he plays video games all day every day, and has done so since he was ten.
The other is a parent whose own mother is a primary teacher. As part of a vendetta with her, he refuses to let his children attend school. The children beg to go and say they haven't any friends.
Neither family are competent.

Children need a learn a lot before then start school

Yes, and it can be difficult - emotionally - to know that a child who arrived at 5 unable to speak (through never having been spoken to), hug (through never having been hugged), use cutlery, sit still unless restrained in a buggy is being returned to those same educators for all their education from the age of 10-11. So I can understand the wish for 'approval', but also think that 'registration and then educational outreach' would be a better route.

I think there should be a system where if you home educate, and can meet a set of standards, you get the money that a school would have been given to educate your child.

I appreciate the freedom we have in this country to not engage with the education system but it is currently open to abuse, and widely taken advantage of. There should be some way of checking in with the children

I agree. Parents should, at a bare minimum, be able to demonstrate reasonable levels of literacy and numeracy, and have a coherent plan of how they are going to educate and socialise their DC, even if their plan is rather different from the scheme of education in schools. There should be periodic inspections (maybe once a year) to check that the children have made reasonable progress and that the family have access to sufficient resources.

There are countries where home education is illegal. Germany for instance.

It's not HE that's the issue per se- it is the child's right to an education and education can happen in all sorts of ways, of course! It is 'how do you ensure that is happening if you just assume it IS, until it ISN'T'.

If a child is HE and goes to groups, sees the GP if they are ill, mum engages with the MW and HV for other children, there are snapshots into that child's life. Other members of the wider community including professionals with a safeguarding duty will see the child and may pick up if there are any massive issues. I'd guess most HE are actually under this category and it seems a bit overkill to have to jump through any hoops to carry on educating their children perfectly well especially if the alternative (school) has been quite so crap!

If you decide to HE and you never see HCP, never attend clinic with your baby or toddler, your unwell child never sees a GP, you don't take your child to groups or the library or essentially interact with anyone at all outside of your household and immediate community then everything might be fine - but equally it might not. Who is then going to raise an alarm? Who is safeguarding that child? It's a very real concern and while I do take the valid point about 'nanny state' and 1984 etc, I can't agree that the rights of parents not to engage with a system matter more than the rights of the child to get an education and be safe.

Eh Jamie? How many parents teach their children to read, write, act, play instruments, phonics, number bonds, division etc etc? This is formal learning in school. What on Earth do you mean school does the basics and the parents do the real teaching?!

I am not sure what your point is cantkeepawayforever but you are talking about parents who are neglecting their children. This has nothing to do with home education. Schooled children are also abused and neglected. Lots of children leave school without getting enough GCSEs to go to college or get work, some children are abused at school etc etc.

When education provided by the state or a state sanctioned organisation becomes mandatory, then you no longer live in a free country.

SoftSheen, lots of children who go to school aren't "making reasonable progress". I think that if schools were improved a lot of currently home educated children would be returned to school.

It's widely open to abuse. In addition to those children quite deliberately removed from school to hide them from the authorities, I am aware of two occasions towards the end of last year where a school "suggested" to parents that it might be a good idea to HE to avoid permenant exclusion. People will say it's not true but two different parents/children with very similar versions of events, both already struggling to parent very challenging children, left feeling that they had no choice but to try HE, both in no position to do it.

All these illiterate parents- did they go through the school system too?

Im totally sure there are some fantastic HE who are doing it for the best reasons. But it also concerns me that for some people it will be a way of avoid the system and not just for educational reasons!
If there was a parent that neglected their child or abused them then they are more likely to be found out if they go to school (or more likely), im sure for a small proportion of people this is for why they home educate. This concerns me and because of this i believe there should be some system of checking up on the HE child. By all means i am not referring to the majority of people.
My stbxh wanted to home educate our children, this now fills me with total fear as 1) because he is butt lazy 2) he has some very very odd and strange views on things.

I think there would be a lot less Home Educators if our school system was better and could cater for different kinds of kids.
I also don’t think in this day and age our state schools should be religious.
Whilst there are good and bad home educators, there are good and bad schools and good and bad teachers.
Way too many children are let down by schools.

OP do you think there is a suitable school for every child?

Cyclingpast
I think there should be a home education framework. Like a slimmed down national curriculum for maths and English. Within a set window NT children should demonstrate a set of standards. Get there how you like, but it's not too much to expect children to be literate or numerate.

If you home educate and you get to 11 without your NT child being able to use basic punctuation then the child has been failed in my opinion.

Children have a right to an education and one that prepares them for life.

Have enough of an education themselves, be able to plan how their child will learn, have an understanding of how to support their child, have realistic plans on how to provide socialisation, not have substance abuse or mental health issues that makes them incapable of HE

So in short, you want them to be teachers?

Cyclingpast I agree that some schools need to improve, however schools are at least accountable for their results. Home education might well be the best option for some children/families, but if that is the case then it ought to be possible to demonstrate reasonable progress. What constitutes reasonable progress will of course differ for each individual child (and I am not suggesting that they should be forced to take arbitrary tests like SATS).

go
That's not what I took from that.
I think the poster is saying that good home educators have actually thought about how their child will access social time with their peers, will have thought about how to make sure their child is literate and numerate etc.

In other words, good HE don't pull out of school and then leave their child to do nothing put play what they Like, do what they like for years and say ' they learn through life... life hasn't needed to know how to use a comma yet. We used x 2 when we doubled a baking recipe but when are they ever going to need to know how to do long division in life?"

cantkeep I agree with you, I'm just saying they are not going to fund it

I have only met one parent who home educates their KS1 child. I asked lots of questions and the answers gave me the impression that it was all about what the parent wanted rather than what was the best for the child. They didn’t want to be apart from the child during the school day being one of reasons for their choice. This parent also had a baby under six months and told me that they hadn’t really found the time to do much with their older child since the birth but they were thinking about trying to do a couple of hours a week soon. I couldn’t see how that child was going to keep up with or even catch up with school educated children of the same age.
I don’t think that a register of HE or checks to ensure children are being educated to a reasonable standard are a terrible idea. Children have a right to education.

I'd rather parents were vetted before being allowed to procreate and raise children. So many people bringing children in to the world when they have no clue about child development, good nutrition , no ability to provide the child with a stable and loving home life. The majority of home educators are massively invested in their childrens education, more so than the average parent who has a child by accident and then leaves it up to the authorities to educate/raise them. I hear so many "I know ONE family who home educates and in MY opinion they're not qualified" yet if mn is anything to go by, the daily threads by parents who have no clue what they're doing should be of more concern.