To disagree with JSP re Home schooling debate on Loose Women

[Stickladylove88]

Don't normally watch Loose Women but caught a bit of it today. They were discussing home schooling - Stacey Solomon decided to home school her children after the school system didn't work out for them.

Janet Street Porter was very critical of this saying that children need to learn to be resilient and shouldn't be removed from schooling because it's a bit difficult. They need to be prepared for the real world not in a bubble. She said that we don't improve the state school system by withdrawing our children from it, parents need to take an active role in improving it.

I personally feel a little bit that home schooling is a last resort and needs to be monitored so that children are being educated properly in the same way that schools are monitored. However, parents should always have the right to do it, the school system doesn't work for every child and I'm not sure it makes a child more resilient being stuck in a situation where they're miserable and powerless for years on end. I think the government have far more power than parents to make the state school system better. Do others agree or is JSP onto something?

Don't want this to be a home school bashing thread, I respect whatever choices a parent makes.

Well I was terribly bullied at school, I wish to god I could have been home schooled. It didn't make me more resilient, just made me a shell of a girl with an eating disorder. I am tough as old boots now right enough.

My kids seem to be doing fine at school (thankfully), one needs additional support in some areas, but he is happy with the help he gets so I'm happy.
My education suffered terribly because of the shit I had to deal with. I doubt I would be able to home school my kids as much as I really wish I could.
JSP is always going on about toughing people up and I agree to a certain extent but it just doesn't work like that for some people, me being one.

Oops, fat fingers... Obviously none of that was proof-read!

Anyway, the lowest score my DC got was 17/20. I'm not concerned about their academic ability, but I am concerned about how they might come across to a random stranger who was interrogating them. DC1 especially, he has ASD & only wants to discuss what he wants & would not play ball if someone was asking him what 2 X 3 is when he wants to be explaining some fascinating behaviour of lobsters, or whatever his latest obsession is. That doesn't mean he can't do 2 X 3. He can, but he can't deal with strangers.

I saw a job advert for someone who'd be in charge of HE monitoring. The minimum requirement was a level 2 qualification & "relevant experience". I'm more qualified than the person who might be assessing my ability to teach my own children.

That's before we get to all the legal issues - presumption of innocence, right to a family life free from state interference, current law stating that it's a parent's responsibility to ensure their child gets the right education... Plus, children under 5 wouldn't go on the register - who knows what's happening to them, let's have another register for every child in the country... Well, there's health visitors but they lost interest in us before my youngest turned one - no funding. What about school holidays, who's keeping an eye on the schooled children then, or do we mostly trust their parents to care for them unless given valid reasons not to?

Where would the funding come from for all this increased monitoring & support that's supposedly going to be available? What if lots of HE children were to be found to be not getting the best education - where are the school places for them going to come from? There's at least 3 primary schools within walking distance of our house but they're all over-subscribed as it is! I know of people locally whose children didn't get into the school on the next road from them because there aren't the places available.

I'm going to stop now... I could rant some more but I'm sure very few people will have made it through what I've written so far & those that did are probably bored... I'm tired & have to get some sleep before DS1 wakes up & wants to tell me more about Galileo's work, or pesters me to explain the exact details of how evolution works... Did I mention that he's 7?! I fantasise about sending him to school so I can drink a cup of tea without it turning into a science experiment...!

I'm pretty sure I've never agreed with anything JSP has ever said.

Every child is registered - birth certs.

If there was adequate support for children with additional needs, then at least a chunk of parents wouldn't HM.

Also, more people would be willing to have checks etc if they felt the GV is actually going to listen and do a good job as opposed to a box ticking exercise.

And I'm not even a massive fan of HM.

I home educate. I couldn’t give a shit what anyone on loose women thinks or what anyone else thinks for that matter. Most parents don’t choose it in my experience. Mostly it’s forced on them due to the school system being unable to support their child. Until the school system is fit for purpose for every child I have no interest whatsoever in the views of those who have no actual experience of being the parent of a child who is unable to access it. That includes you OP.

Janet Street Porter just slags off anything and everything really. I wouldn't take ANYTHING seriously that she says.

Nothing wrong with home schooling, (if it's done right,) though it does make kids a bit socially awkward.

though it does make kids a bit socially awkward

What all of them? Have you met them all then?

I mean the kids I have known who are home schooled have been a bit socially awkward. Not saying ALL are.

Good luck to the ones doing it with their kids. As you have all said, sometimes the schools just don't/can't get it right!

Or, the socially awkward children are socially awkward at school & are bullied because of it to the point that their parents deregister them for their own safety & it takes them years to deal with the trauma & learn to trust other people enough to be capable of socialising with them...

Or the “socially awkward” children have spectrum conditions and would be “socially awkward” in any environment.

Some kids I know who are socially awkward (who are home schooled) have been home schooled from day 1. Not mixing with many other children does make them that way sometimes.

As I said, I am just going on the ones I know/have known.

I am sure there are some who have to be taken out of school because of bullying and goading, because of various reasons...

Don't take it so personally.

I’m not taking it personally. You made a sweeping, provocative statement and it was challenged.

I’m always surprised at how many home Ed children people on MN claim to know. I home ed my child but didn’t know a single one before we started.

I wouldn’t like to comment as a generalisation, only to say that if a child flourishes and is happy then that is the right choice for them. As long as they are monitored to ensure that they are.

Carol...

No I didn't make a 'sweeping provocative statement' at all. I simply made a comment. Based on my OWN experiences of home schooled kids I have met - and who I know.

Because you are so sensitive and touchy about it, (because peoples attitudes have clearly affected you so much, judging by your reaction,) you are taking it very personally, and getting your back up.

As I said, stop taking it so personally. People are entitled to their opinions, even if you don't like them. You need to accept that people have different views and opinions. And you're not always going to like them.

Are there no awkward kids in schools?

This monitoring talk is pretty chilling. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, then parents should be assumed to be acting in their child's best interest. Making an alternative but perfectly legal decision is not, in itself, a red flag.

Nothing wrong with home schooling, (if it's done right,) though it does make kids a bit socially awkward

No ^ this is what you said and you only qualified it later to mean children you knew, after^ you were challenged.

Might I ask you why you don’t like being challenged? And why you are passively aggressively insisting that to challenge you means we are “taking it personally” or are “sensitive and touchy”. You did make a sweeping statement, an ignorant one actually, without qualifying it so you were challenged. Get over it. It happens all over MN. You’re certainly not the first or last one that had made themselves look silly and been called on it.

Out of interest, exactly how many home ed children have you met?

Wondering if littledoll was home edded, given how socially awkward they have been in this thread?

I wanted to home ed DS1 but was bullied by family members to send him to school or he'd end up socially disadvantaged.

He ended up being bullied at school and had a horrible time. Plus education was shite. I taught him from home, and now he's just finishing his last year at grammar school. DD has been home schooled from day one. Bright, socially aware, very happy. Trying to get her into the girls grammar.

I couldn't teach GCSE. Too fecking hard.

I was a teacher and, to be quite honest, my experience in schools left with a very strong feeling that I would home school, IF i could afford it and was prepared to put the effort into ensuring my children were well socialised.

I was a specialist teacher and dealt with every class in the school.It seemed that so much time was spent in doing unbelievably boring things, such as sitting through ghastly assemblies or doing time fillers.I taught in several schools that were extremely highly regarded academically and did achieve good results, but the journey must have been awful for some of the kids.

However, the fault may be mine. I used to sit in staff meetings nearly screaming from inner tension. I used to spend my time doing things like seeing how long I could go with blinking or breathing out. Another favourite was working out how long I could last if I liquidated all my assets and resigned. Actually, thinking about it, I probably did pretty much the same thing while I was a kid at school.

Properly done homeschooling an be great especially at primary level but it's not suitable for everyone as you need to have the time, resources and ability to teach your kids. JSP is right that state schools aren't going to improve if all the active parents withdraw but that's too simplistic.

A competent homeschooling parent should have nothing to fear from a register or annual inspection. But hopefully it could help uncover illegal, unsafe schools, those not receiving an education at all etc. - there's been cases of both locally, the worst being 40 kids aged 4-11 crammed into a small room gender segregation curtain with no outside area and 1 untrained iman/teacher and the books were supporting radical Islam funded by Saudi Arabia.

This monitoring talk is pretty chilling. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, then parents should be assumed to be acting in their child's best interest. Making an alternative but perfectly legal decision is not, in itself, a red flag.

But accessing an education is a human right. I'm not sure that assuming that a parent is doing the best for their child is enough. I have no problems with homeschooling but I do think that having a register is important. As pp have said, if it serves to ensure that children are not educated in illegal schools or not given any education at all then I think it will have done a good job.

My kids were into Galileo and science aged 7 too - an interest that was nurtured at school.

You dont need the ability to teach to home ed, you need the ability to facilitate learning.

Parents have a right to educate their child in a way of their choosing but children also have a right to be educated. I’m not sure how a local authority can claim to know that both are happening without any form of monitoring.