To think that homeschooling should be optional at the moment?

[Albustydumbledore]

I realise there's been loads of threads on this.
I don't want to be fined for keeping my children home.
I don't want my child to lose their place at school.

It's not that I'm scared because I think there's a huge risk to our family. But I would rather homeschool (because I'm in a position where I could) through a second wave.

Feel like this because
I feel I've got a social responsibility for the part our family is playing in transmission and spread. (Allbeit a tiny tiny tiny tiny part but if the few families who can homeschool did, surely rates would drop a bit?)

I don't want to put unnecessary pressure on teachers right now. I hate that they are in this situation.

Ultimately I don't want to be a part of / responsible for the transmission of somebody else getting sick. I feel those of us that can should do our part to take weight off the system and it's making me angry that I can't.

Anybody else?

Not a yes or no from me but I wonder how it would work?
Let’s say you decide to keep your child off for 2 months - will you do the same work with your child as the kids in school? If you don’t do the same work what happens when your child goes back & has maybe not studied topics/areas studied by the rest of their year?
Would you expect teachers to set/Mark work remotely & if not how will you track progress & address areas that need more work?
If teachers aren’t setting actual work would you expect to be in contact with them to keep track of what children in school are doing that day/week/month?

This is not my situation . however I think it’s pretty awful that vulnerable children or those with vulnerable siblings or parents cannot home school and still keep their place for the future .

I don’t agree with the “ well why should they take a place another child can have “ mentality at all. This is a totally unique situation and people / businesses etc are having to adapt to it in all kinds of unique ways and I see this as no different

In Normal times - should a person be able to keep a child school place open for a year to test if they may Prefer home school- of course not . But this isn’t normal times

I don't get it, you can home school. Just apply for a place when you want them to go back but be prepared that there may be a delay. Sorted

@MomToTwoBabas

I don't get it, you can home school. Just apply for a place when you want them to go back but be prepared that there may be a delay. Sorted

It would be incredibly difficult to get all of ds's EHCP support back, and extremely unlikely we would find suitable specialist provision.

I'm a teacher. I get why they don't even though I don't think you are completely unreasonable.

If you are homeschooling a perfectly capable secondary school child with online access then they will be fine educationally for a while. We are putting our work online and a reasonably clever kid with a supportive family (with the possible exception of year 11 because it's so crucial not to have gaps) will cope. The problem occurs when parents do this despite the fact they just don't have the resources time or ability to fully support a child to learn. Secondary for a bright kids about studying but no child in lower primary, however motivated,can teach themselves to read and write and teach themselves the times tables. So for me this is a difference between secondary and primary and "homeschooling" and " home supervising"

It's too hard to legislate on without looking like discrimination.

Can you just call.in sick for your child claiming mental health anxiety? Is this possibly the most honest way of dealing with it?

Op I agree.. It's very unfair on people like you who are so worried.

I really think people who are vulnerable should have been allowed to keep dc off if they could and it was an option.

It would have thinned out the classrooms a little, helped keep more vulnerable people safe, obvious caveats here on vulnerable dc who may be abused.

Once again we are being put in the March pre lock down situation... Where we can see the train coming but we are not allowed to get out of the way, our government has tied us to the train tracks.

After reassuring us that testing was a solid wall of comfort behind us.

Absolutely if for medical reasons

@Beebityboo

My DC's didn't ask to have a disabled mum. It is absoloutely appalling that the vulnerable and disabled are being forced to choose between their health and their children's school places right now. Totally unforgiveable.

Same!!! :(

I agree. For various reasons I need my DS to be at school, I'm not vulnerable and I'm happy for him to be there. Surely allowing people to temporarily home school if they wish would be the answer here and better for everyone - protection for the vulnerable parents and children, and this will leave more space for distancing at school for the children who need to be there causing less cases and disruption.

The problem is the ridiculous place allocation in the uk school system.
in most other countries, you are in a school area, you get a place. School
knows how many kids are in the area (as there is a central registration), so they adapt. You move out of the area, you move schools, even mud year. there are no waiting lists. So they can offer a more flexible approach.
in the uk where schools without a central registration, with schools having waitinglists and parents hogging places and then move away and get siblings in via the siblings list, its impossible.

Definitely not. There is no way a school could manage absences if people did not have to send their children to school. It would be impossible to administer.

In addition, lockdown showed how much young people need schooling, especially socially.

if you want to go the whole hog and home school properly, sure, but not dipping in and out.

Corona is not serious for children, thankfully, and they are less likely to pass it on than adults, especially young children.

So teachers have to set normal school work then alter it for the kids home schooling as well? are they going to be getting overtime?

It would be unfair to expect teachers to provide online learning as well as class work. They are already stretched.
I thought a lot were already doing this? I’m sure ours has said they will be/ are providing school work to those off at any given time.

One person I know who had to isolate due to positive test in household definitely got school work most days and had several zoom calls with the teacher.

I wish we could as well. We are living with my 81 year old mum & both me & my 16 year old ds would never forgive ourselves if ds brought Covid home. I'm really hoping that schools are closed ASAP at the moment.

But anyway, my question to the OP is why just school? Are you going to remove your children from all parts of life until spring when it hopefully dies down a bit? So no socialising with anyone for 6 months? Nothing? Not a single coffee shop, playground, play date...?

Because removing yourself from the line of transmission surely means just removing yourself from real life completely rather than just the school bit?

@larrygrylls

Definitely not. There is no way a school could manage absences if people did not have to send their children to school. It would be impossible to administer.

In addition, lockdown showed how much young people need schooling, especially socially.

if you want to go the whole hog and home school properly, sure, but not dipping in and out.

Corona is not serious for children, thankfully, and they are less likely to pass it on than adults, especially young children.

Ah yes corona, the only virus known to mankind that senses when someone turns 18.

I think the spike in infections shows there is a huge difference between a socially distanced coffee with friends and schools. I spent the summer in and out of pubs, restaurants and cafes. Infections fell. Schools go back and we are all in local lockdowns - hmm.

I’m a teacher and agree this should be an option for those parents who want to without loosing their school place (especially families with clinically vulnerable family members). I’m in a lockdown area and my already has 3 confirmed cases with more awaiting tests yet parents are still required to send their kids in regardless of whether or not they want to. My own kids school has also had its first confirmed case and there could be many many more but no one can get tests in our area. I have clinically vulnerable family members and would keep my own children of school if I could do it without loosing their place. To be honest, if this continues, I probably will anyway but it makes me so angry that the government is forcing parents into this situation.

@GingerandTilly the other side of that looks like that: schools are oversubscribed with waitinglists hundreds of kids long. Because of that kids are shipped by bus to schools 3-5 miles away.
People wanting to homeschool and keep their place in the nearby school are depriving another child of that place, and are increasing the overall risk for the population.
So, either properly homeschool (and given up your place), but don’t hog a place you don’t want to use and make things riskier for others. once your child will re-join friendship groups will have moved on anyway, so a new school won’t be a massive issue.

I'm also a teacher disappointed that this isn't an official option. That said, our school has agreements with a small number of parents of extremely clinically vulnerable children and this is working OK. The children are getting work from school, though families have needed to support pretty much constantly (primary age). Their teachers can't provide the support they normally would in class, which still leaves these children academically disadvantaged despite very supportive and involved parents.

BUT... These children are safe and parents are happy. If the option were more widely available, schools would be less crowded and maybe we'd be reducing the chance of schools having to close more widely again.

My concern would be how anyone could monitor whether children were getting any learning. And what happens when children return, not having understood huge chunks of material? We might need to adopt an American system of holding some students back a year? I think that's why the homeschool approach works better there.

I understand where you're coming from.

And in my world (which I'm assuming is similar to yours) it's a fair idea. Our kids get education at home and won't struggle too much.

But my mum is a primary teacher in an inner city school in a very underprivileged area.

If some of those families were told the kids didn't need to be in school. The kids would never be.

As it is they're late most days. Not fed breakfast. Etc. Thank goodness for FSM.

Those are the children who need to be in. And sadly if their parents had an option to not bother getting them to school they wouldn't.

So I think the blanket "all children must be in school" approach is the right way.

If you want to homeschool then by all means do. But I dont think you can have your cake and eat it too.

@AyDeeAitchDee

I understand where you're coming from.

And in my world (which I'm assuming is similar to yours) it's a fair idea. Our kids get education at home and won't struggle too much.

But my mum is a primary teacher in an inner city school in a very underprivileged area.

If some of those families were told the kids didn't need to be in school. The kids would never be.

As it is they're late most days. Not fed breakfast. Etc. Thank goodness for FSM.

Those are the children who need to be in. And sadly if their parents had an option to not bother getting them to school they wouldn't.

So I think the blanket "all children must be in school" approach is the right way.

If you want to homeschool then by all means do. But I dont think you can have your cake and eat it too.

Sorry...so you think, because there are parents and children in this situation (and I am more than aware of families like this, having worked in early years) .... that my medically vulnerable child needs to be in school, with a threat of fines for us, if we decide it's safer at home (...you know, taking into account the pandemic, the parents who send in symptomatic children, the fucked up testing system). Oh and if we don't like it, we can deregister him, losing all his EHCP support and his school place in a specialist provision....

Rightyo then.

I'm assuming @Bupkis that your child gets fed each day by you, and has books and toys and their own bed?

Because lots of these kids don't. My mum has had to give kids pencils as they don't have any at home.

So sorry if I find it important they get to school over you getting fined. It's totally your choice to keep your child home. And you're privileged to be able to do so.

Someone else has posted further up that their school is making allowances for medically high risk kids. So surely that's a route you can look in to?

We are permanent Home Educators so not affected by this at all but i agree OP.

It would be easy for the government to say HE is an option without losing your school place for this term and then we will review at Xmas

You cannot expect the schools to keep places open indefinitely but i do think a period of grace would be a good idea.

But it isn’t ALL children, ay, even in a school in an area with extreme deprivation the majority of children will be cared for. They might not parent their children in the same way you or I might, but let’s not forget if they really didn’t want their child attending school, they could withdraw them.

We have to have some freedom and liberties to make our own decisions.

Yes, I agree. I have applied to our headteacher to do this.