Are you going to have a generation of Home Educated kids by parents who are not up to it?

[Thegrinchshorriblesister]

I’ve been on Home Education sites for a few years as was momentarily considering it but decided against it. The crowd was great, informative, inclusive and lots of resources were shared.

I noticed at the beginning of lockdown the member counts shot up as obviously people wanted help during lockdown. Then September came and there have been a noticeable rise in those parents deregistering their kids and asking for help regarding issues with stubborn LA or meeting resistance from their families. Or posters saying they have no access to laptops or printers and what phone apps can they use for online materials.

However - a lot of these posts are written in really poor grammar. A lot of people are clearly not set up for the huge commitment that HE is.

There is a very different feel on the site now, very much ‘us against the system’, lots of memes about having children and farming them out to be drones or robots, or not loving your children because you have teachers raise them.

It’s making me wonder will there be a generation of kids that never sit any exams and go in to adulthood with no real kind of education or children who are stuck with adults that have these views making their world very small.

@Thesearmsofmine

In many of the groups there is definitely a bias to unschooling or radical unschooling, those who do this are very vocal and anyone wanting some structure for their child or asking about resources to teach reading is quickly told that they are creating school at home or somehow inferior. I find it really frustrating, I do think unschooling has its place but it often comes across(to those who haven’t had much experience of home ed) as just letting your children do what they want even if that means being sat on Minecraft all day when that is not what unschooling is at all and I think sometimes people justify a lack of education going on by saying they unschool.

I think people read the posts from these very vocal people and tar us all with the same brush.
In real life every home educator I know has some form of structure even if very loose. Perhaps that is simply a case of gravitating towards those with similar values.

This. As I said I’m lucky I have some friends who do understand why we have a lot of structure (it wasn’t always that way, we did spend a while not doing much at all, but we’ve settled on the right balance now) but on the whole I keep very quiet. That’s more established home ed families though (in my local groups anyway) and they are usually those criticising the new influx for being too schooly

I’m hoping that some of the new home ed families will be seeking out more structured learning and I can set up more groups. Not that it’s right for everyone of course but it would be nice to have the option. I’m getting DS on some zoom classes next year as he’s taken really well to online scouts etc but I really want some face to face groups where he can talk about academic stuff.

I home educate our 4 DC. I like to think I'm well educated, I understand the English language and use grammar properly.

However, the HS groups I'm involved in are full of people who say 'I done this lesson with DC' and 'Childs book's have showed up from amazon'. These are people who have been home educating for years and who are preparing their children for GCSEs and tests.

There are often parents sending in questions or asking for help about a very simple maths problem, or asking if a resource is age appropriate. They'll get terrible answers back- recommending a Key Stage 1 book for a 10 year old, or saying the answer to 15/5 is 1.5.

I worry that these children are the type that need to be in mainstream school getting proper support, but their parents have some issue with authoritative figures and have decided they're better educators than someone with a degree in teaching.

There are some children who really need Home Education, it suits them perfectly and they turn out to be intelligent, well-rounded, confident individuals with bright futures. There are others who need socialising with children their own age and a proper school education.

I have a daughter who had to be withdrawn at age 12 as she was seriously self harming and also had other long term illnesses. We have really struggled to get her some exams under her belt, and she is currently at college but reaching meltdown point again as they have alot of pressure on them to apply for university and she doesnt even know if she can cope with uni (I personally dont think its the right pathway for her)
I really feel for her - she has compounded health and ASD/PDA and severe anxiety issues - the secondary school tried but she couldnt cope with it, not with any other we tried. It took 2 years before she could engage back again. So we had to HE but it really wasnt much E because of her anxiety. She has 5 GCSEs and a level 2 diploma (we hope, we still havent heard from her college from last year)

@Pinotpleasure

My grandchild is 10 years old and has never been to school with the exception of two days three years ago. The first day went fine as he had made a new friend and was basically observing. The second day when the actual school work began he couldn’t cope so his mum pulled him out.

He is being failed by his mum who sees herself as a ‘free spirit’ (father is dead). She’s an anti-vaxxer and is into all the conspiracy theories and is scared witless right now about a ‘New World Order’ and says she ‘knew this was going to happen years ago’. She does not believe that children should do tests or exams as it limits their creativity and makes them anxious.

My grandchild goes to a childminder when his mum goes to work and does ‘nothing because the childminder is busy looking after the babies’.

He doesn’t even know his six times table :( Apparently he is ‘unschooled’ so he can just approach his mum and tell her what he wants to learn; it is mostly playing a Roblox game. His spelling is akin to that of a six year old.

His mum takes him to Forest School which seems to be mainly climbing trees and sometimes making a camp fire (this could be done with the Scouts after school/weekends but his mum doesn’t agree with their ethos). Most of the Summer is usually spent going to spend a few days at various festivals, obviously it didn’t happen this year.

Worst of all - my grandchild now will avoid any child who attends school, as if they are tainted in some way.

I am so upset and when I contacted the home learning officer at their LEA was fobbed off with “as long as at least some education is being provided then it is not our concern”. Shocking that there are no checks in England that these unschooled/homeschooled children are not being made to ensure that they are receiving an appropriate level of education.

I feel that is is neglect and I do not know what to do but my grandchild’s future is going to be very bleak indeed and it breaks my heart.

It’s a scary prospect. Amateur teaching will always just be that: amateur. Even a parent or guardian with a qualification in teaching will not be able to provide anything near the level of “teaching” required. Why? Because the classroom reality and atmosphere are absent.

I put a huge amount of time and money and resources her way, but unless she was actually able to engage, it was very very hard. We had an EHCP but really it hasnt helped much, again now she is at college she refuses to engage with the support

My son also had to be withdrawn from the secondary school as was heading the same way, but he was happy to move to a very small private school (his DLA covers my share of his fees) and he is doing well. He would not have been an ideal HE kid - he was offered the choice - he needs the social part and the structure of a timetable and formal teaching.

HE can be good - I know a number of people who are doing it well and who's kids (mainly SEN kids) are flying. I also know a HUGE number whos kids seem to be mainly not doing anything that is going to help them get a job in the future, and for whom it seems to be a choice against the system.

I don't know anyone who home educates currently, and I live in an area where you can't move for educated, professional people. One woman I know who is a qualified teacher removed her ASD child from school aged about 6 and educated him for the rest of his primary days at home. He's back into school for secondary. She was part of a home school network, constantly posting on social media about what they were doing in their groups and days out, it looked amazing. He certainly didn't miss out at all.

But at present none of these groups can run, there are no study groups or art classes run in people's houses, no museum trips, no days out to castles or whatever. That makes it an awful lot harder, especially for people who are all new to the home education scene.

I suppose it depends why people are doing it. If you have looked at school provision and think you could do better, or your child is a square peg in a round hole then crack on. These are the people who will have researched, have a plan, their children will be fine.

On the other hand if you're yanked your kids out of school because you're frightened of Covid, because you are anti-education in general or just don't see school as that important, you're not going to do as well.

Agree on the intellectual curiosity - if you're the sort of person who never googles anything or looks anything up because you've heard a word you don't understand or see someone talking about something you have no idea about, you're not going to do well.

We had a child deregistered from our Year 2 class after a significant amount of truancy. Mum still "happens" to pass by with the child every day at pickup time to chat to friends and told us how unnecessary things like times tables, cursive writing and science were. Pretty sure the child is just doing ipad learning games and nothing else. It worries me.

I do know someone who has home schooled and both her children went to uni (they both went to college).
I think they were smart children though and I think the home schooling had more to do with her than them, if you see what I mean. Once the second has left she has self diagnosed herself with a chronic illness.
For years she complained she was let down by the education system and I think she was looking for issues with DC to remove them.
Most of the other people I have met who HS have done so for religious reasons.

The home ed groups I'm in closed our groups to new membership during the first lockdown as, amongst other reasons, the home-schoolers, with school support and connection, were only seen as temporary and not 'proper' home educators.

Our membership numbers have only risen very slightly since membership was recently opened up again. I haven't voted as I'd be interested to see how many of these new home educators continue once normality is resumed.

I think lots of parents have done a great job home educating under the circumstances, but many have also struggled, and would openly admit as much.

However, there's a huge difference between supervising set work this year (as obviously school teachers are still involved) and taking the plunge to actually do this alone, full time, covid or not.

I've always thought they should be some kind of assessment that parents need to pass in order to home educate their children.

My best friend from primary school didn't come to our high school as her mum didn't want her spending time with people who would be a bad influence, so took her and her younger sisters out to be home educated. She basically taught them to be housewives (which there's nothing wrong with, but I think we owe it to our kids to keep their options open o them) and they spent their days cooking and cleaning, and doing the garden.

My best friend was pregnant at 15 (which her mum ended up adopting, this got really messy), her sisters weren't much older when they had their first. Now none of them have jobs, two of them are single mums with three kids each on benefits and have never worked at all despite the fact they're in their late 20s.

I'm not saying that's going to be how all home educated kids go, but I do think that kids need education to see what might be possible for them in the future.

Parents could be capable of providing that, but they should definitely be vetted at some point!

Many parents weren't actually 'Home Educating'. They were supporting their children with remote learning that had been provided by the school and they followed a syllabus set out by the school.

HE is basically creating your own scheme of work.

I think some HEers are getting their knickers in a twist because they think they are being attacked. If your child is HEed and is thriving then well done, however, I don't think you can avoid the issue that some children are being HEed by parents who don't have the capacity to do so.

I have a family member who home eds her children. She's always been an "alternative" type of parent. Both her kids have some sort of special needs, but nobody knows what as they weren't in school long enough to be assessed and diagnosed.

The eldest should have taken GCSEs 2 years ago if he'd been in mainstream education, but he wasn't so he didn't.

She isn't up to teaching her kids the basics of maths and English, but thinks it's all ok because she's teaching them to be respectful of the planet

There is a lady on my social media and she constantly puts schools down, comparing them to ‘prison camps’. However, she’s in a position where she doesn’t work and has money for private tuition/extra curricular activities. I don’t engage with her on those matters anymore because it’s clear only her point of view is relevant.
HE is not something I could do on permanent basis, so I have little choice to send my children to school.
When I asked in various HE sites, I felt the majority were patronising to those who have children in state schools.

Of course you will also get some Karen ta who will deregulated so that they don’t have to get their DC to school on time

I hate it when a woman's name is used as a put down.

I also found your post disturbing Pinotpleasure. That poor child is being failed by his mother. Does she expect to provide for him for the rest of his life because he will be unemployable?

I used to know someone who pulled her child out of school because she was lazy and couldn't be bothered to get up in time in the morning. She decided to "home educate" the child and her younger siblings, except that she didn't.

When she decided that home educating wasn't working she sent them to school and had a shock when she was told that all three were dyslexic. She just didn't have the experience or skills to notice. Fortunately the children had supportive teachers and they thrived.

YES. This generation of kids (especially aged 11 to 18,) are screwed.

I feel sorry for the tbh.

I don't think it's going to be a generation. It's still a fairly small minority who home educate, and within that a minority that any of us are going to see making poorly written requests for help -- much like the poorly written requests in any school's parenting group isn't representative of all parents at that school or the posts in the relationship forums on here. People don't tend to post when things are going well, and those who struggle and have someone involved not up to the task are more likely have things not going well.

I've been home educating for well over a decade, and while there is an influx, that has always happened. While there were those who came for advice during lockdown homeschooling (not all home education groups welcomed them), those that have remained don't seem that different to the influx we get every year.

Every autumn there is an influx of those who have had issues with the school or LA, hoped the new year would fix things and it didn't, who want advice. Some want more handholding than others. We're now in the winter "I have a Y11 child, how do I handle exams?" (which this year makes a bit more sense after the mess that happened with many home educated teens this last summer and so many places that people previously knew about either not doing private candidates this year or have not yet responded to whether they're doing them). Next spring, we'll get those with KS3 age children who want help prepping for KS4 and in summer, there will be those unsure about their kids returning in the autumn who want to talk about it (a few of those will show up in the autumn again). Many of those who were once needing a lot of handholding have been through a lot and end up catching up quick, some who didn't want much come back later in disaster.

Within that we'll have the blips of those who want other people to organizing their child's socializing (with those trying to organize things for their teenagers, but then never show up for anything being a particular pain) and discussing political issues. Depending on the group, it will swing from those who think the government has absolutely no place being involved raging about the latest consultation (which we've had practically every few years for as long as I've been involved and nothing has changed) to those who think we should be getting money for everything and want us included in the rest of the system for extracurriculars and everything without any demands placed on us. Most I think are in the middle (funding access for qualifications for teenagers and LAs being required to have places for external examinations, the ability to register within the same system that people register for schools so we don't get the issue of our children being automatically registered at a school and then the back and forth that comes with not taking up a place - it took me months to get my DD1 unregistered from a school I never applied for in the first place, including have truant officers at my door. It seems daft I can't just use same system to select we're choosing home education at primary and then again at secondary like others pick their school choices).

In the UK, most home educated children are those withdrawn from schools after issues or otherwise had issues with their local authority in getting an appropriate place that meets their needs. Home educators who do it from the start, who choose it because we think we can, are a minority and discussions on it shouldn't really focus on us. It's part of why some of us have argued that in school stats, number of pupils who've left should be a stat parents can see. Obviously, there will always be those that move, but if schools had to show how many left publically, they might do something if it gets suspisciously high. If LAs were judged by how much children's educations were disrupted by being moved around a lot, something might be done.

We can go on about the benefits of schools - I now have 2 full time in school, 1 full time at home, and 1 part time teenager myself - but many children aren't getting that within schools and parents are often just expected to suck it up when their child can't get a place or isn't getting an education. We can go on about the benefits and research in home education (though, as a self selecting group, that research will always have issues), but there are home educated children not getting those either and haven't ever been getting it well before Covid - this group isn't particularly daft in comparison to what I've seen before.

The issues isn't actually either type of education, it's that we have systems not entirely well functioning to support many of these children, most with far less choice in their education than common rhetoric suggests and a terrible system for education in adulthood. It's not losing an entire generation, but enough from all types of education who are being failed with all type of parents involved.

It's not the parents who clearly struggle that worry me really, it's the children of those who are very eloquent and easy to overlook, but are actually lying about their ability that concern me. I've been around the block enough times to know that no grammar checker is going to catch that some are very good at putting together an image - whether their child is in school, home or a mix - because keeping that image is important to them, but their child ends up really behind and unwell. I've seen that go on far more than a parent who struggles to teach English well. The latter are normally happy to use a curriculum, the former get really insulted if you suggest anything that might help when the cracks start to show.

Good home education has to be a mixture of teaching by parents, plus tutors. I am a retired teacher, but I would never be able to teach A level sciences, or any language other than French, and I doubt if any parents are up to the required standard in all subjects.
Parents who can't afford tutors are doing their children a disservice.

hmm
I hate it when a woman's name is used as a put down.

RTFT. We’ve just been through this. I didn’t. I tried to type “Parents” & “deregistered” and it autocorrected to “Karen” (my SIL’s name) and “deregulated” and some random spare letters. I think it is clear if you read it properly.

That was to @Ginfordinner

@GreyBow

I agree with the influx of parents who on the surface seem unprepared and illiterate. I won't voice that on any of the home ed forums though as I have faith that a lot of them will grow into the role.

I am utterly against a register on principle. I am under the radar of my LA at the moment and I hope to remain that way. Of course I have "nothing to hide" but in the same way I would be against the police knocking on my door every few months asking to see inside my home just to check I haven't stolen anything, I am against a random LA bod with little understanding of how different home education is to school "assessing" me with arbitrary school standards.

Do I think this influx of people will make a register more likely or happen faster? I am a worried it will be used as leverage, yes. I don't blame the wave of new HE families though for this. Those with a fixed agenda will fasten on anything to help their cause.

Can you really not see that a register would be beneficial to some children who don't go to school. You know, the ones being beaten, tortured and starved? Do you think it's worth sacrificing those kids, so you don't have the inconvenience of someone knocking on your door to check you're doing OK?

@DesperatelySeekingSunshine

TBH I know/knew a lot of home educators, and that’s the vibe that a lot of them give off anyway... that they love their children more because they don’t send them off to be educated by the “system”

I was a home educator for 9 years in a big city with a larger than usual home Ed community. Nearly everyone I met - hundreds - were doing it mainly for reasons such as their child having SN/SEN and not being able to be managed or accommodated in mainstream but impossible to get them in to a SN school as their needs weren't assessed as high enough. The next main reason was bullying, school refusal or other negative experiences of school, then there were some teachers who'd been in the system themselves and knowing it from the inside, didn't want their child in it. Also some religious families - mainly Muslim. The ones who believed they loved their child more than most parents and thus wouldn't dream of putting them through the terrible school system, were few and far between tbh.

I doubt if any parents are up to the required standard in all subjects.

I think it's important when discussing this to mention which level of education we're talking about If we're discussing GCSEs & A-levels, as your examples, then I can agree. If we're talking primary level, no, I think many parents can cover the national curriculum and then some with readily available resources.

Some of these comments tickle me somewhat. I was home educated for 2 years, had I not wanted GCSE's which we couldn't afford privately you'd struggle to drag me in. My sister was home educated throughout. I have seen both sides of it and I home educate my children. I'm in minority because we do follow a curriculum for most subjects and have structure. You can teach to a better standard with HE in a fraction of the time and so much more time to play and be children. Invaluable. OP, I have seen posts you refer too, an increasing amount of people don't seem to have researched what HE is before dereigstering. RE grammar, not everybody uses it online, a lot feel it's for formal situations. I disagree with that but that's off-topic and I wouldn't judge someone's ability to home educate from it

Also, a lot of people learn with their child. :)

Hmm there is a distinct whiff of classism about your posts OP. Grammar and spelling on social media is rarely indicative of knowledge of either. People tend to text speak on social media rather than crafting sentences worthy of school essays

You say you don't want this thread to be about home education so what do you want - a discussion about the 'right type' of people who should be 'allowed' to home ed because you've deemed them worthy?

High risk DCs being taken out of school should be picked up by the system. Teachers and schools are very aware of who their vulnerable students are and there are different layers of support in place to identify and support them. Two of my siblings are HTs in schools in high risk areas. I'm not saying those systems aren't underfunded or that they don't fail but it isn't as simple as opting out and disappearing. Families who opt out and disappear aren't likely to be on home ed forums anyway.

We have friends who opted to home ed till high school level. I think the fact you chose not to home educate means you don't actually understand the community even though you frequent their forums and you also don't understand the gaps they're trying to fill or their reasons for home educating. There is a lot of nuance missing from your posts and your view imo.