To ask if anyone is now considering home education full time?

[PogTheDog]

I know most people can't wait for their children to return to school on Monday. However, is anyone now considering (all already decided) full time home education?

I have loved teaching my primary school aged children and they have enjoyed it too. I will send them back to school on Monday as I'm not brave enough to make a commitment to it yet, but may consider starting in September. Anyone else?

Two or three times per week.

My high school age, always-homeschooled, kids see people at work, at extra-curricula activities, in classes, and just hanging out with friends. They go hiking or shopping or text all day. Like normal kids.
They're not more or less mature overall than their schooled peers, homeschooling doesn't turn them into annoying super geniuses with superior social skills. They're just normal kids, and homeschooling is just an alternative option with its own pros and cons.

I'm a primary teacher currently on mat leave and with two older boys - a Year 6 and a Year 9. My eldest hasn't needed any extra support with his home learning but I've been teacher to my 10 year-old and bloody loved it!! It's been hard to do with a baby who has just started crawling and constantly wants boob, but it's still been good.
If I had the money to stay at home I would homeschool 100%.

I guess I'm curious about how home educators facilitate that kind of close friendship which grows out of really regular and extended contact?

I guess families that are looking for that kind of socialisation model probably wouldn't choose home ed as I've never met anyone who was trying to engineer that in a home ed setting.

I guess families that are looking for that kind of socialisation model probably wouldn't choose home ed as I've never met anyone who was trying to engineer that in a home ed setting.

Fair enough, that makes sense. I guess we all have different views about what's important for our kids.

God no, I’m no teacher

Sorry- that came out really incoherent! I just mean that if you felt that you're child had specific needs that could only be met by spending time with the same people every day, then home ed probably wouldn't be a practical choice.

Cross posted, but not as incoherent as I thought! What's important varies so much from child to child as well - the things that I thought would be important when they were younger have changed so much as they have grown up.

No hell will freeze over before I homeschool Voluntarily

@WhisperingJesse

Oh please. Normal home education is SO different than the home schooling everyone's been doing this past year. Night and day. It takes a while but you would get into a very different rhythm if done full time. You can follow the child's interests instead of the curriculum. No need for coercion in order to 'keep up'.

I'm not trying to persuade anyone who doesn't want to do it, but don't reject it on the grounds that you've given it a try. You really haven't.

I agree. I did home educate my eldest years ago (due to necessity not choice) but by god it was different to this. We did have fun, we went places, other than English and maths, work went in directions she enjoyed and she thrived.

This year has been fucking awful. I have hated nearly every minute of it. The need to keep up (which we haven't), the isolation (and I dont live in the back of beyond like I did the first time around), we have been miserable.

Yes, I understood what you meant. I guess for me, opportunities to forge really close friendships are very important, and in my experience, I have found that the regular, extended contact with friends at school leads to much closer friendships than the less frequent interactions through extracurricular activities, part time jobs etc. So from that perspective, I guess home ed wouldn't be a practical choice for parents like me who want to prioritise that kind of friendship opportunity. However, I can see that it's perfectly possible for HE kids to have lots of social contact of a different nature by mixing with kids in various other settings.

One thing that I understood very clearly during the lockdown is how poor the school provision is.

That’s such a shame you had that experience.

I had the complete opposite experience and I am more grateful for my DDs teachers, especially those who have very young children themselves who were often on the teachers lap or being fed to keep them quiet during the live lessons

I know loads of kids who really thrive in a school environment and in many ways it would be easier if my kids were among them! We're lucky to have the option to choose in this country - the teachers and home educators I know are all very dedicated and it means we can cater to a much wider range of needs.

I agree with previous poster who said that academically their child had thrived on homeschooling. One-to-one learning has benefited my child enormously. But younger (pre-school) sibling has suffered from the resulting lack of attention, so no, I wouldn’t consider homeschooling in the long term.

@toocold54

One thing that I understood very clearly during the lockdown is how poor the school provision is.

That’s such a shame you had that experience.

I had the complete opposite experience and I am more grateful for my DDs teachers, especially those who have very young children themselves who were often on the teachers lap or being fed to keep them quiet during the live lessons

I heard some quite positive stories from my friends too, but mainly from those with children in private schools, to be honest. I did not appreciate the extent of the educational divide before (not native here).

Yes, I do agree that it's good that we have the opportunity to choose, and I can absolutely see that school does not suit some children, and that their needs can be much better met at home. My dd is one of those who positively thrives within the school system, primarily because of the relationships that she has with her friends and her teachers, so I am grateful that she has those opportunities. From an academic point of view, I'm pretty sure she would make faster progress at home, but she loves being around other people all day and is energised by that environment, so from our perspective, the academic gains and the freedom from routine (which neither of us particularly relish) wouldn't outweigh what we would lose socially.

No.

With bells on.

@HelenaJustina

I also disagree with the posters saying that the homeschool community is as diverse or more diverse than that in school. That can’t be true, there is a socio-economic barrier to homeschooling for a start. You will meet families like your family, those who opt for homeschooling, you have something fairly major in common for starters.

When it's important to people, they make it work, regardless of how poor they are (lowest household income decile, in my case), or however many social minority groups they belong to (five, in my case).

I know home educating families with two parents who both work full time, and disabled self-employed single mothers, and everything in between.

So this is untrue, at least in areas where there is diversity in the first place.

@ForeverBubblegum thanks for replying to my question. That makes perfect sense that education is home co-ordinated rather than done at home by parents. It’s done in a community.
I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about my online lessons (a lot of the teenagers I teach prefer the remote lessons to the classroom) and I would definitely consider teaching my subject to groups of home educators online, maybe up to a max of 20 similarly aged. I’ve been pleasantly surprised how effective online learning can be for teenagers who really don’t enjoy the pressures of school.
I am going to have a big think about it moving forwards and try and work out whether it’s financially viable etc.

No way. I deem myself reasonably intelligent but I couldnt teach my daughter everything she needs.

There is a big difference between emergency home schooling with work provided by the school and long term home education.

@AlexaShutUp

Yes, indeed. I agree that there are some benefits to be had from seeing different people every day, but I also think you would lose a lot of the closeness that comes from seeing the same friends every day. It's a different kind of relationship, isn't it? My dd has some lovely friends from extracurricular activities and so on, who she would usually see for a couple of hours two or three hours per week, but they're not at all comparable with the friendships she has in school, where they have so many shared experiences and with whom they spend so much time. I guess I'm curious about how home educators facilitate that kind of close friendship which grows out of really regular and extended contact? I can see how that would come from HE groups that meet daily, but for me, that's where it just starts to look like a different type of school.

Exactly what I was thinking!
Also I worry about the whole ‘somebody’s husband has a maths degree from 20 years ago therefore he can teach all the maths lessons to the kids in the HE group’ idea. Teachers are trained to teach their subject and we receive regular training to update our skills. In the average school department you will have ranges of experience in different areas, those who are examiners for the exam board as well as different teaching styles. There’s no way HE kids are getting the same standard of education. It’s also very unlikely that these HE groups contain people with the skills, knowledge and time to teach every subject available in school too.
All of this ‘whatever direction their learning takes them etc’ worries me too. Whatever anyone’s views are on the current curriculum, it is designed to enable kids to progress to the employment or the next stage of their learning. I can’t see how HE kids wouldn’t be at a disadvantage.
The socialisation issue worries me too, there might be HE groups but in most areas these will be small and this limits a child’s opportunities to find their people and develop social skills. Obviously the situation for younger kids and those with ALN might be different but I can’t help but feel that anyone choosing to HE at secondary level is limiting their child’s opportunities.

My friend homeschools and she’s found lockdowns tough. She usually meets up with a local homeschooling group once a week so her children can mix with their children and she can socialise too. Her DC also do a few activities and extra curricular things in ordinary circumstances so she’s been missing that too. She feels as frustrated and down as other parents right now. Ordinarily she enjoys it though, it’s nothing like the homeschooling most of us have done for her. Think she broadly follows an ‘unschooling’ approach so she tends to make learning more about playing and having fun.

It’s not for me personally. My DC love school and have missed it.

The families I know who home educate on a low income have DCs whose disabilities have been failed by school. They don't want to home educate and frankly I don't think a lot of them are making it work in any genuine way (obviously some are) but just having a child at home and not learning much rather than a child being sent home weekly or excluded permanently again, or a child who's refusing to go to school anyway.

Absolutely not in a gazillion years EVER.

I would love for ds to stay at home but I also recognise that the reason he did so well is because of the support he (and I) received from school. I wasn’t home schooling he was doing his schooling at home.