To think that families who choose to home educate should receive government funding?

[PinkyU]

It costs the uk government(s) circa 75K to educate a child from 4/5-18.

AIBU to suggest that families who HE (home educate) should receive a percentage (50%-75%) of this to aid in their ability to provide learning opportunities for their child, given that it would still save the government money?

Do you think more families would HE if it seemed more financially viable?

I’m torn. I can see that part of the plethora of reasons school education exists in the format it does is to allow for (potentially) two adults to be working full time and paying tax, so the money saving aspect may fall down there.

From another perspective, accepting government involvement financially may come at the cost of government involvement concerning how and what the child should learn which is the antithesis of what HE seeks to do.

I do think that part funding HE would allow much more access to learning opportunities which would hugely benefit the child.

What do others think?

(Rambling over)

Almost all of the people I know who are home schooling aren’t doing so through choice - their children have SEN and there are no suitable placements and LAs point blank refuse EOTAS. These parents end up financially responsible for providing the provisions in the plan which can run to tens of thousands. It’s absolutely shocking.

I would rather we got that sorted first to be honest!

We had to online school because ds had to leave due to bullying because he has aspergers. It's disgusting, he's been marginalised for five years due to being autistic. We spent thousands on his education.

No, I home educate and do not want and money from the government.

No, for all the reasons everyone else suggested. I do think it would be a good idea for HE pupils to have more access to resources though (eg exams, sports facilities etc) - that could only be a good thing imo

Taxes pay for the government to provide an education for all children. Anyone who wants to do something different, such as private school or home education, has to finance it themselves. It would also take much needed funding away from schools.

It will never happen of course, but I would have liked direct payments like the elderly or learning disabled adults get and it would have suited me much better than state education topped up with private tutors. So you get the decided amount say £75k and spend it on any approved educational resource. State school or put it towards private school or fund yourself to give up work and home educated. But of course state education us economy of scale so govt can't have too many people opting out.

No absolutely not. Its a lifestyle choice and often not particularly good for children. Too many slip off the radar and run the risk of a very limited education or hidden safeguarding concerns.

"It will never happen of course, but I would have liked direct payments like the elderly or learning disabled adults get and it would have suited me much better than state education topped up with private tutors."

Direct payments that the elderly and learning disabled adults get are means tested including taking into account any disability benefits and esa.

@LemonRoses

No absolutely not. Its a lifestyle choice and often not particularly good for children. Too many slip off the radar and run the risk of a very limited education or hidden safeguarding concerns.

Absolutely isn't a lifestyle choice. It's a NECESSITY based on the well-being, safeguarding of our children who otherwise are left "hidden" within the tactical education system which has already monumentally failed them. All the while we train ourselves at odd hours of the night in the business of specialist teaching and legal wrangling a, whilst parents like yourself remain blissfully unaware.

Absolutely not, it would incentivise home education and given parents don't have to even be literate themselves to HE this is a terrible idea.
There isn't spare money btw, the schools are funded and the HE can attend if their parents choose to send them, opting out doesn't make the cash available because it's still tied to that classroom and class teacher.

If we had really stringent rules around eligibility for HE and parents HEing had to have some qualification or pass a test to be allowed to do so, I would be supportive of a grant budget that parents could apply to for exam centre fees and learning equipment like laptops etc.

HE can be wonderful and for some children a school just isn't an environment conducive to learning- but there are more children than not who are not receiving a well rounded education at home. The national curriculum is flawed and schools underfunded but I don't see HE as a viable alternative really.

No sorry I don't
Schools are there....if a family chooses not to use them then they should fund their choice themselves.
Just like families who send their children to fee paying schools
Or people who use private health care ...hospitals or dentists etc

No way! How many children with low attendance and / or abusive families would suddenly be ‘home educated’ and disappear from sight?
Maybe put more funding into checks on home learning that’s already happening / giving support with resources online but not cash direct to families.

OP - your proposal / suggestion is based on the circumstances of an individual. But our tax system is not there to provide a menu of benefits that we can opt in and out of, it is there for the running of a wider society.

What about people with no kids? Should people with 4 kids pay more tax than those with 2 because they use schools and healthcare less?

No.

Education and healthcare benefit society as a whole (just like roads).

A child-free business owner needs an educated workforce in able to thrive and make profit. Ditto a healthcare service to keep them healthy. A business owner who maybe uses private healthcare themselves would doubtless baulk at paying healthcare insurance for their entire workforce (as they do in the U.S)

There needs to be greater provision for those children who simply do not thrive in school - but subsidising a choice beyond a good mainstream education provision should not be on offer.

The government does provide funding for home education. It takes a lot of paperwork to get it, but it does exsist

@adeleh You do get inspected when you home-ed. We had a visitor to whom we showed the work he was doing and talked through the GCSEs for which we were preparing him. They were satisfied he was getting an education, asked about socialisation and keeping fit physically etc.
Not legally you don’t, the LA can only make informal enquires , a report would have been sufficient.

Funding would need to be accompanied by regulation and checks to ensure the only was being used to enhance the learning of the child. You'd probably have to have minimum standards of education, etc linked to the funding too which would need to be measurable in order to justify the government spending.

Many HE families would prefer no funding to extra regulations/strings ime.

And as a pp says - where would it stop?
If someone chooses to not use state education then they get some form of funding?

So parent x decided to HE so now gets funding for their unused state school place.
And parent y decided to not use state and go private, so should they they get the funding towards their independent school fees? After all they also aren't using their state place either.

If you agree to x then why not y?

What happens in private schools ? Do you have to pay exam entry? If not I can see an argument for home educators to get assistance for that.

It's usually covered through the school fee. Gcse and sixth form years are often dearer to take this into account. So most parents won't get an additional bill for the exams but they pay for them through their school fees.

Not legally you don’t, the LA can only make informal enquires , a report would have been sufficient.

To be fair, I've never had a visit or been asked for a report. I was asked (told) I was having a visit right in the early days and I declined as it was too soon. I'm surprised they never came back tbh.

We educate our DD at home due to her SEN, we are fortunate that she has an EHCP which funds her place at an internet school and funds her sitting all her exams

This should be available to any child with SEN but sadly 7 years after we managed to get our local authority to agree to it I’m still hearing about children who are being denied access to a suitable education

I also feel that all children who are home educated should have their exams funded by the government irrespective of their parental choice of education route

but there should be a free national curriculum portal for home education.

As well as state school which is free and available to all, we also now have online education options via BBC Bitesize and Oak National Academy.

You can also see the full national curriculum on the Government website, which sets out what should be covered for each key stage and for core subjects each year. Granted you don't get lesson plans for those - that's what teachers do themselves for their own classes. If you want those I'm afraid you have to go to a school for education.

Though you could also purchase the ready made curriculum offerings which are available for most subject and more years/ages - schools have to pay for these if they want to use them, but most are available for individuals to buy themselves too. These don't come free to state schools.

Absolutely not. The government provides a decent school system and if they choose to opt out of this then that is their choice.
Same with private schools - if you provide money to parents of home schooled children then by rights you should also provide money to the parents of privately educated children as they are also not in the system.

As well as state school which is free and available to all, we also now have online education options via BBC Bitesize and Oak National Academy.

We do currently but going forward, the govt are threatening to no longer support Oak National Academy so that could well shut down and although the static website for BBC Bitesize should stay, the lessons that go with it are not scheduled to continue.
I do agree that these platforms could be a compromise that benefits not just HE children.

No. Home Educating is a choice.

@1Morewineplease

No. Home Educating is a choice.

@1Morewineplease The majority of the time it's not.

Most of the time it's because the local authority cannot provide a suitable education for a child with SEN or a child's mental health is suffering to such a degree that a parent has no choice but to withdraw them from formal school.
Psychiatrists actually advise parents to remove their children from school to help them recover from mental illness.