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)

Absolutely.

@TheWitchCirce

No! The majority of HE families do so for a plethora of good reasons, however a minority use it as a means of hiding their children from scrutiny. I fear that we would lose some highly vulnerable children if people were paid to not send their children to school.

I agree. Massively.

But yes no problem with having GCSE/A-level fees covered through local budgets.

But cash to HE parents? No. It would just end up spent on all kinds of stuff which isnt what the education budget is intended for, because the parents feel it qualifies as "educational". Most parents choose to pay for things like swimming lessons, museum visits, and buy books at home etc anyway, so actually the money is really just topping up a family budget and paying for a SAHP.

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

No, all that will happen is families who are already troubled will home educate for the extra money, and then nobody will see the kids, which will put them in more danger.

I home educated one of my dc, so I'm not against it at all, but there shouldn't be a financial incentive.

This x 1000. At risk children will be even more at risk because theres a financial incentive to keep them out of the systems that might educate them and keep them safe.

I put YABU as I don’t think generally, people should get direct funding to stay at home and home educate as their choice but as a compromise, I do think the Dept for Education should continue to fund a free to access platform, such as Oak National Academy. This could also then be used by children who are in school based education but have time off for medical or other reasons and could continue to be used to support children both home educating but also those in school. It concerns me that they are not wanting to continue to fund Oak or a similar platform.

Chloe
It's the cost! The number of children who would be using it regularly is tiny, it's only worth doing it when it's being used by a huge number. The government is already paying to provide education. At school.

Anything the state has to provide for the tiny number of children not in school is just going to be hugely expensive as there is no economy of scale.

We've just paid £1400 for dd to take 3 A levels.
I think her GCSEs were £200/300 per exam.
I don't know where the figures of £1000 would come from ?science A levels are expensive to sit it's about £1000 to sit the Biology A level because of the practical element.

@DragonLegs

I don’t think they should be given it it the form of cash, no. It would be abused by some and therefore not benefit the child. I think though they should find exams, online resources and access to training courses.

I think providing free access to resources as above could be a good idea. Definitely no cash or payments from the government. If it's the later YABU.

I think the danger of making financial incentives to HE is that you may end up with a minority of people doing it for th cash and leaving the tv to educate their dc, particularly if they think they are going to get £75k out of it per child.

I think exams should be free of charge and access to teaching materials but no cash unless it’s for exceptional circumstances.

There is a particular 'youtube' influencer family who home educate. What this appears to mean in practice is that they go on holidays/trips/days out when they like. I honestly think they give home educators a bad name and the provision of a financial incentive will just encourage more people to document their children's lives (without permission) and make money out of it. Much better content if the child doesn't have to go to pesky school afterall.

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.

@CarrieErbag

We've just paid £1400 for dd to take 3 A levels. I think her GCSEs were £200/300 per exam. I don't know where the figures of £1000 would come from ?science A levels are expensive to sit it's about £1000 to sit the Biology A level because of the practical element.

Apologies. I was thinking of something else. Keeps happening where I type something else I’m thinking! Bloody old age for you

Chloe
It's the cost! The number of children who would be using it regularly is tiny, it's only worth doing it when it's being used by a huge number.

Yes but a lot of the cost has already been paid out. Why not use it? For example, the full bank of lessons there means that the teachers/people (not all of them were teachers) have been paid for them already. They won’t be paid every time a child watches that video. So that resource already exists and would be a shame to just let it go.

Paying for the servers to host it would be tiny in comparison to what they have already paid and if the government are truly serious about the ‘catch up’ for pupils as opposed to spending billions for them to have an extra 30 minutes a day, this would be a far better use of that money and would reach a far wider cohort of children.

The government uses taxpayers cash to educate children and every parent has the option to send their children to school which is a huge privilege millions are denied every year. If people want to home educate that’s their own choice but of course no one else should fund it.

@orangecinnamon

There is a particular 'youtube' influencer family who home educate. What this appears to mean in practice is that they go on holidays/trips/days out when they like. I honestly think they give home educators a bad name and the provision of a financial incentive will just encourage more people to document their children's lives (without permission) and make money out of it. Much better content if the child doesn't have to go to pesky school afterall.

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.

I think I know that family and yes! I don’t believe kids should be on YouTube. But that’s another subject matter.

Maybe give some money to the HE department in the local council to arrange subsided coding/sports/science lessons?

@MrsWombat a bit like the classes that are already available at school?

I’m also thinking about those children who spend lengthy time in hospital or in centres/home recuperating for both mental and physical conditions. Having good quality online resources would be invaluable to those families and help their return to school much smoother.

LEAs are supposed to provide support for all children, including those who are home educated. The school I worked in did do a bit of support for home ed kids in the area.

I home educate DS (for over six years now - DD1 decided she was ready for school again after 4 years) and I’ve never expected any financial support for it. If it were offered I’d gratefully accept of course as I’m generally happy with the inspections we have, I am drafting a report today in fact.

Most of our local HE friends unschool and so any strings attached wouldn’t work for most of them, if it meant for example being used for tutors or something.

I love the freedom HE gives DS to work at his level for every subject (huge range, he’s autistic and behind in some, ahead in others) - I’m just not sure some kind of financial thing would work especially as there is so often such a wide range, high prevalence of SN etc. And just giving money with no strings attached would be bizarre

You are saving the education authoritiers money so yes, I believe you should be able to claim some sort of tax relief.

@Spikeyball that's pretty much where we started. I didn't say it was easy but with the right parental input sufficient funding is available to schools. It's just a crying shame you need to battle as we have. I've been in exactly your position and am out the other side, please do feel free to get in touch if you need any help x

authorities

I HE but I don't agree with being paid to do it. There are so many other ways we can be supported practically without it being a financial incentive. Private companies are often able to offer discounts for their materials, which makes a huge difference to our family. Council provision is patchy.

Councils can offer HE library tickets which allow us to take out more books and/or keep them longer. Librarians can liaise with us to find out what books we long to see. Some councils offer discounted rates for hiring rooms or centres for HE users to gather.

I'd like to see better accessibility for HE in local leisure centres, not just after-school sessions.

I'd like to see councils fund or part-fund GCSEs.

I'd like to see councils dedicating an easy-access room to HE, stocked with some simple resources similar to the games and toy libraries Surestart used to offer. And with space to run a class.

I'd like to see councils use their resources like park wardens to run HE sessions.

I'd especially like more joined up thinking about providing a simple way for HE children to access the services that are supposed to be available to them: education psychologists, speech therapy, flu jabs and the like.

All these would be great for those who want to get out there and take advantage of what's available, but would be no incentive at all for anyone wanting to hide their child, which should alleviate the fears of those who focus on that tiny minority.

I did find it galling taking 3 kids through infant years knowing all their peers were being provided with lunches and there was nothing equivalent for us. It wasn't so much the financial hit (fairly small anyway) as the hypocrisy of claiming to worry that HE kids weren't properly looked after.

[quote PinkyU]@littlebillie I think it’s very important to differentiate between hidden or unseen children and those that are HE.

HE are registered with gp’s/dentists/hospitals/opticians, they access peer groups, group activities and other social and educational opportunities.

Whilst, yes there usually is a crossover of hidden children being “HE” there are multiple safeguarding redflags that should be taken into account.

I feel for the purposes of this thread (to discuss the potential funding of genuine HE) it’s important not to conflate the two.[/quote]
But the fact remains that it is very easy to keep children away from society if you HE . Just because your children go to medical appointments regularly and access other opportunities doesn't mean that all HE children do. The scrutiny by the LA only has powers to establish identities of children not receiving suitable education. They don't scrutinise who does/doesn't go to social groups or GPs.

A secondary school has to pay multiple proffesional teachers (langauges, science, english, music, math, geography, history, art, technology etc...) to make sure the children get a correct rounded education.

That cant be replicated at home on a 1-2-1 basis on a mass scale which is what you are suggesting, say this was granted and now many people choose HE and had to hire 1-2-1 lessons for at least 1 hour per week per disapline because their prescious angel shouldnt share a class with others, where would all these extra teachers magically come from and how would they have the time to see every child indevidually? (also 1-2-1 tuition is going to cost more)

If the parent is attempting to do all teaching themselves they are going to fail the child because its litrally impossible to be qualified to teach all those disaplines and they shouldnt be rewarded by being paid the salary of multiple proffesionals.