To ask why a significant amount of home Ed kids are joining school at KS2?

[Nonunsnonunsnone]

This might be area specific but we have had 10 or so kids join my kids school in the last six months who were previously home educated, either completely or since 2020. Being the nosey bitch that I am, I would rather ask MN than ask them directly.
I would have thought that any initial enthusiasm for home education would have been extinguished by the pandemic, it hit immediately.
It doesn't seem to be an easy choice for some (parents crying at the gates with others telling them it does get easier) so is it the economic climate?
FWIW I am not in favour of homeschooling as I don't believe that any of the hippie settings would have picked up on my DC's learning disability and possible autism as she would have just been left to paint all day and 'work at her own level'. I see some children who are homeschooled in my volunteer work who have pretty obvious needs but are just left to be 'wild' or 'free spirited'. I'm never quite sure who is being protected from the real world, the child or the parents.

I wonder whether some have younger siblings reaching school age. I can imagine that if you had a 2 year old and a 5 year old during the lockdowns, you might have decided that the home-schooling worked well enough at that point and it was easier to continue, but as the younger one reaches school age, you have to decide whether this something you want to commit to long-term, or whether you'd rather head back to work now they're both old enough for school (especially given the cost of living crisis).

School attendance is not compulsory - home education is a perfectly legal form of education (in whatever form that may take) so why would the LA be making checks?

Yes....

There’s more than usual of these goady home Ed posts lately.
Did the OP enjoy the attention the last thread got?
I doubt there’s actually anyone left on mumsnet who thinks it’s all hippies who let the kids paint all day and ignore needs. Even on Aibu it’s been done to death

FWIW I am not in favour of homeschooling as I don't believe that any of the hippie settings would have picked up on my DC's learning disability and possible autism as she would have just been left to paint all day and 'work at her own level'.

Clearly, you have a very myopic view about home-schooling. Are you, in actual fact, pertaining to 'unschooling'?

I picked up on my twin DCs' LD & ND without an EY setting, and I do think my youngest twin would fare better with a later start to school, with her twin going now, but I don't have the patience to home-school.
You sound horribly judgemental.

I know someone with 3 children doing this ( y6,4 and 1) but it was because of the economic climate. They could no longer afford to have a parent staying at home

Your are wrong
Parents are required to provide a suitable level of education
The LA monitors this

www.gov.uk/school-attendance-absence/legal-action-to-enforce-school-attendance

I read that it's prep for the grammar school exams.

I find it the opposite where I live. In the past couple of months I've come across so many parents who've chosen to HE across all key stages, for different reasons. Not a single one come across as a hippy.

SOME schools may be helpful in spotting signs of disability or ASD but in my personal experience DC's schools (a primary prior to moving across the country, an infant and juniors) all massively failed him and refused to take any parental concerns seriously. In fact the third was the worst and proved to be a hindrance in his diagnosis as the senco painted an entirely fictitious, contradictory picture of what he's like which was proven wrong once camhs observer came into school and agreed with what I'd been saying all along. With them ignoring my concerns, then drag their feet for months to send relevant paperwork to camhs, refuse a ehcp etc he got late diagnosis and it has caused endless issues in secondary many of which could've been avoided with early intervention. I am extremely resentful and feel like I have no choice now but to HE if I want to prevent his MH from spiralling.

it doesn’t appear from your post that you have much knowledge of home Ed and special educational needs. My kids with ASD, dyslexia and Tourette’s were all flagged and diagnosed whilst being home educated.

Your ignorance is breathtaking OP.

Are there any parents here who’ve home-schooled whose children have gone on to Oxbridge? I was discussing this with DH (Oxford Physics), and he said that as far as he knows he never came across anyone who was home-schooled while he was there.

Your post is very flippant and dismissive and you've lumped everyone that home educates into a 'hippie' category which is offensive.

My 16 year old daughter has had to be home educated due to developing agoraphobia and panic disorder at school in year 8. She now does online school at home which is pretty full on. However to people like you it maybe seems like I'm a hippie who lets my daughter stay home and smoke pot!

These days, some home educated children get into Oxbridge for a variety of subjects every year. It isn't unusual at all but obviously it is a minority, in the same way that most school children do not go onto Oxbridge either.

In the early 2010s and before, the numbers of home educators were much lower, though and therefore, it was much more unusual back then.

Incidentally, there are also those who go on to do medicine or veterinary med. And interestingly, quite a few home educators are themselves Oxbridge graduates.

Not my kids. DC1's best childhood friend went to Cambridge and so did one of their two closest teenaged friends. It isn't particularly rare or common among the home educated young people we know. They do quite a range of jobs and go to all sorts of universities. I expect your DH didn't have any home ed classmates simply because home education was less common when he was at uni. Even now, a fairly small proportion of kids are home educated, a few percent at most, so the chance of running across one in any given setting isn't high.

I can't answer your question as not aware of it myself. But the home'ed community is full of so many DC with autism as so many do not get the support they need in school. I was glad I home educated my autistic son from the beginning because many of the experiences were horrific.

Yes, I kind of switched off at the hippie bit as have never come across that in home education!

The LA doesn't monitor it. If they have reason to believe an education is not being provided they can ask for evidence. The LA have never had reason to believe that of us so I've never been asked for evidence.

Of course all children require an education, but there are no stipulations regarding what form that needs to take. Children not on the school register are not checked - I have never been checked dispite withdrawing my DC from school. The LA can check if they wish, but there is no requirement to do so. From the Government website:

Sorry, attachment doesn't appear to have loaded

Agree with you. I live abroad so teaching my daughter to read and write in English was down to me but I couldn't do it (and she's an intelligent child, gets all 8s, 9s, and 10s in school, no additional difficulties like dyslexia or anything), it was Reading Eggs that singlehandedly taught her to read and write. I'm going to try again with my youngest but I expect I'll have to cough up the money for Reading Eggs again.

I’m looking into flexi-school (eg 1 day per week) for oldest next year (U.K. year 5). Reasons are:

1. To get him familiar with a school setting. We would like him to be able to choose regarding secondary school - but how can you choose if you have no experience?

2. He has 2 younger siblings and they are needing more educational input now, so harder to manage all 3 (it is do-able, so if they don’t like school we can continue with home-Ed - just needs some adjustment to home life).

DS was CEV so both DS and DD homeschooling through the pandemic. DD is just returning to school this September.

If I had 4-7 year old with CEV family members it would be a no brained.

FWIW DS thrived homeschooling and although DD didn't as things stood had there been a structured national online school set up she also would have. Our ideas of what homeschooling is and should be are to narrow because of the beliefs and manner of those who historically chose to do it. Homeschooling potentially has huge value to society if we chose to see it

@Saracen - someone I knew was home Ed to either gcse or close to gcse, but then went to school for a levels. Went to Cambridge. I expect it was a lot harder when I was growing up to study for A levels at home (as internet wasn’t v good).

Exactly! Who do they think would have left their child to paint all day…. Would the op be sitting back waiting for somebody to come into their home and teach their child and who is the other person they refer to who would have neglected their child’s education? Oh yes … them!! Fortunately home educators take a little more responsibility for their child’s education.