To think that most people actually do understand, and therefore support, home education...

[PennyRa]

And it's just a loud minority that are ignorant?

Well as a HE parent I agree with you. I have a good relationship with my LA.

Nope, all BS, if you met the home schooled kids on our estate.. and their parents, you would understand why I thought that.

Clearly from the replies on here this simply is not the case at all.

There seems to be some very polarised views with a lack of understanding on both sides.

School is never going to be a one size fits all, and children with extra needs tend to fall through the cracks. Home education is likely to be a far better option for them.

One thing that is very clear from this thread is that you need to be comfortably off to be able to educate your children properly. All the extra curriculars will cost, tutors will cost, entering public exams will cost. And if they are taking science GCSEs and A levels they need to pass the practical element of the syllabus as well as the written element, and going to an exam centre to do this isn't cheap either.

Home schooling done well can be the best thing ever for some children, but in many cases it isn't done well. The lack of regulation is a problem, and the naivety of some parents who think that taking GCSes isn't necessary robs the children of future opportunities.

I know of one young man who is teaching himself A levels as he found that college wasn't a good fit for him (his parents suspect he is on the spectrum, but he hasn't been assessed). He is motivated and doing well. He had an expensive week away in another city in order to fulfill the practical requirements of a science A level - cost of the course, cost of the hotel and cost of train fares. He took one A level this summer and achieved a B, which he wouldn't have got if he had stayed in college.

On the other side, I know a parent who just didn't like getting up early and decided to home educate her DD, then home educate the next two when they left nursery. Living rurally there weren't the same socialising opportunities you get in cities, and frinds whose DC attended school noticed how far behind these home schooled DC were getting. The parent decided that home educating wasn't working so she sent her children to school whereupon the teachers noticed immediately that all three DC were dyslexic. The parent didn't have the knowledge to pick up on this.

Those are just a couple of anecdotes of two families to illustrate how it can and can't work.

I didn't home educate DD for many reasons, the main one being I just didn't want to.

I understand why kids with SEN are often failed by the system and need to be home-schooled. It’s outrageous that they are not catered for at school and then have to be HE, whilst also potentially recovering from trauma caused by their school experience.

At the other end you have middle class mummies who want not to work (or have a token pocket-money job) and their whole identify revolves round being Mummy. So HE suits them down to the ground. Whilst Daddy has the Big Job and pays for all these tutors and groups and drama and music classes. These women don’t help the feminist cause one bit and it’s largely about them and not the kids. They always deny it but so many fit the stereotype.

I've known around 10 people who have been homeschooled and every single one has done terribly academically...and one of them was taught by a parent who was a teacher. They're all now very behind their peers and kind of left behind. I'm definitely not against it conceptually but I've yet to see it executed well.

For the vast majority home education is not beneficial in my personal experience, too many times I have encountered controlling parents, unbalanced curriculums and children failing to develop the day to day skills they need for life.

There are circumstances where it is the best option including for some sn children, very rural areas where access to school isn't possible, families who are travelling/between permanent addresses etc but ideally this is only a temporary solution. Yes I have experience of a school refuser

It is you who is ignorant by not seeing that your experience is not the only one. Go and ask all the kids caught up in County Lines how they enjoyed home ed and you might find a different perspective.

I didn't realise I was under any obligation to help the feminist cause by sitting 9-5 at a desk all day (which BTW, my husband doesn't do either - he's involved in home ed as much as I am).

I'm neurodiverse and full time office work didn't suit me pre kids and it doesn't suit me now. That's why I went freelance.

Two people I know who home educate have children with needs that aren’t met by the conventional school system and they are waiting for the local authority to allocate a school place. They have had a tough time and their kids have been so miserable. I feel sorry for these families.

Nobody said working had to involve 9-5 sitting at a desk, what a strange reaction - did that post hit a nerve?

I do work, although by your criteria this doesn't count as I am not the breadwinner.

I’d say the opposite is true.

School is generally a group of children in their class/year who happen to be born in the sane school year as them and live in the same demographic area.

HE is a wide range of age groups, different backgrounds etc.

‘Like - minded parents’ is really far off the mark. Unless you’d say the same that everyone who sends their child to school is like-minded?!

I know parents of school children and parents of HE children, some are similar to me, similar parenting style etc. Others vastly different. Some school and HE parents I get on really well with and am close friends with, others not so much! The HE community is huge, to think everyone in it is like - minded is one of those misconceptions people have about HE.

Socialisation doesn't mean going to a drama class or a karate class or meeting up with other mummies in the park. It's the process of getting to know a group of specific other people, in depth, over a period of time. Managing and understanding those complex interrelationships, dealing with difficult people and upsetting situations as well as celebrating events, working on long term projects and going on trips together.

Yes, there are some children who can't cope with the school environment. It can be tough. There are kids with sen whose needs may not be met.

But for the parents on here with neurotypical children, the idea that going to Beavers or to an art class compares with what you learn about interacting with people at school 5 days a week is just very, very misguided.

The parents i know who HE are very poorly educated themselves, very ideological, very narrow minded and insular.

So your husband has a very well paid job in finance which supports this whole lifestyle, and yet apparently he's just as involved in home educating your child as you are? When and where does he work ? Don't they mind?

I never said he worked in finance, I said he worked in tech, and I never said he was very well paid, I simply said he earns more than I do and is therefore the breadwinner.

He works a four day week and does flexible hours so two of those days (as well as his day off) he is responsible for supervising learning.

It's such a broad experience for children isn't it. If they are home schooled their whole future can depend on the ability, intention and determination of one adult. This can be a great outcome if the parent can get it right and have the enthusiasm, time and means to do it properly. On the other hand it can be a terrible thing for a child if their parent gets the process wrong.

Also, groups such as travellers taking their children out of school once they have completed junior seems really awful. To stop their education at such a young age means that many of them can't read or write properly once they are adults. We've got a huge traveller site near us and the women come into the shop that I work in and can't read the labels on things.

You've literally described the group socialisation that happens with home ed. My son has attended his various groups for months, with the same children, and has built up relationships in the way you describe. They work on long term projects. They go on trips. What about that is not good enough for you?

I am not insular, I am not narrow minded, I am not ideological and I am not badly educated (I have two degrees). We don't mix only with other home educators but a wide variety of people from all walks of life.

I would say the narrow mindedness on this thread is not coming from the home educators.

Do people assume that home educating parents are there hovering over their child's every social interaction? I can assure you that we aren't.

I know several adults who were HE (missionary and military) and they're all well adjusted if slightly "eccentric" adults, the only common theme was that they struggled at the early-career stage and have now all landed in freelance type roles, they didn't like the traditional workplace set up.

I used to be really pro HE, and I still think it can be a good choice for some, and the school system is very far from healthy. But I agree it does need more oversight and more support to ensure children get at least a basic level of education and protection. The whole "trust the parents" attitude and denial that there could ever be any issues is really naive.

What turned me off HE was working in environmental Ed with both schooled and HE groups over a couple of years. The groups I worked with were all very active families, and exemplar examples of HE but there were themes I noticed that really turned me off:

1. The echo chamber. The HE parents were obsessed with justifying their choice to me and each other. I never ever challenged them, but the extent to which they convinced themselves their way was "right" was bizarre. For many it was based on an ideolly or their own experience of school, rather than what would best suit their child.
2. The arrogance. The parents were all convinced that they were raising free-thinking, creative mavericks outside of the "brainwashing" rules of school. But the reality is some rules exist for safety and society. Both parents and children could be really selfish (parking in disabled spaces!) and dangerous (ignoring instructions on how to safely use tools!). These weren't one off examples, it was a pattern of behaviour and an ingrained attitude.
3. The conspiracies. The groups I taught were generally "normal" middle class parents, but they still harbored above average number of fringe theories like weird diets, anti-vaxxing, voter fraud etc. And their children would also believe this as fact. The parents took this as indication that their kids hadn't been "brainwashed" by school, but if your secondary aged child has all the same views and values as you then that isn't free-thinking, it just demonstrates how ill exposed they have been to debate and opinion.
4. The family dynamic. Regardless of how many clubs and activities the kids did they still spent a lot of time as a family unit. For some it's idyllic but for others it caused a lot of stress and seemed primarily to serve the parents. Not all siblings get along. I saw several physical fights between siblings and felt so sad that they had such limited space to develop friendships and identities outside of their family unit.
5. The inability to indulge in imaginative play. Children play more imaginatively when they believe there are no adults present (can't find the studies at the moment but look it up). The schooled children certainly demonstrated this as they could get lost for hours in a task with their peers and they had an ability to problem solve that far outstripped their home-schooled peers. Whereas the HE kids really struggled with imaginative tasks and would try to ask or involve adults a lot more. The weirdest part was how utterly deluded the parents were about this - they would repeatedly tell me how "imaginative" and "creative" their kids were, and I think they were actually unaware of when they were "feeding" their kids ideas. The cognitive dissonance of the parents was what I found most disturbing.

I still think it can be a good choice for some children, but it needs to be much better regulated and supported.

I think calling kids and adults ‘odd, weird, strange’ etc is really out of order. I expect more children who don’t fit in into mainstream society are suited to HE. Rather than HE creating any personality quirks ‘from scratch’.

But whatever the case, these are unpleasant descriptors.

It’s what some (few possibly) parents do. It was even on a thread on here once, one parent discussing school vs HE and one of their reasons was they wanted to keep their child home with them. A few people pointed out that that wasn’t fair on the child.