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

[PennyRa]

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

@Magssss I agree.

I HE’d my daughter for yr 6. With tutors.

Socialisation was REALLY hard and ended up with social services involvement around a forest school group because one under-parented boy was being profoundly inappropriate due to exposure to porn.

She has been in school ever since.

TL;DR I know about it and think there are big disadvantages

Mine is only 6 so I teach him myself for the majority of subjects. If we are still doing this when he's older then yes, we would likely get in tutors for certain subjects.

The children of a guy I used to work with were all home schooled by his wife.

They put them in for no exams whatsoever which seemed pretty unfair tbh, if their home schooling was so competent surely you’re just leaving your kids at a disadvantage in later life if they apply for a job with 0 qualifications.

What if those kids grew up and decided they wanted to be a doctor, nurse, police officer, vet? He said they’d all set up their own businesses so wouldn’t need qualifications - so he’d ‘decided’ on their behalf apparently.

He clearly saw no irony in the fact he wouldn’t have been working in his job at the time without formal qualifications 🤦‍♀️

Which is why parents should be supported to hold the LA to account so they and their DC receive the provision they are legally entitled to and need, not accept unlawful practices. Allowing the LA to act unlawfully unchallenged doesn’t need to be reality for any parent. Receiving the provision DC are legally entitled to and need doesn’t need to be rare.

Ditto to this.

I’m so pleased you managed to secure this, and I hope it’s helped your child.

Many LAs are known to fail many children. Like I said, the only child in my area known to get MNT in about 2 years was a child who’d had a transplant. Many were trying to work towards this, they all failed.
To be fair this was just before the SEND OFSTED review a few years ago, so maybe things have improved (although going by the local FB SN groups it’s still fairly dire!).

It’s the contact whenever ‘you’ need it that’s the safeguarding concern though - this is not personally against you & your child’s situation but anyone could opt out of contact and who’s looking in on those children then?

Teachers take home education very personally.

I don't know why tbh. Teachers are trained to teach in schools. Home education is not school at home.

Completely agree.

Just for the benefit of anyone reading, EOTAS can include socialisation too. Care farms, forest schools, water sport activities, group tuition, group music/drama/art/cooking/sports/coding classes, book club, chess club are all possibilities if appropriate for the individual child’s needs. Not to mention a budget for accessing the community.

As a very experienced teacher, I’d only home school if it really was the last available option. I can just about understand primary age homeschooling if it’s done by a parent who is a teacher, but a parent who isn’t qualified to teach - or who is trained in only one subject - thinking they can somehow adequately teach all of the secondary curriculum seems naive. Unless the idea is to teach nothing but a minimal core, perhaps between two parents or with help from suitably qualified tutors? I also don’t think it’s at all healthy to spend a large chunk of childhood at home all day having your lessons, lunch and break time with your mum / dad instead of being with peers. So YABU.

This isn't actually true - if the local EHE team are aware of you you can't actually "opt out". If you ignore their letters and refuse to engage they are likely to slap a SAO on you.

But most children are in school so that would follow. I’d be keen to see sources about homeschooling not contributing to abuse. It’s certainly a handy vehicle to keep children out of the system for those who have nasty intentions. A friend moved areas and due to a number of life events hasn’t got round to registering their 3 year old with any services such a health visitors/GP. Child doesn’t go to nursery as mum is a SAHP. It made me realise how easy it is to hide a child if you wanted to.

If this is true parents in your LA need to get some proper advice because any proper advice would ensure more than 1 child received section 19 provision as they would be able to force the LA’s hand.

Cause or effect though? The home schooled child I know is odd, but it's partly that which made normal school a disaster for him. The parents didn't want to home school but the incredible lack of support he got in mainstream school left them with little choice. He was utterly wretched in school poor thing. Thriving homeschooling.

OK well firstly I don't know a single home educator who attempts to teach their secondary age child all the subjects, they engage tutors.

Secondly home educated children are being taught 1:1 and therefore don't require the long days that schools require with 30+ kids in a class to teach. My 6 yo and I are done with sit down learning by lunchtime each day; the rest of the time he's with peers or doing other activities, including plenty of outdoor time.

I think there are some children who are better being home educated due to SEN.

I think a lot of home schooling is for the parent's benefit and not the children's. I know one family who home school following the loss of one of their children and their mum is really anxious to let them go. I know another family whose 5 children do not socialise. They see extended family every few weeks but that's it. Just each other. The parents just don't like 'the sysytem'.

Ugg.

I have a degree in a core subject, a post graduate degree and I'm working on my second degree in a second core subject. The assumption that you couldn't possibly as a parent be able to teach your child is an ugly one and based on prejudice.

GCSE really isn't massively difficult level of scholarship on any subject. It is doable for most with the right resources. I do believe the LEA should have a greater role providing those resources.

I also think state online schooling would reduce the number of homeschooling children where for whatever reason the child is not happy in "regular" school. This might pick up a few where the parents maybe aren't so confident but still want an alternative school environment

Is that what’s happened to the families you know who have ‘opted out’ @KitchenFleur ?

When my son was in reception the emails I received home from his teachers were riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Didn't really instill great confidence in their ability to teach my child.

TBH I think it's really telling that almost everyone on this thread will have been through the school system and yet so many of you are claiming you would have absolutely no idea what to teach your children. It isn't a great advert for school, is it?

If GCSEs aren’t that hard to teach why do teachers study for so long to be able to do that job then?

Seems like anyone should be able to rock up and do it.

This has been ongoing for a long time, with various action groups (of parents and people from various organisations) working towards improving things.

I was very lucky in that ds got an excellent EHCP, but by that time we’d been HEing for a while and knew what worked for him. Anything more specialised was very difficult to secure.

Yabu. I don't understand it. I think it is terrible to keep your children away other children and from life because you want them to yourself.

Teachers learn how to TEACH, generally in the school based context of multiple students at the same time.

The subject matter itself is not particularly difficult if you are generally well educated yourself and are teaching 1:1. I was always crap at maths (frankly because I needed a lot of individual help with it which was never forthcoming at school) but my 6 year old is very good at it, purely because I can explain things to him completely 1:1.

This is not what home educators do.

I think it's possible to give a child a wonderful home education experience and clearly many do.

What does worry me is that many home educators seem to deny that there are a number of home educators who don't do this.

The school system isn't always great but for many they do have a good experience who learn well and make good friends. It feels like to some that school is bad in all instances which clearly isn't the case.