To homeschool my highly intelligent child when I’m not very intelligent?

[FFSAnotherProblemToSolve]

Thinking taking DC (Yr8) out of secondary school and homeschooling. They are not happy to go to school, struggling to fit in despite being well liked, have a recently diagnosed medical condition which flares up at school due to stress, attendance this year has been below 60% due to side effects from medical condition.

Much happier at home and medical condition stable. Has friends but not interested in socialising outside of school as says they’re immature. Older adult siblings at home.

DC is very advanced and complains of being bored at school as well.

I have no doubt they could take GCSEs next year independently via online learning and progress onto A Levels well before age 16.

Homework is always done to a high level with no chasing from me, even when off school, consistently gets top marks in class tests despite low attendance. They have also done some GCSE test papers for fun and got A equivalent passes.

Plan is to include going to the gym 3/4 times a week and an evening activity with peers like Cadets or martial arts although this will be under duress probably.

I will be working part time remotely so at home.

Never did I ever think I’d be leaning to this and certainly wouldn’t have with my older DC.

Concerned DC may not as well as he would with a qualified teacher on hand though as I only have GCSEs so wouldn’t be much help (although I don’t think DC will need it).

What could go wrong?

Have you looked into the finances of this?

If your child wanted to sit some (all?) GCSEs next year, that's fine, but it's increasingly hard to find centers to take private candidates, and it usually is expensive - you are probably looking at £500 at least for say, English, maths and science at a private exam centre. Subjects with coursework may be more challenging to arrange.

For some subjects they may have the ability but not the subject knowledge, so they would need to have to work hard to fill in any gaps. They may be able to do this independently - are they able to look at an exam spec and identify which areas they have covered and which they haven't?

Honestly there are students out there who could get decent GCSEs through self teaching, even in y9 or y10, and there are lots of resources out there to help.

I think A-levels are where it gets tricky. Many A-levels have a coursework element - I know there are ways around this for home ed students but it may still be tricky to manage. Even subjects that don't officially have coursework may have requirements to demonstrate practical skills or do fieldwork, which must be signed off by an exam centre.

A-level subject content is also harder to self teach and the resources out there are limited. In many subjects, self study with no discussion will lead to a limited perspective and the student not getting as much out of the course.

It's very likely at A-level you'd need to pay for some tutoring (around here it would start at £50 an hour) plus paying for the exams etc. It's not going to be cheap.

And as others have said, what is the end goal here?

I think if you went for this, it might be with a view to sitting GCSEs at the normal time or some a year early, and then rejoining school for sixth form or going to college. It's increasingly logistically difficult to self study A-levels unfortunately.

There are so many resources now post Covid that you don't need to be a teacher to home school, rather a learning facilitator. I bet there are even resources to self train for this. If you think school is holding your dc back then I would seriously consider it. Mine are in school, but they have friends who are home educated - through Young Farmers, as it seems to be a rural kid thing around here. Social clubs are vital.

I’m wondering if the recent medical diagnosis is autism? Maybe not. But many of the OP comments point to this. Many children can’t cope in a school environment due to medical needs. You could look at accessing eotas provision but would need a consultant to sign off on the fact that their medical condition prevents them from accessing the school. This could be full or part time provision. There could also be a need for an EHCP so that the young person could access more specialist support within school, or through the eotas possible provision. EHCP would mean you can name your school and if that was to be eotas then you could fight for funded provision that you could tailor to their needs. By off rolling them at school you’re walking away from any paid support but the LA.

My DD is autistic. Not in too sets but achieving at least age related and slightly above in her special interest areas. She only socialises in school and has no interest in socialising out of school. She attends many other clubs outside of school though so gets the opportunity to meet different groups of people. She doesn’t have an EHCP as her school are very accommodating to her needs without one. But o know this is not always the case.

Home schooling is your choice. I’m a qualified teacher and no way would I choose to home school. As a single parent I could afford to anyway.

Taking mine out of school helped more then hindered her in this aspect. She has selective mutism and wouldn't speak to anyone at all. She wouldn't go out with us for days out/shopping/holidays. We now do all of these and she is slowly learning to interact with staff in shops and other venues. It's been a massively positive experience for her.

While that's not the same situation as OPDD I have to mention it be due the idea that home ed kids are isolated and losing skills juts isn't always true.

Have you considered looking at an independent school? Your child might qualify for a scholarship and the smaller class sizes might be beneficial. If you are planning on combining part time work with home ed it might be difficult.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all - but maybe to look into online schools like Interhigh etc (that one does the IB) but there are others that follow the National curriculum.

That way your DC isn’t missing out on the education standard?

Or perhaps tutors if you could afford it?

Also yes to local home Ed groups.

Do you have sufficient time outside of your own work to ensure this is done in the way you would want? As for me, this would be almost a full time job in addition to my own job.

Do you have the money to pay for tuition and the cost of entering your dc into their gcses?

You can't necessarily assume they will teach themselves - esp at a-level.

Basically, do you have the time and money to make this work?

Home education is becoming more and more popular. We have been doing it since 2020 and we love it. My child has come on tremendously and does plenty of clubs and activities. Not sure why a poster was asking if you could competently teach French 😂 The entire point is you teach what the child is interested in and chose your GCSEs from there. Maths, English and Science and two others would be all that is required for A Level entry. Sitting 12 or 13 at school is an absolute pointless activity which increases workload and stress for no reason. Go for it. There are LOADS of resources available.

Also, a quick Google search will tell you that the average cost of a GCSE is £43.91. Not sure where these £500+ figures are coming from. 5 GCSEs privately is going to cost a lot less than years of school lunches, school trips, bring money for this, bring money for that, sponsor forms, World Book Day etc,

i am all for homeschooling and think for many children it is the right thing but it sounds like you do need to do a lot more research into things than you have currently in order to make it work.

it’s not as simple and leave them to it and sit some exams!

Have you taken this from the gov website?

It's private GCSE cost you need to look at

Don't exam fees depend on the exam centre you take them? You have to pay the exam board fee and then whatever the school or college you take the exam in will charge something.

You could not be further from reality.

One of the main advantages of HE is that you are not stuck within the very narrow National Curriculum and your children will get more stimulating outings and experiences in a couple of months than most school children get in their whole school career. And most of the time you will not be going as a family but on an organised trip so even on a basic visit to the natural history museum you will have a group booking with the actual museum experts in those topics, not a generic teacher and you will be able to stay until the museum closes if you like and not have to leave to be back at a certain time - and if you want to you can come back again tomorrow - in my area we have a least one of these type visits organised every week - we cannot go on them all.

Just looking at our diary in the next couple of weeks we have a visit to the Black Country Museum, Space Centre, Macbeth. None of these are us just going on our own - we have three day trips planned in addition just on our own - these are fully planned and curated trips with guides/workshops etc provided. When going as a family we really use the technique of learning together - look up things we do not know and the museum staff etc are always around to ask.. The number of times we have gone somewhere as a family, asked a member of staff a questions and they have ended up giving us a fully guided tour often including access to areas not open to the public - and the comments are always that the staff have really enjoyed themselves as it is so unusual and so lovely to see children with such engagement and curiosity. This included getting to accompany the staff on the feeding round for the entire sea life centre.

Because it really is the comment about curiosity that has stunned me - HE is primarily about instilling the love of learning and enhancing curiosity - when children come out of school into HE they are normally way behind the HE children in their curiosity levels. In the same way their social skills are often a long way behind HE children as HE children will typically attend 6-10 different activities a week - all with different 'rules and expectations', they have to learn how to navigate different situations and people , instead of being in one setting for their education. They will also mix with a much more diverse range of children. From my experience it is personal growth and curiosity that is most stifled by the mass education system and freed up by HE.

In terms of intellectual stimulation - well the child can study what ever they want at exactly the level they want to study and, as many groups are run by experts they can develop fantastic relationships with those experts who can guide them in their learning in a way so superior than is on offer in schools it is incomparable. One group our child attends is arranging work experience for our teen and the possibility of full time employment/apprenticeship is already being talked about for him - he wants to be a Countryside/Wildlife Ranger

My only word of warning is always to check out exams - if you plan to sit the same number as you would in school it will get very very expensive and you have to find an exam centre, make sure you are doing the right exam board etc - none of this is insurmountable but it is something to be aware of.

I could go on for hours but i must stop procrastinating and get back to work.

I think that is the cost of the exam - you also have to pay for the use of the exam centre. Where you can sit exams is heavily controlled.

£250 is a good ball park figure but some will be more or less.

Plus HE kids have trips/sponsored events/world book day and have to be fed at lunchtime!

I don’t know where you have gotten £43.91 from but the price of entering a GCSE as a private candidate is more than that. For example, Tutors and Exams are one of the biggest providers and as you can see from their fees information a GCSE costs significantly more than £43.91. Some other centres are cheaper, but not by that much.

They have also done some GCSE test papers for fun and got A equivalent passes.

I don't understand this. GCSEs are marked 1-9?

Agree with the PP. If they are an academic and bright child they would be better supported by broadening their learning and focusing on their challenges (social skills, team work, managing their medical condition) rather than hothoused into taking exams early with no actual benefit.

Tbf OP did say A equivalent, so that's a 7-9.

Agree totally with the rest of the post though. Why try and take some GCSEs in year 9 when you could be giving them a broad education?

I have thought about homeschooling my 4 dc at various times but I'm glad I didn't. The social side is so important. My youngest is in year 10 and on course to ace her gcses. My elder two both went to Cambridge . The younger one was going to be put ahead a year or 2 at school but I was worried about the impact on her elder sister. I'm thankful she wasn't now because she had the maturity to enjoy university.
It might be better if you can negotiate part time hours so he can have the best of both worlds.

Many home educated teens do direct their own learning, yes. It isn't such a ridiculous idea as you think.

It can be very successful. Despite being fairly average, unlike the OP's very bright child, my eldest was home educated in this style and is now doing really well at university. In fact, this approach to home education is a good preparation for uni, where learners need to take more initiative than at school.

My child didn't initially aim for university, planning instead on a vocational route without GCSEs, but they changed their mind in their late teens and started university at 20. Young people who are allowed to decide what, how, and when to learn tend to be highly motivated. Parents help their kids find resources and put their kids together with other people who can help them. We don't have to take on the role of teacher.

Where I live the council gyms offer supervised sessions from age 11 up.

Home ed sounds like it could be a great solution for your child. It has the flexibility to accommodate the needs of very bright kids. Join some home ed groups and have a chat about how people have gone about it.

A bright child has options other than accelerating through the usual route by doing all the same things at a younger age. They could instead have a broader education, picking up some qualifications in passing at whatever age suits, but concentrating more on the actual learning rather than the exams.

As for the socialisation, I think you'll find that once they've recovered from the overwhelming social demands school was putting on them, their interest in spending time with other people will grow and they may be keen to join one or two groups a week rather than going under duress. They don't have to be crammed in with dozens of other teens for 30 hours a week in order to learn social skills! In fact, there's no particular reason they have to associate with teens at all, though most teens enjoy doing so. Unless they plan a career in teaching, or to become a parent, they won't necessarily have much to do with teenagers once they've grown up. The ability to navigate teen groups won't be a critical life skill. They have great access to you and their adult siblings at home, and presumably you all have decent social skills to impart...

I don’t think you should take advice from
prople who have no experience with home ed, the opinions can be very negative on a subject they know nothing about . It’s just expected that kids go to school . No . It shouldn’t , a child should have an education but you as parent get to decide what is best for your child.
Join home ed groups on line ,they give you all the info you need and loads of support , you can ask your questions there also help to access online courses and what materials everyone uses . You will also get your local groups and they do meets. Do what your gut tells you . I say in the circumstances you have described to go for it . 😊

Because if you take GCSEs privately you don't just pay the cost of the exam papers. You can also be charged for the administration costs of the exam, so entering the student, staffing the exam hall and so on. If you have to take the exams at a private exam centre (most schools won't allow private candidates any more);they also want to make a profit.

https://www.examcentrelondon.co.uk/exam-fees - this is just one example of a center I found through a quick Google, they are charging about £195 a GCSE. I imagine you can find a cheaper option somewhere but equally I had a student take 3 AS levels privately this year and the overall cost to her, including travel to the exam centre and overnight stays was well over £500.

It is increasingly difficult and expensive to sit exams privately in this country.

A lot of people assume you can just ring your local secondary school, but ime, most don't take private candidates now.

That's the fee charged by eg aqa for the entry.

But as you say no private exam centre will only charge that. Even a school can and will charge an admin fee to cover their time arranging entries and to cover the costs of invigilating the candidate etc.