To think that home education should mean one parent has no requirement to work under UC?

[Homeeducationproblems]

I home educate but I’m in receipt of carers allowance so I don’t have to worry but many of the parents in the groups we attend have children with difficulties who couldn’t manage school and because they don’t get dla or are waiting for a dla claim (it takes months) they are under extreme pressure.

I know that some people plan to home educate and yes if its a choice for NT dc from age 4 then I can see why they’d be expected to fund that/work alongside but there’s a huge groups of parents struggling to home educate children with difficulties and it seems as if they aren’t recognised and supported ?

AIBU to think that if you’ve had to de register for a child who can’t manage school and you are engaging with your LA home education department (a lot of home educators refuse to engage so there should be something in place where UC have it verified ?) that you should be able to get UC with no requirement to work?

The FB home ed groups are actually really really scary. I couldn't believe you can de-register your child even if they're on the child protection register.
If you so much as exchange basic pleasantries with your LA, the parents on those Facebook groups will give you an internet lashing.

I got ripped to shreds as I’d had a home visit as it was offered and I wanted to ask some questions and we showed the work etc - I got accused of making it worse for other home educators

And I don’t see why it was an issue it was a 20 min visit, she chatted to us both looked at work then said it would be the same in a year we can just send a report no need for a visit again unless we want one so I dont see what these groups are worried about

15 years after I sat my GCSEs, I'm a little rusty on the curriculum content. I suspect most people would be.

Then there's the subjects that my DC might want to take but I never pursued to GCSE level - like music, or French. My lack of talent and interest in the subjects would hold my DC back.

There's more to teacher training than crowd control and lesson plans; breaking things down so that young people can understand them more easily is a real skill. I remember my own father's attempts at helping me with homework in subjects related to his own engineering degree and subsequent career. Utterly hopeless - I usually ended up more confused than I had been before, because he had no idea how to explain things to someone who was struggling when the answer was completely obvious to him. I learned to avoid asking him for help, and he blamed me getting anything less than an A* on not asking him for help!

Totally agree!! Those groups are terrifying! I really don't get why cooperating with the LA is such a bad thing?
I also don't understand the love of unschooling, but that's another issue!

Hypothetically yes, I agree, but it would be impossible to manage as there's so many nuances. I'd be most worried about children who are at risk of abuse, in awful home sitatutions, being 'home educated' so the parents can get UC - and their situation could fly under the radar if they're not in school where it might be noticed.

This is mad, I didn't know that. I'd never home ed myself unless last resort, but surely LEA have best interest of child

The problem is the woeful inadequate SEN provision . This and funding needs to be addressed .
No funding for children with SEN’s but no echp so get forgotten till things escalate

I wouldn't support it because it becomes very easy then for anyone to withdraw a child from school and offer a poor quality education.

I'd be happy where there's an appropriate amount of evidence of need, and it's been shown that EOTAS has not be appropriately provided by the LA, parents who HE due to their children's SEMH/SEN needs being unmet should be able to access a funding pot to support them meeting their children's needs.

@PinkRoses1245 I think they want to have the best interest of the child at heart, for the most part. However there is a lot of box ticking and red tape, horrible underfunding and bully social workers. I am under no illusion that the SEN provision and provision for vulnerable children is woeful, but the threshold for child protection is soo high. I cannot believe a child like that can just be taken out of school for home ed. It's insanity.

@MrsSchrute What I find interesting about this phenomenon of unschooling is that, for the most part, these families talk about how their kids learnt nothing at school and that's why schools are awful. But they make whole Facebook groups where they teach people how to word doing nothing into work. Eg how does going to the GP with your singling equal a maths lesson.

I fall into your category OP, and although I agree that there should be financial provision for those of us who are forced into a situation not of our choosing, , my experience of battling it out with the LA is that the people they employ, supposedly to support our kids, spend all of their time trying to get out of any financial commitment possible. I've just had to spend £3k on a tribunal to get a specialist provision for my eldest, who had been out of school for 2 years up to this point.

They made the calculated decision to fight me at tribunal, knowing that it was 99% certain I'd win, due to the complexities of my child's case, but by putting me through the stress and expense of a tribunal, it meant that the LA delayed funding the school place for a year. It is an open secret, talked about by all of the specialist provisions. It's criminal, and they fail to meet all of the legal timescales constantly, with no recourse.

Given that scenario, I cannot see how any council will decide that they can find the money to support SEND children who can't be in a formal school setting. You have to go down the tribunal route to fight for an EOTIS/EOTAS package, which they will then make impossible to deliver, and if they are providing a personal budget, will not pay you or the providers for months on end.

It's depressing and shameful treatment of the most vulnerable children in our society, but no-one who isn't affected cares or will prioritise this as a funding issue, so it's never going to improve.

Can you not understand that this isn’t the experience of everyone? It’s great that you had a good visit. But unfortunately many many local authorities overstep. I’m guessing you are fairly new to home education? Yet you think you know better than groups with members who have upwards of 20 years experience?

if a child is unable to attend school because of disability and has no access to a specialist school then they would be in receipt of dla so parent would get carers.

If this is not the case the parent really should be classed as able to work.

My niece is severely disabled but has been at a specialist school since primary- she's now in a specialist college. Her mom gets carers so she doesn't have to look for work

Foxesandsquirrels
Genuinely child-initiated learning takes a huge amount of skill. I've read articles by some unschoolers and the parents blow my mind with the knowledge they share with their children. There's a culture of family learning and the parents support the children's interests. The more interests the children have, the more they find other things that catch their interests. It's not something I could do, but I take my hats off to the parents who unschool well. I don't think LAs understand the skill of this approach.

The issue is like you say, the people who don't do much, their children are left to their own devices (literally devices at times) and then they want advice on how to get the LA off their backs. These people will present it as the LA hating unschoolers when the LA reasonably want children to have appropriate educational opportunities.

Of course you can come through the school system just fine and then not be equipped to teach your own children. Even a good A level in maths doesn't necessarily make someone equipped to help a struggling 6 year old understand addition. And a handful of passes as GCSEs definitely doesn't equip someone to help their child with more advanced concepts.

It's partly this devaluing of teachers' skills that make teachers leave the profession. And it's certainly not true that 'a large proportion' of them are choosing to home ed, when it's only around 1 percent of children home educated, and a good share of those kids are involuntary home ed due to issues with having no suitable provision.

It isn’t a lifestyle choice for me- there isn’t a suitable school for my child within an hour of home- and their needs mean they can’t do that much travelling every day. We have tried. And I’m in a position to pay if we could just find somewhere! If you like I can send you my postcode and you can try and find me one?

I’m not religious or into conspiracy theories, I’m post grad educated. I encourage the LA to come for their yearly visit. I allow the outreach school nurses to come to the house and do the checks he doesn’t have at school. I pay for tutors, I pay for clubs, I pay for him to do the one day outdoor education in a setting that he can manage, I pay for exercise books and textbooks etc. I read the entire national curriculum for each subject each academic year and adapt it myself to be accessible for our needs. I don’t do anything else except spend my days caring for my child and trying to make sure he gets a good education.

It would be a very odd ‘lifestyle choice’

Wouldn't that be rewarding people for poor parenting? I'm not talking about parents whose children have serious medical issues and who qualify for carer's allowance, just the type of parents who haven't socialised their kids sufficiently for those kids to be in a classroom without being disruptive.

@alldakatz wow. You win the asshole award for the year.

@OvertakenByLego I do understand the law. But my point is many parents dont have capacity to go through the process whilst supporting their child. My husband had an actual nervous breakdown when we went through tribunal. And we didnt find lots of support out there. We got one call with IPSEA.

I think a system relying on the vulnerable party to enforce their rights is rubbish and totally see why some people give up.

I know the LA doing 5 hours of tuition was not enough. But my focus was on securing the long term placement from September. I didnt have the mental energy to enforce more in the interim. My head went 'i can get long term place right or short term place right'

im glad some people get EOTAS in a way that allows the parent to work though.

No I’ve home educated 2 of my children one through gcses and we had nothing but support from the LA they were actually very ‘hands off’ just wanting a yearly report /meeting and were absolutely nothing but supportive. The families I know through home ed groups are mostly new to it all and struggling

Home ed is completely different than parents helping their child with school home work. A home ed parents job isn't to stand in front of their child and deliver a lesson. It is to facilitate that child's learning. To provide them the tools and resources to learn. There have been many studies which show how children and people learn best. None of the best methods involve a teacher standing in front of 30 children. Theoretically, a HE parent would do a better job at 'home work' anyway, because we are actively involved in their education. In some respects we are learning together or at least being reminded of the stuff we learnt 20 years ago. My 11 year old is now doing their Spanish GCSE. I never spoke a word of Spanish a year ago and I'm still not that good now. My child is though.
It's a different way and it's not for everyone. The majority of the home ed kids I know are happy, thriving, well socialised, are being well educated and are free to pursue their interests. Sadly, I can't say the same for most of the school children I know.
I say all this as a parent of one home ed child and one schooled child.

@LolaSmiles I'm not saying unschooling isn't amazing, it really really is, but as you say, it takes a tremendous amount of work. Lazy parents who read online that leaving your kid to get on with it will reap massive results are deluded and it hurts me to see. It's heartbreaking

I may as well pop in the library or co op and tell them about it, for all the qualifications and input I’ll get. That annoys me. Tbf to my library actually they are good, they would be better education wise.

You are effectively opening your home environment to the pot luck of unqualified box ticking staff. A bit like the GP sending round the person who does the filing each year to look in your fridge. To check you haven’t lied about feeding your children. Pointless, and lots of potential to get it wrong. Box say green vegetables- yours are in a cool pantry, no tick.

The worst bit though is if you are the white educated with books out idea you are contributing to the box ticking and approval that feeds minority group discrimination. Many home educators are disabled, non-white, gypsies or in some way not the stereotype of what things ‘should’ look like. Visits at best lead to Micro aggression, like ‘is your son involved in gangs’ talks or ‘can write English’. The worse is they get actual harassment through school attendance orders. Normalising home visits AND the idea that their ideal exists marginalises other groups.

On the low end of the scale, I speak 5 languages, I’m a qualified teacher, as in my partner and have masters degrees related to education. Yet I have had extra monitoring and phone calls and negativity, along with other non English parents, from a London borough. I’m past the point where I want to explain every year to a member of staff with prejudices that I am as capable as the average parent. I’m not being offered support, guidance or input. Just pure rudeness. I had one visit years ago with a staff person training another, I ended up asking them to leave the way they spoke to me. That’s for a reasonably well off person in a clean and pleasant house. I’ve heard much much worse for others, getting school attendence orders threatened for much more and better evidence that’s I’ve ever provided.

If you invite them, yes it’s a pleasant little tick box. The next person, poorer and in a discriminated against group does the same it’s not. Maybe they have more books than you. Maybe they also write a better report. Maybe they have a tidier house. It does NOT mean they get treats as well as you in the comfortable light touch world of a nice chat and tea.

@Spendonsend I agree it shouldn’t be necessary, but sadly currently DC whose parents enforce their rights get better support. It shouldn’t be like that and fails many DC, but the system isn’t going to change any time soon. Which is why I said parents should be supported to enforce their rights. There are many parents who, for a multitude of complex reasons, can’t or don’t feel able to advocate themselves or advocate alone &/or can’t or don’t feel able to access support services. Support should be improved and there needs to be more signposting parents to the right support rather than a solution that encourages LAs not the provide provision.

There are many problems with the SEN system, but IMO OP’s solution won’t solve that and personally, I think parents should be supported to challenge LAs and enforce their rights rather than accept LAs acting unlawfully. EOTAS can provide far more than the vast majority of parents can afford to fund EHEing. That is not a criticism of parents who EHE, more a statement of what EOTAS can include.