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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Stop homeschooling your children.

655 replies

pentagonisapentagon · 26/04/2024 18:11

I run an educational consultancy and exam company. We produce books that most parents in our area of education will purchase. Home educating your children makes us money.

However. STOP. Now I don’t mean those that have children with severe issues (this is a small %, everyone likes to diagnose their children with some form of disorder and it isn’t those I’m talking about) who would benefit out the classroom / often awaiting a better school option.

I mean the parents who are tired with the education system - lots of moans that they can’t take their children for a holiday, annoyed about not being allowed make up, the rules being too hard. You can barely spell, stop trying to teach your children yourself. These children are being FAILED by their parents.

By all means, if you have the relationship, time, ability and means to provide a solid home education system (inc money for tutors which will be needed) - go ahead. Just ensure you’re covering the social aspect.

I am seeing the advice to home school EVERYWHERE. Mumsnet and Facebook filled with the poor advice. It’s detrimental to all parties involved.

I’d love to know others thoughts on this.

OP posts:
LunarPhase · 27/04/2024 11:02

What an embarrassingly ignorant post this is. People have lots of reasons for Home Educating their children. Many schools have become toxic environments for our children, especially those with any kind of SEN. I've just pulled our 12 year old son from school to HE because he has developed crippling anxiety around going to school and there is no support from the school on any level for children who deviate from the 'norm' despite schools making a lot of virtue signalling noise about supporting mental health.

I have three degrees, one of them in teaching so I think we'll be fine thanks
🙄🙄🙄

Elleherd · 27/04/2024 11:03

NoisySnail
They do very basic experiments. Using PH strips for acid/alkylate, bending light using prisms. But since the kids do not know what they are missing they will tell anyone they are HE and do science experiments.

Some may just do basic experiments, just as some of our old schools didn't do any lab experiments, (too dangerous because of disruptive behavior) and just did science Btec with video's instead.

Mine wanted separate sciences. (unavailable in our type of schools)
(Mumsnet educated me about separate sciences, further maths, EPQ's and that they were available to MC children in good schools as standard.)

I negotiated lab space, demonstrations, tecs, and hands on use, Free if possible, paid for if not,.
We trawled everything the RSA, RSC, RSB, IoP RCS, etc did and found the networks of science institutions, museums, Clore galleries, unis, private schools, & higher level science fairs, and who did and had what we could use.
TBF we have an advantage of being in London and I drive allowing us access to lots elsewhere too.

Of course there are HE parents doing only basics, just as there are schools only doing the bare minimum, claiming all uni's will take them on any course with a science Btec.

NoisySnail · 27/04/2024 11:12

I was shocked when I first read on MN that not all schools offer separate sciences or do lab experiments. But schools are inspected and if not up to scratch are given improvement plans. Parents can do what they want with no over sight at all. It is obvious you did a good job, but not everyone does.

DragonFly98 · 27/04/2024 11:31

Jk987 · 26/04/2024 21:20

I can't fathom why people homeschool! Teachers spend time and money getting qualified - how can unqualified parents match this? The parents can't work as they have to educate their children so how do they afford to live?

Teachers learn how to teach a class of 30 and to differentiate. Facilitating the education of your own children is very different, surely that is obvious?
Also why would you think you couldn't work and home ed?

Youdontevengohere · 27/04/2024 11:41

DragonFly98 · 27/04/2024 11:31

Teachers learn how to teach a class of 30 and to differentiate. Facilitating the education of your own children is very different, surely that is obvious?
Also why would you think you couldn't work and home ed?

Exactly. I have a very clever 10 year old who is doing very well at school. When she went back to school after lockdown she was miles ahead of her peers because I’d been able to teach her entirely at her level.
I work full time so home educating isn’t for me, but I’ll be sending my children to an independent secondary school. The stories I hear coming from state secondaries on here and in real life are horrific, so if someone chooses to home educate I completely understand why.

Nellodee · 27/04/2024 11:41

It would definitely be better if less children were home educated, but I think the onus is on the government to ensure that school is clearly the better option for the vast majority. This means investing in mental health services for children, Sen support, well funded schools, sufficient teachers, tackling unsuitable content on the internet, etc.

The rise of home education is a failure of government.

Words · 27/04/2024 11:44

It seems there are several trends going on.

Disclaimer- I am child free but if I did have. Hold ten, I would never consider home educating myself. I have two degrees from Russell group universities ( arts and languages) . I couldn't begin to cover STEM subjects confidently even at the most basic level, and would worry about failing them.

Anyway I see:

Boho alternative types who have always done this
Parents in genuine despair at the desperate state of many secondary schools
Parents of SEN children in despair at the lack of provision
The un schoolers - barely educated beyond a basic level themselves who see it as a two fingers up to the system. Given the state of things I often see described on here, they are probably not learning any less at home gaming or watching TV all day than at school.

The whole situation is terrifying, boosted by home schooling during lockdown spreading the impression that this was an option.

There is a reason teaching is a profession!

Words · 27/04/2024 11:44

*children

newtlover · 27/04/2024 11:53

Nellodee · 27/04/2024 11:41

It would definitely be better if less children were home educated, but I think the onus is on the government to ensure that school is clearly the better option for the vast majority. This means investing in mental health services for children, Sen support, well funded schools, sufficient teachers, tackling unsuitable content on the internet, etc.

The rise of home education is a failure of government.

absolutely !

fungipie · 27/04/2024 11:56

LunarPhase · 27/04/2024 11:02

What an embarrassingly ignorant post this is. People have lots of reasons for Home Educating their children. Many schools have become toxic environments for our children, especially those with any kind of SEN. I've just pulled our 12 year old son from school to HE because he has developed crippling anxiety around going to school and there is no support from the school on any level for children who deviate from the 'norm' despite schools making a lot of virtue signalling noise about supporting mental health.

I have three degrees, one of them in teaching so I think we'll be fine thanks
🙄🙄🙄

Three Degrees do not give you the knowledge or ability to teach all subjects to GCSE and A'Levels. My Hons teaching Degree and experience mean I could happily teach all humanities and languages to A'Level. But I would not be able to teach maths, physics and chemistry, or IT- to that level.

I take ma hat to you if you can confidently say you could teach all subjects to GCSE and A'Level. Could you, honestly?

YouwouldthinkIhavemoresense · 27/04/2024 11:57

WaitingForMojo · 26/04/2024 18:21

YABU and goady.

Yeah agree.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 27/04/2024 12:14

@SoreAndTired1

homeschooling and 'home education' is EXACTLY the same thing. And every other country in the world call it homeschooling, so I don't get why people in the UK are so weird and difficult about it. It's called homeschooling, that's the proper term. No such thing as 'home education'.

In my local authority there is actually a school / centre which is a home school for a few pupils who, for whatever reason are unable to attend school in person . They provide teachers who go to the child's house and there are online links (possibly lessons too but I don't know about that).

Parents who decide to home educate their child don't have to follow the national curriculum . They are supposed to be assessed through the LA (different department than the school above) and have occasional checks but I don't think that the checks happen as much as they used to.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 27/04/2024 12:17

@Sharptonguedwoman

Then they are lucky, I would have thought you needed 5 GCSEs including English and Maths to get any kind of job.

Not if you were to work for yourself/have your own business. Or to go into a business owned by your family .

NoisySnail · 27/04/2024 12:18

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea sure kids going into a family business may not even need basic literacy to get a job. That is what happens with nepotism.

WillowRoseTile · 27/04/2024 12:20

Personally I am starting to sympathise with those who decide to home educate. My child in secondary has had basically no maths teaching this year. Just seems to be mainly supply teachers. I have set aside tomorrow to try and teach him some of the topics myself. At the moment it's just maths and one other subject where the school offering is inaqeduate but what if it was more? If your child is learning nothing at school it's hard to compensate at home as effectively they are wasting their week there. I can see why home Ed might seem like a good plan.

WillowRoseTile · 27/04/2024 12:22

He's allegedly at an outstanding secondary school by the way.

LunarPhase · 27/04/2024 12:50

@fungipie Yes absolutely I can. My son is also extremely bright and there are a lot of very comprehensive resources online. During the lockdowns I taught all three of my older children with a toddler to watch as well. When they returned to school they were all ahead progress wise compared to their peers. My oldest is currently about to sit his GCSE's and has often asked me for help explaining concepts in different subjects. Remember this is GCSE level and below so really not very complex.

MoonCircles · 27/04/2024 12:54

My DD is 13 and has not attended school for a year and a half. She’s still on roll at school so she’s not officially home educated. She’s not educated in any way whatsoever, I have very poor health, DD has SEN including PDA and it’s a battle to get her to do anything at all. I applied for an EHCP, they wouldn’t assess. I contacted social services and said I couldn’t cope and my child wasn’t getting any kind of education, they came out once but been on a waiting list ever since. She does 2 hours of alternative provision a week. Last time she was in school, they were getting her to come in for 1 hour a day to sit with her head of house while he taught other lessons and they wanted her to get on with work they’d set. She is unable to do that as she can’t work independently. Everything is cut to the bone, there’s no help out there and the council is now bankrupt so it’s gone from bad to worse. It’s not ideal but better than forcing her into school where she was seriously unhappy and her behaviour was unmanageable both at school and at home.

Rollinroller · 27/04/2024 12:54

People don’t want to diagnose their children with things. I didn’t want to diagnose my son, in fact I was in denial about it and did him a disservice by waiting too long. I’m not a massive advocate of homeschooling but I have considered it for him before his EHCP because he just couldn’t manage in school and needed a more personalised approach than they could offer.

a lot more children are let down by the formal education system than by homeschooling.

Elleherd · 27/04/2024 13:11

NoisySnail · 27/04/2024 11:12

I was shocked when I first read on MN that not all schools offer separate sciences or do lab experiments. But schools are inspected and if not up to scratch are given improvement plans. Parents can do what they want with no over sight at all. It is obvious you did a good job, but not everyone does.

There are much much bigger more shocking issues in the sort of schools me and mine have access to.

Our HE journey started officially with one Dc failed educationally, refused exam level syllabus as supposedly unable, many batterings and broken bones, with the school onsite police officer not recording because school said SEN pupil!
Eventually ended up being escorted by armed police to get them in and out alive but also used as a walking target to trying to get to the gun used against them.
Three teachers were left off on long term sick because of what was done to DC in front of them, and we still have the repercussions of bullets fired into our home. You cannot have any idea of the desperation that led me to say 'alive is all that matters now, sue me.'

I am the negligent shit parent who for years believed the lies that there was little that could be done, they had to go to school, and we could hope for no more than we had.

This was a SEN DC who kept themself to themself, who became the target of a post code lottery gang for being supposedly 'pretty.'
No 'improvement plan' keeps a child alive in those schools once targeted.

Later two several of those involved ended up with life sentences for a particularly despicable crime against a girl with LD's and a central London public stabbing. Two others targeted, died. But one was outside the school entrance, the other on the way home, not on the premises, so...

The long term answer offered was DC could go to the local PRU where they and mainly violent excluded kids 'could learn life skills from each other.' This would be 'good for Dc as they should expect this stuff to be their adult life too.'

Prior to that no one had done well, but we'd tried. But two SDC's had been off rolled (I now know illegally) one profoundly dyslexic, one bullied into MH issues, so we started then really, but didn't call it HE.

When I finally stopped being a shit parent and stood up for my children,
I discovered the lack of basic intelligence and attitudes of the people in our LA supposedly working for the benefit and protection of children with problems at school.
They seemed to be a modern version of truancy officers with no or little knowledge of education, SEN, children, or anything beyond abusing power. Also incapable of writing basic formal letters in a way that could be understood.

You would expect reasonable levels of intelligence and knowledge. It was sorely lacking, replaced with bluster, bullying, shouting, and manipulation in spadefuls. This was the 'oversight.'

They are the department who are tasked with following up the kids that schools have often illegally off rolled, or where parents involved with EWO's and fines give up and withdraw from the state system because they can't afford the fight anymore, or where there are legitimate concerns about a child's removal from school. (The first two groups very often contain children and parents who would love to be able to properly access school, as well as all the ones that school, and sometimes parents as well, have entirely failed.) They also supervise Home ed.
MC parents here just don't engage and get away with it. WC parents often have less options.

I educated myself (helped by MN) and took them to court in the end.

The judges didn't find them competent or truthful witnesses and awarded financial control of the APWA as requested, as best interests of DC.
In exchange I voluntarily agreed to produce sample lesson plans with learning objectives, and examples of work.

We had to go back to court because:
I was exploded at that they couldn't be expected to understand plainly written learning objectives.

The learning was ahead of what they believed DC capable of because school said incapable because SEN.

My Dc wouldn't look them in the eyes (diagnosed ASD) so they didn't believe anything they said about their learning.

The work was too advanced and I should be teaching to what they couldn't do, not what they could, like school had been. (spiky learning profiles require spiky learning actually)

Engineering, further maths and basic Latin was "hot housing" and "our" children "didn't need them for their futures" so it should stop immediately.

Five GCSE's was what we should be doing, because SEN kids do five.

The LA couldn't find anyone above a primary teacher to asses progress at (I)GCSE level, so claimed 'No progress seen' implying a lack of it existing.

I'd used "fancy words" to confuse them in court and they found out what it meant, so claimed court order void. (I'd described them as "disingenuous.")

The court stripped them of supervision. We spent the next few years getting friendly conversation, coffee and cake in chambers instead, and using it as another free leaning op.

If you want better supervision of Home Ed, we're all going to have to pay for better and competent people to do it, at least in some places.
Reality is birth rate is falling, schools are closing as a result, so making home ed difficult or illegal is on the cards to prop up poor government planning and the state of education, and many schools.

Words · 27/04/2024 13:47

Horrific. It's clear many ( and I include myself in this) have no clue.
Strength to you Flowers

OceanicBoundlessness · 27/04/2024 14:48

It's so hard to have the nuanced discussion here that is needed.

People can post 'we did xyz and now my children are thriving in further education/their chosen career' and the obvious response is but what about the others.

As for the others, the Ofsted report for our local school with the best reputation commented that 60% of the children weren't at expected reading standards on entry. These children had come from primary schools. Those figures weren't down to masses of feckless home educating families suddenly bunging them in to year 7! These numbers mirror my secondary school experience more than 20 years ago. School was hideous for me until year 9 when it gradually improved because we were streamed and I was finally in classes where basic literacy was not an issue and could get on.

There's some research here into how home educated children learn to read.

www.amazon.co.uk/Rethinking-Learning-Read-Harriet-Pattison-ebook/dp/B01H4MPUSI

fungipie · 27/04/2024 15:17

Brexile says : 'Firstly, mind your own damn business'

well sorry, but no. As a society, we have to care about the education and welfare of children and ensure, as a society, they do not fall through the net.

I have no doubt some people do HE very well. But it is also very clear that there is little or no supervision, and that many children are being failed massively. I know that currently this is happening in schools too- and it is a tragedy. But there is a huge number of children who are just not educated at all- and they will be condemned, for the majority, to very low level types of jobs and prospects.

Elleherd · 27/04/2024 15:28

Words Thank you! It's appreciated, including on behalf of all the struggling parents on here trying to make people who have reasonable schools, LA's and experiences, or NT enough children, understand, that many others just don't.

MoonCircles experience with her DD with SEN's being left with a decision that school/LA don't feel she needs assessment for an EHCP, even though she's now out of school for a year and a half, and 2 hours a week 'alternative provision' is seen as an adequate alternative education for a school enrolled pupil by L/A school, is sadly common.
The LA clearly have oversight of this child and find this to be ok provision!

I totally get why MoonCircles is going for family survival as the bigger issue and isn't saying this is OK.
But other families experiencing similar attitudes from LA's and schools, may well feel that they genuinely don't need to be providing much for an 'adequate education' to be happening, when that's their LA's acceptable provision.

There's been so much goadyness on this thread as I suspect intended. The reality is there are winners and losers in both school education and home education for lots of reasons.

Why is very low, or total lack of education, for some in the school system considered a tragedy but ok, but not if it happens through home? That apparently matters more?

Is it that officialdom knowingly officially sanctioning condemning these children's future prospects, is somehow more ok, than parents stupidly or wantonly doing it?

Elleherd · 27/04/2024 16:02

fungipie · 27/04/2024 15:17

Brexile says : 'Firstly, mind your own damn business'

well sorry, but no. As a society, we have to care about the education and welfare of children and ensure, as a society, they do not fall through the net.

I have no doubt some people do HE very well. But it is also very clear that there is little or no supervision, and that many children are being failed massively. I know that currently this is happening in schools too- and it is a tragedy. But there is a huge number of children who are just not educated at all- and they will be condemned, for the majority, to very low level types of jobs and prospects.

I agree it's everyone's business.

Being failed massively isn't just currently in schools. It's generational here back to at least the late 60's/70's and earlier.
I left early unable to read, write or do maths beyond basic addition and subtraction, so did others of my ilk. We were told in school we'd amount to nothing and condemned to low level existences. We came from that, and would stay at it. My ExH could read and write in capitals only, and called the tv and radio times "the books." The only ones allowed in our home, back then.

I get knee jerk instincts that somehow failing through school must somehow not as bad, but IME it teaches that you're stupid, worthless, and there's no future point in trying, because you already tried and failed and were condemned when taught by professionals, so what hope do you have of changing your future?
It's why I initially accepted schools failing my SDC's, and Dcs. They decided who could be educated or not.

So a genuine question, when we think about this; why would it actually be more of a tragedy and concern, when it happens through home education which at least leaves the question of what might happen if formal education was tried later, than when it happens through school education?