Stop homeschooling your children.

[pentagonisapentagon]

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.

I had to home educate my son, not through choice but because school was so unsafe for him, he has numerous diagnosis. Which are extremely evident when you get to know him but if you only see him for a hour or so. You’d think nothing is wrong. I’ve lost my career because I was left no choice in pulling him out as 3 separate schools failed him spectacularly. I say this as someone who worked as a higher level Sen Ta and coming from a family of teachers. The educational system is broken. What 50% if not more children experience now adays is nothing like what school was 20 years ago. The amount of homework being asked, from young primary aged children not just secondary schools is ridiculous. The constant pressure and tests done. My son was beaten up so badly he needed to see an emergency dentist and spend an evening in a/e. School suspended the lad for literally 3 days, even my son said so he gets three days playing on PlayStation then he’s allowed back like nothing happened. (I called the police). Which school didn’t like. The school was requested to do a ehcp within 3 months of him starting secondary school from his consultant. I spent 9 months emailing to be told he wouldn’t get it so what’s the point. They only started the process when the NHS sent a complaint after the attack. 6 weeks after the attack my son is threaten by children 2 years older than him. I pulled him out because his mental health had nosedived and I truly thought I’d walk into his bedroom and find he’d left me. I don’t pay for tutors what I and many other home edders do is joining groups. So he goes to a farm and is learning how to look after the animals making up feeds etc. The amount of actually learning he is doing is staggering. maths, science and English is all done. He also does forest school and goes to cadets. He does so much more socialising now where at school where they said it was to unsafe for him in playground so he was allowed 2 children in a classroom during break time and lunchtime. I’m getting to experience a child I’ve haven’t seen since he was a toddler. For my own personal reason and to reassure my child that he wasn’t thick like school made him feel. I got some papers for level 3 functional skills that he aced. Where 18 months ago school said he was working at y6 level in year 8. You do realise home educators have to write reports on how they are educating their children. So it’s not just pull them out and let them do whatever they want?

Homeschooling during lockdown gave my husband and me a real insight into the skills/knowledge required to educate effectively and we both agreed that we don’t have those skills.
Lockdowns aside, I don’t know anyone who home educates but I do wonder how anyone without a teaching degree manages to do it, especially if those parents are not proficient in 10+ subjects.
I say all of this as part of a couple with 4 RG degrees between us. And yet, I wouldn’t feel qualified to teach. Why do parents with no teaching qualifications and in some cases, not much education themselves, think they are qualified to teach their offspring?
How is that giving their children the best start in life? If they’re disillusioned with the education system, I do understand this, why not campaign for change rather than accepting the status quo and pulling children out of it. 🤷‍♀️

Just wanted to address some of these points.

School refusal is a huge problem for many children. IME schools are not supportive of children with SN (diagnosed or otherwise), which leads to school refusal. If you can’t get a child to attend school (and I can assure you it’s not as simple as “just get him in” which was the extent of the help our education welfare officer offered us when our then 11 year old violently school refused).
Many parents deregister their child because the school system, instead of helping, is obstructive and threatening. Ditto the LA. Where do you go? What are you supposed to do?

There is yearly contact with an elective education officer, who either needs a meeting to discuss how the child is getting on, and sees evidence of what the child is doing, or the parent can write a report including said evidence. People so often say there are no checks when there are. The child also sees other people in the course of daily life. They don’t drop off the world and disappear into an abyss of anarchy and chaos (although anarchy and chaos quite accurately describe today’s schools…).

As for the first point, I know many adults whose lives look like those you described, having been through school. Many more than amongst the HE community which I’ve been part of on and off for over 10 years. Where’s the outrage for the many children let down by school?
It’s like the whole benefits Britain propaganda - show a workshy family that comes across badly and let them represent the whole of the benefits population. I’d have hoped that people weren’t so stupid to fall for this tactic so often, yet here we are.

The atmosphere and support in a college tend to be much easier for a child to cope with, and tend to offer practical subjects which many schools refuse to offer any more.

I want to love school, I wish my children thrived in mainstream school, but at the end of the day it was killing them. The lack of flexibility and attitudes from too many teachers for children with SN is a big problem. Colleges seem to address these things more effectively.

What's your solution then? State schools are places many do not wish their children to be, there have been attempts to close all grammar schools and private schools and perhaps more significantly families choosing private / Public schools are being penalised.

It's easy to point to problems harder to solve them. In pretty sure the ones you are trying to reach in your opening post will not do as you ask because you highlight it.

I’ve said this so many times on here but you do not ‘teach’ your child in HE.

You facilitate the learning. It’s not like school. It’s not a case of fill the empty vessel (the child) with information. My children are self-led learners. I only provide the resources and means for them to learn what they want/need to learn. We don’t replicate school at home. We don’t do 8/9 different subjects separately. They learn in an organic and unforced way. So to give an example one of my dc is learning to code. They have online classes with an expert. During a lesson the other day they were doing something that required her to learn ‘mean, mode and median’ (a mathematical concept) so we looked it up and learnt it together. We don’t separate maths off into a little box. We learn it as we go.

You can literally learn anything at all today online. My children learn via books, online classes, YouTube, Google as well as though life itself. Another example they learn about different biomes, land use etc (geography) on our travels, using maps and experiencing real life geographical features. They have learned coordinates in 3 dimensions via Minecraft. They dissected a dead magpie at forest school the other day. I could give so many more examples.

It’s difficult for some people to wrap their heads around this way of learning. I find it’s especially hard for those who have gone down the traditionally academic path (as I did! I’m a teacher). It took me a while to ‘deschool’ my mindset but now I see how children/people truly learn.

And many of us wonder how degree educated people end up believing there is only one effective way to learn for exam level qualifications. It is as much of a mystery to us how education has given some such narrow vision, as our breadth of vision is to you.

So, most of us don't think we are qualified to teach our Dc's. Many found the views of many schools and school parents during lockdown,and how to educate, concerning.
We do think we are able to facilitate our Dc's education, and many of us have been proved very right.

Secondly, because when you are choosing between a child being killed in order to try and get a not great free state education, (or for many a child's MH irrevocably damaged) you don't have time on your side to campaign for change in the hope some other parent and child might benefit from your campaigning in the future.

If you are degree educated you must have a basic understanding of maths and time spans, and can't be unaware of how long attempting to get change through campaigning takes.
Voting with ones feet, is what has finally started to make people realize how bad the situation is for so many. No one cared until they needed HE children back to support falling birth rates and closing schools.

If you suggest ideas you’re usually shot down because of funding, short staffing, behaviour of children (vicious circle - address the issues, behaviour is likely to improve).

The answer is having a government that responds to the problems, invests in education and works to improve it, not just try to add more and more pressure which is destroying it. But who is there in UK politics that could possibly change this? Fucked if I know, I honestly don’t know if I can vote for any of the abysmal candidates representing UK politics right now!

There is a two pronged attack on parents rights regarding their Dc's education. Attempting to put private schools where many state school refugees flourish, out of the reach of those parents who currently sacrifice lots to afford educational sanctuary, with the argument being these parents will then be forced to improve dire state schools themselves, if they can't get Dc's into functioning ones.

Combined with frequent attacks on the legal right of parents to provide alternative education to those who need or choose it.

The falling birth rate, closing schools, and hounding of those who aren't uber rich wanting a decent education for their Dcs and can't get it in their local state schools is political. The timing of this goady divisive Op, doesn't surprise me.

Two of my HEd Dc's have gone on to be teacher/technical tutor. We are not anti school. We are anti the disastrous results of school failure, and have discovered how well an alternative can work, and are happy there.
Just like many parents on MN, my teacher Dc's aren't prepared to be part of many failing schools, because they care about actual education not box ticking. They are both sought after and happy in their careers and can choose where they work.

The worse a school is (not just talking behavior) the harder it is for them to get decent teachers, the more temptation to employ cheaper ECT's, HLTAs, and cover supervisors, and the more temptation to off roll/managed move the difficult, low attending, low achievers, expensive SEN, and disabled, to make it look and work better for the rest, and the more parents jump before being pushed.

@Elleherd

You’re right that the OP is goady. It is divisive (what subject isn’t these days!).

What we all should be concerned about as parents is WHY so many people are home educating their DC today. Why it is the fastest growing form of education and no longer on the fringes.

@pentagonisapentagon perhaps you could suggest some reasons why you think it is becoming so popular rather than telling people what to do?

I agree, and would add:
What can be done to assist those feeling pushed to leave, who'd like to remain in the state school system and ensure their Dc's are actually getting an education?

and what more can be done to assist those who have left and are struggling to HE well, or who have low expectations of what an adequate education is?

Full time so approximately 40 hours a week. A week has 168 hours, out of those hours the average 15 year old is awake for 105 hours, that leaves 65 hours a week with the parents and that's assuming the parents work the same hours. Additionally a 15 year old does not need direct supervision for every hour of their home education.
Do you really believe home education means sitting withyour child 9-3 Monday to Friday?

@DragonFly98 because most 15 year olds would be doing homework (school kids do not just learn 9-3 either), socialising, doing sports and afterschool activities. And few schools do 9-3 in England anyway. The government has said children should have 32.5 hours a week of core activities.
If your child does not do family days out at the weekend or afterschool activities, then yes she can learn during this time.
But I do not think it is okay to leave a 15 year old to get on with work alone every day.

And it's such a myth home ed parents don't work. Ime most do.

At 15 my boy was really independent. He would go to his classes and groups by himself. He went to college. He'd study in the library with his friends. He'd be perfectly capable of getting on with work at home if he so wished. He had support and facilitation by parents as much as he needed but it was not needed as much as when he was younger. Essentially he got on with his own life.

I absolutely wouldn't want my 15yr olds alone all day everyday, but at that age I was busy all day raising my own children, and looking after a household, so I wouldn't think getting on with studying was beyond a 15yr olds ability.
I don't want to see a return to the good old bad old days, but infantilising capable teenagers doesn't help them either.

While few HE's are that interested in what the government says it wants schools to do, the 32.5 hours a week isn't core activities. It is a minimum core week expectation for schools (not including 16-19 or SEN schools etc) to put an end to schools closing more than one half day weekly, to save money/ deal with staff shortages/ create planning time etc. It's not 32.5 hrs of activities.

The 32.5 hour minimum core week includes everything each day from the official start of the school day to the official end of the school day and includes registration, assemblies, lunch times, all other breaks, non teaching classroom time, moving between classes and buildings, changing for/ in some cases traveling to external fields, for PE, as well as teaching time and any compulsory 'enrichment' activities.
The complexities of school timetabling for 1000+ children are why home educators and online schools are able to do much more or go deeper, in a shorter time scale.

The unique concern with HE is that DCs are always at home, giving greater opportunity for abuse, if an older member of the family, or an acquaintance, is abusing a child.

1. You say you work for a LA and that you are familiar with home education, but you think that home educated children are "always at home". Are you not aware that that's not the case? You really think that home educated children don't go out?

1. Many schooled children are abused at home or at school.

1. Pre-scoolers don't have a teacher keeping an eye on them either.

@WatermelonWaveclub

And it's such a myth home ed parents don't work. Ime most do.

Out of genuine interest, not point scoring, how does this work?

I work FT (well actually way more than full time). I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone could manage to educate their children properly at home alongside a full time job? I tried this during lockdown (as did many parents) and it nearly broke me. I just don’t understand how you can combine the supervision and oversight needed to set a syllabus, set objectives and measure progress alongside a full time job.

I don’t particularly want to HE and my daughter is doing Ok at school but I am flummoxed as to what I would do if the need arose.

They have flexible jobs, or both parents work part time, or only one parent works, or they have home ed adjacent jobs, or they wfh… I don’t work but I could fit it in around HE if I needed to.

32.5 hours are state school opening hours.
There's no firm definition of a full time education, but most LAs take it to mean around 18 hours a week.

I only know of one home ed parent who doesn't work at all. Others I know either have two parents working full time - either flexibly from home or doing opposite shifts - or one parent full time and the other part time. Or one parent working part time.
It would be challenging for a single parent to work full time and home educate but could be done by using childcare or a home ed club/co-op during working hours and focussing on 1:1 education on their days off.
I have one full day that I fully devote to 1:1 stuff with my children, as does their dad, and they have 1 day they go to their grandparents and do learning there. Other days they do some independent/semi-independent stuff, do some clubs and classes, and have a day with a childminder.

Happy to answer genuine questions 😊

There were many different ways home ed parents were able to work. Some examples I knew of:
A midwife worked night shifts while her husband was home
A lady who worked full time from home - her mother mainly took her DD to her classes, groups, trips etc and she did when she could.
A couple worked 4 days each and their DC went to classes on the day they both worked
A teacher did tutoring after school
A waitress worked Fri-Sun when her DC were with their dad
A parent earned their living running home ed classes
A parent used a home ed childminder while they worked
As a nurse I worked 3 long days and my DS was either with his dad or another home school mum that I swapped childcare with

Naturally as they become older they become more independent and do their own thing more too.

Homeschooling in Covid is nothing like home education. I did it with my DD who was at school and it was awful! I had no idea where she was with her subjects whereas with my DS I knew inside out. So it made it much harder as a starting point. We were expected to do Oak Academy which didn't suit her learning style. And we couldn't get out and about to classes and groups and go on trips and meet up places.

Why ? Nobody is saying it’s easy , but it’s 100% doable . My daughter does her work next to me while I work from home. she only does 30 m at a time before going to do something else and then goes back to it . If she needs help or prompting I will stop for a few minutes to help. I think it’s a bit like working from home with kids , some have nil issues doing it while others are incapable of doing it .

I covered this earlier in two posts. Our school with the best reputation have a 50% pass rate (4+) for English and maths and there was a comment on the Ofsted report that 60% enter the school with reading level below expected.

@Thepeopleversuswork
You'd find a way to make it work if you had to or wanted to.

What happened in lockdown to many, isn't what happens with HE. Few would expect to continue their current job that fitted around school hours, while providing quality HE, though it's possible for some. Home ed childminders exist, quite often bringing their own children with them.
Generally people I know take advantage of no longer having to be tied to school attendance to work differently as well as educate differently.

For us, I was stuck with lots of legal action early on, and dealing with a damaged Dc, so subbed out most work for weeks to get us stable. I'm self employed and moved how I did everything and shifted the emphasis of my business to create more flexibility and a more child friendly working environment.

I also took them working with me as we figured things out. Previously they'd accompanied me at times as a treat only for the more exiting end of things.
We developed a nice sleeper vehicle with everything needed to provide internet facilities and run computers, engaged sitters, and I drove while they slept.

TBH it was all very messy at first but we found our grooves. Unconventional but enjoyed by all.

We became less mobile in order to be in the right places to access much needed practical equipment as exams beckoned. For A levels they were expected to behave like the young adults they where, and generally choose to come with me and earn money when not studying
Disability's changed what industry I now work in. With DGc's I'm either WFH or they come to my creative work spaces, and we work alongside each other.

People sort out whatever works for them. Some examples:
Two teacher friends share a job and child share, and top up incomes by tutoring both school and H/E children.

A couple do shift patterns with time off, with a housekeeper filling in.

H/E Au pairs do well improve their MFL's and international swapsies are a thing.

Another LP works nights and her DD stays with us and others to give them both support.

One in a prime location, has converted their home and air B&B's the bottom half.

Several separated mums with 50/50 care, mainly work while Dc's are at Dads.

One LP of 4, WFH as an online school tutor. Another teaches piano and violin mainly from home, Another wfh at night here for a different time zone, and another is a carer looking after a severely disabled child who benefits from her children being around.