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.

So it all depends on how, what, when and why! But it can work well and it can also be disastrous :/

Just like ‘normal’ school really.

@VulvaArmy Yes absolutely!

@Elleherd

But aren't these the same sort of hardcore parents who when their children get detentions, are excluded, forced managed moved, expelled, placed in secure units, convicted of crimes,sent to YOU's etc, refuse to accept their child may have done anything to have deserved any of it and are outraged about their rights, and see school, LA and courts as being the man, and they aint dealing with the feds?

Quite possibly they are yes. And clearly these people are very different from some parts of the HE community.

But these elements seem to have hitched their wagon onto the HE community in general when they have radically different motives.

If I were a HE parent I would want very clear blue water between my approach and that of these parents.

I’m not labelling ANY children like that- my ds has asd with pda, severe adhd, sensory processing disorder, dyslexia and dyspraxia. He is also physically disabled with a genetic disorder. He is very well behaved!

I was listing all the shit mumsnet posters and playground parents say about SEND children whenever their ‘normal’ children have to share a class with them - it’s in no way what I think!

There are 3 types of home schooling families in my proffessional experience.

1. the traditional home educating families who follow a philosophy, have a curriculum in place etc. usually middle class well educated parents. These are the types of families that the studies finding home Ed kids have better outcomes are based on.

2. families forced to home school due to inadequate sen provision in mainstream. These families are doing the best they can in a very tricky circumstance.

3. the type of family op is talking about. Parents have often struggled in school themselves and often don’t have the literacy skills on general knowledge to home educate. Often quite chaotic families with some level of safeguarding concerns. Parents quite possibly had a negative experience of school themselves and don’t like rules etc being imposed on their own children so suddenly pull them out. Children in these families are being massively let down and often receiving little to no education. Lax guidance by local authorities mean massive safeguarding risks can start to fly under the radar.

*those parents who have just pulled their kids out because they lack the resources or energy to deal with absences or the output of mental health issues. And this needs to be called out. They are not both good examples of HE.

If you go into most of the Facebook groups for HE they seem the be targeting the second category; the rhetoric is all about how to avoid the LA, why the LA has no business interfering etc. There is very little discussion about the actual content of the HE programme or what children should be taught.*

I think you’re minimising the absolute horror that families can go through due to obstructive schools and LAs.
Parents of children who thrive or tolerate school have no idea of the treatment bestowed upon parents of SN children, particularly if those parents are also ND or aren’t well educated.
It’s like schools are some utopia where if only us parents did xyz our children would be happy and educated, and where specialised provision is widely available and easily accessible, but it doesn’t work like that.

Many of us parents have neither energy nor resources because of the lengthy battle we’ve been through to try to secure appropriate support for our children. So what needs to be called out? The parents (I mean it’s mothers mostly, let’s be honest here!) who’ve literally worn themselves into the ground advocating for their child and removed them as a last resort because there’s very little more they can do, or the schools and LAs who’ve royally fucked over our children’s lives?

If you’ve gone through that you’ll do anything you can to avoid any LA involvement because in some areas they prove themselves over and over again to be a threat to your child’s safety, both physically and mentally.
I’m very lucky to have an EHE officer who understands why children are removed from schools, understands that children need a period of time to recover, and is very aware that many of these children were not progressing academically in school so doesn’t hold us parents to higher standards - this is not the case in every LA. Some demand evidence that a child is progressing within expected standards for their age, when many children in schools aren’t at that level. Many LAs hold HEing parents to far higher standards than are held for children attending mainstream schools. Do you not see how awful that is? In the same position would you not be seeking to limit any involvement with the very organisations that have been instrumental in your child getting to the point where being removed from school is the best option?

I fully believe that the government will release a consultation, because they must be thoroughly rattled by the growing numbers of children being withdrawn from school. Just like their recent campaign that completely missed the point as to why children are school refusing I also fully believe they will miss the whole point and demonise parents.
Instead this could have been a real opportunity to look at what’s actually happening, look at the mental health crisis going on with school children, look at why so many teachers are miserable and struggling with their jobs, look at SN provision and actually find some solutions.
They’ll blame the parents though, and people who have the privilege to not be in our shoes will blindly believe the lying, corrupt, scumbags that make up our illustrious government. And they’ll come and post on threads like this and show with every word they type that they have not one fucking clue what parents of SN and anxious children go through.

This is true but obviously there are a lot of overlaps.

Yes I agree, but I suspect there are the same concerns even when they are at school, and they are likely to be the children who come out of school with no qualifications.

If only an education system could be adopted that suits more children and engages them all, even those who struggle.

I think more parents are choosing to home school in order to avoid the indoctrination many schools seem to be pushing.

Indoctrination? How so? I have a lot of issues with state education, but indoctrination isn’t one of them.

@Youdontevengohere LGBTQ+ etc etc

Sorry, you’ll need to elaborate more. What are they teaching about LGBTQ+ etc that constitutes indoctrination?

Have you been living under a Stone?

@Howisitnotobvious I haven't taught any indoctrination since I qualified - can you be specific with an example of some indoctrinating information?

They are indoctrinating children into accepting there are multiple genders and that they can identify as whatever you like. There are other issues too.

Not at all. My children have formed their own opinions on such matters… they haven’t been indoctrinated 😂. Thankfully as parents we teach them critical thinking skills.

I suspect most teachers are too busy teaching, trying to manage scarce resources and dealing with problems to spend any time indoctrinating.

I’d be just as suspicious of indoctrination by certain HE.

Yes fair enough, but for vulnerable teens, autistic maybe, this is a big problem.

This isn’t the reason I removed my child, he’s autistic and thankfully is sensible about gender, but there are dc in his old school who were definitely steered in a direction of transition, the library had a permanent TQ+ display (nothing about LGB, all about trans, queer, pan, asexual etc) which many parents complained about, but who were made to feel bigoted for doing so (parents complained because of the lack of LGB material, and because of the ideological non-flexible stance the school took over gender).

A trans child was let down as the school’s TQ biased training led the school and other organisations to ignore safeguarding red flags displayed by the child. Eventually the parents cottoned on, moved the child, who then detransitioned and is doing well, no thanks to the original school.

Information about TQ+ indoctrination is easily found. If parents have no other schooling options open to them then they are free to HE instead. Taking a child out of this toxic environment can be a big part of parents being able to teach them critical thinking skills.

This is where it gets difficult, because do 'these elements' have radically different motives, or is that their rhetoric when school fails them, and they resort to anger and bluster because it's their only armor?

There is natural clear blue water between their and my approach. Those who want to say everyone is judged by the worst people of their ilk, will do so anyway because it fits their agenda.

I'm always interested in how many people measure the 'success of HE' via the grades achieved.

I know a few people who have been HE'ed, and the main thing about them was being socially awkward. I guess if you grow up with the only external social influences being interactions hand-curated by your parents you might not learn certain people-skills.

I feel deeply sorry for those parents who feel school cannot meet their child's needs; but I worry about the controlling religious nutters and the feral.

Most H/E Dc's these days at least, don't "grow up with the only external social influences being interactions hand-curated by your parents."
The social awkwardness in the people you know is quite likely to have more to do with why they where being home educated in the first place. Unless of course you live in a particularly interesting enclave. 😀

I know at least 60 between the ages of 21 and 33, nearly all working in pretty typical occupations where 'social awkwardness' just isn't an option. Many actually have ASD, but mask well having learnt to navigate the NT world as part of their education.

The controlling religious nutters round here send their children to scarily controlling religious schools, intake officially based on both religion, and with a couple of schools, nationality as well. Truly separatist schools.
The religion based H/Ers tend to be too moderate to want them in those sort of schools, but are unable to get places in schools they are comfortable with.

The genuinely feral known about here, mainly have kids who have been entirely kicked out of the state education systems, including PRU's. One will continue his Dad's scrap business, most will either end up in secure units, YOI's or on benefits.

Ahh sorry, I misinterpreted you and
Yes ...
I agree

No worries, easily done on here.

You’re not the first person on here to attempt to categorise HE families.

Like I said upthread, it’s a spectrum as in all walks of life. Some of your categories’ also overlap and vary wildly. It’s extremely simplistic.

It never ceases to amaze me that we are under so much scrutiny from society. No one attempts to categorise school parents! And as I also said before, I saw far more neglect/safeguarding concerns in my years as a primary school teacher than I have ever done in my HE life.

Gosh, sorry! I accidentally quoted the wrong post!