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.

Genuine question, who does he get to socialise with? Sports teams? Youth clubs?

Do you not need to work though?

I know a parent who is currently homeschooling due to bullying. School can’t / won’t get a handle on it. Our kids do a dance class together so obviously she is out and about and feeling much happier now she’s not been picked on all the time.

Absolutely get this.

There are loads of activities for home educated children. There’s a lot of them in our area, so plenty of social groups etc.

A lot of places are cottoning onto the market too; there’s an art shop near us that now does weekly group workshops for home educated children.

I can answer for my children:
local home ed group (8-10 children aged 5-11 that they see a couple of times a week, go on day trips and holiday with etc)
Church youth club children
playdates with local children that attend school usually once a week
holiday clubs
siblings & cousinsAnd these are social but not really playing:
children from history & science classes they attend regularly
extra curricular type classes like swimming, dance, theatre

They socialise with other home ed kids and other kids at extracurricular stuff.

Thanks. I always thought that Home Ed was a very minority sport so it’s interesting. I couldn’t have done it for sure.

Lots of parents do work around home ed, including me.

Must have to tag team with another parent? Child doing school stuff 5 or so hours a day? Sorry, being boringly practical.

I’m not full time. But when you have dc for whom school is damaging, you have to make some decisions as to what’s best for everyone.

I have two dc who absolutely can’t attend school (one for whom Camhs have written a letter stating that it would not only be a risk to her, but a health and safety concern for the school). Another for whom school attendance even on a reduced timetable left her completely unable to leave the house the rest of the time and having constant meltdowns that made all our lives unsustainable. There is no educational provision for my dc.

However, I regret not home educating all four of my dc all the way through. I much prefer home ed over anything that can be offered in school.

No tag teaming, I am separated from dc’s dad although he is very involved.

They don’t need to do sit down work five hours a day, at all. Home ed often looks very different from school based learning. There’s independent work, learning organically through life, so much learning goes on. We do some sit down work, especially the one who is beginning some GCSEs, but it isn’t five hours a day. It absolutely does work though. I’m more of a facilitator than a teacher.

I tend to work evenings and alongside dc as I work from home. I know others who work evenings and weekends, like you say, tag teaming it. I know others who use childcare and home ed the rest of the time.

Work flexibly, work from home
Work around another parent eg weekends or evenings
Use childcare like childminders, forest schools, farm schools, home ed learning co-ops
Have grandparents that help with childcare and/or education
Swap with other home ed families
Have jobs that they can take their children to

There are lots of different set ups, but every home ed parent I know works to some extent.

Yep- we literally don’t have enough hours in the day to go to all the different home ed groups and classes, as well as ‘play dates’ with individual friends (ds is 10 with SEND so still needs me to organise that sort of thing- he isn’t at the arranging stuff himself stage yet).

We have on offer specifically for the home ed community lesson wise (off the top of my head without looking for stuff)

-swimming lessons
-forest school X3
-adventure days X 2 different groups (basically school trips for home ed children)
-climbing lessons
-young herbalist club
-farm education
-small group tutoring X2
-library group (reading with the staff, organised educational activities around the story) x2
-art lessons
-art therapy
-yoga
-horse/stable management course
-Riding for the disabled
-AQA tutoring program for the credit awards in maths/science/english
-Science club
-parkour
-Skiing
-gymnastics classes
-Drama classes
-Dance classes
-Survival skills/outdoor training
-museum home ed days (so where they put on all the stuff they do for schools when they go on trips) X2
-Zoo home ed days (once a month where they have talks, do animal handling, learn about the environment etc)

Social wise regular meet up groups at-

-trampolining
-bounce house
-gamer X
-playground
-country park
-indoor skate park
-bat cave (card games/d&d/board games)
-football
-walking club X2
-group camping X2
-angling club
-craft club

That’s what I can think of- there are more that I’ve forgotten or haven’t paid attention to because they don’t suit us.

I don’t work no. Most home ed parents do work in some capacity though.

We often tag team with parents of other families.

When we home educated, my husband worked 9-5ish then after dinner I’d do tuition (I was a secondary school teacher) then I’d work all day Saturday and Sunday. Obviously, he looked after the kids in the evenings and weekends. He would do science and technology with them in his time as I wasn’t good at that.

Homeschooling requires 1 parent to be at home 5 days a week. Most people work. Even if they're at home there may be sibling to take care of. How the hell does an unqualified parent replace a school environment? How does the poor kid make friends?

Have you read the thread? Are you genuinely interested in how home ed can work, or just making assumptions.

No, it doesn’t necessarily need a parent home five days a week. Siblings often learn together.

Nobody’s trying to replace a school environment. If we wanted a school environment, we’d use one.

Many ways of meeting social needs, if you read the thread. Do all children in school have a positive social experience?

Have you read the thread? There are multiple posts explaining how they manage it around work and how their children make friends. And why should it need to replicate a school environment? The school environment is the issue for some children. One size doesn’t fit all, and the school environment is actively harmful to some children. Especially one in which bullying issues are inadequately dealt with.
I don’t home educate by the way, but can understand why people do.

This.

I get the reason for homeschooling wrt bullying/additional needs etc. However, I'm not convinced a parent with little to no educational qualifications can effecitvely teach a dozen or so topics to the same standard as a dozen teachers qualified in 1 specific subject (I guess I'm specifically talking about secondary school here).

Granted not all teachers are great, but you can't underestimate the value of a group dynamic. Sometimes peers raise questions etc that end up improving your understanding of a topic.

Did you read the thread?

Most home ed parents don't try to be teachers, and especially don't try to teach a dozen different GCSE subjects. They facilitate learning.

Children who attend secondary school often don't get a qualified teacher, don't get a teacher qualified in a particular subject, and sometimes don't get an in-person teacher at all - for example, watching Oak Academy video lessons due to a lack of teachers. So there's no reason to think the average secondary school is providing a gold standard education either.

My teen is home educated in an area with tons of established and evolving home ed activities and this enables us to create an enriching interest based home ed experience. Clubs wise my child attends a home ed black smithing club, a home ed woodwork club, youth group and is about to start a home ed climbing group. My child has a small but strong friendship group, they are a creative bunch! Academically we plowing our way through purchased online courses via absolute maths, southwest science, humanatees, learntec. We also do various living skills together - cooking, gardening, food shopping, decorating, posting items. My child found school overwhelming/stressful and is relaxed and happy now.

Are you in the U S?