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.

@Jk987 lots of parents have tutors for their secondary school aged children. We live in Oxford, and there are Oxford uni students and graduates who help with tuition at lower rates than a school teacher tutor.

Academic achievement isn't everything but after 12 years of school, surely the minimum expectation is that the vast majority of children have gained sufficient knowledge/ability in maths & English to get a job or apprenticeship?
Parents have a legal duty to ensure their children receive a suitable and efficient education and schools aren't providing that for huge numbers of children.

My opinion is that school is nothing like the real world. I certainly haven’t encountered any environment like it! Home educated children are living in the real world rather than the artificial environment created in a school setting, as a general rule

Tiredalwaystired I think the problem here is you are imagining pleasant enough schools where he could have got his education alongside others, and I'm imagining the type we had, where a bright child was reduced to a silent shuffling head down wreck who'd abandoned all educational interests.

If you look on AIBU at 'To think droves of teachers will make the decision by husband made today- to leave' you will see a quite robust discussion on the state and standards of violence and education in so many schools.

It isn't every school but if they're the ones your faced with, a child like the one you describe wouldn't have stood a chance in that 'real world.'

I mean in terms of not always coming first, turn taking, people having different viewpoints to him for example (and I just know someone will treat that list as a definitive. Sigh).

School could have potentially provided an opportunity to hone these sort of skills that he really hasn’t developed. He does do a bit of forest school etc but the children are so terribly terribly nice that he’s just not exposed to other personality types unlike his own and he just can’t cope with people that might be more brash or confident or confrontational. You get a microcosm of the world in a school and in HIS (highlighting his, before the inevitable jump on) world he isn’t getting any of that.

BUT academically he is flying. So again I go back to what do you want most for your child? And how do you measure success for your child?

In this instance he would have been able to get into a very very nice highly oversubscribed school. So a non issue. Again, I’ll reiterate that this is all about one particular child, not ALL children.

I hear you that this is about one child.
I agree "school could have potentially provided an opportunity to hone these sort of skills that he really hasn’t developed," or the nice highly subscribed school might have off rolled him toot suit, or it equally could have destroyed him leaving them still un-honed and him more introverted, or he became the angry overwhelmed kid throwing tables and attacking teachers and other kids. No one actually knows.

He's eleven and quite probably on the ASD spectrum by the sounds of it, and mainstream school may have looked like a very bad idea when he was younger.
His parents may have made the call to wait for him to mature to try and tackle some of this. Learning those skills with nice children will prepare him for when he comes up against the not so nice people and this may be exactly how his parents are measuring success. Their choices for him may be right, or they may be wrong. Only time will tell

Love your keyboard diagnosis there.

Fair play, but it's a world I live in and a very familiar description.

Wow that's excellent results. 👏 any tips you can give ?

I seriously considered homeschooling my son when it was time to send him to school - but then thought it was arrogant of me to think that I could fulfill his need for stimulation, fun, and learning on my own.
I am a teacher - and the thing that stood out for me after COVID , was how desperately my students had missed school!
Horses for courses- but going to school provides so many learning opportunities apart from what is in the curriculum!

Maybe if your son had been to school for a few years and it was clear it absolutely the wrong environment for him for whatever reasons, you’d think differently? Surely as a teacher you know that all children have wildly different needs and that one size doesn’t fit all?

Currently parents have the right to home school.
Have you even been in a school recently?
The majority of parents who home school do it for very good reasons.
Some parents themselves were let down by the education system.
It doesn't mean that they are stupid.

A lot of Maths can actually be self taught. It is pretty much how it was done through to the 70s certainly up to O levels.
It needs a good grounding in arithmetic and knowing your tables.
The older Maths books were pretty much only arithmetic with lots of examples, practice and self testing.
A LOT OF SELF TESTING!

There comes a point though at which they become able to teach themselves assuming the have good literacy and numeracy skills which most parents can teach.There are plenty of resources out there.
Nobody need to be doing 10 or 12 GCSEs it is just crazy.

YABVVU

Home educator here. My two DC have been home educated then gone to RG universities.
They had/have lots of extracurricular interests, plenty of friends, plenty of social skills, but the main thing I'm proud of is that they can think for themselves and come to their own conclusions about issues.

Home educating families and children vary hugely, just like any other families. So your generalisations are really off.

He’s 11- it isn’t surprising he isn’t a fully formed perfectly rounded character yet.

He has years to develop those skills and qualities before he needs to function as an independent adult.

Also- think about all the adults you know and have known… I expect a good number of them have ‘flaws’ when it comes from dealing with people they think are stupid, or people who disagree with them? And I bet a lot struggle to always understand someone else’s point of view? Or struggle to deal with conflict/work place bullying/being the odd one out?

Many people have these struggles, and most of them will have been educated at school. The question I ask myself as a home educator isn’t

’can I provide a perfect education that will produce a perfect adult at the end?’, the answer to that is obviously no.

the question I ask is myself is-

’if my child was in the best school I could possibly get him into, would he be getting a better education, be happier or achieve more than he is now?’ and the answer for my child is always no.

@VulvaArmy I was just coming to post similar. I went to school. It taught me to keep my head down so bullies didn't spot me. This hasn't helped where workplace bullies are concerned, and you can't get away.

I don't feel school prepared me for the world.

DS has SEND and school have tried their hardest to evade their legal duties in terms of EHCP provision for dyspraxia and other SpLD. It's a joke.

I can't home ed currently due to having to work, having a disability myself and needing the EHCP for complex speech therapy. It has been a nightmare dealing with school/LA and I feel that my time and energy could have been better used educating DS. Being gaslit constantly has an effect on my MH even though I am all too aware of the nasty bullying tactics. On our way to tribunal.

So many SEND families have decided enough is enough and removed their children from a toxic system. Which is set to get more so, given how central government is dealing with councils in special measures (basically, telling them to cut SEND, which means more of the above behaviour). Councils look at the bottom line not what is in the best interests of the child. Many schools follow suit.

Just to clarify, DS could have an EHCP for HE, but it would be a massive fight to get money to pay for speech therapy via EOTAS or similar.

I am just so ground down by the dysfunction and the knowingly callous attitudes I come up against weekly. Shambles of the worst kind.

DS could have an EHCP for HE, but it would be a massive fight to get money to pay for speech therapy via EOTAS or similar.

Exactly right. We abandoned the EHCP fight and removed DS from school when he was 7- we pay out of pocket for all the extra support he needs because we just don’t have the energy to fight anymore (and it causes him so much stress).

He has ASD (with PDA), severe ADHD, dyslexia, sensory processing disorder, speech delay and disorder as well as a genetic illness/disability that affects his movement, digestion, respiratory system, heart, joins and more (all of which are fully diagnosed)-

but suggest to the school he perhaps has different needs to the average child and they act like you are crazy.

but suggest to the school he perhaps has different needs to the average child and they act like you are crazy.

Yes, this.

I'd take DS out in a flash if the circumstance was right.

I don’t want to cover ‘the full curriculum’ and do 10-12 GCSEs. Not having to is one of the positives to home ed for us. My schooled child would have done a lot better going for quality over quantity.

Could I facilitate 10-12 GCSEs? Yes. Will I? No. Because it is of no benefit to dd. And isn’t the path she’s choosing.

There are so many learning opportunities in my home ed community too, a huge variety of home ed clubs from weekly climbing, sailing, blacksmithing to chess clubs, cookery and animation classes and so on. In addition there’s an exiting mix of online lessons on offer. The real beauty of home ed is that it can be child centred and interest based, which is deeply joyful

My DS was home educated and got 9s in all 3 as well as a grade A (top grade) in FSMQ further Maths. Although I could help up to the GCSE Maths, a point came where his understanding overtook mine and he was teaching me. I didn't have a clue about the Physics and Chemistry.

I think during the earlier years of home education, my DS learnt how to learn. So by the time they got to GCSEs they were independent enough as learners to figure out how to follow a syllabus, print out their own exam papers and mark them and do follow up work to learn what they didn't get right.

DS is now at 6th form in his first year and has been predicted 4 A stars in his 4 A levels and got top grades and levels for all the categories in his report. At the student consultation evening last night, all his teachers commented on how he joined in more social activities than anyone else at his 6th form.

His Maths teacher also said he sometimes teaches her about maths, or discusses topics with him that she then has to go and research. And this is at one of the few highly selective state Maths 6th forms in the UK. I think all of this is because he is interested in the subject and is an independent learner, which all the teachers also all commented on.

One thing I will say is he never spent his childhood or teenage years gaming, he was never interested in computer games. I didn't say he couldn't and allowed lots of flexibility when he was younger, as long as he was doing something constructive. So from about age 7 he taught himself to code and did his Computer Science GCSE at age 13, getting a grade 9, with very little input from me.

I think it was about bringing them up with a particular approach to learning that had an impact, rather than the subject knowledge.

It was similar for my older DS who is now at uni and has made lots of friends. He got a First in his end of year results and also got the top A level grades at his local 6th form.

When home educated, he even did Chinese GCSE and got a grade 9. We studied Chinese together from text books with audio from scratch for a number of years before. We did get a tutor for an hour a week for the final year to help with exam preparation but that was all.

I think there is a preconception that your child can't do a GCSE if the parent doesn't know the subject. But we certainly didn't find it was the case. All of the material is in the textbooks and exam specifications. There are also plenty of exam papers with marking schemes to practise with.

Apologies, previous reply was in response to this from fungipie:

I have to give you all my admiration here. I have an Honours Degree in education and taught in senior school all my life in several subjects. Over 35 years experience.

I would have been totally unable to teach my 3 boys chemistry, physics and maths GCSEs, let alone to the leverl required for 9s, and tutors would ahve been totally essential for those subjects.

How on earth did you do it?