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 think some people probably do it for the wrong reasons but others very much do if out of the desire to do the best for their kids.

If my children were miserable in school I would take them out, if possible. I think I could teach them to GCSE level with the help of books. A level they could go back to school for as it tends to be better socially by then, fewer behavioural problems etc.

My experience of secondary school was that it destroyed my confidence and work ethic. The education was mediocre. A lot of time wasted due to bad behaviour , teachers who couldn't cope, whole class teaching when many couldn't read fluently at secondary age. A home ed experience with children from like minded families would probably have been preferable.

They generally do have a say- my ds knows what school was like, and knows he could go back whenever he wanted to.

Lots of EHE children have been to school and left because it wasn’t good for them. I don’t know any EHE parents who would say no to a child wanting to go to school (apart from the extremely religious ones but they are a law unto themselves).

YABU. Given the poor education and lack of actual skills schools currently give I would recommend anyone with children carefully consider if school is the right place. It's rote learning for exam passes. It's not education at all. The world is changing. It doesn't want people who believe the wrong trousers are a punishable offence nor that being with 400 kids (per year) based solely on their age will provide the strong friend bases we are led to believe. Employers want thinkers, doers. Not sit and obey zombies

I think it’s very judgemental to say that because a parent has spelt a word incorrectly on a forum they aren’t capable of offering a suitable education. A suitable education is very subjective and as we all know there are many children who are let down by the system. In fact, the parents who are making the spelling mistakes were more than likely educated in a school themselves.

Children can thrive and also be disadvantaged in either lifestyle.

We home Ed our two (I am an ex primary teacher myself) and largely the families we have met are wonderful! Obviously I don’t see what’s going on behind closed doors 24/7 but many are making a huge effort.

What does irritate me a little is home educators who have been doing it for a few months and suddenly become ‘experts’ giving advice on instagram and making E courses! 😂

YANBU my parents ‘home schooled’ me for a couple of years. Neither of them had any education. The home schooling books just sat in a corner gathering dust - there was no learning. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who put a lot of effort into home schooling (and are not lazy and neglectful parents like mine were) but due to my experience I can't support home schooling unless absolutely necessary.

Haha! Most schools cater for the average. Not talking about grammar schools or top rated comps but the majority of ordinary comprehensive schools are not going to be able to get the most out of very intelligent children. It's a case of survival, appearing to under achieve to fit in and avoid getting bullied. Excellent grades may be achieved but there's a lot more to education than getting good grades. To be honest intelligent children can get top GCSE grades with very little effort and despite quite bad teaching anyway, in the core subjects.

I don't know anyone who homeschools because it's the easy option. Everyone I know had previously been great supporters of state education. But had no choice, because the Tories have fucked up state education and have made the average secondary school in particular a absolute fucking nightmare. All are professional, intelligent and did well at school themselves. And we live in a nice area with apparently "good" schools, according to Ofsted.

Sadly my experience is the antithesis of yours.

Prior to the surge in HE , it was the preserve of the middle class , educated slightly alternative parent. With a growing number of SEN parents following suit as SEN process/provision disintegrated.

These are not the HE families I meet in day to day work.
The families I encounter have young 11-15 yr olds involved in county lines, burglary, criminal damage, extortion and blackmail . These kids are not being home educated. They are in bed asleep recovering from the previous nights excursions.
They couldn't be in a world further away from a committed focussed HE mum with a full day's activities planned and prepared.. Mum is usually pissed or stoned and also in bed while the younger kids eat cereal they get themselves.
It's completely heartbreaking. At least when they were enrolled , they were known to welfare . Now they are registered there is nothing we can do.
The 'Elective DfE home education : departmental guidance for local authorities 2019 is as wet as it could possibly be .
Basically ;
There are no set number of days or hours they need to be educated for.
There is no definition about what 'educate' means except to 'show improvement in literacy' which is impossible as there is no inspection or regulation.. so where is the benchmark !

The only way we sometimes get an SAO school attendance order - is if there is a safeguarding issue . But it's not instant and they ( parents) will usually buck up enough to keep SS at bay and thus render educational welfare toothless.

It's a travesty . HE needs regulating to protect these children from lazy feckless parents . There is no excuse although the MN posse will probably want to make excuses . I'm sorry there are none. If you want to have 5 kids (or even 1 kid) the LEAST you can do is get up and take them to fucking school in the morning.

Those actually doing HE have nothing to fear but in my area an increase in our (young offender) caseload to 17% 'home educated' from 2% 5 years ago. It needs sorting before thousands more economically disadvantaged kids are left to a life of illiteracy & innumeracy which is a pathway straight into criminality.

As if you think homeschooling is the easy way out. YABU. People don't do it for the fuck of it, it's really really hard. (No skin in the game - I say this as someone who has never done it and would only do it as a very last resort, and would hate every second of it).

I know two families who homeschooled, the children are in their early twenties now, no qualifications and they are both unemployed so it wasn't successful BUT...
Both felt they had no choice but to take their children out of school, horrific bullying that resulted in an attempted suicide and the other also due to bullying developed OCD and bulimia. The bullying was relentless and the schools (they tried moving) didn't do anything to stop it.

Home education.

I agree OP. The country where I'm from doesn't allow homeschooling. I do think the UK needs more specialist schools though and overhaul its (secondary) education completely.

Poorly formally educated WC parent and grandparent here. Head of an extended now happily home educating family that schools automatically failed. No tutors here, just lots of facilitation.

We are the sort of family the MC look sideways at, but actually we've got as many aspirations as anyone, just a different background driving them.

Everyone's doing well socially and educationally, (inc the one with ASD who started it all) and all gone or going to university in a family where that sort of thing automatically wasn't for the likes of us.

Perhaps more importantly for everyone else, one is now a primary teacher and another a technical tutor across four secondary schools. Two of the grandchildren are entering the education sector because all of them have grown up with a love of learning and understand why some are being disenfranchised by the school system.

These parents and situations have always and will always exist. The 15% increase you have seen are not children for whom, if EHE were not an option, life would be settled with regular school attendance and caring parents. Most of those children would have been absent from school and running the streets anyway, they would have just been a number on a different set of statistics.

Which is not to say that EHE oversight is good- but the answers to the social problems are a lot more complex than telling them they can’t HE.

In my country home tutoring is not allowed.

It can hide abuse in the home and children need to be socialised in order to grow up collectively, combating racial abuse etc. (Loads of the world's children at school).

Uni choices, teenage years.... I'm glad I had teachers to guide him, and me, for his best. (He went to uni).

There's something weird about people who think they know what is best for their kids if keeping them at home... (talking about religious nutters etc.).

Having to work for a living as a solo mum I could never have taken on ALSO educating my son at home.

Takes a village and all that.

I think the statistics are something like 1 in 3 children leave school with no qualifications. That's huge.
School is an experiment that is not much more than a century old.

Oh shut up. You run an educational consultancy, yet you don't even know the legal term in the UK is Home EDUCATION, not SCHOOLING. NOR is there any requirement for tutors.

Go away and stop talking about stuff you know nothing about.

Oh shut up !! In my local Home Ed group most kids have wonderful education , last year a friends son went on to study medicine . Some of the parents are high achievers , 3 ex teachers , 2 solicitors , 2 big business owners etc . All make amazing efforts to provide a wonderful varied education to their children ! I’m sure there are a small number who doesn’t do it well , but I’m sure those same parents would have children lacking of they where in school too as they would not be supported anyway

Littlemisscapable · Today 21:59

It seems unfair on children..they have no say in this and don't have anything to compare to. It is very difficult to cover a broad curriculum yourself. I wish there was more oversight of the children in these situations ..for the positive stories there must be many children falling between the cracks.

How is it be unfair? Do schooled children get to have a say?

Lots of children leave school unable to read or write. In 2013 only about 68% of exam entries were pass/4 or above.

@MariaLuna
There's something weird about people who think they know what is best for their kids if keeping them at home... (talking about religious nutters etc.).

What a strange comment!

Also, I have many single mum friends who work and home educate.

We average 14 IGCSE's per child here, including 3 separate sciences and most have done further maths, which the sort of schools open to people like us don't allow.
Generally 4 to 5 A levels (one over enthusiastic one did 7) Nothing amazing about it, they use their time well and work and play smarter, not harder.

This is it- yes there are shit HEH parents, that’s obvious because there are shit versions of every demographic.

Why do people think that these shit parents will suddenly become good ‘get child to school on time with the correct kit and do homework, monitor revision and prioritise education’ parents if their child was told to go to school?

They would just be the shit end of the mainstream schooling demographic- the ones that don’t bother to send them, pawn the school laptop, tell them to ignore the homework etc etc.

I think your family is the exception rather than the rule @Elleherd.
They would have been utterly bored at school if they are that bright.

How did they find university?

You are stereotyping people and making judgements about people who home school because of this. You are bound to be wrong in some cases. One of my good friends was home schooled and has a first class degree. Yes there will be lazy parents, but everyone has their own reasons. As long as the child can go to school if homeschooling isn't right for them then why have an issue with it.

It's not really up to you what they do sadly. Just get on with what you're doing.

Nail on the head!!