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 have multiple advanced degrees

i love the internet

The gov website says this :
Currently, it’s the responsibility of the local authority to decide when to issue fines to parents, meaning the process varies from council to council.
However, under the new national framework, all schools will be required to consider a fine when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons.
From August 2024, the fine for school absences across the country will be £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.

I agree that children being home schooled need a decent level of teaching, so if parent is poorly educated and they are not using tutors= not great.
Many parents (me included) learnt an awful lot about the ciriculum and state schooling during lockdown. We saw how much teaching is scripted from online platforms, marked by AI, is not structured to meet needs and extract best performance/ development of child.
We also learnt that teaching your own children can be hell on earth, especially when you have 2 or more children.
One of our DC is now in independent school as a direct result of home schooling ( alerted us to the level of support that they needed and had been minimised by the school SENCO, school failed /discriminated/failed legal responsibility to DC) the other attends mainstream secondary but really seriously considering pulling them out. Mainstream school is like a cattle market, churning out children who could do so much better if they were not all lumped into same teaching/curiculum approach. If we were to “home school” we would use tutors and groups, not a chance that we would revisit solely parental schooling because that wouldn’t be of benefit to any of us. If we stay in mainstream, we will pay for tutors anyway because DC needs teachers who have time to explain the things that they haven’t grasped in class (before they move on or extend the topic). I don’t think they are taught learning skills or how to identify and improve their own weaknesses ( ime strengths do get recognition), how to retain key information, how to answer exam questions, that is ok to ask for help, it is ok to not grasp a concept on first attempt, how to read exam questions, revision skills. We do this at home but it is not reciprocated at school by many teachers At least not in pre gcse years 7-9

Genuine question - how did you teach her then if your own attainment was well below “all 9s” level?

Yes exactly and sorry I meant ten sessions not 10 days. There is so much nonsense on fining at the moment schools can’t fine Willy nilly. Look up your local LAs rule on fining and it won’t be three days of sickness! I work in a school and there are plenty of parents that should get fines that don’t. Schools should ask for medical evidence if a child is persistently absent that is below 90% parents are sent a letter advising of this. All kids get sick so they wouldn’t be fined for three odd days of sickness. These will be parents with kids that are persistently absent. If a child has a genuine medical reason for having a lower attendance then they won’t get fined. It’s just annoying a lot of these posts are making things up about fines.

There is a lot of online help these days . My youngest only goes to school part time ( she is gifted but also has so struggles partly because she is not challenged enough and partly because of the adhd ) so at home she is 2 and 3 years advanced curriculum wise . Most of her work is done online . Lots of help available . Most good one are paid but very good options .

Fair enough, the post I was replying to said her child got all 9s having been taught by her mum who only had a handful of GCSEs and there was no need for tutors.

Perhaps your line of work has skewed your perceptions a bit as many of the parents I encounter are in an important category that you don't mention: those who have been massively let down by school system.

So many parents I meet have taken their children out to protect them from bullying, overly rigid systems that simply can't accommodate their SEN, and miserable school environments where conformity and rule-following are valued over and above originality and creativity and making their children miserable.

Some home ed parents are former teachers, TAs, and other school staff who wanted better for their children than what they knew would be provided in underfunded schools by overworked teachers with limited resources, often on the brink of burnout from the pressure to meet targets that are nothing to do with the needs of the children in their care.

There may be some families that are failing their children but it's unrealistic to believe that 'feral children' with 'ineffectual parents' would be whipped into shape and contributing to society if they were going to school. And if they are already known to social services (which is what I presume you mean by 'getting the welfare off [their] back) then home educating wouldn't result in their case being closed any more than changing school would so it shouldn't make any difference to their investigation.

But currently the council can decide for themselves and 3 days (or 6 sessions) is not much less than 5 days! Plus their view is that sickness without a Dr note is unauthorised absence and that is what they have told parents. Maybe that's incorrect but some people don't have the resources to check on this and then challenge it.

Yes as the mother of a now adult dd with ASD, I found that rather offensive. If only you knew op what she went** been through before receiving that diagnosis.

Your post has really pissed me off to be honest. What about those of us who have had little
to no choice in keeping our children at home due to the fact that their anxiety was so bad they couldn’t cope?
my lovely, very clever dd is 13. She has been out of school since October ( year 8 ) and has severe anxiety, OCD, probable agoraphobia and was diagnosed with ASD in November. She was first referred in year 4 just as Covid hit and everything was delayed. She has been masking for so long and simply couldn’t cope with the huge change of going to secondary school and was in the top set of 8, extremely clever child but a nervous wreck.

I have not officially de-registered her as I want some help and support to be honest and I don’t want to home educate.
i am more than capable and am university educated myself but I have a life limiting condition and am in constant pain and don’t sleep well at night which means i often need to nap during the day which is hardly conducive to a decent home educating environment.

i am failing her miserably and don’t know where to turn. She’s so much happier at home and would love to never go to school again but that simply isn’t an option long term. My daughter’s mental health is very important but I know she’s missing out on so much. Please don’t imply that people just decide to HE on a whim, some of us are not happy to do it but have no other option.

I also think you’re a hypocrite for moaning about something that is keeping you in business.

Got no problem with home schooling. I was in school first 5 years and hated it. Ended up being home schooled with my 3 siblings. We all did well in GCSEs and then college we are all now working with our own different businesses. I now have 4 children of my own and have recently stepped back from my business to home school my 4. We have already been told by the education authorities when they visited last month there already doing work 2 years ahead of school if they were in one. So proud and that's just 3 days a week schooling, so lots of family time and memories being made in between

**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.**
You're seeing it EVERYWHERE because you're looking at it. That's how the internet works. I've NEVER seen anything about home-ed mentioned on Facebook and don't see it on here.

IMO it depends on the child, the school, and the parents ability.

I agree about the rise in this trend. Sadly when things become popular you will always have people who abuse the system.

I know of parents that homeschool and have dedicated their time to ensuring the best education for their children - this has normally come from the parents believing that school wasn’t the best environment for their child for whatever reason.

However I know 2 cases more personally where homeschooling was abused and I think it’s naive for everyone to believe that all parents that take their children out of school are doing a good job (I’m sure a majority are but I really feel for the children who are not).

The first person homeschools are daughter because she doesn’t believe in traditional education. When I asked her what homeschool looks like, she says “we do what we want” - essentially her daughter follows her around all day - and learns from life. If they don’t want to do school the. They have lie ins and she wants to teach her daughter that she can do whatever she wants (in her words) - she did admit that she is in a privileged position as a woman that doesn’t have to work due to husband etc, and they live in a nice area. Her daughter is very socially awkward though!

The second was my friend who divorced her husband. The husband used their son as some kind of bait and convinced the son to leave school, unregistered him and homeschooled him. During this time the sons behaviour went downhill, he became involved with bad people as the dad did not have the means to actually home educate the son and the mum has been trying to re-enrol the son at school but places are booked. This all happened during his GCSE years.

So I believe a majority who homescjool actually put lots of effort into it. But for some people, sadly, it’s a nice idea with minimal thought.

@Flavabobble It is common on MN.

For some children home schooling is better, if they can't cope with a mainstream school.

However, I'm seeing a LOT of the conspiracy theory types pulling their kids from school because they believe schools are "indoctrinating" their kids. Those are the concerning ones. It happened to a girl in DS's class and knowing her mum there is no way she is getting a decent education at home.

😂😂😂 You are claiming it, you back it up. That’s how academic discourse works.

You sound as though you're working from your experience @PrincessTeaSet and obviously to an extent I'm working from mine (which was at an ordinary comprehensive, with its fair share of bad teaching). I stand by my position that to state as "fact" that your children are "too intelligent" to function at an ordinary school is objectionable and a bit silly.

Sorry, above message was meant to include this quote!

I think the increase in fines and other attendance penalties, the continued lack of support for SEN kids or child mental health support, and our rigid, overwhelmed education system understaffed by burned out teachers is going to show a further increase in home education. How could it not?

Similar experience, although the home educators don't seem to agree that school education shouldn't be a 'pick and choose what to do' and want to come to the 'fun' things so school trips, parties etc and shout about exclusion when they can't just turn up when they want.

I get what you’re saying but also bear in mind those children might be home Ed because they struggle in those sorts of situations!
I know a family too where the 2 kids struggle massively socially and it’s hard to know what has caused what, but at least for the older one they tried school and she struggled and they found it hard to get her to go in because of her social anxiety, she has since being diagnosed with autism.

Totally dependent on the parents surely? I’d assume my dh would pretty much stick to the curriculum, prepare daily, mixed in with practical and exciting stuff that school do (experiments, trips, nature studies etc) but I struggle with homework for anything I’m not quite fait with.

Saying that I know two kids that have a horrible school experience (one in particular is always on his own, seem to be teased a lot, my ds is only in one of his classes and we have him over sometimes and he’s lovely but ds says he’s unlucky that he’s in classes with troublemakers, all to do with subject choices). He’s moved school already and when I talk to his mum I sometimes wonder if he’d be better home schooled. The other has moved onto a different school and I hope things are different but I’ve seen him about town and it looks like they’re not:(

“we do what we want”

This is what I tell people who ask about HE when I can’t be arsed to explain or I think they are only asking in order to criticise and find fault- it’s a facetious truism to end a line of questioning.