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 don't have school age children now and always believed strongly in the school system and was always anti-homeschooling. However I have recently changed my mind. With children in the UK being told in early primary school that they can change sex, and children in preschool being asked what their pronouns are, I have lost all faith in the education system. I think it is highly dangerous, and it would be safer to protect children from that toxic cult by homeschooling.

I never, ever, ever, EVER thought I would say that.

No.

I know that statistics on EHE trends and motivation are collected- any who wants to see them can find them easily.

You might have noticed several posters mentioning the percentage increase in EHE in their area- where do you think they got this information? How do you think LA EHE teams function if they are not keeping track in some way? Where do you think the headlines about the increase in EHE since covid came from? Or the ones about how many children are ‘missing from education’?

If you don’t want to believe such statistics exist that’s fine, it isn’t my job to educate you.

This isn’t ’academic discourse’, it’s mumsnet.

Or the ones about how many children are ‘missing from education

Home educated children aren't in the "missing from education" category .

@colonelsalt homeschooling and 'home education' is EXACTLY the same thing. And every other country in the world call it homeschooling, so I don't get why people in the UK are so weird and difficult about it. It's called homeschooling, that's the proper term. No such thing as 'home education'.

Goady and ill-informed post OP

I don't HS myself, but anyone I know is doing it because they don't feel mainstream education is a good environment for their child. Most of the time I can't argue with their assessment. They are absolutely right.

@SoreAndTired1 - in the UK 'home schooling' is the correct term for children registered with a school but receiving that education in a home setting, e.g. a child with significant health needs who can't physically attend school, or what lots of people did during the pandemic.

'Home education' is the correct term for children not registered with a school and receiving their education outside of a school context.

You're right that some people use them interchangeably, and in other countries the terms may mean different things. In most everyday contexts it doesn't really matter.

But in this situation, where the OP is justifying their authoritative stance on the issue through their insider knowledge, it is telling that they are using imprecise terminology.

I feel ‘homeschooling’ is misleading as we don’t do ‘school at home’ we educate at home. In fact as an ex teacher turned HE parent I keep anything to do with school out of our home!

It may just be words and it’s fine to use them interchangeably at times but the word homeschooling is the antithesis of what we do. That’s why many UK HE parents prefer the term Home Education. Sorry if you think I’m weird about it.

You sound nasty. Why are you addressing homeschooling parents with the assumption that we can't spell?

My child is five, but reads four years ahead of his age, in two languages. He wrote "bubbel" yesterday, and I corrected him. Because I know how to spell it.

You do realise that a huge number of home educating parents are former teachers? With first-hand experience of the disadvantages of the school system. They make informed decisions and do not take it lightly.

That's great -but you are in the talented minority. The majority of home educated children I see are poorly educated and neglected. I have also seen abusive fathers use this as a way to control the family and keep them isolated. There needs to be far more checks than currently exist.

No I know- I just meant that statistics are collected about all areas of the ‘education system’ be it EHE, missing from education, numbers in SEND schools, absence rates etc.

That poster says that my claiming that these statistics exist is outrageous, but it’s bloody obvious that they do.

I don't home school but there are different kinds as I understand. I know people who do world schooling, as in travel a lot and ebrol the children into different schools over the world. What I think you mean is 'UNschooling' which is where in a lot of cases kids are left to their own devices most of the time and have very poor social skills/can't read or write, basically aren't even patented There's a difference in actually following a curriculum from home and just not bothering to teach at all

Genuine question. How did you manage the sciences? Most of us can cover some subjects but I would struggle with GCSE maths (out of practice) and physics/chemistry. On line lessons? How do you do the experiments?

Oh dear!!!

Then they are lucky, I would have thought you needed 5 GCSEs including English and Maths to get any kind of job.

Unschooling is not the only approach.
What I see more is children left to self educate. Given a tablet with BBC Bitesize videos, access to Khan Academy and Oak Academy. And the left to get on with it. And parents do work leaving their children to educate themselves. As you can imagine the motivated bright kids do okay, those who are unmotivated or struggle do not do okay.

@Crowgirl without qualifications they have to set up their own business. You need basic qualifications for almost any decent paying job now days.
The more usual route for children without qualifications who are home educated is to go back to college to catch up on what they missed out when they should have been getting an education.

@SoreAndTired1 its officially known as Elective Home Education.

The LA teams are EHE teams, the guidance from the government calls it EHE.

’Home Schooling’ is not an official term in the uk.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education

We have only just started home Ed for my dc.
I can tell you when she was in full time school she may be over whelmed and shy in a group setting. Nothing to do with the education she gets.
Also she would struggle to spell her peers names sometimes, because she is 10!
So don't make a broad assumption it's because a child is educated at home. School failed us in many ways (independent and state).

Homeschooling can be brilliant. We had to homeschool DD through medical reasons, but then, we are Uni educated, I trained as a teacher, education is important and between us had the depth and breadth of experience & interests to cover both science and humanities.

(DD developed an allergy to sunlight and UV as a teen, so standard education was difficult even with a host of strategies in place, but ours was an extreme circumstance).

We also paid for (early) IGCSE courses but she had (and still has as an adult) a voracious appetite for learning.

IMO, to homeschool you must have a good breadth of knowledge, and must love learning yourself. People who homeschool because they (and their kids) hated school were the very parents you didn’t want to get involved with in the homeschooling groups. Without exception they were objectionable, forceful, over confident (and controlling), poor behaviour showing brats.

But then, looking at their parents, you could most definitely see the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

I'm saying the parents misspell the names @Joey1976 and I made no mention of children with SEN for whom mainstream isn't suitable, if your child wasn't able to function in that setting then that's neither her fault nor yours.

My child and their friends play together before the session, then queue up happily, chatting away when it's time to go in. The homeschooled children wait with their parents instead of seeking out other children to play with, and often have to be coaxed in. I often wait outside during the session as there's a nice cafe there and I can get a bit of work done there, without fail at least 2-3 of the homeschooled children will come out to their parents and then have to be taken back in by them.

Two of my children would be how you describe but it’s because they are autistic. Neither are home educated but I can see plenty of reasons why it would benefit them and benefit many other children similar to them. I must admit that despite being well educated, I don’t have it in me to home school and would outsource it to a variety of tutors.

I think you are assuming that a home educated child would be the equivalent to your child from a sen or emotional/wellbeing perspective but you can’t compare because many children start off in mainstream education and you aren’t taking into account the reasons that they come out of it.

My child and their friends play together before the session, then queue up happily, chatting away when it's time to go in. The homeschooled children wait with their parents instead of seeking out other children to play with, and often have to be coaxed in. I often wait outside during the session as there's a nice cafe there and I can get a bit of work done there, without fail at least 2-3 of the homeschooled children will come out to their parents and then have to be taken back in by them.
If it's in a waiting area I would expect children to sit down with their parents. That's appropriate behaviour in a waiting room.

It really isn't. Not outside a kids club.

I’m in a few groups to do with struggling to be in school. I would say there are a few parents who are ‘encouraged’ to de-register by others I think. Just because it’s working for others doesn’t mean it will work for you.
I think in the middle of non attendance it can seem totally hopeless with no end. Maybe for some children it might be they can’t ever access mainstream education.

My own experience is DD needed time and support. She still has 50% attendance (and rising) but being in actual school with other children is key for her. I think homeschooling her actually would have destroyed her. She has developed a great relationship with a few teachers which have made a massive difference. She absolutely needs a life away from me.

Oh dear!!! She means when the children are in the room in the session, they keep coming out to their parents who are waiting outside, when they should be remaining in the room.