To think Home Education should be made illegal

[Viviennemary]

I would like to see a ban on HE except perhaps in a very very few cases and with good reason and under strict supervision.

I have a step daughter who wouldn't say boo to a goose, has very low social skills and, quite honestly is falling behind without support to assist her in achieving more highly. She attends mainstream school. She finds making friends incredibly difficult.
My son is home educated, far in front of his peers and would literally talk the hind legs off a donkey. He is outgoing, polite and able to engage with any age group from 2 to 92.
In school he would be constantly told he is too chatty and active, I know because I had this problem.
Please reconsider your opinion - home education can be incredibly positive in the right hands. I agree that identifying the poor children who are "home educated" for sinister reasons need to be found and protected, but that is such a small minority and most of us do it for positive reasons individual to our children's needs. We believe we are doing our best for our child(ren), just as parents who send their children to special, independent or private schools do.
Making HE illegal would cause more harm than good to some children, not to mention the schools who don't appear to have funding or provisions for all the children who already attend - let alone adding more children to an outdated, overstretched system.

They do them evenings, weekends and school holidays.

Ridiculous post!. Having children who have ended up being home schooled, and knowing the hoops have had to jump through to do what best for my children, find your comment very ignorant.

Right, so academically they don’t actually start school until age 7. I bet they’re a lot more ready by that point than a 4/5 year old. The point isn’t about childcare provision prior to starting school, I was trying to make a distinction between the pressure that these young kids in England face at such a tender age.

ege kids do not necessarily miss out on all the things you mention. There are social clubs, sports, art, crafts, special interest activities, day trips and foreign educational trips all available often at reduced rates to Ehe children because we are available in off peak hours. My child has more friends and does more activities than they ever did in school (Sen) and learns more through her online schooling that she did sitting in her school’s “inclusion”room stressed by the sensory nightmare that is a large secondary school. Our education is checked by the local education authority (this is nationwide) and for many parents the only teaching they do is the same as their input into school homework. Ehe is very misunderstood.

I think there might be in some cases. I found school utterly boring and developed most of my interests outside of it, which is likely a factor in why I don't see the standard education model of mainstream school as being essential for the development of knowledge, skills and experiences. That may well be a factor in why I'm open-minded about home education being a net positive for some children and families. I can see pros and cons to various educational approaches.

A lot of home educators I’ve met do it as they were bullied at school and they don’t want their children to be bullied.

That’s not the best reason - coming from someone who was horrendously bullied at school myself. You can’t make choices for your child just becuase you had a bad experience.

The other bunch were former teachers who’d had bad experience with teaching.

I also met a lot of parents who weren’t the best socially due to their own experiences. who openly said they didn’t do certain things with their child (play dates, parties), as they couldn’t cope with the social side of things. So their children missed out because of them. When you home educate, you tend to always be where your children are when they are young, so if you can’t cope with it, they don’t go.

There absolutely are some who choose it for this reason. To be honest over the years I have met people who chose this route for all kinds of reasons.

Personally I enjoyed school and did well there, I was lucky enough to attend some very good schools. When my eldest was due to start school I didn’t feel the schools in our area would suit him, they were consistently being pulled up for failing to challenge more able pupils in the early years. I actually used to work in that area and I just felt that I could continue to provide a more stimulating environment for him, in the end we found home educating so enjoyable that we simply continued and here we are!

Of course, there's a strong link - if you experienced, bullying, abuse or a poor education why on earth would you risk the same thing for your kids?

Also a large proportion of home educated children are ND, which has a genetic link - children with autism or ADHD often have an appalling time at school and suffer long term damage from it, and their children are also likely to be ND.

Lots of current/former teachers home educate their children having seen the problems in schools from the inside.

Some people just dislike what schools have become and want better or different for their children without necessarily having had a bad experience themselves - schools now are very different to the 90s.

Being outside
Socialising and playing uninterrupted
Following their own interests and working for long periods of time on their learning
1:1 teaching
'School trips' where they actually have time to explore everything and participate in small groups rather than being rushed round
Wearing comfortable clothes and going to the toilet whenever they need to
Term time holidays

I imagine a lot of people wouldn't want to risk it.
Lots of people are hugely damaged by school and it has a negative impact on their whole adult lives.

Schools have big playgrounds and fields and forest school areas that the kids are actually allowed to play in! Well the ones I know of do. And they are only there 9-3 mon-fri.

Again, DD isn't in school 24/7 so she has plenty of time to follow her interests.

I do a lot with DD and she has had some tutoring outside of school so she's had 1:1 teaching. School kids can have parents and tutors, that's not exclusively a HE thing.

DD has loved every school trip she's been on and if she wanted to go back to see more of the place we've taken her at the weekend. Sometimes brought a friend along.

She's never complained that her uniform is uncomfortable or that's she's not allowed to go to the loo.

We've sometimes added a few days to the beginning or end of after a school hol to get a slightly cheaper holiday. No fines as she didn't miss a full 10 sessions.

I understand the school setting won't suit all children and I support the right to home educate but to try and convince yourself that's all kids on school are missing out on the stuff home ed kids do is just silly.

Some schools have big playgrounds and fields that children are allowed to play on for short periods (so long as it's not wet or muddy) if they are good. Not really the same thing.

A check in the reasons for HE - could be bullying at school, disruptive other pupils so there is no learning going on in classrooms, travel problems.
Then a check on who will be doing the HE? The parents teaching ability assessed, school work uploaded daily to an area HE supervisor (could be assessed at a later date). The HE supervisor would check on HE homes randomly everyday, calling on different homes and seeing the kids and their schoolwork.

Before school, break, lunch, after school, PE. Some home edders are determined to make out kids are locked in a classroom and chained to their desks.

And again they are not there 24/7. Kids who go to school can also go to parks, woods, beaches etc. For hours if they want to.

Disagree
parents have the right to educate their children as they see fit. Many Sen children thrive in HE And there are HE networks for parents to join up with for socialisation outings and things like that

many children who attend school also fall through the cracks and have an abusive home life I know a family who’s kids went through primary and secondary schools all while living with an abusive and violent convicted peadophile- Nothing was done about it ( ss were involved too).

home schooling isn’t the enemy

My children who attend school do get to do all those things. They do get a certain amount of 1:1 time. Some parents when my youngest started reception kicked off about that, they thought their children were being singled out when the teacher spoke about it at a new parents meeting.

My 11 year old did the 11+, which isn’t the norm for our area, three of her teachers took it upon themselves to give them 1:1 time each week to help them study for it over the year. Both my younger children are very well supported in school.

I’ve helped out on many school trips, I’ve never felt rushed. Everything is done in small groups as with too many, it would be chaos.

I tell you what though, when my son was home educated, I stopped going on any trips with other home educators as a group as that was absolute chaos. From the parents as well as the children. I used to see parents arguing with poor guides as they thought they knew better, many of the kids just wouldn’t behave at places and their parents did fuck all to correct them. It was deeply embarrassing to be part of.

My younger children wear soft leggings/trousers and a polo shirt and sweat shirt to school. So did my son when he returned to school for secondary.

My primary children can to the loo when they like. They are encouraged to go at lunch and break when they get older, but there’s been no horror stories of kids wetting themselves. I live in a shithole with people who kick off over the smallest thing, believe me, there would have been a riot of parents by now.

Term time holidays? Couldn’t really take them when my son was home educated either due to my ex husbands work.

As for socialising and playing I interrupted - of course they do. The school playground isn’t a prison yard. And the home ed groups were worse, parents always there, helicoptering who could be friends with who.

I still know a lot of home educators where I live as I did flirt with the idea of maybe doing it with My youngest. You’d think I’d send her to prison with all the nonsense they spouted at me when I said that we’d decided on reception, and we’ve been cut dead to most of them now.