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.

Why not just recognise that school works for some but not all children and families, home education works for some but not all children and families, and all education models have pros and cons?

Oh, I do. I don’t care. Home educate your kids, send them to school, send them to the bloody moon for all the fucks I give about someone else’s kid.

It’s just the constant rhetoric from home educators that schools are terrible places akin to prison camps, and that everything about home ed is superior and there are never any issues. They even lie about amoung themselves, I’ve seen if first hand. I just find it frustrating.

I was dropped like a hot stone when I decided not to HE my youngest. I’d spent their “nursery” year making connections in the home ed community as I thought we might do it again. I was faced with the same difficult parents mainly, but we did make some lovely fitness, dc made some good friends. All gone when I said she was going to school. They didn’t want to be our friends anymore, just because of that. Madness.

That's crap for you and your DC that people treated you like that, @Petergriffinschins . I hope your DC is happy now and that you've both got better friends than people who'd cut you off for making a choice in your child's interests.

To be fair from the other side it is frustrating when you make connections with someone who is also going to home ed, your dc get a friendship going, maybe a routine of meeting up once a week, going to home ed groups or whatever and then they send their dc to school. Often the people never have any real intention of actually home educating but they find the groups and activities a useful stop gap before their child starts school. This has been something that has gone on for a long time. It also happens the other way too, people remove their dc from school and all of the school friends disappear, It’s like when you leave a job band your casual work friends gradually fall away.

My dc is thriving in reception. It’s a long story about why we considered home ed again (and my eldest, who is now an adult and was home educated until he was 11 was begging me not to do it with his sibling), but I’m glad we chose school.

It’s just a shame that the friendships we had made over a year were purely based on education choices, which baffles me, but didn’t surprise me as when I chose to send my eldest to school, we were cut off and treated like traitors by people we’d known for a decade.

But we could still see them after school, weekends, school holidays?

I also got on well enough with a couple of families where we only saw each other on a weekend when the whole family would get together. A few of the mums, we’d see each other for nights out without the children. All
that gone, just because I chose another path to educate my child is really sad.

We couldn't do anything outside of school due to the trauma caused by school completely wiping out child to the point they couldn't cope with anything else. Since home educating they have joined clubs, been able to do trips with family and friends and it's opened their world up so much.

Then that's great for you as a family, clearly home ed was the right way to go.

It's posters who try to make out school is a horrible place for all kids that I think are being ridiculous.

I'm not sure about a ban, but it should be extremely tightly regulated. Regular competency tests for parents/tutors etc as well as the obvious safeguarding.

Often the people never have any real intention of actually home educating but they find the groups and activities a useful stop gap before their child starts school

So? What does it matter if you and your child have made friends with these people and you like them? Why can’t you still be friends outside of your children’s education? It’s so fucking boring.

For all the “my child has friends everywhere!”, I’ve only ever seen home educating families sticking to themselves and shunning anyone who dares to leave.

Me and my children are friends wirh familes who go to different schools, state schools, private schools. Why should friendship be based on how you educate?

I have never found home educating families shun anyone in my experience. I know families where child has gone to school after time home to edding. I do know that the schools advised them to break all ties with home ed groups so that the child wouldn't be torn and could focus on making new friends in school.

I did however, find that families from school didn't want to mix with us after we deregistered. I suspect they were concerned that their children may also want to be home educated if they found out. I know for a fact many told their children that child had gone to a different school.

As a parent I also tend to get negativity from adults who don't understand home ed so I guess it's natural to spend less time with people who question you about the importance of school at every interaction.

IME home ed groups are very cliquey and if you don't think they are then I think you'll find you're part of the clique.

That's not to say school parents aren't like that too.

What school would tell them to cut ties with friends? That’s just mental. Children have friends from everywhere, if a school said that, they are morons. Should kids not be friends with cousins or neighbours or the kids from brownies? I find that hard to believe to be honest.

Well that’s sad that people from school didn’t want to be mates with you, they are just as pathetic as the home educators I knew.

Because people don’t like being used? When as a home ed parent you have set up a group, done the research to find somewhere suitable, got the insurance, provided activities, built a community for the benefit of your dc and then they all dissapear to school it does piss people off. Can you not understand that? Maybe people shunned you, I do t know, I can only speak from my own experiences.
The only person insisting that home ed parents don’t allow their dc to be friends with schooled children is you, My dc have plenty of friends who go to school, in fact they have more schooled friends than home ed friends from their multiple sports and hobbies.

I have followed your post/ and agreed with some of what you have said, there absolutely can be problems in the community but at this point you are sounding quite bitter and for someone who claims they don’t care you seem to care an awful lot. I am sorry if home education wasn’t what you hoped or didn’t work for you but let’s not pretend your experience is that of everyone.

Oh I’ve met some horrors of school parents too!

But the difference is, you don’t have to have anything to do with them, other than stand in the same place for 5 mins at pick up, or just nod and smile at the school play or dropping off at a party.

When you home educate, the parents are always fucking there and involved in everything. You can’t escape them, usually because they have travelled to groups and obviously, you have to be there to supervise, you can’t just sod off and leave them in a hall full of strangers.

Arsehole parents are far easier to navigate and ignore in a school.

Of course I’m bitter. I was dropped by a group of people I really liked, twice, for chosing to send my kid to school.

I was told that to my face by a couple of them who had the balls to say it. The rest just ghosted me.

its not about using people at all. We can all change out minds on what we want to do for a multitude of reasons reasons. To end a child’s friend ship over that is crazy.

And home ed did work for us, or I wouldn’t have done it for so long.

Can you honestly not see why people feel used? A few years ago it became almost fashionable for parents to say they were home educating and then as soon as September rolled around their dc were in school never to be seen again. There is a difference between changing your mind and never intending to continue. Do you not think that those who actually did home ed perhaps feel they have been shunned?
Now my dc are older and we are in a different phase where you have the people who use home ed as a stop gap and then once their dc are back in school your dc never hear from them again.
I agree it’s crazy if people did cut you off simply because you chose school but it works both ways.

How long did you home ed for out of interest?

You make a lot of sense. This was one of the things that put me off. I'm not exactly an introvert but I am way less extroverted than DD and wasn't confident I'd have the social battery to fulfil that side of her. Re your PP, I am a former bullied child who struggled a lot (not academically but socially and in terms of expectations around organisational skills etc) due to undiagnosed ADHD, and a former teacher who had a horrendous experience of teaching so you have me spot on there too.

I cautiously decided to let DD "try" school, picking the most off-beat small village school I could and I honestly couldn't ask for more. They do so much enrichment and the staff are so focused on the real priorities that it couldn't be more different to my experiences as a child and as a teacher. She absolutely loves school and was quite upset when we told her she's about to have 2 weeks off. So I suppose home-ed is not for every child!

Totally disagree. But if our schools became more right wing (like the USA) id definitely homeschool. I wouldn't want those morons anywhere near my children.

I wouldn’t feel used if I’d made good friendships out of it, no. And it’s always shit to cut people off, which ever way round it is. People can be cunts.

I home educated my son all through primary school, he never went to nursery or anything. He went for secondary.

What a bizarre mindset. A parent's responsibility is to their child. It's incredibly entitled to think that a parent ought to stay home-edding and not "piss off to school" if the parent thinks that school is in their best interest at that time and it's wild you would take that personally or feel "used". Honestly. It's not supposed to be a cult.

I'm not sure about making it illegal. But whoever teaches the child should take some type of test to see if they are fit and then there should be regular checks.

I recently watched something where they were debating this. It wasn't a political show or anything but there the person who was home schooling the kids was quite wealthy and had hired a qualified teacher/tutor for the kids and they followed the curriculum and had a deal with a local school where they could go with other HE student to science and other classes that were difficult to do at home. And the HE kids and their tutors would have weekly sessions. That sounded good. But then there are the other types of HE.

At the end of the day, the government are spouting all this nonsense and they know that local authorities don’t have the staff to do any of it.

They only know about the numbers of children home educated that are currently registered. There are many, many more off radar.

Local authorities are going bust left right and centre. Staff are being layed off in droves in children’s services, many are expensive contract workers.

Who is going to be doing all these checks and visits? Assessing the parents competency? There just isn’t the staff or the budget.

My husband works in children’s services for our local authority. It’s an absolute shit show as it is. I was home educating my youngest, I wouldn’t be batting an eyelid.

Where did I say that they ought to stay home educating? People should always act in the best interest of their child.
You don’t think that it is entitled for peopel to use home ed groups(set up and run by home ed parents) when they have no intention of actually home educating? You don’t think it will make people feel used when this happens?

I have 5 children all 5 of them went to primary school the 2 eldest went to secondary school
youngest 2 one has just started secondary school and the youngest will start in a couple of years never had a problem
However my my middle child struggled with school since nursery he was a school refused he would make any excuse not to go from not liking the teacher to the wrong shoes and being ill.
When he started a reception in a new school it continued the school blamed the last schools nursery for his problems.
The problems continued we had reward charts everything he managed school about 80% of the time but at that age they are quite portable and we were able to get him in
we were told there was NO sen and he was just being naughty
He started secondary school and within 3 weeks it all kicked off again and we were threatened with court and fines etc then we were told to move his school to the nearest or we would be taken to court also told no sen
so we moved his school once again 3 weeks in it started again now he is bigger and stronger the school picked him up to begin with then told us it was our responsibility as parents to get him in I went through hell and back for a year I was pushed slapped tripped up hair pulled and basically attacked trying to get my son to school by my own child
he was sent to Camhs and they diagnosed severe anxiety with regards to school his mental health was in the toilet
Imagine your child screaming at you to please not take him into school begging you not to make him go
Eventually when he was 2 months into yr 9 we couldn’t do it anymore I was afraid of what he was going to do to himself afraid I was going to wake up one day and find my child dead
The local authorities said he could not be home schooled.
We moved house not due to this but other circumstances and asked the education department from our new area to come and see us at home so we could discuss our sons problems and finally someone said I think it would be in his best interests to be home schooled
My son turned 18 this year he was diagnosed with ASD and ADHD and pda he himself said he doesn’t know if he would be alive today if we had continued down this path
sorry it’s a long post
I agree there should be checks once a year is not enough but to stop HS would be a death sentence to some children because I don’t know how much longer my son would have been here without trying to hurt himself.