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 agree. I have been saying this for years.

It should be much harder to pull your children out of school and there should be testing to ensure the parent is capable of doing the teaching.

Reports are really easy to do. Your HE may be fantastic, but reports do not prove it.
It is not that hard to do one or even a few GCSEs early if you are focussing on those. School educated children do lots of GCSEs at once, and that is very different from focussing on one or two GCSEs.

Goodness. The problem with people as narrow minded as the OP is that they genuinely have no idea just how narrow their field of vision is.

This is again a case of pointing the finger at one group and expecting it to solve a problem that's significantly bigger. The majority of murdered and abused children in this country, statistically, attend school.

Until very recently, my eldest son was home educated. He was registered with a GP, registered with a dentist, attending Beavers and Scouts, attending local clubs, out and about in our local community every day. Frankly he was seen by more people out of school than he is now he's in school.

Oh, and for those who think his education must have suffered, he's well ahead academically of his schooled peers.

A child can be attending school and still not have those things though. For some kids, school is the abusive place.

Theres a very worrying amount children locally to me who have ended their own lives due to being bullied at school. I wish I could say it's a rare occurrence but I don't actually think it is, bullying is rife and there's also been a lot of discussion around the increase of sexual assaults that happen in schools too, even primary schools and that goes under the radar.

I totally understand why OP may be having an emotional reaction and want something made illegal based on this case , but the reality children are being abused in schools too and they slip through all sorts of radars.

I could actually multiple examples of children I know personally being chronically abused at school and fuck all is done about it.

I did home educate one of my sons until he was 12 and I agree with her.

I’ve seen kids miss out on all those things. I had to work really hard to ensure my son didn’t.

His two younger brothers have both always gone to school and all those things the poster mentioned came so much easier.

People say school is forced socialisation. so was home ed. Instead of being at school in a year of 90 kids to chose from (and kids in other years), he had to be friends with a much more limited number of children at home ed groups or activities.

I’ve only met a handful of other home educators in my time would would discuss any drawbacks. Most of the time I got shot down.

My son is an adult now and he was very relieved I was sending his two younger siblings to school, because of rhe above issues.

Either do the parents. Honestly education is fine but there needs to be some level of monitoring.

The problem there is the massive under resourcing of social services though - not enough social workers, caseloads far too high.
SS don't have the ability to thoroughly investigate every red flag currently.

I hope that in future trying to remove a child from school who's been been considered at risk by SS will trigger huge alarm bells, as it should have done with Sara. Ditto not sending a child to school who's been considered at risk by SS.

No this case doesn’t prove that, just that there needs to be more oversight about parents motives when they take children out of school.

I wasn't going to engage but....

Basic logic failure here from a lot of posters - POOR home education is not a reason to ban home education completely.

Children miss out on so much by not attending school. They miss out on socialisation with other kids, the friendship bonds, experiences, school trips, social lives… not to mention there’s a hell of a lot of parents out there who are simply not qualified to be teaching the kids at home.

There are far too many HE children whose HE is baking, playing video games and going to the shops. Their reports talk about the children learning weights and measurements through weighing ingredients, read through reading a recipe, arithmetic through using money at shops, writing through writing a shopping list, and socialisation through talking to shop staff and players on video games.

The reality is that GOOD home education absolutely can provide chidren with an excellent education and I know plenty of children who have been home educated and have gone on to study at university level. I do not home educate my children becuase it is absolutely true that if I did, my children would, at best, learn a few things from follownig me around and there isn't a chance in hell that they would reach a sufficient level of education to get a job mowing lawns, never mind go to university.

Proper oversight, clear guidelines re expectations etc is needed, not blanket accusations that children who are home educated aren't socialised.

Most of the kids I know who are home educated are SEND kids who can't cope in mainstream. The system is not fit for purpose....

No way should the state be offering subsidised tutoring to HE families. The state provides school. If you want to do your own thing you have to pay for it. I do agree there needs to be proper oversight and many local authorities want to do this, but do not have the necessary legal powers.

I don't think it should be illegal. I don't think it should be a natural right though. It shouldn't be available to at risk children. And then, after that, more oversight is required.

YABU.

It needs to be regulated and monitored, but not banned.

The government need to understand mainstream schools need training on sen and to be able to provide suitable provision. Until that happens people will keep choosing home education. I’ve seen first hand how schools just want the attendance boxes ticked but fail to meet children’s needs. But on the other hand if there are safeguarding concerns at home yes schools may be safer.

I don’t think that it should be banned, although I’d like to see more support provided for children and their parents. It’s fairly easy for children to go “under the radar” while in mainstream education, but even easier if they are not seeing teachers and other people.

The Sara Sharif case did make me think about it, but ultimately no I think it has to be an option to home educate. Nothing was done to help the poor girl even when she was in school, yes teachers raised concerns but nothing was done ultimately. I think more children would suffer if we made it illegal, some kids are relentlessly bullied. If there are concerns about well-being at home however, home schooling shouldn't be allowed in my opinion.

Basing my experience on the one child I know who was home schooled, I think there need to be many more controls. The child is finally back in school and has actually been put down a year because they were so far behind. I didn't even know this was possible!

I agree with the countries where to homeschool you have to either be a qualified teacher or be supervised by a qualified teacher who takes legal responsibility for your child's education; you have to provide a plan at the beginning of the academic year and a corresponding report at the end; you have to keep to the level of the national curriculum so your child can switch back into school without the issues above and you get inspected at least once a year.

I can only assume from your post op that state education equipped you with not a modicum of critical thinking or ability to think out of the box.

I do agree there is a significant problem in the community in that home educators are so defensive they won't admit that there are definite drawbacks to home ed.

I was one of the very few I came across who sat down and did planned learning with my DC.

A huge percentage of school educated children fail their GCSEs, that's really not a model home educators want to emulate.

@OhBling You are quoting me. I have repeatedly said that HE should not be banned. But that there should be proper oversight. I am in HE community, I see some excellent HE and some terrible HE.

@DogInATent qualified/experienced teachers. That ideally I think should still oversee it. But I guess it sounds like Ofsted turning up to someone's house.

Why?
Contrary to a seemingly widely held belief, society's ills cannot be cured by legislation (i.e. "banning stuff").