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.

With the current state of schools, bullying etc YABVU. Some children aren't safe in school and some schools do all they can to cover it up to protect their stupid OFSTED rating.

The whole education system needs an overhaul.

OFSTED needs abolishing, and replacing with an education regulator that works with parents and teachers to give a truthful picture of what happens in schools and make sensible suggestions for how people can work together to have their children educated, instead of being dictated to by clueless politicians.

There also needs to be a HE register and proper, well organised access to exams for HE/HS pupils.

Oops, sorry!!! So we're on same page then, apologies!

Several people I'm aware of have removed their children from school to escape the gender ideological indoctrination of their children. Two of them are in Dorset, a county whose education system has been captured by trans activists. It only takes one activist teacher to ruin a child's life.
https://www.transgendertrend.com/dorset-ideological-capture/

Only the other day there was an article somewhere about a male teacher dressed as a woman in a classroom of trans flags: can't find it right now, but I've found this instead.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12752995/video-exposes-trans-indoctrination-primary-school-teacher-inclusion-lessons.html

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

A huge percentage of home ed kids are disabled. Mine will never sit a GCSE, they would be no different if they were in school. I'm not working towards exams as I know they are not the right thing for my DC, plenty of others will put their DC forward and they will fail - just as happens in school, as they are not able.

I thought that might be who you had in mind.
ffs. typical MN.

You have full control over what your child is taught abd so they potentially only learn what you know about. What you want them to and things from your perspective.

They don't get the same social opportunities.

They don't learn how to be with people they haven't chosen to be with & to do things thet don't want to do.

They have less time away from parents to learn from other people

They are likely to be accommodated far more at home than school so resilience is lower

It's a very insular way of life that means you are exposed to far fewer variables.

67% of children get a grade C or above in at least one GCSE. That includes all children. Some of those children may have been able to get a GCSE grade C or above with better support, some will have significant learning difficulties or mental health difficulties, or have serious medical conditions, and would never be able to achieve that.

This.
👏🏻

I admit that I don’t understand the motivation of parents who homeschool through choice because of ideology rather than necessity. I can completely understand taking your child out of school because it’s not working for them or is actually causing them harm. The system has failed their children. I struggle to understand people who never send their DC to school or remove children who are happy and doing well in school.

Out of interest, becuase the HE families I know who have gone all the way are in another country, if you HE, do children still have to take GCSEs here? Or only if they want to do traditional A-levels/go on to uni? I would think that would be something that could be useful - ie its fine to HE but they do need to cover a curriculum that can give them a formal qualification that is the same or equivalent to GCSE? Is that how it works here? From memory, it's an OPTION in the country I know of but not fored but children do it in order to go on to uni.

I agree, and that's a problem. There does need to be more oversight. It concerns me that there is a growing "unschooling" movement and the proponents are extremely resistant to any "invasion of their privacy", i.e. anyone keeping tabs on what their children are actually learning. The theory seems to be that children are naturally wired to want to learn and that you can teach them everything they need to know by following their lead in their own time. I've not seen any anecdotal evidence that that is the case, all the children I've encountered whose parents follow this method are illiterate and innumerate and spend all of their time playing video games. It hasn't been tested over a long enough period of time for their to be much (or any) solid data on it, and these children are the guinea pigs.

Add to this that most of the supporters of this also believe in "de-schooling" which means that children have to be left completely alone to decompress from school with no demands on their time whatsoever, either for as long as they want or for one month for every year they have been in school- so a 7 year old is going to be spending 3 months drifting around the house being asked to do nothing and made to go nowhere.

But having oversight, a register of children being homeschooled, standardised testing to ensure that children are not being left to fall significantly behind in basic learning, is not the same as banning homeschooling.

I’m seeing children that are home educated that basically because parents don’t like authority and being told to take their children to school they home educate. They didn’t realise this was an option. However the majority of these parents are not educating them properly and it’s failing the children. It’s just an easier life.

However it should not be banned. There are amazing families and networks that educate children and give them amazing opportunities outside the school setting. This is not wrong and suits many.

Checks and safeguarding of children that are home educated should absolutely be looked at and prioritised by councils with decent staffing limits to ensure children are actually being educated and safeguarded.

The notion of having to follow the NC is something I'd have found unacceptable as a home educator, given many of us chose to home educate because we don't think the NC is fit for purpose.

My son - now at school - does Science once a week and History and Geography alternate by term. They do one Art day, one Music day and one RE day a term. How is that providing a rich and well rounded primary education?

So a third of school children don't even get one GCSE pass?
Wow, that doesn't sound anything like a suitable or efficient education system.

No they don't. There's no requirement to take exams at all.

I can understand the benefits of building an education for your individual child who can learn at their own time than you could in a classroom of thirty and pursue interests outside of a curriculum.

You couldn't pay me to do it - but I can see why others might.

@DogInATent well, what's wrong with what I think? I wouldn't be confident home educating a child. I don't actually mind what others do, but support should be there for parents who choose it.

I did structured learning too. And man, did I learn quickly to keep my mouth shut about that, because, as I soon found out, if other home ed parents didn’t like me, they wouldn’t let thier children be friends with mine. The drawback of that in home ed is that the parents are usually always there at groups. I found it more controlling than my experience of schools.

Don't you? I chose to home educate my child because I felt the NC was not fit for purpose and nor was the school system. I felt I could provide a richer education for him at home. That was my motivation.

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Does not make sense !

The home ed community is INSANELY cliquey. I was honestly treated as a pariah because my son was reading fluently at 5.

I've got mixed views on this to be honest.
On one hand, I don't know a single person who has been work ready after being home educated. Generally they go on to work in a shop, and I don't think that's really what we should be setting out with an aim to provide for our children- it will not provide a very good standard of living to live on minimum wage.

However, I do have a SEN child who will need a lot of support to get an education. I'm not sure that I'll be able to get an EHCP that meets his needs, or indeed is possible for the county to provide so I am open to home education for him.
I already do a lot of educational activities with him, but also think that it's going to be flipping hard work to provide the level of education that I think is his right. Not least because I stopped education myself at age 13. I wasn't well enough to complete school and I do not feel confident that I would be able to attain the knowledge I missed out on... though thinking in the most positive manner, my eldest DDs boyfriends sibling is a teacher, maybe they'll get married and maybe ill be able to rope her into helping guide me in the education that he needs to not have a lesser experience or opportunity than typical children

@Punocchio

You may have FELT you could do better but we need something much more objective when it comes to raising children because what people feel is often not good enough at all