A wave of illiterate “home schooled” children

[RedSkyatNight25]

Prepared to get torn apart, and I know many homeschool because the school environment isn’t right for their children (SEN, sensory issues - whatever else) and their needs aren’t met by school with a chronic lack of SEN placements and too much demand etc. I’m not naive to that. I also know some parents with adequate resource will ensure their children have a rounded education whilst being homeschooled.

But there seems to be a movement to homeschooling by people who are simply anti establishment with a point to prove. Their grammar and communication on social media tells me they’re not equipped to homeschool a child. Not least I think the socialisation and soft skills school provides are hugely important too. I suspect most of these parents either haven’t considered the benefits of school or hugely underestimated it, especially past primary are parents really equipped to teach ALL the subjects with sufficient skill if they lack the knowledge themselves? Are they not underestimating the skills and expertise of qualified teachers?

AIBU to think it’s really concerning? These are the next generation of our workforce and infrastructure. I personally think we are hugely privileged to live in a country with free education - I know it’s not perfect but I’m not convinced homeschooling is better for a vast majority.

DD only passed one GCSE.

She has always struggled academically. Written exams don't let her show her ability. She has since passed Functional Skills qualifications.

But we had amazing discussions triggered by her sociology and English Lit GCSE studies. She is intelligent and interested in WHY the world is as it is, and can discuss it in depth. She discovered that she excelled at public speaking despite a stammer, thanks to school.

She is a talented dancer and has worked as an assistant teacher since she was 15. She is great with children, and is in great demand for child care around her College and dance commitments.

Passing GCSEs is not the only indicator of a 'good education'. For most young people it is a good baseline of achievement.

My algorithm is showing me the same OP, and there’s a horrid little devil on my shoulder that can’t help but think ‘well, at least it cuts down on potential rival applicants for my children when it comes to uni/their chosen career’

I honestly have no doubt that home educating can be done correctly and successfully….just not by the current wave of parents.

the strangest thing to me is when they claim it’s in their child’s best interests, but share them on their open social media as if that’s not the thing that couldn’t be less in their best interests!

Surely at that point you just say "you've made you bed, now lie in it".

I’ll get flamed but… some increasingly pull their child out of school and demand “homeschooling” - as this way they get away from the attendance issues and potential fines from school officials and also they can concentrate on ASD/ADHD ECHP paperwork and then claim DLA and convert to PIP at 16. Many know their child won’t want to work or ever get a job (particular a low paid or hard one) and just want to game in room all day/on tik tok/eating rubbish etc and they know it’s easier to get them out of school and they can make easier disability claims both now and later. £800 even 4 weeks and they can stay at home happy and not work.

We never do now, there’s a safety net for everything

The whole 'school gates' stuff is weird. I've spoken to about two parents 'at the school gates' in 6 years and only because they're parents of my daughter's friends. I keep my distance from all of them. So they then think I'm the odd one? Should I care?

But your children will be paying more tax to fund their benefits and there will be shortages in critical roles.

Well they won't just be working with people born in the same academic year. I used to go to a group there were toddlers to teens. One mum was a professional artist and you'd see all these kids working together. We also all chipped in and had a French tutor who ran groups. It might be eating French food or learning French songs for the little ones and age appropriate stuff for older ones.

One family had a dad who was head at a local grammar, other parents were unemployed.

Honestly age and socioeconomic groups were much broader than your average school.

I don't feel that concerned as it's never going to be loads of people, but I am a bit horrified by some 'unschooling' parents who seem to think that teaching kids to read is a form of oppression. That's not going to end well.

But there seems to be a movement to homeschooling by people who are simply anti establishment with a point to prove. Their grammar and communication on social media tells me they’re not equipped to homeschool a child. Not least I think the socialisation and soft skills school provides are hugely important too.

This is the thing that scares the bejesus out of me. I honestly think its a timebomb which we will come to bitterly regret not dealing with earlier.

There certainly are many parents doing this for the right reasons, doing it because they are being failed by mainstream education and who are creating a rigorous and well thought out curriculum at home. I know one family who is doing this exceptionally well because the neurodiverse children were struggling at mainstream school.

But there is a sizeable cohort of people doing it because they lack the drive or the organisation to support their children through school, because they basically can’t be arsed or because they are in the grip of anti-establishment ideology and believe that children “know better” how to teach themselves. I have seen so much of this on local social media groups and its terrifying. In the latter two scenarios the parents are woefully equipped to deal with education and we are shoring up huge problems for a generation of kids being “educated” in this way.

The absolute scandal of it is the lack of oversight and regulation and the inability of the authorities to tell the difference. Its the sign of a very decadent society that the penny has not dropped yet about how dangerous this is.

Agree. Ultimately I would be surprised if less than half of them claimed benefits.

@Baital similar to my DH. He did a vocational pre16 course and degree. He is in an executive role that lends itself to his skillset. He is dyslexic and struggled at school with one D grade GCSE.

I do actually completely agree with you.
I also found the school provisions in my area really poor. There's an assumption from Government and those who live in wonderful areas that all schooling across the country is the same standard, or similar, to where they live which is frankly not the case.

Bridgit Philipson would do well to actually do a parental survey for each county/LA on real worries and experiences of parents. Even simple differences, such as having all girls state schools that aren't selective (some counties have and some don't) might get huge swathes of school refusers back, for example. Sexual violence and the rise in AI has really pushed the need for these safe single sex spaces.

One of the reasons why fines over attendance don't make sense to me. It's children who suffer for it.

👏🏻 this!

I was thinking the same the other day with some of the things (in the UK) I have seen on Facebook. One in particular was a woman who had decided to pull her daughter out of school (I can't remember the specific reasons, but it wasn't SEN related). My 8 year old has far better spelling and grammar than this woman who was planning on homeschooling a 14 year old.

Perhaps some of them were like my friend who did what she could at home with her anxious and recalcitrant but bright autistic son, who struggled to attend school from Y7 in 2020, but never received any support or offer of alternative provision in spite of always engaging with the LA and school. He decided himself to go back to school in Y11, passed some GCSEs and is now studying BTECs at sixth form.

I agree it’s the socialisation that kids get at school that’s so important to their well-being. Kids are meant to be with other kids. In adult life, you have to be able to mix with people very different from you, so important kids are encouraged to do the same.

Having said that, school has become pretty intense from a young age. When I was at infant school (until 7) it was mainly leaning through play and having fun. Secondaries have become exam factories, rather than giving kids a full, rounded education and encouraging them to develop a lifelong love of learning. And some uniform rules are ridiculous. Making teenagers wear ties when most jobs don’t require it is so silly.

I'm a school teacher with a SEN child (who attends school) and I think it's perfectly reasonable to home educate to avoid being harassed by attendance people while you do the avalanche of paperwork required to get even a tiny bit of state help!

Especially if your child is miserable. No-one has kids to attempt to force them daily to attend an institution that's not meeting their needs.

I don't think these parents are lifestyle blogging about it though tbh. Maybe blogging trying to help other SEN parents.

YANBU

I don’t know anyone personally who is home educating their child/ren

One child in DC1’s class was taken out in year 3 to be at home and then reappeared in year 5, never really settling properly into the class…but then I don’t know the parent/have no knowledge of what sort of issues the child was facing

On a practical/financial level I don’t even know how you would home educate; I work almost FT, DH works FT…how would we pay the mortgage/bills if one of us gave up our employed work to stay home & home educate the kids?

How does it work if one parent is at home FT educating the kids? Do they get grants from the local authority? No idea how anyone affords this, let alone the challenges of being a teacher for your children

We live in SE London so obvs cost of living is high & we need 2 incomes just to meet basic costs

I do think there's also a kind of radicalisation going on on social media as well. I've had several parents in a local SEN network we're part of tell me that all school is abusive for children with ASD (tell that to DD who really likes it). Combine that with too much instagram and TikTok, with a sprinkling of tradwife and you're down a rabbit hole pretty quick. That 21% I don't believe is all driven by SEND needs.

I suspect the majority of the new homeschoolers are women as well, so it's a very useful part of the backlash against feminism to keep more women at home.

But all of them will have a decent subject specific qualification.

The best FE teacher I know isn't qualified as a teacher but does have a doctorate.

It's a complex topic. Our 'best' school has a pass rate of 50% for English and maths GCSEs. Our other schools are lower. Along with the hazards of being in school from 4-16 and leaving with not very much to show for it and feeling like a failure just as your life opportunities should be opening up, there's also the risk of getting in with the wrong crowd. It's a very real risk that parents can mitigate to a large extent but teenagers eventually reach an age where peers become so important and we can't control who their friends are, just hope we've instilled good values into our children.

Often people are starting to home educate in an emergency situation. School refusal and self harm, trying to stop them going down the wrong path with their peer group etc. By this point children have trauma and parents are already functioning on their last nerve. It's really not ideal.

I was in the dentist a while ago and a member of staff's child had refused to go to school that day. She was past herself and trying to think how to put things in place while having to be at her job. She just wanted to be at home reading him the riot act and sorting it out. She wasn't being at all soft - she had removed all electronics, trying to make being at home less interesting but I'm not sure what her options were beyond that if the child persists in refusing school. It didn't seem like the reasons why the child was refusing were considered but I suspect removing privileges will not be enough until this is addressed.

I went through these same schools 30 years ago, managed to keep my head down and do well despite the fact it was a race to the bottom and anyone doing well was going to draw unwanted attention to themselves. I would love for someone to look at why nothing has improved. All these 'social opportunities' that people think are so important, for me involved a few close friends and avoiding those who wanted to make school life as uncomfortable and the environment as difficult to learn in as possible.

Treating education as training for jobs and treating children as mini adults is so bizarre to me. Education is about so much more, which I know as a lifelong learner. I hated school, didn't do well in my exams, but love learning as an adult. Being made to wear a tie at school achieved precisely zero for my or anyone else's life.

Yep. A lot of the rhetoric around “unschooling” for example is clearly very influenced by the online right.