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.

As I said above .... homeschooled children are part of many social networks like Scouts, sports teams, gym clubs, drama clubs etc where they interact with other children, and there are also networks of homeschooled children where they come together for a particular subject.

If you deregister your child from a school then the school should contact the LA so they are aware, It is then on them to get in touch with parents and contact with them is usually annual. The advice given is to send a written report about the education provided. Some people choose to have visits instead but this isn’t advised on home ed groups.

If you never send your child to school then you don’t need to notify anyone. Sometimes the LA will contact you and your will do reports as above. In other cases you can remain unknown,

It can often be a postcode lottery though. Nothing to do with the severity of issues, and everything to do with lack of SEN schools, lack of funding, LA ‘s dodging their responsibilities and rejecting applications for EHCPs as standard and so on. We have kids that have moved to specialist provision in y5 or y6, despite having a diagnosis at 5/6 . They’ve been on waiting lists for 2/3 years.

@GagMeWithASpoon yes I acknowledge that.

Compulsory school age is 5. Technically she doesn’t have to do anything yet.

Thank you. I think my long rambling post was trying to say that those parents who aren't educated or literate, and can't take on the fight for support and choose to de register are just as much a victim of the failure of the education system as my family is, but we look very different.

It really doesn't matter when you're in this position how equipped or able you are to home educate your child. That doesn't factor into it at all. The outcome is the same. The child needs to go somewhere and the end goal from some schools and local authorities seems to be to get them out of the school system and into home education so that they don't have to bother with them anymore. That's probably why the local Authority doesn't try too hard to give oversight of HE.. If they did identify that a child's education was not sufficient then they might have to do something about it and they can't even educate the ones that they are legally responsible for under section 19. So they're hardly going to go out looking for home educated ones to take responsibility for.

Parents might not even know it's possible to fight for support. My child's school told me again and again that they were doing everything that they could possibly do, which was an absolute lie. They were doing nothing, but i believed them. They simultaneously blocked multiple ehcp applications which would have led to support. If I hadn't known that it was possible to apply for one myself and how to write a complaint, I would have joined that cohort if parents who aren't equipped to HE, as I said. My child's EHCNA has just been denied so I'll need to go to tribunal. I haven't got it in me, so no EHCP for him right now.

The other thing if course is that the only real effective support available, you have to pay for - SEND consultants, advocacy services and the like, can cost £100 an hour or more. There are free ones but first you have to find out who they are and who needs to refer you, then fight for the referral. People talk about IPSEA who have a helpline but I've called that 50 times and never has it been answered. If you're a low earner or on benefits, you've got no chance of paying for support and youre on your own against the might of the school/LA. Yet you see your bright, beautiful child being crushed day after day and know there's nothing you can do, you can't afford help, even if you can identify what's going wrong (it took me 2 years to work out how badly and illegally the school were treating us!) if you're poorly educated you might just step away and as i said, blame the system. Which is true.

Unfortunately for me my autistic sense of injustice made me fight. It was probably not worth it, although school has done an about turn and are more supporting i think it's too late. Too much damage has been done. I'll be home educating by the end of the school year i think. I don't want to, but i don't have a choice and yes I'll blame the system!

The "wave of illiterate children" is utterly nonsense for which the OP has no evidence. It is just a silly headline. Daily Mail eat your heart out...

I'm a Headteacher. Every child I've known who has been withdrawn by parents to homeschool have had ongoing safeguarding concerns with children regularly disclosing low level neglect. We notify the local authority/ss about our concerns but they aren't even allowed to do a home visit without parent consent. I think if there are recent safeguarding concerns then homeschooling shouldn't be allowed.

I've also had homeschooled children starting school in Y6 because parents can't cope with their pre-teens at home. One particular boy was regularly hitting his mother at home and she couldn't take it anymore so wanted him back in school after 11 years! He joined Y6 in March and she wanted us to get him ready to pass his SATs in May. He wasn't SEN and had a reading/maths ability similar to a child in Year 1.

I agree a traditional school environment doesn't suit everyone but I strongly believe there should be compulsory wellbeing and academic checks on kids outside formal education.

But the questions should be ...
Why are so many families being left with no choice but to home educate?
Why is the school environment causing so much trauma and mental health problems for so many children?
What can be changed so that more families are not left with no other option?
What changes do LA, schools and the curriculum need to make the environment if school accessible to all children?

If your not prepared for those changes or even conversation then you shouldn't be targeting families who have been broken by a system that has failed their child / children so badly.

Ah it’s time for this one:

“certainly ignorance shouldn’t be a bar…”

Yes but they are teachers. I'm not saying this is perfect, far from it. But it's not like you can rock up with a GCSE in PE and teach science.

If a qualified teacher of PE isn't fit to teach science (and I don't necessarily disagree with you) then how does it follow that you can home educate in all subjects?

Yanbu OP and homeschooling needs hugely tightening up. Along with ensuring the needs of children are better met in schools/ school can be more flexible and part time if needed rather than this all of nothing system we have.

It’s bizarre the indignant home schoolers who are doing it well often deny that people claim to homeschool to get out of the system. Because they do and of course you won’t meet them in your naice homeschooling group in Surrey,

People use tutors as part of it usually.

Even education aside I think it's sad to keep them so isolated. It's so good for their social skills and to be less dependent on one person.
Having said that, I do know a mum who's child part goes to school and part home schooled (I didn't know this was a thing!) and on the home school days she sometimes meets up with a group of mums who do the same. I hear of all these adventure activities they do for the kids and it actually changed my perspective a bit as I do think children thrive outside the classroom too.
Although from a selfish perspective, having children in school releases the pressure from me. I'm constantly thinking of things to do, where to go, what to eat etc. I appreciate the school break, let alone having to add homeschooling to the question.

In case you aren’t aware, those who are appealing to SENDIST and are on a low income should check if they are eligible for legal aid.

Also in case you aren’t aware, most JRs, including those against failure to provide s19 provision, are brought in the child’s name so the child can be eligible for legal aid in their own name for proceedings themselves.

Every single child who has been removed from the register had safeguarding concerns?

Consent from parents isn’t required under S47 if there are significant safeguarding concerns.

There are home educators for whom providing a broad and balanced curriculum is paramount.

There are home educators who are providing an education for their children who, for whatever reason, have not been able to succeed at school.

There are home educators who are opposed to the notion of a formal education in school.

There are home educators who are opposed to rules and expectations and remove their children from the school roll.

It is clear that there is a cohort of young people for whom school in the traditional sense just does not work. It is clear that home education is effective when parents and children are motivated and engaged in the process. But, the reverse is also true and the monitoring of standards seems to be lacking in rigour.

On one hand, there are home educators who have proven that their children have been successful in acquiring knowledge and the qualifications needed to gain employment. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are young people who have been left to their own devices and have not developed the skills and knowledge required to live and work independently.

If you value education, you want to do the best you can to ensure your children are educated to provide the skills they need for adult life.

Do you know anyone who unschooled? I don't know how the parents feel confident enough to take such a different approach, but some do.

I only know one family who did it that way, their children all went on to higher education.

The family I knew, it definitely was a planned educational approach, not an easier choice. I think using terms like neglect when it is genuinely a different educational choice is offensive.

@RedSkyatNight25 It shows a lack of imagination to think you need tutors, or vast amounts of income, or many of the things that those who believe in a one size fits all model, believe they must have.
Many are trained to think in a particular way, and view success in a particular way. Meantime there is a deep rich tapestry around them that they are unable to see or appreciate without a guide. Yet I suspect, they have a reasonable education...

We're an originally back-footed into HE, family who are now three generations into embracing it and a very different way of life with it, and we would never be able to access the sort of schools that might give my lot anything near the quality, depth and breadth of education, and outcomes, that we're achieving.

Generations of my family, had been scraping along the bottom of society with illiteracy, low literacy, low numeracy, v, early parenthood and NMW if lucky.

In one generation we've gone from that as normal, to exams, university and professional qualifications, as normal, despite my low formal education, and very low finances. You cannot dream what you can't imagine.

So what you actually mean is if you can't imagine how it is achieved, then surely other people, especially those with lower educational outcomes than yourself, can't do what you can't imagine figuring out how to do?

The lack of imagination, as well as some darker reasons, is why families like mine have been expected to fail, and engineered into continued failure by the school system, keen to ensure that only a little progress is made per generation, and that we remain in our allocated position at the bottom.

When we produced a range of work for our LA to look at, we where faced with a spite filled 'officer' who was insistent that children of our background shouldn't be learning some of what they where. Latin and further maths, particularly aggrieved them, what would kids like mine do with them? And three separate sciences was ridiculous, because most of our schools only do double science, and it was "good enough for them!" They had insufficient imagination to understand how an inner city child could be using a surf board in Cornwall to study forces and motion as part of physics. Far too much fun and socialization was being had. It was obviously not good enough education they announced triumphantly! (though it got Dc an A* and prepped them well for A level and mechanical engineering)

They then chose to produce a primary school teacher to formally assess IGCSE level work, because the 'officer' insisted that was the expected level for secondary school children from our background. They could not imagine that we could do, what they could not.
The poor teacher did her best, but wrote on everything that she was under qualified to assess secondary syllabuses, but could see a wide breadth of work, and lots of areas of interest being followed, and that Dc reported having friends for the first time in their life. The report was suppressed, and we ended up in court where they asked to see it. It had mysteriously been mislaid.
It took three highly educated judges, to put an end to the harassment. I was awarded control of my Dc's PWA (didn't go after the SN budget as it affects the SN cohort) No wonder families don't want to engage with such stupidity if they don't have to.

I would say we've left the school education system as a continuing HE family, but two out of mine have become teachers, who use their home education acquired knowledge to teach children how to be successful independent learners. They've had a taste, but will no longer work in incompetent schools that see a portion of children as collateral damage.

One has a PGCE, the better paid one, not. Both are passionate about real education, equal education, and fit for purpose education, and have a lot to say about why some schools are disaster zones, and others offer a valuable opportunity, but neither will put their children into schools, unless they could afford very specific, nurturing private ones.

Some educational establishments routinely fail children. Society accepts it, because apparently having oversight of continuing failure, makes it ok.
Some home educating parents will fail children, and that's not acceptable because of a lack of oversight of it happening.
Interesting how we view who is and isn't allowed to fail and damage childrens futures.

(off to work to pay for it all!)

I'm not against home schooling, but there needs to be far more checks than there is. Some parents home school very well, have resources and even additional help from tutors. Others, unfortunately don't have the right skills themselves to teach. There's also the whole safeguarding issue - how many times have we read of an abused/neglected child, who has died, and they were removed from school, weeks/months beforehand by a parent/guardian? Sadly, it happens. Children who are home educated, should be checked up upon as a duty of care. Of course abuse/neglect happens to children who are school educated too, but it's more likely signs will be picked up by staff. I know of a family who removed their son from Reception, because he didn't like all the rules!! He was massively spoilt then, ruled the roost, and there's no boundaries. He's now 12, there's zero structure to his day, gets up when he feels like it, goes to bed when he feels like it. Education is mainly from information he's reading, his Mum is the person home educating him, and she's simply not equipped to do so. Dad works full-time, so he doesn't participate at all in the education side. Mum is up in arms that there's changes afoot and she may have to show plans of her son's education! If you're educating effectively, then there's nothing to worry about is there?! She very clearly isn't!! According to her the son is 'very bright and clever', but how would she even know, the child has no siblings and there's no independent verification outside of her own mind!!! He might actually be average or below, she'd have no idea, as she has nothing to compare it too!! Home education is perfectly fine for some children, if it's done properly and effectively.

I dont think you can talk about home ed children as a whole or school educated children as a whole. There are many children who attend school who come out with no qualifications, children who have been failed and can barely read, write or perform simple maths - I know this because I teach these children.

I also know that some home ed children do exceptionally well, but there is some which are being failed - but many of these are forced into home ed.

I found myself in this situation where I had to home ed my son - I didnt want to but was massively failed by school. I believe if I had left him in school he would not have achieved, he is autistic and was not coping. I am his mum though, not his teacher and whilst we do fun learning together he didnt want and I didn't want to be his teacher. He did online lessons and now at college but I was never going to let him just be at home doing nothing.
What I read on some of the home ed Facebook groups is quite scary. I think that many of the home ed mums who have chosen, and do a very good job, shout loudly to protect what they have got but I dont think this is beneficial always to those who almost find themselves forced to home ed because they have been failed by the system.
I do also believe that every child should have the right to access exams for free.

My friend HS her son when she wasn’t happy about his secondary choice. She’s a FT childminder so he gamed and ‘went on BBC bite size’ and read a bit. He walked with her to take the children to school. The woman who did their home assessment seemed very happy (apparently) with what they were doing. Luckily he got a school place. I think as long as he wasn’t abused and happy they didn’t seem to care.

I do know someone who HS her children from mid primary to college. Her reasons for it used to change depending on who she spoke to, but she also talked about how much she missed them and I think that was the main reason. She endlessly went on about doing history lessons in the museum, physics in the park. Like no one else went anywhere with their children.
Both children were bright and popular but by mid teens they had no friends. She complained other kids thought they were ‘odd’ but they were, they were like mini adults. They did go to college and uni, the younger one at home for uni and has never left and doubt he will.
DD managed very little of secondary school consistently but I fought for support and to keep going because I wanted her round people her own age. I’m not her friend. She needs friends of her own. Thankfully she’s in college now happily surrounded by people of her own age.

I home educated my 2 youngest children, it was only meant to be the youngest due to his SEN and no local resources for him, it was supposed to be a short term fix a a new school was being built, this was 7 years ago and it is still not built.
Our other son had a problem during year 5 with a disruptive boy in his class, luckily during Easter term he was expelled and the whole class got back to being able to learn, the first week of year 6 his twin brother was moved from his class into my sons class and he was even worse than his brother as he was also violent, an issue arise and quite a few parents took our children out for their safety, we were then assured by the head we would be kept updated and assured that our children were safe, then next day my son told me something so alarming that we decided to remove him from school.
So we accidently home educated the son that was going into senior school 2 years before our plan with our SEN child.

During this time we worked with the local authority and we followed the curriculum, we went to lots of clubs where lots of families did something called un-schooling where they debunked the regime of school, and they were led by the child and did what the child wanted to do.
We however had a timetable and we got up each morning and followed the timetable and I made set plans each week and we all learnt, we converted a spare room into a study and spent hundreds on resources.
My 17 year old SEN child is now on his second year of college and is plodding along but doing so much better than we expected, but obviously still needs plenty of help
And our 19 almost 20 year old did 2 years of college before he was 16 (you can get in early if home educated) and then 2 years in further education, and yesterday we went to his passing out parade as he is now in the British Army and he is using his skills there.
Home education works but it's not for everyone, I personally think it should be more regulated and that you should not be able to refuse to let the L.A access, and that you should be able to prove without doubt that you are providing your child with an education, and I also believe that the exams should be free.

The barely literate parents withdrawing their kids are a product of the school system, people who spent 12 years in education and still haven't reached the standard expected of an 8 year old. They feel that they didn't benefit from school, so why would they send their kids?

Also, as a home educator...

We don't accept home visits. My son is seen by enough 'others' (health care professionals, st john cadets leaders, library staff, youth club leaders) and so there is no need for anyone to visit our home. I'm also aware that without a paper trail of evidence, things can be and often are misconstrued or twisted. Not always intentionally, but it does happen. Also, personality clashes and things like judgement made on appearances can influence people.

However, we quite happily send a detailed report every year to the LA, and this again is where I disagree with many other home educators. While legally, the LA cant 'demand' samples of work or portfolios, you are expected to give in depth written examples of what they have done, learned and how they have made progress. Now, this can be done with a good detailed explanation. A home educator who is perhaps lax at doing what they are legally required to (providing a full time education, suitable to their age and apritude) COULD use the guidance online in many groups and fudge their reports to make it look like they are. I have no idea whether it happens, but it is definitely open to that.

I quite happily send samples of my child's work in the form of a portfolio. Not every piece obviously (because that would be immense - my report is already 7 pages long and still have 4 months to go before I have to submit it!), but to show that we are actually doing what we say we are doing.

I do think LAs shoukd legally be able to insist on seeing some evidence - whether a portfolio of work, photographs of them doing practical activities and so on. Not all.of my sons work is written - sometimes he works on whiteboards or does online stuff, so i scan it occasionally or take photos and screenshots.