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.

Definitely not true in the leafy middle class and affluent area I’m in. Nor true in surrounding areas I’ve met home ed families from that are more mixed demographic wise.
They’re racing to the bottom.
There ARE home ed parents who use tutors, follow a curriculum and a great education is being provided. But it’s not the majority and not the ‘norm’ in home ed and heavily discouraged … you’ll absolutely be judged for it.

It’s kinda of a faff really, why not go all out and enroll them in private schools?

Do you home educate? That is the polar opposite of our lives.

We've home educated for 18 years, 2 DC doing A Levels in college, one doing GCSE's next year, one coming through the system.

That's completely normal for our wing of HE. Literally every family I know uses tutors - online or face to face. It is 100% the norm. There are countless learning opportunities that people access, FB groups for supporting exams, tutor groups, curriculum-linked field trips, the whole lot. Since COVID, more tutoring gateways for HE have sprung up than I can count.

The only people that might attract SOME judgement from SOME HEers are the ones who are completely autonomous and don't encourage any formal learning or exams at all. It's the complete opposite of what you say.

Suggesting that home educators are 'judged' for using tutors is simply untrue. I'm sure it exists in some knots of hardcore anti schoolers, but it NOT the norm.

Definitely not true in the leafy middle class and affluent area I’m in. Nor true in surrounding areas I’ve met home ed families from that are more mixed demographic wise

Ah, the old 'I know everyone and everyone says and thinks the same as me.'

The reality - the factual stuff - is that since HE numbers have grown exponentially, the market to provide education independently has grown as well. And nearly everyone uses at least some part of it.

They’re racing to the bottom

Demonstrably untrue.

Of the home educating families I know:
A couple have a SAHM parent
A couple have two flexible/freelance/wfh parents
One has one parent working full time and one doing an evening job
One is a shift working single parent
One is separated parents working around each other

Often they're also using grandparent care, childcare swaps with other families, home ed settings or childcare settings.

Completely untrue.

No HE families are judged for using tutors. It is the norm across nearly every section of HE, except for a minority of radical unschoolers.

100% correct.

Probably as you get towards GCSE more will use tutors - very few are going to use tutors for 6 year olds.

More common among families I know are shared classes (for example 5 families splitting an hour of tutor time at £10 each rather than an hour of 1:1 at £30) or online classes.

I prefer small mixed groups where the children get the benefit of each others' ideas. By explaining and helping their friends it helps them to consolidate what they have learnt.
At GCSE level we have used a mix of small face to face groups, small online groups (for a MFL), self study with textbook and exam papers, working/studying with a friend who was doing the same exam, live lessons. This is augmented by workshops, exhibitions, field studies and anything else that makes for a more rounded experience, plus obviously plenty of unscheduled time with their friends.

We live in a very working class area so there is a healthy mix of different types of people, different levels of education etc. We do have a strong community who will help each other navigate the above to find the right combination of approaches that works for their child. I dare say it may be people with less confidence, or who find themselves home educating in an emergency that use more tutors. We get tutors trying to join our groups all the time but I don't imagine we're a very lucrative bunch in our neck of the woods especially when families have made plenty of connections.

Typically if I'm taking my child to an exhibition, there's an open offer for their friends to come with us. They may not be studying the same thing but are likely to come because everything is more fun with friends! Their parents will do the same so there are lots of opportunities to share interests and discover things that may not have been on the radar of each individual family.

Yes, I should have been clearer on that - I'm definitely talking about KS3/GCSE stages with tutors. With younger DC, it's less common. Although we did use a tutor with languages at an early age, as it was something the kids wanted to try, and a small group was running that was particularly lovely!

Ah, my friend is a radical unschooler so that must be why she is very anti school / test / anything that resembles school.

I’m a secondary teacher and we had open day this week for year 6. A girl came with her parents and she was currently homeschooled. I don’t know what she was like academically (I can guess, but I won’t) but in every other way she was miles behind the others. It was like talking to an 8 year old. She will really really struggle in September whichever secondary she attends which I’m sure will reinforce her parents decision to homeschool again.

Did you ascertain why she was 'miles behind the others'?

Your post suggests that you've decided it's because she is HE, which sounds a little like a rush to judgement.

100% agree with this. Every home ed family I know, from the most traditional to the most unschooly bare feet hippy one, uses some form of tutoring - whether that's face to face, live online, recorded or a mix of all of the above. DD likes to spend Sunday afternoons doing online tutorials; she's currently doing fashion design, to be followed by Sociology.

You are correct, but what concerns me more is that children can come out of school with that same level of literacy. Those parents you are talking about probably went to school.

I think school can't instil literacy and it has to come from being spoken to, read to, spoken to in narratives for example.

My children watch TV with narratives, we read books, and we converse.

Some children from very disadvantaged backgrounds are not spoken to, no back and forths, cocomelon on the telly, never read to, probably don't know what they're even looking at when books are shown in school.

I think it all goes to show that it's home education that prevails, whether the kids are in school or not.

I'm also more worried about the ideology they are being fed and then their lack of interaction with kids from varied home lives. They're going to be illiterate AND heavily shielded. So where some kids could get by on social cues and sort of knowing what's going on in the world, these kids won't have that.

Have you ever seen the movie Nell? They'll be like that.

We dont use tutors. Couldn't afford to.

However, im a qualified teacher, albeit it primary and secondary English. I got good gcses and I read through the material he needs for maths and other subjects, and make sure I understand the content, and my teaching experience allows me to break down content in a way that he can also understand it.

We also use a lot of free online recorded content, which is led by teachers and specialists (oak academy, Corbett maths, twinkl, and you tube - maths man is brilliant!).

We love Twinkl - some brilliant resources on there.

You might be way ahead of me and already be familiar - plus I can't vouch for them personally, as we've never used them - but I keep seeing £2 Tuition Hub popping up on the HE forums. We have used LLP for some additional input with some subjects - most lessons are £3 each, and all delivered by qualified teachers.

There is so much good stuff out there now!

Yes we have tried £2 tuition. They are very good, but my son didnt like the group aspect (same kids kept leaping in to answer things). Also never seemed to find sessions that aligned with what we were doing at the time.

We tend to work on a 'project' basis, so we choose a topic to work on for 3-4 weeks linked to something in the news, a day out we have been on, or just something that catches his interest.

For example, we have just done the Agricultural Revolution. We did comparing and contrasting texts (fiction and non-fiction), looking at language features, he wrote an essay discussing the positive and negatives of th3 Revolution, then worked out percentages of yield growth and ratio, how steam engines worked, and went on a day trip to a museum. Realised that he had either forgotten/not been taught %s very well at primary and early secondary school, so went back to basics using Twinkl and you tube videos alongside me explaining and demonstrating. At the beginning of the week, he couldn't do percentages. Now he's able to answer GCSE questions on them. We have also both learned about how steam engines work, which was nice to learn together.

The next few weeks he wants to look at aviation, and I cam see this being a lot of fun!!

£2 Tuition Hub is brilliant, you can either do live lessons or recorded ones (or a mix of both). We've been using them for a while and are really impressed.

I'm not going to read that whole website. My understanding was that inspections are not compulsory.

Very well put. We've never used actual tutors because they're a resource that' was too expensive for us to access if we wanted to do other expensive things too.
We also started before they where commonplace so developed how to suceed without, found most of it fun and just carried on s we are...

But, we're in resource full London, are mobile, able to hit Europe, and on the internet, so all mine have used conversations with all sorts of useful people online and real life ranging from bored academics to scientists at CERN to further maths nerds to discuss concepts with. They all do a lot of arts, music and theater, and or sports, and bands, theater, dance groups, and teams feature a fair bit, so meet loads of others from lots of different educational situations and walks of life.

Because we get out and about, they have a large social group which never happened with older ones at school as either too tired, homework swamped, declared an uncool nerd, or or to worried about school politics and who was or wasn't cool to be associated with. None of those issues with most of the home ed crowd. One very MC teen stoner was a mild concern, but it became clear early that my lot where unimpressed with them doing little. They still try and drag them out, but sadly are rarely successful.

Secondary level also do FutureLearn uni courses for things that interest them and quite often once one HE kid gets into something, others will join up and they then do projects together as a result. of mutual interest.
We've also hosted home edders from other countries, which is great for languages.
We also make full use of the Royal Society’s annual cutting-edge science fair and make contacts with university researchers from universities and science institutions there and at similar events, as well as Royal society of Arts,
Clore galleries, and the education spaces of so many institutions and museums for free up and down the country. People who love their subject and believe in education are always happy to talk to genuinely interested kids and share resources.

Most of the more MC home edders we know use tutors at some points, especially around exams, many go to college for A levels, but that's because they have different lifestyles and other things they value, to us, and that works better for them. But all the kids mix happily enough and lift skills and ideas from each other, and as they get older often find different routes have brought them to the same uni's or professions.

No one here is into Facebook or Tik Tok so we know little of the lifestyle blogger lot or the not really interested but in grief with the school system parents.
We do come across lots of back footed as we where, often SEN/bullied, and more recently extreme anxiety, and try and point them towards what might work for them.

We've met the occasional rabid judgemental anti something/everything home educator, but far more that use schools and can't accept others who don't, especially at swimming and during their school holidays.

Most home edders we meet keep most judgement of others to themselves.
But when we first started TBH I was a little gobsmacked and disbelieving of the 'unschooling' folk. But they and we made initially cautious friendships, and over the years having seen it's outcomes, I'll just say it's not something I'd dare do, or feel secure doing, but if done well it's clearly a valid choice.

The thing most of us have in common is for one reason or another, not being able to get what our children and families need or want from the state education system, and not in the private school league either. Far from 'a race to the bottom' IME it's mainly parents who want more for their children, making it happen.

Often children that home Ed are in some ways more youthful. They have more time to play and explore and less pressures to conform to peers. Less fear of being bullied for liking younger activities
I see this as a positive

We use the recorded lessons. This also means we can pause if needed, rewatch and skip things if needed.

Some great answers re how families cope financially, thanks everyone who responded. My experience is pretty limited firstly to the teacher who successfully home taught up to secondary age and a family I currently know, none of whose children go to school. Not sure how much actual education they get. Neither parent goes out to work. Their DGM really worries about them. Vastly different scenarios.

From the link I posted.

"Local authorities will have their own policies on elective home education, usually available on their websites, and it is advisable to familiarise yourself with the procedures in place in your locality. Evidence can be provided through home visits, meetings outside of the home, explaining your educational philosophy or providing written evidence."

"While there is no legislation dealing directly with home schooling in the UK, the 1996 Education Act specifies that children must receive an education that is full-time, efficient, and suitable for their needs"

More info
"Local authorities may make informal inquiries to ensure a suitable education is provided. They can request information about your educational approach and may visit your home, though you are not legally obliged to allow home visits."

"Under Section 437(1) Education Act 1996, local authorities shall intervene if it appears that the parents are not providing a suitable education. They can serve a notice in writing to the parent asking the parent to demonstrate that the child is receiving a suitable education and setting a specified period of time in which the parent must demonstrate this. That period of time should not be less than 15 days from the date on which the notice was served."

Right so none of that long thing states that inspections are compulsory in all local authorities from my quick reading.