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.

I personally know children who were clearly being abused by their controlling mother who was neglecting them.

But equally I know that there are about half a dozen SEN places for next years High School intake in my council and there's 50 kids chasing them. So 42 of them will be failed at 11 years old age and god knows what will happen to them. I'm fairly sure one of the kids in my son's class will be one of the 42, will go to the same high school as my son and then be eventually kicked / withdrawn out due to his behaviour as they 100% will not cope. And there will be all the other kids he's being educated with who will also suffer in the process. The council KNOWS this is the number of applications they will get for the half dozen space NOW.

It's an inevitability.

This (UK) study is now over 20 years old, but is still interesting:
Home-Education:
Rationales, Practices and
Outcomes
Paula-Jane Rothermel
PhD Dissertation
University of Durham
School of Education
2002
ft. i

etheses.dur.ac.uk/1005/1/1005.pdf?EThOS+(BL)=

Any child who is not visible is getting less protection from the authorities than a child who is.

The laws on home ed allowed Sara to be taken out of school and kept at home with no oversight. There is no law that parents have to allow their children to be seen, by anyone, ever. No-one saw Sara for several months before her death. I agree she was massively failed and SS should have been checking on her regularly, but if the law changed to say that children at risk can't be removed for homeschooling, she would probably still be alive.

There's also many children who have never been to school and the LA isn't monitoring their education because they don't even know they exist. The vast majority are probably absolutely fine but if they aren't fine, there are no safeguards to pick up on it.

Anyone who is properly home edding their child shouldn't object to being registered with the LA and having regular check-ins to make sure that everything is going as it should and the child is safe and happy.

The 6 week summer holiday is definitely an issue and anyone who works in schools will say it's a safeguarding problem. However, it's unlikely that a child who has been looked after well for the entire school year will suddenly be abused or neglected in the 6 week break. Children at risk of harm in the holidays are at risk all year round and this has likely been picked up already by the school and social services are in touch.

What do you count as ‘actively avoiding’

Home Ed children are visible at groups and appointments

Sara wasn't murdered because she was home Ed. And I repeat when a parent deregisters a child from school the school have paperwork to complete and send to the LA home Ed team.

On that paperwork it asks for any concerns the school have about this child being home Ed (academic or safeguarding). The school can highlight why this isn't appropriate or their concerns.
Either the school did this or they didn't. If they did it this should have been seen by the home Ed team and actioned. If they saw it and didn't action they didn't do their job. If they actioned it and social services ignored they are responsible.

If all those professionals failed to do their jobs that is not the fault of home Ed.

There is no point bringing in more hoops if the hoops already in place aren't being utilized.

First they came for the home elders, but I did nothing as I'm not home educating, then they came for the SEN and I didn't nothing because I don't have a SEN child, then they came for the poor parents and I did nothing as I'm not poor

They didn't bother with the actual criminals and at risk because that actually takes work and those families are difficult so they ignored them.

Then they came for me but there was no one left to help. Only criminals who now run everything were there and they now have full run

My response was to a previous poster who used the term actively avoided. I took from their post that they think families can just ignore informal enquiries and have no follow up. This is not the case.

Unfortunately parents often feel they have to take their child out whether they have the time/capacity to home educate properly or not. This is due to the child's SEN, mental health or school anxiety.

We simply had no choice as going to school was making my child physically and mentally ill. We were lucky that we took my child out before she became too unwell and we had the money and she had the capacity to do online schooling. However she was barely able to leave the house for months because of the damage attending school had done. The push on fining parents whose children can't attend is also fueling this. Despite school clearly making my child ill eventually we would have been fined for them not being in school. I think this also forces parents hands to move to home education sooner than they might otherwise have done.

To put things a different context

In the UK if you get caught speeding by camera or by police. The process is to fine and points. Too many points you lose licence.
This is a legal process - now imagine rather than actually do this process some people are just not getting their points added and don't lose their license. We then have a situation where people have been killed by speeding drivers because the process wasn't carried out correctly. Rather than making sure these processes are now carried out correctly they decide to blame all drivers even those with no points.

People say drivers are dangerous and we have to watch all drivers constantly and punish them if we think they may speed. The limit is 30 so anyone doing 28 will now get points. Meanwhile those doing 45 will be left alone b cause we're only monitoring the maybe a risk and ignoring the known risks

Everyone will target drivers and say if your not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear but the jobs worth monitoring you believes all drivers are bad so they are extra cautious and fines are issues even when you are operating within the speed limit.

This is Great right as it will save lives except the real risk of 45 speeding in a 30 is still happening as no one dealt with the real issue and failings that started this targeting of drivers in first place

If social services can't act when a child is known to be at risk then this is where resources need to be targeted.

If LA can't act when a child is known not to be getting an education. When they can't meet the needs of children enrolled at school then this is where resources need to be targeted

If these issues are resolved first and foremost most of the other issues will also be resolved under those umbrellas.

Home Ed children are visible at groups and appointments This is exactly what I mean when I say that people denying that there are issues within home ed are part of the problem.

What about the children who don’t go to any groups? There are plenty who don’t for various reasons.
By appointments, I assume you are referring dental/GP but they are with a parent present or they simply might not have any appointments! Let’s face it a huge number of families don’t have access to a dentist at all and when mine go it’s a quick in and out appointment, they aren’t doing safeguarding referrals unless there are very very obvious signs of abuse.
You only go to the GP if you have reason to go, if your child is generally healthy they aren’t going to be visiting the GP, and vaccinations are optional so you can easily skip those without question.

I don’t think it does us any favours to deny that there are kids who are not visible, it is something that does exist and there are safeguarding concerns around that.

Despite school clearly making my child ill eventually we would have been fined for them not being in school

I know it isn’t relevant to you now if you are EHE, but the threats of fines are just that. Scare tactics. Despicable behaviour. The Regulations (School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024) make it clear where a pupil is absent because they are unable to attend due to sickness, including mental ill-health, the absence must be regarded as authorised. The absence must be coded as I, thus not lead to fines/prosecution. The LA would not be able to successfully fine/prosecute. If they tried, it could be successfully challenged.

Sara was visible and ignored by social services

It doesn't do any favours to blame home Ed when the issue is social services ignoring g at risk children

Everyone I know who home Ed is visible. Those who are underground and hidden won't become visible by targeting the visible home Ed families.

We need to make sure that SS actually do there job and support those in need not actually make it harder to safeguard actual at risk children by targeting safe children.

I did think this too on the coding that it should be coded as illness. However despite evidence from the GP and mental health in schools team all absences were coded as unauthorised despite me pushing back to the school.
Made a very stressful situation even worse.

Lots of parents have been fined in instances like that. Some have even had to go to court

You have a very optimistic view of the efficiency of Local Authorities. In reality there’s little capacity, resource or in some cases motivation to pursue. They’ll also always be children who only just satisfy their requirements but for whom a SAO would be a waste of resource. There are many people who home ed who never have contact with the LA - some have said as much on this thread.

The point raised by a pp of what constitutes “Active Avoidant” is pertinent because if you can’t easily define it how can you apply it in practice.

@Eastereggmadness that happens a lot, but it can be challenged, legally if necessary.

@Leftrightmiddle as I said, if LAs try, they can be successfully challenged.

And yet you think the LA can handle more work and more oversight when they aren't even doing the minimum they should do now

But it's all additional stress targeting the families already at breaking point with punishments and threats rather than actually providing what is needed for the child to access education

Where have I said that?

I didn’t say it wasn’t stressful and I didn’t say it was acceptable, quite the opposite actually. I was merely pointing out it can be challenged.

But at least those parents were given the opportunity to learn better grammar etc, an opportunity they are taking away from their children.

There are two people I can think of that I went to school with and were middle set/average across the board and left with mostly B and C at GCSE. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but they are now adamant they will be homeschooling their now toddlers.

They have no idea how academic their kids will be, but one is already talking about how she is teaching her 3 year old daughter about beauty treatments so she will be “the best beauty technician ever as she’s learned about it her whole life”. What if that kid wants to be a doctor - there is absolutely no chance that will happen if she’s home schooled by her nail technician mum on beauty treatments her whole life, with no academic rigour around sciences or broader topics.

The other incorrectly cited a scientific paper the other day to support her conspiracy belief. When challenged on it, her supporting evidence was an instagram post.

I would really like the next generation to have better critical thinking skills than that, so yes it is my business. The education of children is everyone’s business, especially where the parents are making bad decisions.

Getting to 16 and being able to cook and clean is great, but it won’t get most people further than being a good house wife or house husband.

I’m not saying homeschooling isn’t the right answer for some children, I’m sure it is, but I’m confident that the social media trend toward homeschooling is will be on the whole detrimental.

But why do you see it as targeting? I've seen it in the facebook groups that people are extremely aggressive and against LA contact. Someone popping by every so often to say hello and ask your child if everything is OK, or even doing so on Teams, shouldn't be seen as some sort of massive attack on your family. Neither should the LA keeping a record of children who are being home educated. If your child was in school a teacher would be doing this daily.

I'm sure you are right. But there no way we could have faced dealing with the stress of a legal challenge alongside everything else.

You said LA are not efficient in previous post. Your whole thread is about more monitoring of how Ed

But they can't even do the monitoring they are meant to do now efficiently

If you go on your local government ombudsman you’ll find case after case of the LA poorly administrating SEN place applications - they really are very inefficient

That’s fine. Some make that perfectly valid choice. I just wanted to point it out mainly in case anyone else was going through the same now whose absences were not being recorded correctly.