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.

Very pleased to read that you no longer teach.

Do you not understand trauma and anxiety?

School caused so much trauma in my child that they struggle if we need to drive past the school.

Certain subjects cause such a trauma response in child that when you get sibling was watching a learning video at home (that older child had done in school( it caused a flashback to a traumatic event that happened while doing that activity at school.

We have looked at tutors but someone with the right understanding and skills is difficult to find because they have to work in a way that doesn't trigger flashbacks. We had one online tutor who was fabulous but this was a short term arrangement through a charity and can't be booked direct.
We have struggled to find the right people.although we do have a tutor once a week for one subject who is amazing and has had such a positive impact. We know with the right approach and right person our child thrives but the wrong person and wrong approach sends our child into a state of anxiety and crumbles their self esteem and confidence.

You are a perfect example of a tutor that would do more damage than good

100%.

Trauma - here we go. Millions of men were marched over to the trenches and blown to pieces but now school causes trauma.

Yes, for some, school causes trauma. You might not understand it. That’s OK, some are ignorant to the fact, but it is true.

Yes trauma can take many forms but clearly you don't want to listen to other perspectives as you assume you and only you can be right

THE POORS ARE STARTING TO HOMESCHOOL OH NO

That’s hilarious 😂

I know, it disturbs me a lot that the non-native English speakers can write and speak English a lot better than a large chunk of our population who have never grasped even the basics of English grammar.

And yet you think the British education system which has educated those same native people is the answer

Now that is funny

I don’t think it’s the answer actually. I just have a lot of worries about the quality of home education. Doesn’t it concern you as to the massive range of quality of education that is open to home educators? I am absolutely aware that schools are not perfect. I’d never contemplate state schools for that reason (I would home educate rather than that). But I do really worry about the number of children whose education rests in the hands of their parents. And my guess is that many-most parents are not able nor willing to provide a good education for their child, for various reasons.

So you think most parents can’t provide a good education, but wouldn’t use state schools and would instead EHE. Right.

Do you not believe most parents want the best for their child?
Do you not want the best for your child?

Why do you care what others do education wise? It makes no difference to you if someone uses a local school, a private school or home education.

You don't seem interested in actual knowledge and extremely or those who know about home ed

I think I’m thinking about wider society. We’re competing against other nations and standards in those nations with whom we compete for power are rising. Innovations and tech are increasingly coming out of Asia and our standards are falling. We only need to look at the stats on young people out of work. Education standards are falling. Respect and discipline is poor. Resilience is on the floor. Education is the answer to that and I believe schools have to play the greatest part in that.

Yes I do think most parents want the best for their children but I don’t think they always know what that is, nor can they provide it for them. I think there is a general problem now with parenting not tolerating discomfort, in themselves and in their children. That link that the other home ed parent posted to the ball which someone organised referenced the children who are too anxious to go to school. Why do we have such large numbers of children who are too anxious to go to school now? School hasn’t changed particularly in the last 20 years. But our ability to tolerate discomfort has changed and the language we use has changed - worried has become anxious (a clinical term); trauma is overused. Normal feelings are becoming medicalised. And the knee jerk reaction to that is to withdrawn children from a school environment

I am very interested, how do people fund it? One person needs to be teacher so can’t work (if they’re doing it properly) - what about single parents or families with low incomes? What about paying for tutoring, trips, activities etc?

School has changed enormously in the last 20 years!

Academisation.
Fall in real terms funding per child for 15 years now.
Much more demanding curriculum.
Loss of creative and vocational subjects due to Ebacc.
Loss of private options due to cost increases and tax changes.
Degeneration of school estate due to capital budgets being reduced up to 90% in 2010.
Punitive attendance policies.
Shortage of teachers intensifying.
Extension of compulsory school age.
Withdrawal of Educational Maintenance Allowance.
Introduction of Pupil Premium.
Changes to Ofsted.
New SEN system from 2014. Currently being dismantled.
Closure of Sure Start.
Greatly reduced availability of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, educational psychology etc.
In wider society:
A financial crisis.
BREXIT.
The pandemic.
Greatly increased rates of poverty.

!!!

The most beautiful written English I have ever come across is that of my husband's Indian graduate engineering students.

But all of that sounds like stuff kids could do outside of school? I'd expect most children who go to school 9-3 to also be taught to cook by their parents.

"child-led" learning doesn't work for anything beyond vague generalities because a child doesn't know what type of learning is out there they've never heard of! If a child has never been to school or dropped out age 12, they could have a brilliant mind for science but they are never going to turn to their parents and say 'Mum can we learn about theoretical physics' today because they don't know such a thing exists, and unless their parents took at least physics A level they won't either, or if they've vaguely heard of it they won't know how to teach it!

Same with any other subject - you could say 'well they are learning maths by helping out with the shopping and household budget' - yeah okay maybe they are, and you take the fact they are very good at basic addition and subtraction as evidence the 'unschooling' is working - but that child could have a real talent for maths and, if in the top set of a mainstream school, could be doing advanced equations and looking to develop that talent into a career in engineering or finance or whatever, none of which they can do if they never progress beyond the limit of their parents' knowledge.

I don't think our current school system is perfect by any means, and tbh probably would have preferred being home educated myself! But there should absolutely be more regulation around it.

But you could completely turn this around the other way. I home educate and am child led. Today, with my 7 year old, we learnt Roman numerals. We looked up the history of how they created them and why we didn’t
keep this system and its limitations. We discussed why we have a base 10 system and where this comes from which led to looking at the mathematical systems of the Babylonians and Egyptians, looking at base 60 compared to base 10. We then went to the library and found a book on maths which led us to the history of algebra and what algebra is. And after doing all of this, we still had time to bake and garden. If my 7 year old was in school, this would not be his history so he wouldn’t have been exposed to it. And do you know where he first learnt about Roman numerals? From Mr Beast! Children are exposed to so much of the world. Saying that they need school to do this is ridiculous. And I didn’t know about base 60 but I’m pretty capable of googling it and going to the library.
how have we decided that it’s important to learn about the great fire of London and the Tudors but not the Babylonian base 60 number system?

You've missed the point that @latetothefisting was making. They're not saying that you can't learn things if home educated; more that school taught children can do that on top of school.

I can't remember which of my dc asked about Roman numerals after seeing them at the end of a book, but the oldest was still at primary, so the youngest would have been at most year R. They spent the afternoon setting each other sums in Roman numerals and the next day after church they discovered that some of the tombstones had dates in Roman numerals and had a lovely hour going round decoding them - and teaching the other children how to do it too.

They baked bread together that afternoon - because they numbered the bread with Roman numerals, and had plenty of time to do other things.

The point is not whether home school children have access to this sort of thing, but more that children at school have evenings, weekends and holidays where they can be doing exactly that sort of thing, but school can open them up to a different variety of things.

My dc always got a lot of maths and science because that's what me and dh are interested in, and that's often been the sort of thing debated at dinner and then looked at afterwards.
But through school they found other interests that we wouldn't have come across because they weren't on our radar. All of them came home at times with something they had learnt at school/through school friends and wanted to know more about.

You can do all this in addition to ordinary state schooling. At the same age, I spent a great deal of time leafing through the set of encyclopaedia that my parents bought for me and used to discuss arithmetic problems with my dad.

I used to take out the maximum allowed number of library books from our local library. When I found a book on a language that interested me, my mother borrowed it for me since it was in the adult section and I used it to teach myself Cyrillic—Mum actually took it to the local bookstore and ordered my own copy for me.

I used the book token that I was awarded at school to buy a book about another language.

When I started taking Latin at high school, I already knew about how Roman numerals worked and about Roman history and myths, courtesy of my reading at home.

Home education can work well at primary level but—in my experience—it's more difficult once you reach the secondary stage and it's a mistake to think that a child cannot learn both at school and at home.

I have friends who home educated, but their children missed out on qualifications at what should have been the secondary stage. Attempts were made to use O.U. courses, but they didn't quite work out.

It's also fairly obvious that the children—now mainly adults—are a bit clingier than one would expect.

Their parents think that they arranged a multiplicity of socialising opportunities, but the children themselves have said that they regret missing school.

Yes I'm not a fan of the term child led because I don't think it describes what most people do.
It would be rare for parents to expect a child to know what is available to them and it is up to parents to make their world as big as possible, but they do generally want to learn.

However to give you an example of what child led can look like, it certainly doesn't rule out a structured approach at all. My daughter went to a little playgroup that was in Spanish aged about 8. At some point she realised she could learn more in a more formal environment, so we found her some classes. Aged 10-12 she did pre GCSE classes, followed by 2 years at GCSE, sitting it in year 9.

Mine and my husband's backgrounds are in IT so of course we expected at least one of our children might go down that route. Despite best efforts, taking them to coding club etc. not one of them has been remotely interested.

🏆🏅Most Moronic Comment of the Thread Award 🏅🏆

Congratulations to you.

Remember everyone; only one thing can cause trauma, and that is war. Anything else you find traumatic, simply isn't - the only traumatic event that can possibly happen to anybody is being sent to war.

That time you were beaten bloody in the school bathrooms? Doesn't count, as you weren't in the war.
That time a 62 year old teacher sexually assaulted you? You guessed it, it wasn't trauma if it wasn't war.

"The children who are being pulled from school for reasons which don't benefit them, and whose education is in the hands of people who do not educate their children properly, is a cause for concern. There are many people doing a wonderful job of homeschooling, and some who aren't. Children deserve a good education and if they aren't receiving it, should we all sit back and pretend it isn't happening? Doesn't it border on a safeguarding issue? "

these kids are our next generation. running the country and making future entrepeneurs if the parents themselves can’t even spell what does that say

also the socialisation of the kids isnt happening properly (not talking about bullying). It is the wild west because some Sun readers just row with the schools and off they pop there kids out end of story its just wrong

I have three home educated children. They've all done well and they are adults now. Two run their own companies successfully and one has a job. They loved learning for learning's sake, read widely and are computer literate. Their written ability astonishes me to this day. I sometimes have to do a double take, thinking 'where did you learn to do that?'

They learned early on how to source information and think critically. They are good people managers - better than me.

I took them out of school because bullying was rife, and violence towards teachers wasn't being addressed. A relative of mine is a teacher in a secondary school and describes it as babysitting. They are so busy dealing with poor behaviour that there is barely any time to teach. We've all read threads here where teachers are either being blamed for everything, or they are thinking seriously about leaving due to the pressures and the way they are treated.

The system is broken and it is really not a surprise that parents are removing their children.

Some posters have said that the activities that home educating parents do can be done around school but that is easier said than done for children like mine who were burnt out from being at school. Time away was for rest and recovery, not playing happy families. So much of the education system is about crowd control.

Ed for poor grammar and typos, and those really won't do from a formerly home ed parent 😑

It all depends on the Head teacher. I think that's the most important thing. Working Supply I saw a lot of schools. The Academy where they were always short of three teachers, but somehow found the money to pay two non-teaching staff members over £100,000 per year. The other Academy where adults would come into the Reception area at the door, not to bring forgotten school kit for their kids, but to demand to know the names of children who'd been dancing on their cars. And of course, the Academy where I had to take a knife off a child who had been jabbing another child with it, had said "Next time I'll stab you" and after I'd taken it off him and got zero help from the school getting him out of the class, found his "punishment" was a one day internal suspension so he didn't have to go to lessons. This was the school where two fully qualified teachers' job was to sit by the front door and when "traumatised" children couldn't be arsed to stay in school and felt like leaving, one of the teachers' job (they took it in turns) was to follow the child at a respectful distance, asking him plaintively if he'd consider coming back at some point. You're right, there was hardly any time to teach. And the tiny, tiny minority of kids highlighted in the Ofsted report who the school was basically run for, stole educational opportunity from every other child there.