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.

Some children / families may be able to do other things at the weekend and during the evening.

Other children can not.
In my child's case they were so exhausted from masking at school that evenings and weekends were spent in distress and recovery. Mornings were just a nightmare.
We could never do anything as they were struggling so much with school that they wouldn't be able to leave the house at any other time. They could only hide under a blanket.

They also weren't learning anything at school either.

Now they are in clubs, they see friends and family and they are learning and thriving. It may not look like other children's lives but they are living, developing and making progress. They are excelling in some areas.

It's really hard for people who haven't experienced this to understand. Before we lived this I would have been the same. So I understand that not having experienced it yourself why you are struggling but that's why we share our stories and explain that home ed is not just a choice but often a life raft for some children / families

I do agree with your general point, but the specific example isn't a gotcha because Roman numerals are introduced in the maths national curriculum in primary school (yrs 4 & 5) and they touch on the Egyptian numbering system and the Maya one (which is base 20) in national curriculum history in primary school too.

The older kids that I know who are homeschooled have tutors, sometimes 1x1 and sometimes in groups, so theres no need to rely on parents being experts at higher level education.

I think homeschooling can be much better than school and also much worse - just depends how well-resourced the family are.

And people wonder why people take their kids out of school. This is exactly the kind of thing that was going on in my kids' school when I took them out 20 years ago.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/primary/5498914-child-throwing-chairs-in-classroom

That's fine if you can afford tutors.

I am curious about this too! I met a woman who was homeschooling her 8 year old she was single and had no job. No judgment here I had a child at 16 so know about being on the dole but they pressure you to get a job once your child starts school.
How do all these homeschoolers finance it and justify not having a job?

No, one parent doesn't need to not work to do it properly and LP's are more than capable of home educating and working.

Though there are some Dc's who are home ed because disability stops them getting a decent school education, and they are unable to access EOTAS packages either, at which point they are likely to need a full time adult at home regardless of education situations,

For most of us tou change your entire lifestyle, some more radically than others, rather than saying education must take place at the same time as a parents working hours etc. You take on work that fits, make compromises and think outside the box, as do the DC's. Education is a continuous process rather than must happen between the hours of X etc. Early days I paid another mother and child to sleep over while I did night shifts. More MC parents did well paid consultancy work part time. Horses for courses.

There will be some who use their UC income etc to home educate - perfectly good use for it, and a lot better than what some spend it on surely? I've no idea how all sorts of people justify not having a job, and tbh not that much interest, but i wouldn't judge someone who'd decided to prioritize their child's education. Plenty of well off people not contributing to or scamming the tax pot in order to pay for good education for their DC's.

Us: Lone WC parent & step parent (lost him, kept them) self employed, also often worked nights for higher pay to increase finances. Able to drive, speak English, understand and communicate with others who couldn't, (so insta team leader) and prepared to graft. Creative and practical but a bit basic. Some disabilities.

Used London as a base and stayed, precisely because of the huge resources, work and opportunity potential, and travel/ed out to places of interest and specific use, mainly UK, but including Europe. Often picking up transport loads, where possible both ways, earning money and cutting out many expenses, and giving us bigger worlds and language opportunities.

Like many home educators, cash poor, resource rich. Good at building networks and sharing. Opportunist.
Offspring mainly running their own small scale enterprises from at least teens upwards if not before. 'Pocket' or other money in this family, requires figuring out how to earn it.
It teaches resourcefulness, self reliance, resilience, and a host of maths, finances and how structures work amongst other things.
You cut your coat to the cloth you have, and as with all families everyone prioritizes different things.
We don't do tutoring, because it hasn't been a good use of resources for us, though nothing wrong with it if it suits. We also don't do credit because to me it's madness, but being in debt on plastic seems to be seen as normal by most. Different choices.

Amongst other resources we're well underpinned by the internet (a financially viable resource I and the older ones didn't have when young) and what's accessible through it allows self learners to teach themselves any subject, including what exams seek, to at least A level standard and often degree level and beyond, at the touch of a few buttons. When younger they need assistance decoding and applying it, but you work alongside them and they soon out pace you.
Learning how to research whatever you want from Schrodinger's cat to quality cat memes, from internet to libraries, is key to self education. (but a level of parental supervision, facilitation, and an understanding of why curiosity can kill or harm the cat, is also essential. )
Part of that research is finding out what is where, that will deepen or enhance knowledge or maybe just be fun and fascinating, especially where free or low cost, or if not, how would we obtain access to that? Most things there will be a way.

One of the DC's was horrendously failed by the school system and I went to court to take the annual pupil waiting allowance off the LEA so it could be spent on their education, not squandered. Wasn't earth shattering but helped.

Offered private schools the opportunity to prove their 'social good' as charities by being our exam centers. (Two DC's had their exam fees covered too by them which left more for the others.)

Being vegetarian used to be a good help financially, but that gaps now narrowed.
If you want to ride horses then you muck out stables and look after other peoples to achieve that.
Everyone here can make things, and it's taken for granted, no one's much into brands, but gadgets is another thing but like any family some sacrifices have to get made

Most major museums and many other establishments run to things like microscopes, telescopes, fume hoods etc, and have all sorts of fun things they will let children handle and use. Equipment to learn about things like fluid mechanics, hydraulics, motor mechanics, computer building, electronics, music and art etc is all around us in the world.
Much is free once you learn how to look, at which point you're down to transport costs to access it. Others, careful use and timing of membership deals can cover a lot.
We've made use of much of it including the many Royal academies, Science fair, Clore galleries, Art academies, Verulamium, Eden project, galleries etc and a level of lectures, subjects and opportunities not normally available to people like us, or many through state schools.

Funding more major travel and opportunities, has been mainly achieved by picking up transport work that facilitates it, but there's been times I've done night cleaning and worked on the recycling line, before figuring out how to use art and creativity to make and sell as well as transport to finance life.
Things have often been financially tight, but they where far tighter when the older ones where at school, and we got a lot less bang for our buck, a lot more waste, and they where a lot less happy or enthusiastic about learning or living tbh.. Giving them agency changes many things.

To my mind, the aim of good education be it through school or otherwise, is to create and produce independent learners with width and breadth, able to seek out and use whatever solutions they require to learn and problem solve and have transferable skills. To have depth of knowledge and be apply to apply it and harness it for use and enjoyment, and be comfortably part of society. Figuring out how to be able to afford to do what is outside your easily obtainable range, is all part of that.

I also wanted to know. The families I worked for had a high earning dad and the mums were at home with the kids. I met a woman who was single and asked her because I was also single, I hoped she would have a relatable answer, but she told me she owned a house she didn’t live in and had an income from that. It was disappointing to me (a teacher)!

I don’t think the woman I met had anything like that. She mentioned being homeless like a year or two before I met her. I didn’t want to ask in case it was rude but wondered how she justified to the job centre not getting a job when her kid is 8.

Fair enough, what’s a wc parent?

Working class

Great post @Elleherd

I wouldn't know, but I do know it wont be 'I'm not available for work because I'm home educating' and it wont be in any way directly to do with being previously homeless.

They don't take it into consideration at all, including for parents with a child kicked out of school who can't get a school place. They just sanction them for failing to be available for their work commitments to receive UC.
I've come across a lone parent who was told by their work coach to apply to Social Services to have their child taken into care if they couldn't use school as child care to free them up to work, and had no other child care options, as they'd lose the child anyway when they could no longer feed them without their UC.

Yes WC is working class and why it matters because it can often mean lower education followed by a different range of work is all that's available, such as manual on national minimum wage or (illegally) paid below NMW.
So nights, unsocial hours, dangerous and less palatable work can be a solution to maximizing earning potential if that's your automatic employment situation.

It's why Elective Home Education traditionally tended to be mainly MC (middle class) where parents can often get higher wages for less hours and less physically exhausting and less dangerous work.

My guess would be the parent is considered Low Capacity for Work Capability regardless of their child's existence or age, and it has nothing to do with 'justifying' unavailability, and you're attempting to judge what their situation is through the wrong lens.

Thanks @BeefyOnions

@DoubtfulCat If it's something you want to do, then think outside the box.
While it might be a bad time to be trying to change tack right now (thanks to VAT) you could try looking to private schools, especially retraining within the education sector so your teaching and syllabus experience and understanding are highly useful and transferable assets, but not what or all you're selling, ie: clever accountancy, bursars, potential parent engagement management, maintenance and tax break planning, education H&S, etc especially where there's WFH opportunities.
And or: quality online schools, EAFL, private tutoring, EOTAS provider, specialist education, etc and create an available skills portfolio rather than a single occupation for these 'interesting' times?

Edited to add post it's responding to.

We're a declining nation, hastened by Thatchers decisions about us becoming a nation of service providers rather than engineers and innovators, soon to be exacerbated by AI.

Yes, there's absolutely a generation of parents and children struggling in society and at school, especially with poor MH. But this isn't just about the education system, though it's where some of it's first showing up.
It is an issue within society generally and the majority of state schools at least, aren't in a position to magically fix it, and a fair few actively exacerbate and /or cause it.
You're wrong to think schools haven't changed particularly in the last 20 years, and 20,30,40, & 50 years ago anxiety, burn out, school refusal etc was labelled 'School Phobia' and was provided for by LEA's quietly buying in EOTAS.
Longitudinal studies showed adequate treatment of underlying conditions and situations and provision of differentiated learning (especially for those with ASD) appeared to have far better results in future employment than trying to return these children to the school system.

The school's we had access to where mainly dire in different ways.
What's going on now in many, is not conducive to good education, stable MH, or socialization for many, including teachers.
Three of my (home educated) are working in them, (now in good ones at HL and decent pay) and many school systems have changed hugely and are in constant flux, to the further detriment of many children and adults.

Even private schools have seen many changes in quality and delivery of education, and everyone's trying to provide much with often too little or the wrong resources.
But they're very different education models and systems, often overwhelmed by the differing demands made on them to provide mass education, grading, child/ young person care and support. as well as working parent time child care and supervision, whilst being financially solvent and successful businesses, often in crumbling buildings, and with many skimming resources for their 'key management personnel.'
It's a very big ask.
Many manage to some extent for a majority, but at cost to a sizeable minority.

You're incorrect in thinking One person needs to be teacher so can’t work (if they’re doing it properly) First define 'properly.' I think my Dc's and now Gdc's probably meet societies quite narrow definition of 'properly,' via proven multiple exam results, and subsequent degrees followed by consistent employment. (not my definition of 'properly' mind, just what works for society)

Good home education's about good facilitation of learning opportunity, not being a teacher in the traditional sense of 'pouring knowledge into an empty vessel.'
For many, possibly most, home education generally takes place continuously as a fairly organic process, rather than at a set time 5 days a week between 9.30 -4.00.

Once upon a time I was a terrified failing parent turning to the Home Ed boards here and listening to better educated others who knew about how to live and educate differently and wondering if it was possible to repair what was happening to us, and could people like us, achieve what they talked about. (The answer was yes, with particular thanks to @Saracen for helping me understand it.)

Education's not a chore or something there's a desperate need to rest from, or have breaks from, or be made to do, if done 'properly,' partly because they aren't forced into models of working time only, leisure time only, maintenance time only, rest time only, other than partially during the run up to exams, where it's a gathering together of often relatively surface knowledge of subjects, for formal presentation and accreditation of what's already learnt, known and understood.
Passing exams is a subject in itself nowadays. Learning to time manage is part of home ed and an essential skill for later work.

With the exception of one Dc (acquired brain damage) we're all at least averagely bright, a help, and creativity and depth of knowledge is expected, along with learning to drive and basic maintenance early, though they're all much better educated in formal terms and better all rounders, than I am.

Once past early years I've facilitated and directed their learning and interest in learning, rather than specifically taught them subject content, though I've picked up a fair bit alongside them. I'm mainly the least educated. (but you don't get a dog and bark yourself)

Late in life I've taken BTECS and a couple of degrees having had little formal education and previously self educated as best I could after being failed by the education system. Seeing the same systematically happening to my Dc's and the damage in the process, was the motivation to ensure a better future for them.

...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.
Then we hold different beliefs about whats the answer and plays the greatest part.

When the status quo isn't working, why do you think grinding away at it will suddenly make it work?

Decent work isn't available or accessible to many, especially regionally - regardless of education levels, which lies mainly at the feet of government, but also in schools (and FE's) inability to teach transferable skills and flexibility.

Falling education standards are at the feet of government policies, schools teaching to the test for Ofsted points, and to some extent, busy disempowered parents leaving it to schools to do everything.

Poor respect and discipline is generally a combination of parenting difficulties and poor management of schools, and society teaching children an unsustainable level of unearned entitlement and that they don't have to follow parental expectations outside home. (or even in it)

Unsurprisingly children rebel against respecting systems that insist they must unquestioningly accept things they know to be untrue, like female penises as biological fact, or that being battered for their differences, or downgraded for having different needs, is reasonable as part of their education.

Resilience is learnt first and foremost at home, it's part of the education called parenting. Made very hard to achieve when having to dispatch children into very early childcare, and poorly managed and often violent situations in schools where authority's constantly challenged, under resourced and unable (sometimes unwilling) to meet those challenges, and the model's everyone must tolerate and try to work around the most challenging rather than change it, and accept not necessarily being able to access what's supposedly on offer, and a poorer start in life.

Many children (including ones with high IQ's) need a differentiated way of learning to reach anywhere near the best of their potential, than can be offered by the state school system in the state it's in.

You say you wouldn't accept state education for your children, because you recognize it's too far from perfect, but think the majority of us should? Why? Explain your 'entitled to better' for your children, attitude please? Why are they special?

You may be surprised to find it chimes with those of us choosing different pathways either through necessity, desire, or following our primary legal responsibilities for our DC's education when we know our allocated poorer schools can't provide it.

Many schools are far from the best equipped to replace the role of good parenting, as well as unable to remedy the results of poor parenting, and many parents are struggling to parent well while being expected to meet the increasing needs of earning a living, while providing family life, and the demands of school systems in a society that values financial success and consuming above all, over a civilized caring and reasonably ordered society.

I left school illiterate and innumerate and later withdrew my DC from slightly better but still very inadequate education, broken bones, sexual assault and being shot at and the cumulative damage.
I just wish I'd 'kneejerked' earlier before so much damage had been done, because no matter how surface successful they appear, they carry that damage for life and the body and mind keep the score.

I'm a secondary school teacher who's never considered home education @Elleherd and I found your post really inspiring. You've thought so hard about the purpose of education in a way that many people never do.

Education is indeed too important to be left to the education system!

I wasn’t judging her like I say ive no room to judge as I had a baby at 16 and was on benefits myself, I was just wondering how it was possible financially for her. I only mentioned her being previously homeless to say she can’t have a hidden source of money like being a landlord herself or she wouldn’t have been homeless. I didn’t ask because i don’t know her that well and it would have been rude

@Elleherd thank you and great posts. My daughter went to school because I had to go out to work so HE wasn’t a practical option- she’s older now- and actually has had very good experiences throughout. (I feel like my HE-leaning and experience within schools also helped us to choose the right schools together.)

You’re right about more HE being done in MC households and also about most people’s rather narrow view of what education is or should be. I am fortunate enough now that I get to work in one of the newer settings that have been created in order to start changing the paradigm and actually support some of the young people who’ve been most let down by the system. The administration of SEND is still a shit show, however, and our provision has significant gaps that we would like to close but our college and the LA won’t let us.

@Seashellshesells you’re right about resilience just as pp are right to point out the changes in the education system in the last 20 years (but IMO mainly the ones ideologically driven by Gove and successive Tory governments, plus austerity). We were talking this week about how to get the right balance between pushing young people out of their comfort zones into a growth and development zone, while staying within their window of tolerance. Many of ours have tried so hard inside the system for so long that their window of tolerance has shrunk right down and part of what we do is to try and gently expand it. But if they never leave that tiny comfort zone then they never get to change and grow.

The same will apply, to differing degrees, to children who don’t have additional needs- we all need to learn how to tolerate discomfort and part of what’s so annoying about permissive parenting (as opposed to genuine child-led, authoritative gentle parenting) is the creation of people who cannot tolerate things not going their way. That’s different and probably more limited than people who genuinely struggle more with the world as it is.

Also I do think that the rise in the last 20 years of smart phones, and particularly the increase in very young children using smart phones and tablets (eg while in the trolley going round the supermarket, or in the car) is having and will continue to have quite a devastating impact on children’s development as well as their mental health. Part of that is never learning to be bored, because creativity comes from boredom. There’s much more to it, but it’s easy to forget that the last 15-20 years has seen massive changes within a very short time frame, and we will see the effects for much longer.

I'm really sorry if my post came over at all accusatory, it wasn't meant that way, (though I'd be a liar if I said based on some earlier posts, I was fully expecting a pile on from others about home ed on benefits to follow your question...)
We all try to judge situations to understand them, it doesn't mean we're judging the person in them, (though we may be) but we often are looking at things through the wrong lens because it's what we have been steered towards by politicians, society, social media etc.
ie we wonder how someone 'justifies' not being in work when their child is X age, rather than wondering if actually they don't need to, and their child and what they do with them, is irrelevant to the situation. Others may wonder if having been homeless means there's a different system at play etc..
I hope that makes sense

@Needlenardlenoo Thank you.

@DoubtfulCat Glad things have worked out, and that you're doing what you're doing. If we had had actual 'choices' in which schools, it might have been different, but like many, we found ourselves expected to cross the borough past all our local schools where the sharp elbowed brought up property, to take up under-subscribed places in unwanted schools. School choice has generally been a myth for us with the exception of once, where I fought a child into our 'good' local primary, only to have everyone else trying to fight us back out as not for 'your sort.' As it was now de facto a free feeder school for private secondary only, with only 2 Dc's (one was one of mine) out of 60 going on to state secondary.

Absolutely agree with you about the 'devastating impact on children’s development' of smart phones and screens, and attention removed from what's around them, and would add information overload and over saturation in every meaning of the word.

I shouldn’t worry. Thanks to the ongoing rise of computers education is no longer valued anyway and AI will kill most of what’s left off.

’Beware the darkness of bright lights’.

Not always for the best though. But I agree, I might have considered it myself but I had to work and help with their homework as much as I could. Take them on interesting days out at weekends and have family time.
In some ways I would say home education as a privilege I couldn't afford.

It can be a privilege of choice, and it can be an unprivileged forced retreat, and both ways it's often unaffordable, but some parents have either no, or little choice, whether they can afford it or not.

For some it becomes supposedly 'Elective' when all other choices have been removed.

Are you sure they wanted O-levels?

I disagree, long term close association with peers in school, independent of parental choice/guidance, breeds lifelong friendship, resilience and shared history. Scouts etc is an additional socialization for children at school too and my experience as child and parent is that all socialization is valuable.
Discounting the value of peer and other adult relationships made through school is a loss, not all parents can maximize these other opportunities either (money, introversion, ideology etc)

Really? Does everyone have lifelong friends from school. I don't two of my kids don't and the other two do. Surely it depends on the individuals and how life develops.