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.

That hasn't worked out for me. History and Politics degree, Social Work Post Grad.

"about 10 teachers who have degrees in their subject matter."

Not relevant for primary education and for secondary education, the teenagers would be accessing knowledge from the internet, surely?

Also, in my school teachers didn't need a degree for any subject they taught below GCSE or A level (can't remember which now, but an A level in the subject was enough for the lower years). I'm told this wasn't the case in bigger schools though.

I know an 11 year old who has been attending school since he was four and he can't cope with losing. He has a real talent but is a pain to include in that activity due to his behaviour if he loses. We can't really judge based on one can we. Well we shouldn't.

Because it's not required to usethe national curriculum when home schooling. Think private schools are not obliged to either just state schools

There are posters on this thread who home educate on this thread who have commented about other home educators where they see some cause for concern. In my opinion it’s very naive to believe that that all home educators are doing a good job and anybody who says otherwise is peddling myths. Same as I wouldn’t say all school are good (or indeed literally any role/institution - there are good and bad teachers, bus drivers, plumbers, architects etc etc).

As much as I didn't like school I'm glad I went and was taught by real teachers with actual qualifications 😊

Sounds like you’re doing it absolutely right. 😊

I did consider it for my older two children but thought I’d end up letting them down. It’s a huge decision.

Exactly this. My poor dsd was ‘homeschooled’ by her mother and stepfather for three years from Y1-Y4, which in reality was sitting at home on her iPad/caring for smaller siblings while her mum and SF tried to live off grid and constantly lambasted ‘elites’ and the ‘system’. Dd is now Y7, never caught up on basic reading and numeracy and despite actually being very bright is bottom set and playing up to a worrying degree. Yes there are parents who provide a decent home education but those I have come across are most often ‘hands off’ to the point of abuse. This includes traveller communities where ‘home education’ is preparing children to marry at 16 and conform to strict gender roles.

Yes I agree. I think I read the same one this morning! I’m in lots of hs fb groups and they seem full of ‘how to ignore the LA’ or ‘don’t give them plans/don’t tell them what you will do/don’t engage them- they’re the enemy’ type of comments - often written in quite poor English (more than phone typos)

Behind in what though? Just the teach to test stuff? What about if you question both sets of kids on stuff they are taught. The HS chid who learnt about Romans for example has probably studied it in far greater depth.

Now id never homeschool personally as just CBA yet I know for example the WW2 history y DD was taught for GCSE was far less than the was taught at ATC

Interesting discussion.

i have worked with HE children and agree that for some, it’s done well and I know that some of those I worked with are now out in the world succeeding. Perhaps a little naive at first, but working and studying at higher levels, achieving their dreams and having a wonderful time.

However, what I also learned is that there is a real trend in some areas to HE as part of a carefully curated lifestyle, which looks alternative but in reality depends on the large income of one of the parents to enable the other to HE the children (large because of the area and the homes). Absolutely privilege acquired by conforming to the machine- and if I sound bitter, there may be an element of that because I, a single parent on a very low income, was explicitly judged by these parents for sending my dc to school and having matching socks (no, I’m not joking).
It was often about romantic notions of children running barefoot and free with tangled hair, and staying up late without boundaries like bedtime (one parent of a 5 yo told me that this kid couldn’t possibly do a school run as they didn’t get up until 10 having been awake until midnight; this was most nights). Which is fine if that works for you, but I saw them on social media in the subsequent years and often the kids were choosing school when they were 10/11/12 much to the parent’s anguish, or were almost feral with no skills of reading or writing at all. And also choosing MacDonalds and Haribo and vapes, apparently rebelling against the crunchy lifestyle the parents had chosen for them. At this point the parent would be asking for advice because the kid was out of control or clearly not equipped for life as an independent adult.
Other children grew up still struggling with the world, having not developed resilience or an understanding of people which would have helped them- they were limited in their experience to just a few families that shared tutors and so on.
So I think that some parents may be as inflexible as school- they may have HE as part of their own identity and want to cling to it beyond its usefulness for their children. While others use it well, as an appropriate tool, and successfully change approach if it becomes necessary to.

I now work in SEND and I see the trauma that some children experience from schools which cannot meet their needs (and sometimes won’t meet their need because it undermines their strict uniform or behaviour policies) so I completely understand that some parents are forced into HE; these parents often really suffer financially because they can’t keep their jobs when their children aren’t in school. As well as emotionally and mentally, of course. School doesn’t serve every child and family well, and it’s clear that we need a more adaptive and responsive model; how that would ever be paid for is not clear to me.

In a thread about the education and prospects of the home educated there have been mentions of travellers as a group who are also withdrawn from school. I was drawing a distinction, by making a generalisation and using an anecdote to suggest that, while not necessarily ideal, that this community has some strongly protective features that don’t apply to some of the struggling families now choosing to HE. Travellers, who have worse health and education outcomes will have better outcomes than the HE students I am talking about (again not about all HE students but the recent profile of HE students from my LEA) who will remain illiterate but also unemployable and will be likely victims or perpetrators of crime.

If they are in mainstream, they can EHE in the same way a child without an EHCP can. They don't need to apply or permission.

If they are CSA, on the roll of a special/specialist school and became registered there under arrangements made by the LA, they need permission from the LA to deregister, which isn’t quite the same as permission to EHE.

There is a clear difference between those parents who help their kids get where they need to be, in a job and able to live independently, and those who let their kids stay in their room on the internet and they do nothing educational for years.

How the first type succeed is usually, but not always, by entering their kids for GCSEs that they sit in a school or other centre. They do fine. They are very involved in local networks and I think of these as the Mumsnet type homeschoolers. The kids eventually join a uni course or apprenticeship.

The second type create socially anxious young adults with mental health issues, no qualifications or experiences and they struggle to adapt to returning to education in their late teens or young adult life. They are at risk of being victims of,and also perpetrators of crime and issues relating to safeguarding.
If you had met some of these kids, as I have in my job, you would definitely advocate for extremely strict monitoring of home education.

To be honest, home schooling seems to be these two poles, in my professional or personal life I have not met anyone in the middle. (Disclaimer: this is all opinion based on my experience).

Yes there will be home educated kids that are failed, just as there are school educated kids that are failed. None of the systems are perfect, but unless you have population level data on outcomes, you are just forming an opinion based on a few vloggers.

We are currently unelectively home educating one child, as his mainstream primary couldn't meet his needs and the council have not found a place at a special school, or provided any tutoring. They ask for occasional proof of life to show we haven't murdered him, but no one gives a toss about him having a suitable education. So many special schools have said they can't meet his needs and the council refuse to fund eotis to pay places that can.

Any home ed groups we have tried usually have at least half of the kids with obvious additional needs. I am sure lots of their parents found the system failed them too, so ended up giving in and educating for themselves.

How do you plan to make all DC go to school when providing provision in a school is inappropriate for some DC? A change to how schools operate will help some of those, but for others it won’t change school being inappropriate,

Many state schools are not required to follow the national curriculum either.

its now a social media trend being spread via millennial age parents (who probably had dire school experiences too) and certain posts will by proxy be influencing others.

It’s also a side effect of the way some schools / teachers have lost their way due to pressures of standards and curriculum. And zero real input for send. There’s no real practical guidance from the DfE there. Also funding for schools is a fraction of of what it used to be in real terms.

Concepts and theories around home ex will be being watered down. It’s also very hard to home ed pre literacy and numeracy acquisition. You do need a good understanding of how children learn and different approaches for this.

so I do think there will be a generation of kids who are illiterate. And many adult education centres set up for these people in the future.

I wouldn’t put it past adults in the future to find some way to sue their parents or other professionals for allowing it to happen.

YANBU my tiktok is full of people who can't string a sentence together claiming they will be home schooling their kids because of some imaginary slight by the school

The issue is there is no framework for that , and even if there was , it couldn’t match every situation. Add in prejudice and a tick sheet and it’s not as clear cut whether children are neglected educationally or parents are doing the best they can with the needs their children have.

Even in schools not every child makes progress or a set type of progress. Settings will vary in terms of curriculum, expectations etc. You’ll find 8yos in our SLD unit that are still in nappies, non verbal and can’t add , read or write. Because they can’t and possibly never will. So the focus is on (basic)communication , social skills and some independence and fine/gross motor skills.

@Iamthemoom here is someone who has met five homeschooled children in real life. These conversations are worth having to weed out the people who are failing their children and is not aimed at people like you, who DID do a good job. Children deserve the best and there are children at risk of being failed. Not yours obviously, but they do exist.

Yes academies don’t have to

but as most exams are based on state curriculum they tend to as much as possible

Then you have local dialect to deal with. Round here people drop the H at the beginning of words, and I have read so many posts on local Facebook pages saying, for example, "As anyone seen my cat?"

A friend of mine decided to home educate her 4 children. One day she decided it was impractical. When she sent them to school the teachers rapidly realised that three of her children were dyslexic. It hadn't occurred to her that this was the case.

I need to add I know some excellent home educators but they’ve dedicated their whole family set up and lives to it. Their children are taking GCSEs and alevels.

It's a mixed bag out there for sure. Some parents I know who do it have a background in teaching and seem to be very aware of their limits; provide other adults and activities for specialist subjects and seem to really want their kids to do well.

Others seem to think education isn't of any importance whatsoever and if they got by without it then so will their kids. I've seen some spectacular levels of arrogance from parents around teaching complex subjects and kids who think they are genius' who can barely string a sentence together let alone do basic maths, because that is all their parents can offer. I suspect the Trumpian levels of ignorance mean cognitive dissonance is so strong they actually believe they can teach to A* level the entire gamut of subjects all by themselves.

I do not envy the further education departments that have to scoop them up and re-educate them so they can get jobs or back into mainstream. Many will be hugely defiant because they've had it hammered into them not to listen to authority. It reminds me of the very indoctrinated religious groups where they aren't taught basic biology because they don't want to corrupt them (or give them free thought). Sadly it's the kids that suffer in these scenarios.