To think that homeschooling (without additional needs) is selfish?

[IndigoFlamingooo]

I’ll start by saying that obviously for some DC homeschooling is unfortunately a necessity for various reasons eg: SEN/medical & MH problems/severe bullying etc. These are all valid, understandable reasons to take a child out of school.

A very different scenario however is when parents actively choose to take their child out of school for no good reason other than they think they seem to think that being taught at home is somehow going to be a better experience for their child. In reality this ends up being detrimental as a) the parents are not qualified teachers b) the child is isolated & not socialising enough with their peers and c) they end up without proper qualifications. There is even an online trend of parents trying ‘worldschooling’ - in other words travelling the world instead of school as apparently this will be a more worthy education!

On many of the homeschooling pages a common complaint is that their DC have the bare minimum (if any) GCSEs and are therefore struggling to progress into further + higher education. To me this is the height of parental irresponsibility - knowingly putting your child’s future at risk should count as neglect.

Before anyone asks - the only reason I follow these homeschooling pages is that we briefly considered it for DD when she was 15/16 due to severe medical issues at the time that rendered her unable to attend school for a year. Thankfully now resolved.

I think that the vast majority of parents want to do what’s right (or what they believe is right) for their child. I’m not here to judge them for that.

Some schools are becoming very violent places. I work in a large primary - having come back to teaching after a long absence - and remain astonished at the level of need of individual children that are now in mainstream.

I am offering neither reasons nor solutions for this, but if I had a child who was being persistently adversely affected by a violent classmate (as was seen on a very recent thread), and I had the means to do so, I would home educate in the blink of an eye.

A parent is a child’s primary educator and the one ultimately responsible for them. Seeing the state of many schools and also what is taught in then with respect to sex/gender ideology as well as the violence and bullying I think parents are totally sensible to remove their children. It’s usually done after a lot of thought and considerable sacrifice by the parents of their free time and ability to work outside the home.

The reason I say you are unreasonable is because there’s a few general assumptions in your post.

Some parents pay for the children’s GCSEs. We can’t assume that all parents are not doing it properly with some perhaps even using tutors, online lessons etc.

Regarding the travelling home schoolers, I think it’s nice to give them the opportunity to explore the world which they may never be able to later on in life. Some people live differently and that’s ok.

I think you are unreasonable to lump all in together. There are those who fully plan their child's education, use recognised tools to monitor progress and tutors to fill gaps, ensure docial opportunities with a wide variety of children and genuinely do it as best option for their child. Then there are those who do it for more selfish reasons such as to avoid termtime holidays fines etc, and even for sinister reasons, such as to avoid school contacting social services with their concerns.
I do think it should be more closely monitored, in a broadly ofsted type manner with regular checks of learning and progress by a qualified professional

Mine were home educated for SN reasons.
During those years (last 10+ years) the largest growing group of people home educating their children were teachers, leaving the profession and doing everything they could to make sure their own children were not in the system.

I always thought that was rather telling.

The home Ed community is often thriving and the children take GCSEs.

You only need 5 to get into college and 3 A levels for uni - if that’s what you want to do in the future.

Lots of time to learn other skills and enjoy your childhood.

I work in education!

I can see why for some students it works, for some families it works and for others it doesn’t.

Some people love learning and thrive following their own curriculum and will learn far more with a more tailored learning environment than the curriculum in schools allows.

We don't homeschool but I often think my eldest DC would thrive at home. She doesn't love school and is very academic, so is often bored and waiting. She has friends at school, but there's lots of drama and frustrations and she often chooses to play alone

If we committed to it, I reckon we could do a good job at primary level. We have the skills to research and plan teaching for our (one individual, fairly easy to teach) child. We could afford to pay for clubs and homeschool events, plus tutors if needed. It would be a lot of work to do it well though IMO.

I do agree with you about secondary and qualifications though. I imagine it would be hard going to work on GCSEs at home. That puts me off the idea of homeschooling when they are younger, as it would probably make it harder to restart school later when you aren't used to the routines and rules.

Honestly I think it depends on the situation.

I can definitely see the appeal and I would probably have considered it if I didn’t need to work and if I had the right skill set and knowledge.

I don’t really see what is so great about (state) schools these days. But it’s the only option for us so it is what it is.

I know people that have homeschooled very successfully (kids into uni and doing well). I know people who have homeschooled very badly.

i’m a teacher. My DC was homeschooled for medical reasons in her teens.

for some kids it is better than school.

Home ed pages and groups often pop up on my TikTok. So many of the women (always women) remind me of the arrogant under educated attention seeking mid 2000 wave of home schoolers who were very vocal about how brilliant and they and home schooling were back then. Due to how small the internet was, a few are still friends of friends. They now have grown up children. The incidence of mental illness (serious- self harm etc) and number of them who are trans far exceeds the usual population.
None have any basic academic or career/ life success - and the parents have moved on fluidly to other attention seeking projects. I’m convinced a few actually had fabrication disorder by proxy.

seeing them over 20 years and the outputs of their hoemschooling has made me pretty anti.

Also this always reminds me of Kim Constable- a woman who craves attention and had a turn in the mid 2000s getting attention for sleeping in a massive bed with all her children and “unschooling” them.

She is now an influencer with a good following so we can see Her children (now school leaver age) have achieved zero despite being very privileged in every other way.

I home educated one of my children - autism, no choice, school was completely destroying him.

My other child went to school - also autism but more able to cope. Wanted to go and with support was able to manage at a wonderful mainstream school who adhered meticulously to the EHCP.

Having done both, I would always choose school if possible. My second child came out with good GCSEs and 3 x BTEC merits, place at uni though has decided take a gap year. My first child is also doing well - completing various college courses and now an internship but it was very hard, for him and for me.

I don’t think it’s selfish to choose to home ed though and I think it’s quite rare that parents arbitrarily remove their children from school for no real reason. I have known 100s of home ed children and of all them there was only one family I was concerned about - the parent was a complete conspiracy theorist and when we went for a play date she offered me a beer at 10 am in the morning then proceeded to drink five in quick succession. Every other family I met had made that choice because their child had additional needs or there were other extenuating circumstances - bullying, health issues etc and/or the parent was degree educated, with numerous teachers choosing to home ed presumably unable to tolerate the idea of putting their own child into the education system, which was very telling.

There does seem to be a prevalent idea that elective home educators are mostly silly lentil weavers who are incapable of educating their children efficiently, but that was not at all my experience.

Many state schools are anything but great! I don’t think that keeping kids at home is the answer though.

DD went to a grammar - if you can afford to stay at home in order to educate your DC, along with all of the resources needed to do this then you can most definitely afford a bit of extra tuition (or in our case a prep school) to get them into the grammar sector.

Do you have any evidence of this beyond a few TikTok videos?

I’ve been a part of this community, including some who now post on TikTok to help others starting up, and none of your post rings true. I know more people who HEd to avoid the trans identity placed on their children with school than the other way round.

What sort of evidence would you expect from someone sharing their experience?

On many of the homeschooling pages a common complaint is that their DC have the bare minimum (if any) GCSEs and are therefore struggling to progress into further + higher education. To me this is the height of parental irresponsibility - knowingly putting your child’s future at risk should count as neglect

I was on multiple home ed pages for years and can honestly say I never saw this. Maybe it’s where we live but there are multiple opportunities here for kids who didn’t achieve GCSEs to go to FE college and work up from level one courses in their chosen subjects - eg art, media, business etc - they compulsorily study maths and English GCSEs alongside the courses. Once they complete level 3, and pass the GCSEs they apply for uni or apprenticeships. It is untrue to suggest that GCSES -> A-levels are the only route into higher education.

I'm another one who finds it telling that a lot of ex-teachers home educate their own children.

Parents are the child's first educators. While they might not be qualified teachers, they know their child's interests better than any teacher, and are likely to want and care much more deeply for the child/ren than a teacher.

I live in an area which seems quite active (from an outsider's perspective) for home educating families. There are sports and activity classes with dedicated day-time slots for home educated children in gymnastics, aerial silks, swimming, dance and forest school sessions. Well-meaning parents do not isolate their offspring and do take their children out into the world to socialise! I can't say that I've met any unsocialised home educated children. They are usually much more confident and comfortable in speaking to people of a range of ages, including adults.

I agree that all home educated children should be given the opportunity to obtain GCSEs, A-Levels and other qualifications. I know a couple of home educated children who have ended up on lower-level college courses while they study for the course of their interest, alongside GCSEs in Maths and English. Others have flown academically, and often seem much more mature and able to cope with the world than many teens who were educated at schools.

Op, you don't know what you're talking about. Embarrassingly ignorant. Most HE parents pay up to £100 a week for private tutors across the curriculum for their children, who also enjoy a very active social life with their peers.

There is a strange tiktoker who has done videos about her 15 year old home schooled child being accepted into university to show what a success homeschooling is.

she isn’t that transparent that the child is going to the open university for which you don’t need any qualifications and any 15 year old could do if they applied as opposed to, you know, attending school and taking GCSE’s.

£100 a week doesn’t get you much tutoring though does it? I pay that for my 2 (school educated) children’s tuition, and they get an hour a week each.

I'm an ex-teacher. I home educate my secondary age DD, who has no ALN or medical needs.

There's as wide a variety of those who home educate their children as there is of those who outsource their children's education to schools, so YABU to generalise.

You're getting robbed then

Yes, this one has popped up on my feed recently. It’s all a bit concerning. She fought back at the trolls saying that her DD ‘has no friends’ with footage of her at book club surrounded by middle aged women..! Sitting online 24/7 for an OU degree is no life for a teenager.

I wouldn’t say so. We paid £45 per 1hr session with DD’s A level biology tutor. 2 hours of proper tutoring per week (which wouldn’t cover a very broad curriculum!) isn’t exactly a good alternative to school.