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 this is a huge sweeping statement. HE for me encompasses a vast spectrum of qualities and motivations ranging from parents who want to support children with SEND to parents whose children struggle socially to parents with anti-establishment politics to some who are just dropouts who can’t be arsed getting their children out of bed and claim they have “complex needs”.

When it’s done properly and resourced properly it is often far better than a standard comprehensive education. For children with SEND at the moment it’s often a no brainer.

The big problem I have is that as its so easy to deregister children and there is so little scrutiny post deregistration, the system has no way to tell the difference between different approaches.

So a parent with a chaotic lifestyle who just can’t see the point of school and convinces themselves children learn maths by going to the shop and counting the change from a packet of Doritos is treated exactly the same way as a parent who is providing hours of well crafted instruction on a broad curriculum.

I think you’re wrong to use one sweeping generalisation for all homeschoolers. It can be amazing and absolutely the right thing for many young people. It can also be terrible if it’s done badly. I’ve seen examples from both ends of the scale.
I’d actually love to see homeschooling become a much more recognised part of our education system with some schools being given funding to run homeschool hubs that offered advice, support, online sessions and drop in social groups or practical lessons. I’d also like to see parents being able to access some sort of grant to make homeschooling more financially viable. The flip side of that is that I would also like to see some sort of accountability where parents needed to be able to talk through their plans for their child’s education and show that there was some sort of longer term plan in place for them.

You’re aware that ‘the grammar sector’ doesn’t exist in most of the UK?

I think your statement is sweeping and I am pro home ed generally.

But im joining in to say if a child is capable of getting 4 or 5 gcses, I strongly suggest parents should let them do so, not say some schools dont achieve that so I dont need to.

We are in the position of looking for college post 16 for a child without 4 or 5 gcses and his options are incredibly limited. He has no choice over this, but to chose to put him in this position would have been horrid.

Of course life isn't over, but would you really want to do have to travel further, to do a course in a subject you have no interest in, at a lower level than you are capable of, for a year before being able access the ones you did want. Which is the reality we are facing.

It’s also the attitude of “they can just do them at college at 16 alongside another course” right so your children have been removed from school where they could’ve done their GCSEs, kept at home and now they’ve hit 16 formal education is fine after all and the children themselves can take on some accelerated education programme by doing their basic GCSEs alongside their course? Meanwhile their peers banked them a year ago and have the luxury of focusing purely on the post 16 course?!

We home ed our youngest, the school he previously attended agreed that this was probably the best option for him. Our other 2 are doing well in school / college.

I would like to point out that the people who are vocal online about home ed are the people who are choosing to draw attention to themselves, so you will find more attention seekers.

Most of the home ed parents that I know are quietly getting on with planning learning, keeping track of progress, organising social meet ups, recommending tutors or groups. Pretty much all of this happens in side groups from the main facebook group.

The groups that share everything online tend to be quite militant spaces that most people avoid. We aren't looking to change the world, just provide an environment in which our children can learn.

Except they’re not really saying that are they? Given that the premise of this thread is so negative towards home ed they’re explaining why it’s unreasonable to use GCSEs as evidence that Home Ed is inferior when many mainstream schooled children don’t get them either. Lack of access to GCSEs has been repeatedly cited as a direct and accepted negative issue with home education when we can see by the evidence offered on this thread that it isn’t at all.

I know someone who homeschools for a couple of different reasons. Her older children did terribly at secondary school due to the bad social environment in school in the council estate she lived in, and faced bullying. Secondly she has an abnormal/ nocturnal sleep cycle and the school doesn't provide buses to get them there in the morning.

Why does it matter to you? Let families do what suits them. Why is your way the best way? Why is your process superior, as long as they all end up in the same place? Personally I find this kind of rigidity is often indicative of a controlling and unimaginative nature. I’d hate to be like that. I really like that there’s other options. Kids at college are all having the same opportunities even if they are doing their GCSEs a year or two later. To assert that they are having a lesser experience because they should have “banked” them a few years earlier makes no sense. They’re all doing something different, it sounds like you think that for them to all have the best experience they need to be doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way, which is quite odd I think.

I’m just coming to the end of my daughter’s compulsory schooling. If I knew then what I know now, and I was in the same financial position, I’d have homeschooled her.

I know two people who home educate their children.

family 1- home education was almost certainly started selfishly after they experienced a tragic loss and I think the mum found it too anxiety provoking for the children to be at school. But, they’re doing an amazing job. The children have a good education. The only downside for this is their children only meet very similar children to them, and even though the eldest are teens all socialising/ interacting is done through mum with a parent present. I think it’ll be tough when they get jobs/ go to college etc and meet a wider range.

The other family who home educate is due to mum’s neurodiversity. At least one of their 7 children has asked to go to school but they won’t allow it. There are no GCSEs being done and they are very insular. Two of the boys do scouts but that’s it.

It’s a very small sample but I think the problem with home ed vs school is that at least with school there is a curriculum, some are better than others but the children do get an expected education. With home ed it’s purely down to the parents, many are amazing but some are not.

It is harder work for them to do their post 16 work alongside GCSEs. That’s something their peers will not be doing, giving them more time for socialisation and a deeper understanding of their post 16 course.

and it’s not about families doing what suits them it’s about whether or not you believe it always suits the child in question. And having homeschooling parents flippantly say “well they can just do GCSEs alongside their gnvq” doesn’t really give that vibe.

I think the challenge is variation. Academically it feels like it would be fairly easy to keep up with the primary curriculum but I wouldn’t fancy trying to teach secondary without external tutors. I can see it booming though as private schools get more expensive, state schools more restrictive and more options for online school emerge. Something like this for £5k suddenly looks quite attractive.
https://kingsinterhigh.co.uk/key-stage-3-online/#subjectsFilterBlock

I used to be quite anti home education due to the stereotypes but I don’t think I’d rule it out. I do think there have to be safeguards though. A girl from my daughter’s primary dropped out of education alongside her older brother to be ‘home schooled’. Both are not doing anything even vaguely academic and never will.

Same. My DC class has had 4 children taken out to be home schooled last couple of years and 2 of them followed serious safeguarding concerns that parent blamed the school for interfering with. 1 was because school raised the possibility of SEn and it was rejected. One was for more average reasons, the child just didn’t really seem to be able to fit in, or find any comfort, socially.

If I had a young child again I think I would try to home educate till they were 7 as I think they start school far too young and should be at home at that age

My nephew was home educated and ended up getting a Master's degree from a top university while lots of children leave with barely a couple of GCSEs.

The thing about home education is that you can't see inside every home that educates and I' presume you haven't done an empirical study either. So you're judging it based on Social media I should imagine. People who home educate and then wang on about it on SM I'm prepared to believe are selfish twats yes but that's probably not respresentative of home edders. Or it might be, I don't know - and neither do you.

Lots of talk about home educated kids having to do their GCSEs late etc - on the flip side, DD is 11 and will be sitting her first GCSE in May (her choice). It's not a subject usually studied at KS3 so the only resources we had when she was interested were KS4 ones, and it'll be better financially to spread out her GCSEs over the 5 years of "secondary".

Home ed also means she won't be limited by "columns" when choosing her GCSEs - e.g. I wasn't able to take History and French, which devastated me, and had to pick a subject I wasn't bothered about and didn't do well in instead because of school timetable clashes. She has more options for her GCSEs, not fewer.

This is how I started! Little buggers wouldn’t go to school at 7 (& yes, of course we could’ve insisted), or 10, or 11 - I drew a hard cut-off at 14 and the beginning of y10 and for 2-3y before that age each kid had to wean off the unschooling (a synonym for a fantastic childhood) and get up to speed, ready to join mainstream. This has worked for my kids and for our family. It hasn’t been perfect, of course, but it has been wonderful.

Home schooling is an alternative and has pros and cons just like mainstream school does, If I could afford it I'd definitely consider it as option if I was best for my children. coming out with GCSE's would depend on the quality of the teaching, the child's effort and their ability just like it would at school.
Also home schooling doesn't mean they cant leave the house or socialise, I would imagine the parents would make a special effort for them to socialise since they aren't at school.

So a NT child who is bullied at school with school doing nothing should stay there because they don’t have additional needs?

and I hate this thinking it’s ok to homeschool send kids. People don’t want them in school with LA responsible and have no problem dumping that onto parents. I home educate a SMED child not by choice but because the LA don’t plan to educate him at all. How is this ok? And society does not give a shit about our situation. But I get questions lol the time on my other child who while autistic isn’t so obviously SEND and everyone says she should be in school. She was working below national average and bullied and surrounded horrible behaviour, home Ed she’s happy healthy and ahead of same age peers. But because she doesn’t drain resources like my son she should be in school and he should be at home?

if schools were decent then very few people would home Ed. I don’t do this willingly or happily but I do defend the right to home educate absolutely 100% as a get out of indoctrination in future should we ever need it.

DS2 (autistic/ADHD/) had an LA funded bespoke package (he had an EHCP) for internet school and 1:1 tutors in subjects he struggled with (English lit and Lang and history delivered by a teacher from SS school). He took his IGCEs at the SS. I was unpaid LSA.

At mainstream he struggled as they were unable to cope with his profile whilst allowing him to achieve in line with ability. He had been assessed as having ‘genius’ level IQ but TAs were only present in the lower sets in his secondary school. EHCP specified 1:1 but school wouldn’t provide it in higher ability classes arguing it would create dependency and make him look ‘different’.

He ended up with 11 GCSEs grade 7-9 and then went to 6th form for maths. physics and further maths (A star, A star, A) and is now at uni studying masters in mechanical engineering.

This was not a selfish decision. Arguably it would have been more selfish to prioritise my own needs for a good income and pension and leave him in a school that was not wiling to meet his needs.

There’s also the mental health aspect - after half a term his GP signed him off with stress and anxiety - he was constantly being told off for behaviours related to his autism/ADHD that had been present from pre-school and during primary school (he’d had extensive SALT, OT, EP, autism outreach, social skills training, Lego therapy etc).

HE with internet school and 1:1 tutors with me as full time LSA was the best option. It protected his mental health and enabled him to achieve in line with ability. And enabled him to join mainstream education when his ADHD medication was sorted and he had matured out of certain behaviours that were a barrier to learning like not responding to his name, not following instructions, constant ‘noise making’ etc.

To me this is more indicative of your own issues/anxiety/insecurities as a parent than anything - keeping a child at home until the age of 7 isn’t normal or necessary, in fact it could be quite harmful for their social development.

This just tells me you don't have much experience of actual home ed.

If anything the major downside is that it's very inefficient - it makes much more sense logistically to educate children in large groups (aka a school!) but there are downsides to group education in this way which is why some people choose to home ed. SEND is not the only legitimate reason to do it. I also don't think you can blanket paint it as better or worse than school education, though.

What is your supporting evidence for this view?