Insane rise in home schooling?

[whyohwhy246]

Has anyone else noticed a huge increase in home schooling? Someone I follow in IG has just deregistered their child and I just can’t believe how many families are choosing to do this.

Of course it is sometimes the right choice for the child but it seems that more and more children are being allowed to opt out of formal education.

Teenagers need to learn that life is hard and school will throw challenges at them. How they learn to deal with this impacts how they handle things as an adult. What happens when they enter the work place and they can’t just opt out of the difficult things? Where do they learn that resilience?

I have worked in education for 20 years and whilst I agree that some aspects of the system are broken, I don’t think home schooling is the answer to this.

The social aspect alone is impossible to replicate (walking to school together, having your first crush, a detention, school trips I could go on and on…) but I also don’t see how all of these parents can have the skills to teach their children to GCSE. I also find it so insulting to teachers who spend years learning their craft. It’s not just something you can pick up and do effectively.

Has anyone else noticed this?

So many diabolical and sad experiences at schools and yet it just continues to go on and on.. and then you get angry teenagers with attitude because they don't know what to do about the way they've been treated.. for the developing very important years of there lives.. Unless of course you you can afford to pay for a decent school.. same old story.. money talks... It's the only thing those"in controll"can hear!!!

This seems like an utterly bizarre hill to die on 🤣 why does it matter so much to you?

People call it home educating because legally that is the correct term in the UK. I couldn’t care less if other people want to refer to it as home schooling (it’s not legally correct in the UK, but it matters not either way, unless you’re talking about it in a legal context).

citation: (walking to school together, having your first crush, a detention, school trips I could go on and on

if this is all a teacher can tell me about so called social life, thanks God I think you are a lousy brainless what name and that my child is not in your class

Yeah it’s a bit worrying. I’m sure that some parents do a good job, but then there are also children like Sara Sharif. I imagine that the number of parents who are actually intelligent/educated/good enough to home school their children isn’t as high as we might like.

" I also find it so insulting to teachers who spend years learning their craft. It’s not just something you can pick up and do effectively." This says it all. It's not about you, and we're not trying to be teachers. It's completely different.

what do you see? Just families living their daily lives and educating the kids.

The vast majority of murdered and abused children will, statistically, have attended school.

I actually think I'm putting my child's education first by home educating him; the quality of education he was receiving at school was dismal.

exactly, who in their right mind will want their lovely gentle loving polite gorgeous pretty child to be in such hellish environment.

misus, what are your so called other life skills in a place where: girls drag other girls by the hair, teachers are beaten up, girls show off their bums, bullying and name calling, horrible stiff weirdo looking uniforms, toilets locked.....

Schools are massively underfunded, there aren't enough support staff or resources, classrooms are so chaotic that often there is very little teaching or learning happening.
COVID also proved that for many kids learning at home is the better option, the same as many adults now work remotely. School has always been miserable for many kids and is not the best way to learn for many. Homeschooling just wasn't as easy an option before.
Me and siblings were all home schooled for all or part of our education. We all got very good grades at school, firsts at uni and a distinction at masters level. We all have friends, families and successful careers. Neither of our parents were teachers.

We had 2 ND children go through the school system in Scotland, just when our area was making huge efforts towards inclusion in our schools. Many people saw it as cost cutting, but from my point of view, it was a genuine attempt to include all people in their communities and not have them shunted off elsewhere every day.

Would home schooling have given them a better education? Probably, especially in the pre-16 days. Between us, we could have covered the curriculum without great difficulty. But we didn't for one reason alone - socialisation. Our children needed to learn to negotiate the world around them and, much to the shock of the headteacher of their primary school, we told him that we felt academic work was secondary to socialisation (he had not been responsible for SEN children prior to #1's arrival at the school with 5 others - we had 3 years experience with the child in a primary school with a special unit).

High school was much easier - #1 and her cohort were the first children there too - and they realised that our experience could be helpful to the school. Both children left with sufficient qualifications to attend university (we helped them a great deal firstly ourselves and post 16 with private tutors - the school knew and supported us). They really blossomed under their universities' student support system. Graduating with a 2.1 and a First, student debt and lifelong friends, we are proud of the people they have become - both working and both paying tax - #2 managed to pay off his student loan after 9 years. I'm not sure education alone would have got them to this point - especially not home schooling.

It's good you don't have to work. We could never afford losing my salary!

You realise that home education is the default in the UK, you opt into school by signing a contract with them to teach your child for
you. HE Familes either choose not to have the state educate their child or they decide the state aren’t doing a good job and upholding their side of the contract
School seems a bit of a glorified childcare at this point so they can have both parents out working. The skills learnt in schools currently aren’t going to future proof these children. They’ll all come out of the mold the same, how to pass an exam with no critical thinking or problem solving skills, as the system doesn’t allow that kind of independence.
The social options for HE kids are actually better, if you get them involved in groups etc they are dealing with many different ages rather than just their peers they are forced to.
Maybe OP should do some reading my Naomi Fisher to broaden their understanding.

The provision provided by state school is becoming worse, private schooling is becoming harder to afford for more people. Homeschooling is the best option for many children.

A huge proportion of state schooled children achieve poorly in terms of academics, and many of the things children learn in school outside of academics (eg socially) is not what you’d want your child to learn anyway. Contrary to what you seem to believe, bullying is not inevitable and it certainly doesn’t benefit any child to engage in a system where bullying exists. I have also spent a lot of time working in schools and I’m surprised to see you seem to have a very rose coloured view of what state education actually provides.

I did not day bullying does you good. Bit of a stretch

When you’ve had an 8 year old tell you that they don’t want to live anymore then please come back and say ‘bullying builds resilience’. If we hadn’t taken action it wouldn’t have been anyone’s problem as she wouldn’t be here! We were fortunate enough to be able to pay for a different educational experience but I would damn well have home schooled if necessary. And yes, I am completely competent in home schooling to gcse level and would have got the right resources for a level (could actually have schooled in 3 of the 5 options she actually did)
I believe that a lot of ND traits are actually an advantage in the current working environment, and part of the increase is that many are genetic and these people have a competitive advantage in many corporate environments. School needs to keep up, being ‘top dog’ or understanding how to deal with them isn’t valued anywhere near as much, being able to understand masses of interconnecting components and how they fit together is and that is a key element of many people classed as ND
Finally, how many ND people do you need before that becomes the norm and the previous NT actually become the minority. I think this is coming way faster than people think. I firmly believe in 20 years anyone that can’t process information at these levels will be assessed negatively and schooled will damn well need to change

I don’t see anything. That’s the headline of the article.

I say this based on my own observations and practice. If you are a strong teacher who can create a positive, controlled environment in a class a lot of the issues that people with neurodivergence can, if not be solved entirely, be alleviated.

But, too many classes are chaos. They are awful places to be. No wonder children get anxiety and a trauma response to school.

But, the culture is not there to either 1. Respect the environment, where there is a huge level of entitlement in behaviour to challenge authority at will or just do what they like. "No" is a word many children no longer respond to, they cannot cope with it, so they respond incredibly negatively to boundaries, or 2. Take responsibility for their own behaviour. It's never their fault. There is always a reason why then do not control themselves.

The profession does not attract enough teachers who can create the positive environments needed or get the experience needed to create them.

And, here is the perfect storm where home schooling becomes the option many turn to.

For alot of parents with SEN kids there's no alternative. I have a friend with 2 autistic primary school age children - 1 has selective mutism and cannot speak in school which means she cannot communicate her needs, cannot say when she needs to go to the toilet. For 6 months her mum had to go in 3 times a day to take her to the toilet. The school cannot meet the needs of either child - there's no funding and 1 assistant across the whole year group. Class sizes are big and and not enough support in class. It reached a point where she could not physically get the kids to school and then st school they could not cope. It is near impossible to get any outside support because there are so many hoops to jump through. So now she home schools. Kids are happier. They are super bright and learn alot more than when they were at school.
My child has ASD with PDA and we send him to a private school - 19 kids in a class. No uniform, sen centre, 1 teacher and 2 assistants in a class - and for now he is thriving. Public school just cannot meet the needs of the increasing number of SEN kids.

I'd have agreed with you a year ago, but after I've seen just what school leadership will do to cover their arses, I can see why people home school. Ofsted ratings chasing results in leadership acting in ways that have nothing to do with the wellbeing of children. They just follow policies, apply zero tolerance to everything, use no judgement whatsoever. And bullying. Ha, fuck off with your bullshit about how you manage bullying. You just stick everyone involved (victim and perp) in the pointless SEAL sessions that just alienate well behaved children who are trying to get on with work.

Not sure about that.
The workplace has a lot in common with the schoolyard.

We need to look at what is causing the increasing numbers of SEN children.
While some might be genetic, there are environmental factors too - children are on smart devices from a very young age compared to previous generations.
Families are smaller, women with children are often on their own compared to our grandmothers' generation, having babies later, etc.

Not read the full thread but sped read a few pages and as the parent of a child who ended up home ed, I would say the government and education professionals should be questioning and looking very hard at WHY this explosion has happened. I can think of very few people who would want to home ed as their first choice! Mainly it seems that it is parents like myself who have found their child crammed into an education system that utilises a "one size fits all approach"
This coupled with the utter chaos that massive secondary schools - our formerly excellent rated state school that my 3 other children had gone to - now has over 2500 students, spread across a vast campus and I believe has the 4th largest 6th form in the country. It has gone from being a place of pastoral support and nurture into a sort of military-esque production line. The accommodations and reasonable adjustments for neurodiverse children appear to have all been removed, staff (long standing and well respected) have left in droves since it became part of an academy set up and despite my daughter having a very robust EHCP with top level funding, they absolutely could not meet need and sent her anxiety through the roof.
The latest white paper on SEND is very worrying with yet more focus on getting ALL students (at least vast majority!) into mainstream education come hell or high water. Whilst the sentiment of inclusion is supposed to be behind this, the reality is very different. I say this with experience of a medically/physically complex autistic child who is cognitively typical but absolutely could not cope and whose needs were entirely sidelined. Removing her after 4 hideous years was a last resort but absolutely the right decision. We and she worked hard to maintain routines, ensure she met friends outside of school and build on her independence skills. The large number of health and social care professionals we deal with were understandably worried about what removing her from school would do but each and every one has seen the huge change in her and that she is achieving so much more than she ever could have in the mainstream space. All have been impressed with her progress and development and stated that it was most definitely in her best interests to proceed as we did. I only wish we had removed her sooner.

I’m sure it works for a lot of children whose parents are fully committed and can genuinely help them access a varied education in lots of different ways. I think it’s sad if all it means is being plonked in front of a computer or iPad for online lessons. I hate to say it and no doubt I’ll get flamed but some parents will lack the resources, imagination and intelligence to ensure their child gets a rounded education. If deciding to homeschool is simply a reaction to a teen who has no boundaries not wanting to get up before 11am, then that’s reactive rather than being a conscious choice for the benefit of the child.
Im also not understanding how all these parents are finding the time. What about those that work? I fear it will be the province of well off people who can afford to quit work (or never had to work).