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?

I find your post insulting towards parents left with no choice but to homeschool , and if you can’t see the answer why and your working in the system then you are part of the problem.
also why exactly would you feel insulted ? This isn’t about you it’s about what’s right for each individual child and the school system is not a one size fits all, never has been never will be but as a parent who is de registering their child next week a child I’ll add who has diagnosed autism , and is hearing impaired from a school that have invalidated his human rights to a fair and equitable right to education comparable to his peers I ask is it right that a 4 year old is disciplined for “ not listening “ and in way of discipline .. sat with a sand timer on a chair facing a wall ? And if he dare moves they restart the timer ? Is this normal for a child who doesn’t even understand why he’s sat there , what he’s done wrong other than simply being who he is and apparently “ not listening “ open your eyes to the education system and ask yourself why numbers are rising for parents home educating ? 30 children one teacher one full time TA and 3 diagnosed children with autism and 4 with identified ALN , a local authority that refuses to give funding for these children to have the support they so rightly deserve , “ budget , funding “ words im sick to death of hearing ! I pay my taxes and have done all of my life is this acceptable ? Damn Right it’s not !
to severe for mainstream not severe enough for specialist SEN provision “ SENBETWEENERS” I have a 17 year old who I fought to have statement of special educational needs , he’s now 17 he had full 1:1 support for cognitive and physical disability from the age of 7 , at 6 years old his future was written off “ he will never sit GCSE’s “ “ never amount to anything in society “ came out of school with 8 GCSE’s A*-C grade is now studying in college for A levels to apply for his degree apprenticeship next year , just passed his theory and practical driving test 1st time on both ….. this is what good support and package of care looks like , this is what our labour government are doing to the future generation , don’t look down on the parents that are , present , advocating and doing what’s right in their child’s best interests for their children’s future . look at the systems that are backing parents into a corner with no choice , our government can’t see past the next two years and truth is they don’t want to !
Hope this has given you some clarity on your question and understanding of why this is on the rise. From a mum of two children who are “ Different Not Less “

Paragraphs are good.

my sister de registered her kids from high school because she was struggling to get them all to school on time and the wheels just fell off. It went well initially, things got better for them. Then she realised that she’d have to pay for his GCSEs at a cost of £250 per exam and she hadn’t been following any sort of curriculum. She applied to re register all 4 and they were allocated 3 different schools. Her oldest got 1 gcse and her other 3 managed 3 each which was better.

I archived it for you so it’s readable https://archive.ph/dYbdj

American studies show that home educated kids generally achieve a grade better than schooled kids (https://nheri.org/homeschool-academic-achievement-fact-sheet/).

This shouldn't surprise anyone, if you think about it. The biggest intervention that schools make for kids who are struggling is to provide a 1-to-1 who sits with them, helping them with their learning. That 1-to-1 usually doesn't have teaching qualifications, but they are patient and caring.

The reality is that, on the internet now, you can obtain most national curriculum material and, thus, anyone can be their child's TA. With a child who isn't struggling, 1-to-1 work tends to go faster and the kids go through the material quicker than at school. This frees up extra time for socialising, hobbies, play and community activities. It's not an option for everyone, but it is out there for people who want to (or have to) give it a go.

That's not insulting teachers (and the OP says they're not a teacher or else I'd say they were feeling threatened), as working with a class of 30 kids with varied motivation and ability requires specialist training, but the reason classes of 30 kids exist isn't for the quality of teaching - it's because mass teaching needs to exist for parents to be freed up to do other things.

I find it interesting that you feel home education is insulting towards teachers. I may not have spent a year studying to become a teacher, but while in my school, my son was often left to his own devices and was not really making progress. He was struggling but quiet and compliant. In a class with lots of high needs children, he disappeared and the teacher didn't really know him. At home, he gets the own-to-one support he needs, and is making much more progress.

As for teaching to GCSE level; you do realise that a third to a half of children fail GCSEs in schools, right? At home, children have focused attention so they do not 'fall through the gaps'. Many parents pay for tutors int he subjects they are not so skilled in. In our case, we have four master's degrees between us, which makes us more qualified than most teachers, and we have the resources to pay people to feel the gaps.

As for resilience, that is not what being treating like an inferior, forced to spend time with groups of people you don't get on with and bullying achieves. Resilience can be built in many ways, but school does not support this for many people. Home educated children typically access lots of social opportunities, and often participate in other activities where they get opportunities to spend time away from parents. My son is in scouting, which provides all these things.

As for 'not being able to give up on things you don't like' in life, you are right in many respects. However, I beg you to also observe the huge number of teachers who are leaving education because they are miserable. What are they doing if not making a choice to change the big part of their lives that makes them unhappy? As adults, we change careers, move house etc. I get that we don't always have those options, but for many of us, home education is a choice made after years of struggling in school; not a knee-jerk response to a bad day.

To be perfctly honest besides the genuine SEND children and Self Regulation home schooling movement.
Who are mainly middle class.

From my experience l think there is q movement towards not having to bother to get kids to school. Some parents are really lazy ,just not that bothered and dont see the value of education.

This seens to be prevalent in Communities where girl children are not valued and often treated as servants by their families.

After Covid there seemed to be a growing consensus that people could do everything from home.With hours and breaks to suit them. nd not have to commute and please themselves as to what they did all day

OP, could you please come to my house every morning and frogmarch my kid to school where she was tormented by a group of girls who received no consequences?

While we might be shit at homeschooling she is happy and alive and even has a part time job with shock horror other young kids who DO receive consequences for misbehaviour 🤷‍♀️

I didn’t do great at school but I went and floated, and later got excellent grades at the extracurricular studies and courses I chose to do. No one gives a shit that I didn’t pass the school curriculum these days.

That’s disgusting - the sand timer thing. I’d be fuming.

My sister has trauma from being bullied at school and I still now have recurring nightmares about what she went through. I don’t think it helped build resilience it caused issues.

I think this is a misconception. There is plenty of opportunity to build resilience in every day situations. Children will naturally encounter failure, challenges, social conflict etc if exposed to a range of activities and experiences. I think how the parent behaves when these challenges arise influences how the child develops resilience more than whether they are in school or not. The types of challenges faced in home education are more likely to be reflective of those in real life than those encountered in school, anyway.

Some parents of ND children might be concerned about all kinds of issues like bullying - but also in feeling their child isn't getting enough individual attention (which is very difficult to give).

As a teacher, now retired for 2 years, I was overwhelmed by all the differentiation I needed to come up with. Each ND child had to have the lesson tailored to their needs and learning style.

Once, I had a class of 16 children and nine of them had special educational needs. Yes, I had TA help, but it was honestly exhausting.

It's also difficult in other ways. I u0often had several children with ADHD with some ODD thrown in the mix. Managing all of the class can be very difficult when you're constantly being interrupted. argued with and experiencing "demand avoidance" or defiance in the classroom.

However, some of my favourite children were autistic (to varying degrees) and one lad with Tourette's was an absolute joy, despite his propensity for shouting, "milf" when I walked past 😆.

I'm pretty sure the recent sharp increase in homeschoolers came from the rules put in to criminalize parents for taking children out at school time.

Kids need routine and structure which is what schools provide. They provide familiarity. If homeschooling becomes laying in all day, hours on the pc, no guidance from elders etc then of course homeschooling will be a negative experience.

However, some parents are exceptional homeschooling and the experience will be brilliant and ideal for the child if they cannot thrive in school.

There will be parents who homeschool who realise later on they cannot keep it up, and there will be parents who regret not homeschooling.

There isn't one answer but it is great as a country we have the option to decide as in some countries homeschooling isn't permitted.

I actually think there should be some kind of bridge between schools and homeschoolers to help parents who believe their child will study better at their own pace.

No.

they barely know who is home educated.

in my experience home educated children are much more likely to be at either end of the ability spectrum - so often home educated kids are either those who are very high ability/gifted and talented (went to Oxbridge/competes on an international level etc) or those who have significant special needs, largely because school really isn’t a good fit for either group.

if there is data I suspect the averages wouldn’t tell you much because the kids with severe disabilities are unlikely to be employed whether they go through school or home education and the gifted kids who go to Oxbridge etc are very likely to be snapped up quick.

Or, you could have both...

I have two kids with significant disabilities who are simultaneously academically gifted. Be confused...

And, yes, they do mostly know who is home educated because you have to have never gone to a nursery or a school to be invisible to the local authority, and the local authority tends to ask about future destinations at the end of CSA. That said, they don't keep records on GCSE results and they'd probably not mean that much anyway as schools force huge numbers of GCSEs/A levels onto bright kids to make the timetables work. Home educators tend to only do the bare minimum (usually five) to qualify for courses, and then do enrichment activities the rest of the time.

How much utter wank can one post contain. 😂

I never said it was an " advantage". I merely said if you put a stop to it straight off it doesn't need to become a bit deal.

🤣🤣🤣 that’s a very extreme opinion. My daughter had never experienced that at her school. Sat at home with a worksheet and computer on your own sounds like the most lonely, isolating and depressing experience imaginable.

i am not surprised and if I could afford to home school and not work FT I would!
My DD who is neurotypical absolutely hates her secondary school and is desperate to leave it. She’s in yr8 qnd on many waiting lists. But are the others any better? Secondary schools in this country are massively failing our children. They are dominated by bullies with a very negative aggressive attitude from senior leadership which just makes everything worse. My daughter loved her primary school which was full of positivity and just a great community in which she belonged. There is no sense of any community now. It’s totally shit.
its really not the teachers, but the system is broken.

That sounds nothing like the experience of EHE children that I have come across (and since I am an EHEr, I come across many - do you?).

I feel this is a thing caused by 2 different parenting styles.
1st those people who had their kids at home during COVID and decided they were better than teachers anyway and their kids didn't need to go back (typically people who were poorly educated themselves).
2nd those people who have decided to bring their kids up purely on the basis of "we're best friends " or some type of gentle parenting where they never learn manners, boundaries, or how to cope with being told no - whose kids then naturally can't cope with school or life.
Often both sets of parents try and get their kids back into school when they get fed up of having them home or realise they need qualifications.
Both situations being exacerbated by school suddenly implementing a prison style regime in an effort to manage these poorly parented kids who have no idea how to behave. The stupidity that sees such prison systems implemented affects even the most hardy kids and cause them to start refusing.
I don't count the small numbers of kids who would never accept school and never suited to it in any way as they're actually not that common.

I'm tired of seeing this kind of rhetoric in posts and in the news. My home educated child goes everywhere your children go, they attend clubs, go swimming, enjoy the library, play with friends in the park etc. All the experiences you mention that are allegedly important for children are very questionable (detention!?) and mostly happen and unfold outside the classroom in break time and after school. Kids aren't actually supposed to be talking and socialising in lessons and aren't encouraged to... I know some 5-7 year old children who went to school and started becoming quite depressed and anxious and their personalities changed. School should not have that effect. It's not acceptable. My school had a dire GCSE rate and students being arrested for drugs on the grounds etc. I have seen a teenager stab another teenager. The rhetoric that school is safe and home educating families are isolated, weird and even abusive is really misplaced and actually disgusting.

There’s a reason the government has finally decided to put more money into Sen training for teachers. Schools have not been fit for purpose for a very long time because teachers are no longer equipped to teach anything but the most average child.
The teachers of the past were far more skilled and experienced, knew how to engage and discipline. Academies now are about money and this includes hiring inexperienced and unskilled teachers.
thousands of school students have developed mental health issues because of schools not meeting their needs.
hundreds of children have died as a consequence of poor teaching and uncaring SLTs.
there’s nobody holding them accountable anymore.
parents choosing to home school are often making this decision because they have no choice and want to safeguard and protect their children from further harm.

Do you think any home ed families are isolated, weird and abusive? Are they all as successful as you?

Why is it so difficult to recognise that both views can be true and that society needs to address the problem of children missing out on an education because their parent(s) cannot cope? Or because their parents have religious views which would deny girls in particular any meaningful secondary level education?

You said that they can be left at home with a worksheet while you work … sounds pretty lovely to me 🤷🏻‍♀️