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?

Why should it be part of the teenage years? It doesn't HAVE to be miserable.

Adult life doesn't have the same stressors usually. If someone was bullying you at work there are very different channels and sanctions to combat it - your aggressor is not legally expected to be there every day

You’re very confident in your claims. Please link to recent, peer reviewed research that supports your claim that surviving traumatic experiences and environments increases resilience.

I admin a home ed group that covers a wide local area and yes I have noticed a massive rise in people joining. We could see this happening from 2020 and it has only gathered pace!

We used to get one or two joining per month, most being home educators from the start with clear ideas of how they would proceed. The other cohort were children who started to really struggle during SATs year, then some in years 7 and 10. Many of those who came out in early secondary years had a break and went back into the school system better able to thrive.
Now we can get a dozen or more per week and some of the stories on the join requests are heartbreaking.

We are probably getting a similar amount of people home educating from the beginning as before. These people tend to want to join in, contribute to what we offer across the area and ensure that their children have plenty of friends that they can grow up with.

So, because you were bullied, why shouldn’t everyone else suffer, eh?

People die by suicide due to bullying. It is not ‘just part of life’ nor should it be.

Why are you trying to suggest that abuse is good for people?

I think it’s fairly crazy to isolate a child from being in social / busy situations, large groups etc because they find it difficult, with the assumption they will just always live and work in isolation as that’s how you perceive them as working best.

Your neurodiverse person isn’t going to learn the skills to cope with the outside world, if they aren’t exposed to it (and people).

I fear this risks making their challenges far greater in the longer term.

It's really sad that you would try to normalise bullying as part of a school experience.

I think a lot of teachers have this attitude and it's so wrong.

It really doesn't have to be this way and I think more parents are angry that the education system just shrugs it's shoulders. The long term damage bullying can do is significant and it shouldn't be seen as acceptable.

Wtf! Did you really just try to tell us that being bullied is a normal part of children’s lives and will ultimately be good for them in their adult lives??!

There are many jobs that people can do which require relative isolation.

Agree with allll this.

I was a slightly odd kid who actually didn’t really like being around hundreds of others each day but didn’t recognise this until adulthood as I was compliant and just had to get on with it. in hindsight I didn’t enjoy school at all and only achieved average grades despite being high IQ but thought this feeling was normal / what I was achieving was the best I could achieve. I basically self taught myself a lot of the GCSE syllabus in the study period we had off before exams - it was quite incredible how easy I found learning with a study guide at home compared to how difficult it was to learn in the classroom. I guess this was what homeschooling would have felt like to me, had it been available when I was at senior school.

My 10 year old has always disliked school and i am in two minds about whether he should continue. He would homeschool tomorrow if he could. I’m not sure I would give him a good quality of education though, I have adhd and am not sure I would have the focus and momentum day in day out to make sure he stays on track.

So basically: yes, schools are antiquated. It is no surprise many are choosing to homeschool. But homeschooling comes with its own set of unique problems and imo a lot of people homeschooling shouldn’t be. The two are not mutually exclusive.

What would be amazing is if class sizes could be cut in half and more tailored learning be possible in the classroom. One class for those who learn in a physical, practical way (my son), another for those who prefer quiet and reading based learning etc. Better facilities across state schools for non-core subjects. A massive revamp in what is actually taught to make it relevant to the workplace as it is now compared to what it was in the 50s. Etc etc. Unfortunately all this is impossible on the current Education budget and without the government prioritising a nationwide facelift. So as a parent you are stuck, unless you can afford private school I suppose

Sometimes people are just offering an opinion 🤷
Would you care to share your understanding of what 'peer-reviewed' actually means?

I have chosen jobs all my adult life to avoid busy large groups. There are so many different jobs, it doesn't always have to be the same!

Surely this is only something wealthy people can do? Who can afford to drop a salary - unless they're WFH and just not telling employers?

Something needs to be done about the rising rates of anxiety in young people. I think most people can agree on this. It’s awful that teenagers are feeling this way and it’s obviously years and years of not funding the mental health services appropriately. It’s far better to equip children with the life skills to deal with their mental health issues rather than just removing them from the situation. What does this teach them as an adult? If they don’t want to do something that’s hard then they don’t have to? That’s now how works in the real world.

@AdamsAntelope

Also the socialising argument for mainstream schooling is weak. Bad experiences make children withdrawn and socially anxious, with long term mental health issues. A happy balanced child is much better equipped to socialise more easily and maintain friendships. Our son made friendship groups in areas his was interested in, which made relationships much more positive and less forced.

I fully agree. I made more "friends" outside school than in it. School did bugger all to equip me with any life skills to socialise - it did the opposite. I had to "re-learn" as an adult which I did through hobbies, voluntary work and the real-life workplace, and I suffered no bullying in any of those places.

Bullying at school really shouldn't be "normalised" like some posters on here are suggesting. It doesn't equip you and has the potential to ruin your education, ruin your teenage years and impact on your adult life.

What a daft comment. Leaving aside the fact that many people do have successful careers working at home, I’ve never been bullied or sexually assaulted in twenty years of working outside the home in different settings. Of course these things still happen to more people than they should, but my personal experience tells me I’m far safer and happier as an adult in an office (and there is much I dislike about office working!) than I was as a child at a ‘good’ school. For whatever reason there is still an idea that kids ought to be able to put up with things we would never expect an adult to.

A modern professional office job also offers a hell of a lot more flexibility than school ever did. The two really aren’t comparable.

Thank you for the share link. I have been trying to read that! This post really resonated:

“Some parents argue that it’s infringing on their human rights. These are often the middle classes, who cannot comprehend what EHE means in socially deprived towns.”

A lot of the outrage I see about it is people who are probably doing a great job and giving their children more than school could, so they feel attacked by this bill. They assume all home schoolers are like them. They are not considering the family afraid of social services who removed their children from school and moved local authority to disappear while refusing to administer their child with life sustaining medication on religious grounds. A national register would have saved that child.

I’ve home educated two out of three of my DC.
Eldest is in the military and will be commissioning age 21 after 4 years service.
Youngest is currently home ed and we have a splendid time. Her father and I both work part time so there’s someone around for her. The HE community has grown exponentially, there are so many workshops and things to do. She is so happy and secure, she was at school until Y5 where she had to dodge missiles (chairs) and fists, witness horrendous behaviour and not learn a damn thing because all the teacher could do was fire fight. No-one was getting their needs met so we pulled her out and don’t regret a single thing.
Middle DC is in independent school with a scholarship/bursary.
State schools where I live are basically detention centres and I wouldn’t send my kids there if you paid me

What level functional skills did they take? Some are a very low level.

I think it’s screens personally. They barely live in the real world any more. That would make anyone anxious.

Well what is currently happening is swathes of young people emerging, traumatised from a one-size-fits-all education system, with mental health issues, without qualifications and unable to do any kind of work.

Then people like you whine about them claiming PIP.

Home education doesn’t mean no education.

Mental health is a far greater issue than not being at school. Constantly online and social media and peer pressure are key players - and schools are simply a massive magnification of all of that, everyone in constant contact.

Being out of, not in, that environment is excellent for mental health

What surprises me most is how parents manage this…I have two university degrees so it’s not that I’m a stranger to education, but still I will say that I am not qualified or skilled enough to teach all subjects to an extend they’d be taught at school.

You need to learn to communicate with and deal with a wide variety of people though.

And - I think it a bit limiting to decide a child’s future life will look like X and therefore they don’t need normal amounts of socialisation.

Being exposed to unkind people is a normal part of life yes. Whether that’s being bullied, witnessing people name calling, online abuse etc etc I would argue that most people in their life have seen this or been subjected to this. That doesn’t mean that it happens forever or that it’s okay but teenagers are mean! They always have been mean!

@wishingonastar101 , such a well thought through statement. Would you care to share some evidence?