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’m not saying these categories don’t exist just that I, and I’m sure others, don’t fall into any of them.

I guess it is worth considering that the default expectation for all children is to be educated in school, so most people with 1 or more children will have had direct experience of that model. Most, not all. Proportionally, people are considering whether they think that the benefits and disadvantages balance each other out where their child is not one for which the system is good. Not necessarily the curriculum, but the system and demands in 50 different respects.

Home Education has not been the norm in around 100 years or longer, so fewer people would be able to know the benefits and disadvantages from the inside. This is now growing. That said, think about the uses of tutors for families in that '100 years ago' bracket, and further back than that too. Gerald Durrell, for example, was someone who was educated by a tutor - by any measure a pretty successful example. So it's neither a new fad nor always an inferior offer to subjects from the exam boards that are the plan made by mainstream school.

I’m glad you have managed this and it sounds like you’ve made a good go of it. I’m curious to know your thoughts on whether your case is representative of the wider community? It’s a genuine question? I’m sure you know more people in this community than I do?

This is such an inspiring post. @Netcamare you very academic yourself?

@Seashellshesells The children I work with are unable to access mainstream whatsoever. Put them back in and they will break.

@Seashellshesellswhy sad about tutors? They are all ex secondary school teachers. D studies the subjects she chooses (has GCSEs) not only the syllabus but also around that so she has a broader understanding of the subject. She goes to galleries and exhibitions productions and workshops just not with me with tutors or PA. She went to school it broke her. She went back to a different kind of school with an individual and bespoke curriculum and thrived and now she does much the same at home. She is getting a quality education that a school with 30 in a class couldn’t offer.

Can I ask a genuine question - when you say they are unable to be educated in mainstream schools, are they really unable? Or is it more unwilling? I feel like expectations have really fallen about ‘unable’. My neighbour’s child is apparently unable and that’s because she gets worried about going to school. That’s not unable, that’s just having normal level worries about school. But she hasn’t been in school for 2.5 years now and is so far behind she’d have to drop a couple of years. She doesn’t want to do that because it’s embarrassing so she’s not going back to school 🤷‍♀️

Do the LA pay the costs for all home educated kids or just some?

Some DC with EOTAS have provision outside of term time too, so working outside of term time as well is possible.

@BestBefore2000D’s team are a fantastic team who work really well together with dd at the centre. There is a huge demand for tutors in our area and a thriving EOTAS community, parents as well as children sharing knowledge and experience on battling the LA and finding providers.

That’s definitely true! I wouldnt either

I have 2 DC with EOTAS/EOTIS. EOTAS/EOTIS means it is legally inappropriate for provision to be made in a school. It isn’t about being unwilling. It isn’t about DC not wanting to. It isn’t a choice.

Tutoring for DC with EOTAS/EOTIS is broader than you are imagining. It doesn’t have to be sat at a desk ploughing through exam syllabi. It doesn’t have to be sat at a desk at all. Plus @hiredandsqueak said ‘tutors and the rest’. Her DD’s package isn’t solely made up of tuition hours. Just tuition would be an inadequate package.

@Thechaseison71The LA pay some elective home educators a personal budget. My daughter is EOTAS educated other than at school so they fund all her costs both staff and resources and a weekly sum for sundries which covers admissions and workshops etc

LAs rarely fund elective home education. A personal budget for EHE is rare and usually limit in amount.

LAs fund EOTAS/EOTIS because they remain responsible for the provision. EOTAS/EOTIS isn’t EHE.

@Thechaseison71 I can only comment as an EOTAS Tutor. I am paid throigh an agency via the LA. I offer each child 10 hrs pw, 1-1 and f2f within their home or care home. I have 21 years' experience as a teacher and with a Psychology degree and SEND specialism. I am hoping to take on a Masters in the not too distant.
All of my students have an EHCP and significant SEND needs which simply cannot be met in mainstream. They are not classed as "home educated".
Unfortunately the job is poorly paid with no income in school holidays and no sick pay so I am regrettably being forced back into classroom teaching and on the look-out for standard teacher jobs.

Is the answer leaving them in school till they kill themselves?

Because education doesn’t equate to sitting at a table with a tutor. It’s not the 1800s. It’s being part of a school community, having a range of social relationships, playing competitive sports with them, debating, ski trips, foreign language trips, growing up together, balls, chess leagues, hanging out at lunchtimes, being part of fundraising committees, dealing with conflict, dealing with bullies, dealing with shifting friendship groups, making new friends, learning to leave the friendship groups that don’t serve you well, learning when to escalate issues to staff and when to deal with it yourself, public speaking to parents and peers, music practice together, playing in music groups, music concerts to parents.. all of that, as well as formal academic learning. Education is all of those things and it can’t be reduced to having tutors to teach you subjects 1:1. That’s such a miserable narrow and reductionist approach to education.

I home educate my 15 year old and worked 46 hours at my job in the NHS last week and also supported her too.
I’m lucky that I can work unsociable hours so I can do this.
It’s not easy, both my husband and I work together to provide her lessons to ensure she can sit 4 GCSEs this year - a year early.
We took her out of school in September as she was struggling with the whole sensory experience and friend situation!
She was then diagnosed autism.
Her sister has stopped attending school due to autistic burnout and worked from home and has 8 GCSEs and is in college.
So sometimes school isn’t for everyone and they can still socialise but get to the same point as others in a different direction.
Both my girls have high aspirations and are sociable but couldn’t cope in the environment.
i worked in schools for years so I know what it’s like - it’s not for everyone.

I don't know how to break it to you, but home educated children do all the things on your list 👍

There is a middle ground. I have spoken with several school refusers as they’re now called and none of them have had mental health support by way of family counselling or 1:1 child therapy. That’s the answer, or changing schools, not removing them completely at the first sign of stress. How are they going to manage a workplace?

Sorry but I can’t see it. Maybe some he families do a good job, but if be willing to bet that the majority don’t come near it. Ask any of the people whose jobs it is to oversee home educators.

What will happen to them as adults then? Never work in case they kill themselves?

I have big respect for people who home school, but I couldn’t do it.
I found being a SAHM v difficult in only the year I had to do it, I’m not a teacher and DD spends too much time on screens as it is. I’m not at all convinced she’d be better off.
Plus we can’t afford for me to give up work.

If your child is really struggling at the school they attend and you are very confident you could home school them to a good standard, fair enough.
However I don’t see why it should be a default option for school strugglers or ND children. The phrase neurodiverse didn’t exist 30 or 40 years ago. So many undiagnosed neurodiverse children of the 90s (I can think of several of my friends) had to go to school and in doing so they had routine, made friends and had to deal with challenges.

I’m probably biased as I loved school overall, but it wasn’t always an easy ride then. I was bullied a little for my looks/geekiness, but I did learn to deal with it, made a great group of friends and had many memories that simply could not have been matched by a home school experience.
DD loves school (overall, she has some bad days like all kids) and I wouldn’t home school unless there was absolutely no other option, I think most people I know would say similar.

Rubbish. Why is there a sudden drop in confidence?

You are talking rubbish. They don't hold you back in UK schools for one thing. If she returned to school she would be in her year group.

I think you really don't know your neighbour child situation inside out. I'm sure some people would have thought similar about my child but there is no normal level of school worry for kids who can't go. The level of worry is extremely high.

It is far easier to just go to school than it is to be unable to