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?

What on earth are you on about?

If attending a school was a requirement, homeschool wouldn't exist then would it? Also schools are literal institutions...

There will be. You just have to find them. You also aren’t limited to only positions in your LA. You could look in neighbouring LAs or for online work.

At the moment, my DC have tutoring provision for 38 weeks (DS1) and 39 weeks (DS3) but some of that may be in the holidays because we can use the hours flexibly over 52 weeks. Some of their other provision continues in the holidays. For example, DS3’s mentoring continues outside of term time (and some mentors are ex-teachers).

We are going through the review process for them now and we are hoping to amend their packages slightly. Part of that is seeking to increase tuition 45 weeks, but will probably have to appeal.

At the moment, DS1 and DS3 have 4 tutors each. 3 of them are the same, so 5 in total. 4 out of the 5 also work part-time in a school for between 1-3 days per week. The fifth works full-time as a tutor. All had over 15 years experience.

We don’t use any agencies for any part of DSs’ packages. Every member of their teams are either directly employed or self-employed.

Yes I did.

Some subjects were a mixture, where I found the curriculum, worked out the gaps were we hadn't been taught and plugged them, others were more extensive. For 2 years I stayed in the school library until 5pm teaching myself (and then more in the evening).

It's closed now, but it was one of the worst performing schools in the country. More than once it WAS the bottom school. It's demographics wasn't great, but its results were still disproportionally bad.

Only a handful of us even got the GCSEs required to go to to college (obviously no 6th form).

The teachers were scared of the kids and I get it. Furniture thrown, fires, knives. Their limited enthusiasm was expanded on crowd control. This is totally outing for any old classmates, but we were allowed to play cards during some lessons, and if you didn't fancy the maths then you were allowed to do cross stitch instead! I knew cross stitch and knives coexisting sounds weird, it was.

It was a hell to be endured.

My child is able to do lots of things, they excel in one particular area.
The trauma they faced in school was so extreme that had they remained in school they wouldn't be around to be employed as an adult.
Even if that wasn't the case they were learning nothing and their mental health was worsening in a daily basis. Neither of which would have made working likely

Now they are thriving and confident and excelling inan area that they will be able to gain employment in.
So yes home ed has increased their chances of successful working life considerably

That's good then.

They went to prison, a lot of them. Well the boys did. Some of the girls were already mums before their GCSEs.

In any event, if they were my colleagues, I could leave, I could call the police, HR would get involved. I wouldn't just put up with it.

It’s possible to get EOTAS provision paid for by the LA but it’s very difficult to get and you’ve got to prove your case because of a high court ruling which says that a tribunal cannot order EOTAS if provision for the child can be made in a school.

That’s great but I do wonder how they will fare when they come up against ordinary life. Because ordinary life seems to equate to ‘trauma’ these days. It sounds flippant but I do genuinely wonder how resilient our population is going to be in a few years. Can’t even cope with school l, never mind the broader challenges of just living

There is so much judgment here that homeschooled children are some delicate snowflakes hidden from the world. Go to any homeschool class or session and find the most confident children there trust me. My children's school - attending friends are so much more restricted in creativity, independent thinking and so much more self conscious.

@ExistingonCoffee I understand, but my LA holds the LA "licence" for the EOTAS provision in the county and my personal opinion is online just doesn't work for the students I work with.
I am paid £32 ph, term-time only.

Yes it is for some children.

Just be grateful your family haven't had to walk in our shoes.

Sorry but i think it’s fair enough that the older generation is laughing at us 🤷‍♀️

Not exaggeration. There was a boy in my tutor group. He would daily come up behind me and try to hug me, putting his hand up my shirt. He'd put his hands down my top. He'd unclip my bra. He knew how uncomfortable this made me and I tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn't. This was at every morning and afternoon registration, even waiting to go in, as well as when he'd see me in the corridor, in other classes etc. He only stopped when I hit him after 2 years of this day in, day out.

If the idea of a school turning a blind eye to that, and a kid to afraid to be more assertive is baffling to you, count yourself lucky. I'm not unique, many will have had it worse.

Wow my child has coped with more than you will ever know.
Medically major surgery for example. They would go through that surgery and the long recovery again rather than have to spend a day in school.
The have over come so many things and I'm sure they will continue to.

There will be DC in your LA who have EOTAS who do not use the agency you work for. Some people with EOTAS/EOTIS packages have direct payments rather than have the LA commission provision directly.

There will also be DC who have more complex needs and need more specialist tuition that your agency cannot accommodate.

There are many tutors tutoring EOTAS/EOTIS DC up and down the country being paid far more than £32ph. DS1’s HLTAs get paid more than that. DS3’s LSA slightly less. DS3’s mentor more.

Online EOTAS/EOTIS tuition does work for some DC. Not all. But some. For some, F2F doesn’t work.

Actually the older generation seems more respectful than you. They take the time to talk to us without judgement and seem genuinely interested in our home ed journey.

But you stay in your ivory tower unable to see other perspectives and believing you and schools are the only way.

Meanwhile back in the real world we will continue to be respectful that people are free to choose to school educate their kids or to home educated them

@ExistingonCoffee I would never work directly with a family without cover from the LA/agency due to safeguarding.
Even with this cover, a lot of parents ask if they can leave their children with me whilst they "walk the dog" etc. It is always a very definite no.

No as my eldest is super sociable and is in college and is fine with that.
My youngest didn’t leave school just because of friendships it’s hard to explain - she will do fine.
I know this as I was them - I’m 50 and always worked but I’m neurodivergent - people grow up and mature so you find things easier as you get older.

I’m very pro education and I’m sorry if it seems that’s I’m not respectful. I just care about things and it doesn’t seem the right way forward. I totally see that in some, probably a small number of cases, it’s a good way forward. But when people start talking about trauma from attending school, I genuinely need to wonder if we’re actually talking about trauma or if the child is a bit worried. Bullying isn’t new. School worries aren’t new. Neurodivergence isn’t new. And yet, these are peddled as a reason to withdraw a child from school, in vast numbers. Everyone is traumatised by everything these days. And that’s pretty worrying because I don’t see anyone being marched off to the trenches right now.

And what has that got to do with wondering what happened to these people when they grew up? Did they improve behaviour or end up in prison? Obviously they learnt the behaviour was ok from somewhere

That is of course your choice, but many families have DPs and don’t use DPs to pay for provision via an agency. Safeguarding isn’t a reason not to. All safeguarding procedures can still be followed. Many of the more well paid roles will be via parents using DPs and not using an agency.

Those parents need to go back to the LA because the LA cannot compel them to facilities provision like that. The LA is responsible for the provision, including funding a second adult where necessary.

when people start talking about trauma from attending school, I genuinely need to wonder if we’re actually talking about trauma or if the child is a bit worried.

We are talking trauma. Even CAMHS understand school can cause trauma in some DC. Not everyone is traumatised by something.

But were you educated at home too?

@BestBefore2000dd’s textiles tutor is employed directly by the LA she got to name her price as I was threatening Judicial Review. My tip would be to get yourself on the Local Facebook EOTAS pages as parents are always looking for staff. Many will be holding a personal budget to cut out LA bureaucracy.