So many think they can teach

[Wecandancetillthemorninglight]

My sister works with homeschooling families in London and frequently tells me stories of how they usually are. How they think they know more than the teacher after quickly looking up how to teach a concept online versus 30 plus years of teaching experience and many different methods and ways of doing things.
I have the upmost respect for my Dc’s teachers and wouldn’t dream of thinking I knew more. Dsis tells me the children are often way behind and have very few actual hours of learning and the mums think they’re doing an amazing job

Should this be allowed?

Just wow! So ignorant!

Why would anyone need any more than 8?

It's a different activity.

I'm pretty good at teaching mixed ability students Economics in groups of 20-32 at scheduled times.

I suck at teaching my own child!

Oh yay another home education bashing thread!

As a parent your job is to facilitate learning and ensure your child receives a suitable education whether this be by sending them to school or by home educating.

My son was unable to attend school for most of years 8 and 9 and during that time he recieved some out of school tuition which really is minimal.

I home educated him through gcscs. I didn't 'teach'. My job was to facilitate learning, encourage and motivate. We used a wealth of resources including online courses and resourses. We worked together to understand the syllabus and mark schemes and to mark past papers. He taught himself art, attended a couple of clubs, used the home gym and walked the dog. He learned to type. We did PHSE, politics, law, current affairs etc through daily discussions about anything and everything. He watched you tube videos on topics that interested him. He played computer games and dabbled with coding and blender. He learned to cook and budget. None of this involved me doing any of what you would call 'teaching'. The process was fluid and flexible.

He sat 5 gcses in total (2 in year 10 and 3 in year 11) which is what he needed to get onto his chosen level 3 course at college. He got decent grades, went to college and never had a day off sick. He found his people and is now living away from home at uni.

He was able to sit the exams at his old school as an external candidate. When he went to pick up his second lot of gcse results with his old cohort in year 11, his maths teacher was surprised to find that he had sat maths in year 10 and got a 7 and didn't have a tutor. When receiving out of school tuition just a year before he had been predicted a 4.

A couple of his friends (who appeared academically similar in year 7) sat the full complement of gcses in school but got much worse grades which I think happens when you spread yourself too thin and have to sit a bazillion exams in just a few short weeks. The system we have doesn't suit everyone. Having a goal, appropriate resources, being able to work at exactly the right level and having 1:1 support worked really well for my son and I suspect would for a lot of young people.

That sounds like a great outcome. Well done you and him!

Weirdly though, my GCSEs (at school, late 1980s, only the second cohort to sit them) were more like that than today's GCSEs.

Schools have gone a bit bonkers these days.

And for those saying no one checks if home-educated children are receiving an education, that's not true. Local authorities are tasked with identifying children missing education and they do this by making informal enquiries of home educating families usually on an annual basis. At present it is legal to fly under the radar if your child has never been in school, home education being the default. However once your child has been to school, once you deregister, the school contacts the LA who will get in touch. The information provided to the LA can be in person, by phone or in writing. A written response tends to be advisable as this creates a paper trail of what has been said.

The law is changing soon so that there will be a requirement to register children as home educated. The automatic right to home educate children who are on a child protection plan will also be removed. At present parents who wish to deregister children attending a special school have to get permission to ensure that need is met so I suspect it will work a bit like that where a child protection plan is in place. Parents do not (and will not under the new law) need permission to home educate if the child attends mainstream school. The requirement for regular checks will likely also be increased. At present, the level of detail required and whether checks are annual or less frequent are mostly left up to the LA whereas I suspect this will become more regulated.

Thank you :)

Yes I was the same. First year of GCSEs and at that time it was common for kids to drop some subjects or just not turn up for some or all of thier exams! If they'd done work experience in a local factory they probably had a job lined up so didn't care.

I had no clue what I wanted to do. I did hardly any revision and came out with 2 Cs and 6 Ds. I couldn't wait to leave school (still 15) and got a YTS in an office.

I am 53 and it feels like I have spent my whole life doing some sort of studying while working and it was particularly hard to do while DS was little. I am now well qualified and in a professional role. I clearly had 'it' in me but school didn't know how to get at it and neither did I/my parents who were both were very loving but had no clue. They had never done homework and were unqualified factory workers who left school at 14. There was no expection for me to go to uni. They just hoped I wouldn't end up in a factory (which was a hard life) and encouraged me to apply for office work with some prospects of advancement. My dad was very proud when I got an office job bless him.

I was the complete opposite @Scarlettpixie (grammar school girl, 8As and a B and a bonus AS Maths, my god that was hard!) But I agree there was much less accountability. If you wanted to study, you studied. If you didn't, you didn't. There was lot more coursework and practical stuff. The coursework I did, I can remember well even after 35 years. The academic content, not so much.

The expectations on students in English these days, particularly, are so high.

What’s your actual issue OP? The disrespect of the teaching profession? The fact that some homeschooling isn’t up to scratch? The fact that home schooling is allowed at all?