To wonder how people who homeschool acquire the knowledge to do so?

[Homeschooll]

Just as the title really. I don’t have strong feelings on homeschooling, I don’t think it would be my choice mainly as I have little patience and I don’t feel I know enough about science or maths.

If you do it how do you know what you’re doing is right? What about the pastoral side? How do you make sure there’s a routine?

Just interested really. I’ve found more and more people are doing it.

Exactly! Especially when the vast majority of HS parents I’ve met had a negative experience of school themselves and therefore few qualifications! There are also a growing number of virtual schools and tuition centres for kids who struggle with mainstream school. Why wouldn’t you engage with the alternative options available?

At primary level, no planning needed really. Just lived life and learned while doing it.
Taught them to read and write and love learning.
More or less followed the maths curriculum but spent as long as needed on each concept rather than rushing on when they hadn't grasped it or lingering so long that it was boring - this is what puts so many schooled children off maths.
You have a very school-centric idea of what education is which is shown by your questions about identifying gaps and matching learning. The child isn't just an object for you to educate, they are a partner in it - you spend all day every day observing and assessing your child, actually talking to them, and you can address gaps and tailor learning there and then.

💯! 👏

Many pupils in school don't achieve at the end of school..30 % of pupils will fail their GCSEs as this is the way exams are graded.

Some children will walk confidently at 9 months some not till 18 Months. Most will be around a year. Those who walk early don't have superior parents and those who walk later don't have crap parents. It is well known that development can vary even without additional factors.

In reception September born pupils are almost a year older than August born. But all expected to learn the same curriculum, in the same way at the same time. Even without additional factors such as SEN, health problems etc the ability and need will vary greatly. In 4/5 year olds.

Some children are not ready to read in reception yr and some will start already reading. Some children will learn to read naturally and others will need more support.

The concept that all children are the same and learn the same way and the same time is not backed up in any way. It is well known that children are different and will develop at different rates in different ways. It is well known that play is vital for early years and yet the school system is moving away from this with more testing, less movement, less free play.
We have a curriculum which doesn't reflect the needs of children

@Leftrightmiddle

‘In a class of 30 the teacher has to teach to the middle. They should adapt and have work for different abilities but in reality this is still only near the average pupil.’

This comment clearly shows you have no idea about teaching. This may have been the case 30/40 years ago but differentiation has been a key part of teaching for at least the last 25 years. This is one of the main reasons teachers workload has increased so dramatically.

So many more children are failed and damaged by schools than by home education - so many home educating parents are being left to try to fix the mess schools make.
We should really be targetting our efforts at improving the school system since it impacts such a huge number of children.

In theory differentiation has been a key part of teaching but in reality it is not working.
I say this as a teacher and as a parent.
Too many young people are being failed by a curriculum which is not working anymore.a curriculum that is causing distress particularly to ND pupils and SEN pupils.
It is causing high workload for teachers and not meeting the needs of pupils - with teachers leaving the profession in high numbers.

Did you know that many teachers and experts in development actually opt to home Ed their own children because the know the system isn't working?

You can continue trying to convince yourself this as much as you want but data and facts say otherwise. The vast majority of kids attend school and do achieve a better standard of education as well as a higher number of qualifications.

What is the correct way to teach reading - it seems to change every few years - even going round in circles and sometimes sticking to the dogma (ie phonics testing in year 1 when a child has been reading fluently since mid reception). Same with some maths methods (have been through chunking, carrying, borrowing and pay back) again circling.
Parents ability to parent and teachers ability to teach are very wide reaching. A parents desire to home school should be more assessed and monitored more regularly (and perhaps disallowed in some circumstances).

There’s a child who joined my eldest son’s secondary in year 7 - parents had home schooled him up until this point and then felt for secondary he’d benefit. The poor boy has really struggled with the routine and the volume of people. It’s been really difficult.

He has 2 younger siblings and the parents decided to stop home schooling and put them into school so they don’t find secondary as traumatic as their elder brother.

Ultimately it works for some people and not for others I guess. We couldn’t do it as we both work it’s not an option! But I’d never choose to anyway unless one of my kids had a specific need and then we’d have to work out how to do it.

So all pupils are passing their GCSE despite the whole concept of GCSE is that some many need to fail in order for grade boundaries to be maintained

@Leftrightmiddle
There will always be students who won’t get the grades, I’m talking about actively disadvantaging a child who would other be capable of passing.

The problem is you have no idea how that young person would have fared if they had started school at 4 and never been home educated. So many families end up with no option but home Ed when their child is burnt out from school.

School just isn't working for some people.
While it's possible he may have been fine if never home Ed it is also possible he may have burnt out and been damaged from the school system either way.

A 3rd of kids don't even pass English and maths, surely that is the definition of failure?
12 years of school and the system can't even get them through the minimum standard it has set itself.

How do you know the children that fail at school wouldn't have passed if home educated?

Some people do better through home Ed. Some will start degrees courses early, some will go to oxford.

Some pupils who are home educated wouldn't pass the GCSE in school, but by home education they aren't left feeling worthless. They can focus on alternatives or focus on the GCSEs they need for the progression route.

Very few home Ed young people aren't progressing in their own way, in their own time and reaching their potential.
Those who aren't usually have other factors involved such as recovery from illness or burnout but they cant learn effectively until well.

Interesting how people who are anti-home education always accept that loads of children will just naturally fail after 12 years of school and that's not the fault of the education they receive.
However if home educated children (who are also more likely to have SEN) don't get 7-10 good GCSEs it's an indication that they've been massively failed by their parents.

You have made a very big assumption. You have a very school-centric idea of what education is which is shown by your questions about identifying gaps and matching learning.

My experience, research and passion for learning is based on co-construction of learning, sustained shared thinking and the value of first hand experience. This, however does not negate a hierarchy of skills based on prior learning.

This thread is excellent as it is really showing how skilled and committed home educators need to be. It is not a fanciful ‘trip to IKEA to talk about money and measure furniture’ - a recent experience of mine!

spend all day every day observing and assessing your child, actually talking to them, and you can address gaps and tailor learning there and then. Not all parents expect this level of commitment even.

😂

An actual experience of measuring furniture and using money will be more meaningful and useful to a child than a classroom lesson measuring the longest pencil or worksheets of coins in purses.

I'm now a secondary school teacher, but before that, when my son was 7, over 25 years ago, I withdrew him from school and home educated him for a year. School was totally failing him and I was worried for both his physical and mental health. We went to museums, art galleries, lots of farms, did reading and writing and some maths, spent a lot of time in the library, on the allotment and learning how to swim. But, my son has a life limiting and life threatening condition.

I believe a lot of what's been described in the earlier posts isn't home schooling, instead it's a mix of online learning and private tutoring, a bit like an informal 'governess' approach and the 'home' part of it simply describes the location rather than the type of learning or the content.

What's clear is that schools aren't for everyone. They appear as a mass phenomenon from about 1870 onwards and replicate the environment of a factory (and yes, these days the factory is more likely the office). It's unsurprising that those unsuited to the factory model can't thrive at school.

What really needs to happen is that we should have a conversation, as a society, about how children learn and how we fund that. I don't know the exact figures, but it's something like £6k for secondary kids per year - that's to cover staff salaries, all bills from the school environment, equipment (including textbooks, exercise books, stationery, sports, etc.) and so on. Roughly speaking £150 per week. If you consider a private tutor is £50ph (for a cheap one) and you probably need 4 (maths, English, science and a humanities subject), then you're already spending £50+ a week more than state secondary. Once you add in online learning materials, textbooks and stationery, you're at another £50+ per week. You get the picture. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that doubling the funding for education per child (once you add in everything else) results in better outcomes, particularly in terms of their capacity to cope, because they're getting so much more support.

But the question we really have to ask ourselves, as tax payers: should the resources be more evenly distributed for the benefit of all?

Only relevant if the child has key mathematical concepts and the counting and measuring is at an appropriate level for each child.

Key mathematical and cognitive concepts for children learning money include:
Conservation of number
Classification
Seriation (ordering by size/value)
Subitising (recognising small quantities instantly)
One-to-one correspondence
Cardinality
Counting principles
Place value
Part-whole understanding
Equivalence (different coins having same value)
Addition and subtraction
Estimation
Symbol recognition (numerals and currency symbols)

These concepts support understanding of quantity, value, exchange, and calculation with money.
Different, of course, at different levels for each child. In the ‘IKEA’ example, it was obvious that the three children did not have the relevant concepts and as they were at different developmental stages the ‘talk’ in IKEA about money and measuring furniture was largely irrelevant.

child than a classroom lesson measuring the longest pencil or worksheets of coins in purses.
or measuring the classroom furniture, handling money in the role play shop, den building poles in the outdoor as they co constructing their den.
Very little use of worksheets on my watch and teachers very clearly steered away from this! (As a teacher, headteacher or adviser).

What is provided in school.is only relevant if the child has the key mathematical concepts they need at that stage.
When a pupil hasn't grasped the key concepts - but the class is moving on to the next stage of learning they won't be able to fully access the next stage because the underpinning knowledge isn't secure.
You can't hold the whole class up and not progress through the curriculum for one child because the curriculum is so full you won't cover the curriculum if you have to spend 6 weeks on a concept that has been schemed to be covered in 3.

Yes and sadly at school so many children are rushed through a tightly packed curriculum without having the opportunity to embed those key concepts. No wonder so many children come to dislike maths at school and a shocking 25-30% children fail maths at the end of primary and secondary school.

I couldn't do it. All the subjects have changed. We did the Tudors and Stuart's at dc's age but DC is doing some Iranian history topic this term. So presumably we would have to stay a year ahead of them in all subjects and understand the pedagogy of how to get those points across well. I guess that means one of us quitting work since we both with full time. And that would mean they lose out on holidays and extra curriculars. I assume that if not forced by SEN issues then most home educators are quite privileged on that front.

That said I have never assumed that school would provide them with everything they need. I think a lot of parents consider education a 'service' and blame the school when their child can't spell rather than thinking maybe they should have spent some time cementing the school knowledge at home.