To really worry about the future of homeschooled children?

[AgeingMillennial]

Please don’t think this is a goady thread designed to rile the masses about home education. I’m very much not referring to children with SEN whose parents are homeschooling because they’re desperate, or ‘serious’ homeschoolers who do an incredible job and produce very well educated kids by following a dedicated programme. I follow several such families on social media and their energy and commitment is way beyond anything I could do.

However I’m noticing a huge uptick in people ‘deregistering’ their kids to promote a kind of off-grid, traditional lifestyle on social media. Not because the child is struggling or unhappy at school but ‘I want to spend more time with them’, ‘the government want to create tax paying robots’, ‘I don’t want the state to raise my kids with transgender ideology’ etc.

The problem is the ‘homeschooling’ is then very substandard and then consists mostly of nature walks, crafts and visits to National Trust properties. All very wholesome but the sort of things most families do at weekends anyway. They might do a couple of pages of the sort of workbooks you find in WH Smith, but that’s it. Where there are siblings they all do the same basic things, none of it tailored to be specific to their age.

AIBU to worry about the future of these kids and to cynically wonder if it’s a ‘social media stream’ in many cases?

Yes I thinks the landscape has changed a lot and very quickly.
There are no guarantees and while there might be little pockets of places that are open to children displaying competency in alternative ways, these are the exception rather than the rule. In addition there are additional financial constraints on the colleges in terms of funding too.

I'm talking about both home and school educated children here and where I see a particular difficulty is with a fairly academic child who for whatever reason doesn't get the GCSE grades and who is never going to be practical enough or have the right temperament to be a car mechanic, plumber, hairdresser etc. then ends up with fewer choices.

Years ago my husband did level 3 computing, followed by a degree and never looked back, with his GCSE in English and his certificate in IT. I don't think he'd have been allowed to try these days with no maths qualification. He wasn't home educated mind, just poorly supported at home and school.

I think there must be whole swathes of children who got the 4's and 5's at GCSE and can't do A levels (as usually at least a 6 is required), but there isn't a lot filling the gap between A levels and vocational courses.

I totally agree with you OP. I’m not anti-home ed at all; I’ve always been tempted by it, and in reception I applied to flexischool my eldest as she was really struggling at school (the school denied my request though). My older children are all in school but I’m strongly considering home edding my youngest two (still preschool aged at the minute). However, if we do go down the home ed route we will be following the national curriculum, albeit with less rigidity than school, so that if they ever wanted/needed to go back to school they’d be able to join their year group and not be behind. And if they do home ed long term I’ll be paying for them to take their GCSEs privately so that they aren’t denied opportunities later in life. I think anything less than that is doing children an absolute disservice.
The thing is - every parenting decision has pros and cons. Kids gain in one area and lose in another every time. For example, both parents working full time might equal less parental input during the week - but it provides the opportunity for lots of extracurriculars, great holidays that give an amazing breadth of experience, that kind of thing. In the same vein, home ed has some issues attached (particularly around socialising etc) but it also has lots of gains. In an ideal world, home ed gives the same academic standard of school, but with extra stuff on top. The school curriculum is great but it’s also essentially an arbitrary collection of knowledge that the powers that be decided was a priority. There are lots of things to learn that are just as valuable, if not more so in terms of life skills.
However, home ed done badly has all the downsides of school without any of the benefits, and I agree that there seems to be a lot of parents around at the moment doing it terribly. I personally know two people (totally unrelated and don’t know each other) who are ‘home edding’ their teens, and I use the term loosely because those kids don’t seem to getting one single iota of education. Their behaviour is shocking, their attitudes are shocking, they’re learning absolutely nothing and I can’t see how they’re ever going to contribute anything or become remotely positive members of society. I like both the mums as people, very much, but as parents I think they’re making terrible decisions. I think some oversight and some non-judgmental guidance and input (LAs might also need an overhaul of their approach so that they can offer genuine non-judgmental help and support) would be very very merited.

I know of a single mother who flounced from our primary. Her child had behaviour problems and she was so defensive she literally stuck her middle finger up at the head and withdrew her son.

She had a terrible experience at school and carries it with her, but she has no qualifications as a result. So her poor boy, who is lovely tbf, and not feral, was taken from his friends and the now has an unstable barely literate woman teaching him (or not teaching him) to read and write.

Home ed can absolutely be fantastic, and I might have loved it had I had the time and the skillset, but there needs to be a safety net for kids like him.

We're FB friends and it's all him on a dog walk or lifting weights, sometimes Lego. It breaks my heart.

I have a friend who home Ed’s and the eldest has managed to get on an enter level beauty course. The younger at 14 doesn’t seem to be doing any qualification so not sure what will happen there. Contrast to someone I know whose DD did very well and sat A levels

I've gotten involved in the home ed world as my sister's children are home educated.

All I'll say is that it's interesting that people don't think that adults that have been through our education system are capable of passing on any of that education to their children, even at primary level. It doesn't inspire confidence in the UK school system really does it.

Also, 6.6 million adults in England alone are illiterate, and 1 in 4 children in England leave school unable to read or write. These are official statistics btw. Both scenarios can fail children, but I've yet to meet a single home educating parent that fits any of the negative descriptions included in this thread. I've met a lot of ex teachers who have chosen to home educate though...

Yes, I see lots of these (no idea why) but they all seem angry when the local authority write to them to ask to see a bit of work or a plan of some kind

My experience is that there are two types of homeschooling going on.

The traditional kind where parents spend a lot of time preparing and delivering education to their children. It might not reflect entirely the national curriculum but it’s an fullsome education. You can argue the rights and wrongs of keeping a child at home rather than putting them in a school environment but essentially children in this situation are getting an excellent education from parents who are motivated and spending enormous amount of time ensuring they meet all their age and stage expectation. These type of parents seem to come from a background in education themselves more often than not.

increasingly there seems to be a second type of homeschooling parents of which I know a couple through family. One who had a very specific worldview – anti vacc, very strict plant based diet, lots of conspiracy theory stuff. Now roams around “in nature” and the child can’t read at the age of 9. They’re always on holiday. She treats her daughter like her best friend and seems to cocoon her and avoid opportunities of having any relationships of her own. She will end up being 16 with no GCSEs and not much prospects I suspect.

The only experience I have with this is from a relative who homeschools 2 children ages 11 and 14 neither one of them have ever been to a regular school.

I don't think they are being educated. I spent 6 weeks with them and the children sit on the sofa with their tablets all day everyday. they barely go outside. They have no real life friends they are not going to activities, sport, lessons, museums or anything like that.

I have not talked about it with their parents because they are very defensive and I don't want to get screamed and cursed at so I have no idea why they decided to homeschool

It takes effort to get your children ready to go to a brick and mortar school everyday which means you can't have a lie in. The children would have to be up, fed, clean and clean clothes, and prepared to go to school every single day

I find it extremely puzzling as this particular person went to a private school and had a very good education along with activities and friends. They didn't finish school but they did have that solid background

The LA should be held to account, absolutely. And that means both making proper provision for children who are struggling in school and proper supervision of those children who get deregistered.

Actually no, some universities let home educated children in without A-levels, they assess them based on their own portfolio of work that they've done along with an interview.

Gosh, you're very smug, and I'm not sure why as you really don't know much at all about how home education works.

Plus that poster you replied to said her children will be doing level 2 courses instead of GCSEs which is an option which many home educators choose as GCSE English & Maths are not always appropriate for every child. Some children do much better with Functional Skills.

Educate yourself before mocking others.

I agree OP. I think taking well adjusting children who are thriving out of school is very unfair on the child. Especially if it’s not to replace it with something equally stimulating. I feel bad reading some of these stories. The parents are not doing what’s best for their children. I can’t imagine they’ll thank them. Imagine being a young adult who can’t read or write well, what are you going to do with your life?

I used to be anti-home education but I see how it can really benefit children when done right. Also for children with certain needs I understand why it’s necessary.

I understand that many famous people in the past had home education but a hundred years ago they were in a house with books and so spent their time reading etc. Not YouTube and Xbox all day.

That poster was talking specifically about Oxford. So does Oxford accept home-educated kids with no A-levels (or equivalent) as long as they present a "body of work"?

Home ed children do go to top universities like Oxford.

Some home ed children do GCSEs and a levels

That's the beauty of home ed you can literally take so many different routes. You can tailor the education to the child.

Why is it that this is seen so negatively and yet no one bats an eye that in schools while some children thrive in the traditional exam route for others it is not working. How is it acceptable that children can attend schools for years and come away with nothing other than damaged confidence and a belief that they are useless for not passing exams and yet.

University is not the right route for lots of people but many jobs don't require university. We be screwed if everyone did the same job and no one was willing to do the other jobs

Society needs all sorts of people and skills/knowledge and yet education is set up to only value to narrowest type of learning / achievement

It’s annoying that, despite the fact they’re happy to advertise their lives for clicks, we can’t really discuss specific families because I guess it would be seen as bitchy and unacceptable. But I just logged on to Facebook and up pops a post in a local group ‘has anyone else deregistered their child? My 7 year old doesn’t enjoy school and I’m thinking of homeschooling him…’. All very nice but their ensuing questions are very basic ones, all of which can be answered with a cursory google search (no, you will not be arrested for deregistering. No it doesn’t cost money - etc). The fact they can’t do this simple ‘research’ themselves doesn’t bode well for their teaching ability.

That didn't answer my question at all. In any event, I am all for online schools and tutoring which help children gain qualifications outside traditional schools. I have also not said everyone must aim for the same jobs or even for university, but to allow children to be de-registered from school and be completely free to do no schooling at all with no regulation whatsoever is not acceptable.

Oh I would LOVE to be good home educating type - if I won the lottery and had a teaching qualification to help me along, I would almost certainly do it. I follow one woman whose life is a bit like this (husband earns well, big house) and she has the most amazing dedicated classroom in her house for her 5 kids. She also used to be a teacher, so fully equipped to spot issues and deliver the lessons. I’m not at all saying home education in itself is a bad thing, it’s probably better than mainstream if you have all the resources to make it work.

That is a relatively recent process.

No. Not unless you are doing something like fashion design.

We are already check up upon from an education perspective

Children are also visible because of groups they attend and appointments

If you know children/families where you believe they are not being educated or are at risk from abuse - report these families

Schools are failing children by not meeting disabilities or SEN needs. Why do you think that the same LA that can not meet the need of children enrolled at school is capable of making judgements on the education provided by home education?

It is pretty clear the general population can not really understand alternative routes just by this thread alone. Add in LA bias to school curriculum - this is why home educating families do not want to accept LA insisting on checks they have no legal rights to do.

It has been in place for at least 4 years in our area

It seems obvious that where you'd ask a teacher to undergo rigorous training and inspections you should expect a parent who's home-schooling to do the same. The idea that someone could, in theory, do whatever they wanted with their child's education is crazy.

But that's the point!! It's become a trend to pull kids out of school and a lot of people are just pissing about at it, I've had arguments with people online who swear to god that playing in the garden and going shopping with mum is educational! That's the issue, it's unregulated! Not everybody is brilliant at it! Who is holding down a job and trying to home teach, how does that even work!

Local authorities don't have a strong legal basis to tackle educational neglect. A few authorities push the limits of their legal powers and do issue a fair few back to school orders. But plenty of others like mine do very little.

My niece deregistered her kids because she likes to go on holiday for 10 days every 6 weeks and didn’t want to be fined. (I wish I was joking).
They find cheap last minute holidays and off they go, they say that travel is an education in itself but they go all inclusive to turkey and don’t leave the hotel so I’m not sure what they can possibly be learning.

The eldest recently tried to get a job but has ZERO qualifications (she failed her maths and English GCSE which are the only ones she took) and is having trouble even getting an apprenticeship.

The education team don’t seem to care and they have never been inspected.

I think you choose to close your eyes to it! I've seen many news articles on it and the comments underneath are always an eye opener! I'm seeing plenty of it online, it's become a trend even though some of these mothers can barely string a sentence together online.