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?

My son got 4s and 5s in his GCSEs. He technically passed every single one, but those grades aren’t high enough for A-Levels. So, by your judgement - he didn’t get the “right level of education”. Fair enough, that’s your view. Not really sure what the point is then for the many kids who won’t get the higher grades, despite trying.

Therefore, many of your suggestions are out of the question. I sometimes do think there wasn’t much point in my son trying, as if you don’t get the top grades, many of the better jobs aren’t an option for you. My son really did try his best. 100 percent attendance at the local, deprived state.

He’s not at all practical.

He is currently doing a level 3 extended diploma in business so we will see.

I did laugh at the “of course there’s a load of jobs, just go into medicine” comment. That was such a Mumsnet thing to say.

I think many parents are capable of educating their primary age child. My problem is when they reach secondary age. Very few, if any parents are capable of providing all tuition in maths,sciences and languages. For those who will not pay, or cannot afford to pay for tutors, then their children will fall behind.

It's difficult to get a job nowadays without maths and English GCSs, so by taking children out of school, they are setting them up to fail.

I think this is a big problem - finding a niche at 16 for kids who aren't practical and didn't quite get the grade/have the ability for A levels. I'm not sure if the latter is often true or if they just need more time and maturity. ( Some kids aren't even 16 yet when they've finished sitting GCSEs )

I don't know what the answer is but there is a definite gap in post 16 education for these children. One of our family members is in the same boat.
I hope your son thrives on his business course and navigates a way forward.

You do sound a bit defeated. It is hard encouraging your child throughout 11 years of school, to find out how limited the options then are for a particular cohort who passed their GCSEs but aren't considered candidates for A level.

My thought would be to make the most of the 3 free years of post 16 education. If he does well in his first year, it may open up options for other A levels. Or he may be loving his course as it is, fingers crossed.

I hesitate to mention because I know by the end of GCSEs they feel fed up with them, but if you feel his GCSE results did not match his abilities and if finances allow, there is the possibility of resitting as a private candidate in the spring. Working towards 3/4 GCSEs is a lot easier than the 9/10 they ricochet through. Happy to give advice on this.

Look for a weekend job, ask friends who have jobs to keep an eye on if their workplaces are hiring - my daughter just got her friend in that way. Any job will bring in transferrable skills.
Local companies that don't hire through internet hiring agencies are the best best imo.. And sometimes it's being in the right place at the right time. We just happened to see a little cafe post on Facebook and my daughter was one of the first to ring. Pure luck. For the job she applied for previously, she queued around the block with over 60 other people so that was a bit soul destroying, but the thing is not to get discouraged.

Consider that not rushing to uni has the benefit that he has time to decide what he really wants to do and he can get there later via an access course. A family member did this. After a year acess course he was then at uni qualifying for a job he now loves.

Fwiw, my son wishes he had done business rather than what he has ended up doing. He's got a particular geeky interest in something and is topping up his uni loan by buying and selling.

These parents just declare this type of education or qualifications are not necessary and they can do functional maths and English. They then talk about adults who have done well with zero qualifications without the understanding that the world has changed.

A lot of entry level jobs do not exist ay more. I am in my sixties and still working full time as I don't have a state pension yet. Both myself and my partner are finding a lot of older people doing lower paid jobs that at one time would have been done by younger people.

One of the women I know who home schools is creating the fourth generation of her family with no qualifications. The poor child sits in his home on his own all day every day and has since he was 8 (although his great grandmother, in her 90's, lived next door until last year) I honestly feel like calling social services..It's child abuse.

Well until there is a safe option for children like mine to attend a provision in which they can learn the better or only option we have is home ed. Removing out ability to home ed which out a viable alternative is very very dangerous for those children

If a child is ill and needing medical attention then even poor hospital care is going to be better than no hospital care but if their was a better option such as private care or hospital a is 10 hour wait but hospital b is a 2 hour wait I would obviously choose the better option

If taking your child to hospital meant they got no care and were left to die in the corridor alone then I would prefer to keep them at home and do what I can to help them. In the UK at this time that's not what you expect in hospitals so I would be taken them to hospital

Schools on the other hand are very damaging to SEN pupils and getting worse

Thank you. He is enjoying his business course at college and is applying himself (he applied himself for his GCSEs). I feel like his results really did reflect his capacity. I don’t think he could have done better with the effort and resources at the time. He would have enough UCAS points at the end of this course to apply for uni, but I don’t think he will. But, again, we will see.

Hopefully he can get an apprenticeship - business admin, accounts. He’s applied for 67 part time jobs since September (he writes and records them all down). His college course is 2.5 days a week so he does have time. Great soft skills, lots of initiative so we will see, but yes hard not to feel a little defeated already. A numbers and luck game. There is a gap though for young people like my son with those results, and who aren’t practical. Thank you for your reply.

Why haven't you called social services?
Social services deal with abuse and neglect, the team responsible for home education at the LA are responsible for finding children who aren't receiving a suitable education.

SS should speak to the team at the LA who can ask for information about home education and this will include social opportunities. If they aren't satisfied by informal enquiries, they can move to a notice to satisfy and then a school attendance order. There is a process. If SS feel it's purely the remit of the home education team, they can step back.

That's great to read your update about his course and the potential you see for the future.

I'm a big believer in not rushing off to university, having a year out to take stock and really think about it as once the uni funding has been used then options are narrowed further, fingers crossed for the rest of his time at college and onwards.

I'm sorry to hear about his job hunting experience and I'm sorry if my comment about that was a bit bossy. It is a numbers game and luck. Your son sounds lovely.

And thats the excuse of people who don't want to work. There are always jobs and ways to make money...my dad was completely illiterate but still always made money. But he made sure he was bloody good at maths.

I get the sentiment but you’re incredibly short sighted. Hell, you can go on only fans and make a quick buck if you wanted too 🥱 . Times and society have moved on from your dads world. If you don’t understand the current hoops and lack of appropriate jobs, then I suggest you educate yourself.

My own brother left at 15 and was and is a successful tradesman.
My son isn’t illiterate by the way, but he’s not at all practical. Your attitude is very out dated.

I work in a museum and some (obviously not all) of the home edders can't even read the information boards to their children, and very often get the simple facts they're reading wrong.

We provide really simple worksheets and museum trails and many really struggle with them, despite being older than the ages they're designed for.

But if the parents struggle to read and write, it's to be expected I suppose.

In the past I would agree that there was always jobs if you wanted to work.

It's not quite that simple

Growing up paper rounds and baby sitting was normal ways to make some pocket money from starting high school. Paper rounds aren't really a thing now and while it was normal to get a 12 year old to babysit in the 80s/90s who is going to a. Allow a young person to babysit sit now or b. Allow their young child to go to random houses in their own.

Then we started waitressing and washing up in pubs from 14 - now they won't employ this age as rules have changed.

And the complications continue

Going to college years ago you decided the course you wanted to do and you went. Unless the course was directly related to a subject you did at school the results weren't really relevant

If you were doing plumbing you did plumbing with no requirement to resit English or maths. Then they brought in a requirement to do functional maths and English alongside your course if you hadn't got the grades.

Now they won't allow certain courses without specific grades. Makes sense to need this for some courses but in other instances it really doesn't. It just creates a barrier.

Someone could make an excellent fashion designer or builder and years ago their was no gatekeepers preventing access to these courses based on GCSE results

You do understand that those parents likely went to school. So not being able to read means that school failed them

Yes?

And not being able to read and write but home edding your kids is letting them down too.

I don't know why anyone would want to take on a job they know they're incapable of, unless (as the OP stated) there are exceptional circumstances.

Some areas have a very light touch approach to HE. My area does. The local authority here would do nothing. In some areas they would pursue this aggressively

Why are you assuming they went to school?

There is no excuse for the LA not to be doing their job and following process.

In their situation if they spent 12 years in school and weren't even taught to read they likely feel it is a waste of time.

Maybe they value their children getting other experiences.

The reality is if these children can't read and their parents can't read then the likelihood is they would have their needs ignored in school and not learn to read there either.
Many schools are incapable of managing children who's needs are higher.

Because we're not talking about schools, the discussion is about home education, start another thread about crap schooling if it bothers you.

Because home ed was rarer in previous generations.

I think you're making excuses now.

I think the vast majority of parents wish for their children to do better than them, no matter how well they did/didn't do themselves.

Honestly the legislation doesn't really support an aggressive approach from local authorities. The better local authorities around HE push the legislation to the nth degree to do what they do.

But if the parents send a report saying he is working on various education at home during the day and socialises in the evening and weekends, my authority would accept that.

What we need is stronger legislation. So at minimum samples of work required. Being able to speak to the child etc.

Good parents want better for their children. Some parents just want what is best for them.

There is stronger legislation coming but the report should at the very least be able to demonstrate progress. Just saying he is working on xyz without providing suitable examples of progress should be picked up.