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?

But also if a child has poor attendance due to medical reasons and the school/LA has not provided support. particarly when they fail to provide medical tuition for long term medical absences (the LA have a legal responsibility to provide)
Then this also isn't the child's fault because they have been failed here too

This is sadly very damaging. Their future children may thrive at school.

And they may thrive with home education.

Do you every worry about what your own children have missed by not being home educated?

School isn't automatically better just because eits school. If we had opted to home educated rather than send to school from the beginning we would have been a lot better off.

You obviously have no idea. Why do you think it's very damaging?

I haven’t got the option of home education. We both work full time to survive. Yes I do feel sad it’s not an option.

I think it’s hugely damaging not to treat children as individuals. My ds hated grass roots football. I didn’t then not allow my other ds to try it. I did what was best for them.

If your one son was so badly failed by school you feared they wouldn't reach adulthood if you continued to force them into an environment that was so damaging to them you would understand. Football is a hobby - done for fun. You can try any hobby you want till you find what each individual likes it is a completely different situation

We had to make huge sacrifices to enable us to home ed but compared to the consequences of continuing to send to school there was no other option.

I would argue that home ed allows you to treat children more as individuals than school does. School is all about conforming to a set system and individuality is frowned upon.

Not necessarily. If they've been home educated well they'll have a good model.

I noticed that you are completely trying to misrepresent my comments:

1, Your child could resit exams to achieve higher grades. Maths and English are generally essential and must be a minimum of 4, if below this it’s generally compulsory to resit them.

2, There are lots of engineering apprenticeships which can be applied for with GCSEs that are not sufficient to start A - levels. Engineering apprenticeships are not just for vehicles and transportation sectors but also within the food and consumer goods industries. They allow day release that can be continued to degree level.

Of course! But saying you just shouldnt bother with anything is going to put your children even further down the pile.

O don't think anyone is suggesting you shouldn't do anything just that for some children alternative routes can often be a better option

But is it though? The quality of state education, particularly in deprived areas can be so poor, that it’s neither here nor there if a young person is HE. You only need to look at the stats for white working class boys to understand this. It should come as no surprise, more and more parents simply just remove their kids from the system. They’re not seeing much of a benefit.

1. why would I do that when he already passed? English at a 5, maths at a 4. My son worked very hard for those results. He revised endlessly, he listened. He was AT his capacity. Me telling him that, actually, those results still weren’t good enough? Well I’m sorry something has gone very wrong in society if it means a standard pass means you’re getting nowhere fast. That’s a defecit model, and one I’m not actually buying into.

2. I know exactly what those apprenticeships are. My son actually applied for quite a few, alongside customer service and HR apprenticeships as soon as he got his results. He wasn’t successful, but did get down from 300 to the final 10 for our local LA.

It is what it is, we will take it from here, but you can’t just presume an education is going to lead to medicine, architecture etc. A short sighted view.

Home schooling is a term used in the US that has found its way across the Atlantic. It means exactly the same as home education.

In the UK home schooling is more related to pupils.registered at school.but educated at home via the LA provision (LA responsibility)

This is different to home ed which cam be done anywhere but is the responsibility of the parent s

Before the advent of schools and universal education mandates, literacy rates were extremely low.

The example of the late Queen as a shining beacon of lack of formal education is not one I would use. She was brought up in a privileged household and was taught to read and write and do basic arithmetic there. She would never have been able to find any role for herself with such an abysmal education other than the one that was her destiny from the day her father ecame king. Apart, that is, from marriage to a rich man who could afford to indulge her passion for horses.

I had a grandmother and aunts who were brought up in similarly privileged homes and denied an academically challenging education - governess to age ten, a few years at a boarding school for young ladies, then finishing school left them without any hope of university or ever earning a living for themselves, despite being endowed with the same DNA as brothers who became doctors, architects, engieers, and barristers.

The terms have become fungible at this point.

The parent is the primary educator of the child. The school.is the agent or partner of the parent.

In the UK home educators use the term home education. What they use in America is not relevant

Actually no its not. Vinted, ebay good places to make money. Car cleaning, window cleaner, bin cleaning....all need little capital outlay. The first 2 none at all you sell stuff you don't want, buy in more and resell

Well, both vinted and ebay do require you to have a secure/clean/dry place to store your items and packaging materials, access to the internet, surplus items to sell, etc - that's actually quite a lot of capital outlay, it is just already going on in the background for most people on Mumsnet. Car washing at least you just need a bucket, a sponge, a rag and some car shampoo.

Come on! A sponge £1, a bucket £1, shampoo £1....so 3 quid...it's about mentality.

A story. When I was 18 my dad gave me a gold sovereign ring. "Dad, it's nice but it's not the sort of thing I wear"
"No, it's your insurance policy. If it goes tits up, you pawn it. You get £50. The way I brought you up, you turn that into £100, then 200 quid and your back in the game"

I had a drink this afternoon with some mates. Trigger...yep that's his nickname, learning difficulties, medical issues... he's out working every day....

I'm confused, is the idea that children don't need a basic education (to the extent they develop functional reading skills, maths skills on a level with their peers) because they can just be wash cars? For one I am fairly certain the prevalence of both automatic car washes and hand wash car valet services (often employing people well below minimum wage) have put paid to car washing as a lucrative career option. If it ever was, which it wasn't. For another as heart warming as the story of your dad and the sovereign ring is, it's quite hard to do well in business without basic maths skills. It becomes very easy for other people to rip you off and take advantage. (The classic case being Roma who often rely on specific individuals within the community to do financial or admin stuff. Sometimes this is fine. Sometimes it results in whole families being ripped of and exploited. And that's in close knit, higher trust conditions than the general pop.)

I do not think everyone needs to go to uni. I do think all children deserve a decent education either at school or through proper structured home ed. Advocating to deprive children of that and then describing their resulting difficulties as adults as "mentality" is incredibly cruel.

The queen was actually aware she was very poorly educated and engaged tutors as a new queen to educate her about history, geography, culture and politics.
She is not a good example for not needing an education. She felt she did need one.

No people need education. My point was the poster who said there was no point in it as there are no jobs. Thats a fucking excuse for being lazy.

My dad never went to school because he was a sickly child. If he had our lives would have been brilliant because he was a highly intelligent man...until his chest condition which was the reason he didn't go to school limited oxygen to his brain.
I was pointing out that there are a million ways to make money. If you get off your arse

And for some children home ed will give them.far more opportunities.

The big difference on your dad's time and this time.... When your dad was too unwell to attend school he stayed home till.he was well enough for school.

Now parents of unwell children are being harassed by schools over attendance.