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?

You seem to be repeatedly missing where I'm saying about children who are capable.
If a child has no learning difficulties or additional needs, and they fail to get a C in GCSE maths and English then that is absolutely a problem for me. If a school is just taking them to the park and doing zero educating then it would be shut down. Why should parents be allowed to remove their child from receiving a proper education if they aren't willing to do so properly?!

Amongst the home ed amongst the people I know over the decades, it is almost a joke. sadly.
I do know of one kid who tried to get to college. Not sure if they succeeded or not.

I agree, I know some too, which makes me wonder how many there are.
Some I know ride/groom ponies every day instead of school.
One boy has done nothing but play computer games all day since he was 9. He won’t cooperate with any thing or do anything else.

Great post. Agree completely.

My old next door neighbour is like this. She has five children and only the eldest attended nursery for a few weeks before she removed him.
He's now 18 with no qualifications at all.
The next eldest tried primary school but didn't like the hours.....
So five children no qualifications or social skills.
If you see them out and about and say hello they just look at you.
Its a bloody shame

My son was HE, he's going to Uni next year so you don't need to worry about him.

I’m an adult home schooled child. Happy to answer questions. My own children went to school.

They’re confusing things most parents do with their kids at weekends anyway for ‘education’. They seem to think kids will learn maths through leaves, or how to write through using shells to make words on the beach. Of course there are some kind of passive, gentle educational value to these things, but it doesn’t replace a proper structured education.

I mean, I’m not talking about home schooled children per se and I was at pains to make this clear in my OP. I’m not looking to pick apart anybody who happens to home school, or was home educated themselves.

I totally agree with you OP and I also am not deliberately missing the point you have made, unlike many PPs 🙄

Of COURSE lots of people are excellent at home education and their kids are thriving and of COURSE school does not work for many kids and they should have an opportunity to learn in a way that clearly suits them better.

HOWEVER that does not negate the fact that there are a lot of absolutely fucking useless parents allegedly "home educating" and it is THOSE people who I took the OP to mean. It is totally unfair IMO that their kids' opportunities are limited on the choice of their parents and agree with those who say it borders on neglect. I met several families through work who said they wanted to home educate and frankly, it was the worst idea I could have ever thought of for them - the parents were in all honesty completely dim and could barely understand ideas like "you have to actually speak to a toddler for them to learn to talk" so wtf they think they could have "educated" them in was beyond me!

And it's been asked a few times why the OP is "worried" - well, I personally am worried that an awful lot of feral, unemployable adults created from these kids are going to the the ones we rely on to be holding society together in a few years. FML 🙈

So no, OP - YADNBU!!

Well the problem is that there is no way to know which children are falling through the cracks.

But state educated children are also being failed because the curriculum has been made harder and funds stripped away from schools.

My dd, who is 22 commented today that dd4’s handwriting is better in year 2 than hers was in year 4.

Impo home education is the perfect solution for many kids, however very few parents / carers can do it well.
Not every child belongs in mainstream, many don't thrive there and, in fact, are held back because of it. However without parents/carers who can do it justice, they're likely to fall behind their peers. Plus is always a safeguarding concern...

I could have written @FastAnt post.
It’s bloody hard work to do it properly, and it was a heck of a strain financially.

I agree with you. I work in a school that for reasons, many previously homeschooled children are coming to us. The amount ot children in KS2 coming to us without the basics (and I mean literally reception level of learning) but with no SEND is insane! I know it’s not all homeschoolers but I think the fact these children have been let down so much by their parents. Reading is absolutely fundamental to life regardless of what you think about the school system and basically every single child that’s started with us cannot read. We have a KS2 child that has no phonic knowledge at all!

This is quite interesting to read because I’ve come across a few people who run classes that I’ve come to know over the years and they report the exact same thing. They say the home ed classes in some sports are a health and safety nightmare as a result.

Your days sound like actual education and well planned for your child’s future.

I saw someone saying online the other day in reply to someone else, saying she does home education and she wrote how she follows her kids interests. Ok. Then she said we did baking and went to a trampoline park. As if kids who go to school don’t do that after school or at weekends! I can imagine those are the kids running feral.

Of course home schooling can't be compared to a full at school education, with the interactions, those moments of enlightenment and a teacher with deep knowledge about a subject bringing it to life!

No parent, especially if they have SEN needs of their own, could ever fulfill the benefits of DC having these opportunities.

Having my own ND DC, the best thing was finding a specialist school and they have more than thrived! As a teacher, I knew I couldn't possibly give the same experience home educating.

I do agree with some children it may be the best situation, but only if not the right place educational place has been sought and found.

Unfortunately it is the case when some parents aren't responsible enough to get them up and dressed ready for school and this is heartbreaking because those bright young DC would benefit so much from being in a school environment to learn about the world rather than being left to rot in bed and play games.

From my teaching experience, the same applies to travellers and parents from a different cultural background. When it comes to time when attendance has gone beyond minimal and liaison officers go round.... no answering of door, met with aggression, violence, next step social workers, met with same response. It takes a lot of paperwork and referrals to manage these situations of proclaiming home schooling because checks have to be made.

YANBU my mum did this to my brother, she sat on gambling sites all day while he played call of duty.. This was her idea of homeschooling.
I went to school until year 10 and didn’t sit one exam, mainly because of horrific bullying and severe neglect at home. This was 30 years ago and it still pisses me off that nobody saw the signs and stepped in to try and help us. We really do need to start caring about children more in this country. Kids like me and my brother are still in classrooms and bedrooms all over.

That comes up on mine too. And any time someone replies to say actually their contact at the LA was helpful and sent them various resources and group contacts etc, people will reply saying no don’t talk to them!! Don’t send them anything!! It’s pretty crazy.

I’ve been home educating for 20 years and I’ve never come across the sort of people the OP identifies. But I don’t use Instagram.

It’s very hard to have this sort of conversation because people are so defensive about schools. There are many crap schools and many kids who emerge with few to no qualifications. But yeah, let’s have a moan about home education…

You're clearly showing how uneducated you are regarding home education.

Home educating parents can and do work. As another poster has already replied to you, I don't work 24/7.

What’s your pattern of work and educating if you don’t mind my asking?

Home education does not need to be carried out during school hours, giving home educators flexibility when it comes to working. In addition to this, my DH is at home with our children whilst I'm at work. I work part-time.

That doesn’t really answer my question

I'm under no obligation to give you the finer details of my life. I've already told you more than I should have, given your attitude.

I will have to draw my own conclusions. You came onto the thread and made it about your personal circumstances, it’s not unreasonable of me to ask.