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?

It's not unreasonable of you to ask, but giving me attitude when I answered your question wasn't really on.

I don't see why I would need to provide you with my specific working days/times, as it's frankly none of your business. You'll clearly "draw your own conclusions" regardless of what information I share with you. But your lack of understanding of HE and the DoE EHE guidelines just highlights your ignorance.

Two words ... Sarah Sharif. Children should be in school.

Home education done properly is a lot of work. I home educated my three DC, two through to A level, who then went on to university to complete a degree and one to GCSE who then went to a local college for further education. We stuck to a well planned schedule and worked in line with school terms and start/finish times. Alongside that my DC’s all trained intensely in their chosen hobby and home education allowed them a better balance to pursue this to a professional level.

For those asking how parents afford this and if it means one parent is claiming benefits, that was not the case for us. We had to make sacrifices but my husband worked full time and I took on freelance work when I could work it around educating my children. As far as I am aware you cannot claim unemployment benefits for home educating but admittedly I don’t have a lot of knowledge of this area.

i can relate to the previous poster that mentioned attending home eduction groups and the children being feral as that was my experience too the one time we attended. It was not for me or my children who got enough socialising through extra circulars so we didn’t go to any more. Much as home education worked well for us I can completely understand what the OP is saying as there are families out there that do have a very laid back approach to education and it does make me wonder how they are preparing their kids ultimately for employment.

Maybe my understanding would be better if you clarified how you home educate when you work during the day? It’s a really basic question I’m not being at all aggressive?

YANBU and I think social media is leading to a damaging trend in it.

My friend has just pulled her child out of primary school to homeschool them despite being pregnant and due in January. How on earth can you adequately provide education for a child when you’ve got a newborn baby?! I’m so worried about her child. She said she found the school routine too “rushed” and wanted a slower, more peaceful lifestyle and routine with DC1. It’s exactly what you’ve described OP, nature walks and craft activities. Nothing else.

I think she’s doing a huge disservice to DC1, who would probably relish the escape from a screaming newborn sibling by being at school and getting some time with friends their own age. My friend has no experience in education either.

As much as I'm disillusioned with the schooling system, I don't think I'm educated enough in enough areas to replace formal education of my child. Teachers do so much training in their specific field and many have degrees in their subjects as well as additional training to be a teacher of that specific age group. I think it's arrogant to think a single parent can replace all that. Also it's the lack of exposure to a variety of teachers and people which can't be good for the child. Variety is a good education and one person can't provide that.

On a side note, how do families even afford it to teach their children and not work?? I'm a single parent so it's not even an option but I do wonder.

Ok, fair enough, the written word can be hard to read tone.

But I'm not comfortable going into specific details about my days as it may be outing to those who know me.

As I said, I work part-time, I don't work full days, and I don't work everyday. I don't even work every week. I can basically choose how much or how little I work, which gives us great flexibility.

Our eldest child also self-studies now as she's a teenager, so needs very little input.

Has she taken GCSEs?

The problem is in addition to working humans also need to sleep and to do other stuff like cook, clean the house etc. So I don't think it's possible to work full time and do a decent job of full time educating a child. I think lots of parents do have experience of this thanks to COVID - I did the whole homeschooling a child during the day and then catching up with work at night. It's not sustainable long term.

I can imagine one parent working very part time could fit their shifts around home education and other stuff. But any more than very part time and you slip into the "kids do self sufficient work while parent sleeps of their night shift" territory for at least part of the time. And while a kid learning to work independently isn't the worst thing it's not a substitute for actual education.

She has started some of her GCSEs two years early.

We are spacing them out as she is autistic, so as not to overwhelm her.

Homeschooling often involves “education pods” where students have tutors and learn alongside other homeschooled children, albeit in much smaller groups.

I’m not saying every family is doing it perfectly but your description of homeschooling is nothing like what I see in my homeschool community, where the children are often screen free, socialise plenty and are academically privileged by having much more targeted tutoring than youd get in a school classroom.

My own child is still young - she just turned 5 this month, but she’s an excellent reader (far above the level she’d be in a school) and is fully bilingual in a language that no-one else in our family speaks. There is no way she would have had this start if she were in a regular school 8hrs a day.

1. I suspect you don't know that much about it, given you're using the wrong term.

2. The education you describe sounds inadequate. YANBU to be concerned about future of those children, if your impression of their education is correct.

3. YABU to be concerned about the future of all home educated children. My children are EHE. They're academically ahead of their school-educated peers in virtually every subject, and have plenty of friends (some EHE some at school) and plenty of time with them, and they're happy.

Their friends include one boy who's been so badly bullied at school that it amounts to a criminal offence, another who's been emotionally bullied to the point of insomnia, several children whose behaviour after very long days (at school and wrap-around care) so bad their parents are feeling desperate, a number who are bored silly at school because they're brighter than most of their classmates and the lessons are aimed beneath their ability, and some whose self-esteem is crashing because they're not very academic and being at the bottom of the class makes them feel worthless. I used to be a teacher, and came across some teachers whose literacy or numeracy was appalling, and some who were either cruel or manipulative.

I'm not going to pretend that's a fair sample and I should therefore be deeply concerned about every school pupil in the country. Likewise, you know some home edders whose education is poor, but it's disproportionate to extrapolate your concerns to cover every other EHE child who's EHE for reasons other than SEN.

Suitable education isn't being provided to all children attending school.
Many many children are being failed by the school system

In my LA, there's only enough provision for one check per home ed child per year. Miss it, and there's no capacity to follow-up. While the school system has its flaws and blindspots, there is accountabilty within schools. Each child is presented with opportunity to learn even if it isn't in optimal circumstances. There is access to the curriculum, safeguarding of recruitment and minimal standards of staff education.

The catchment of my school is below average educationally, and above average poverty. When students leave to be home educated, many of our families don't have much cultural, educational, or financial capital to teach their children well, even to a basic standard. When we can't meet needs due to diagnosed SENs, the next destination tends to be specialist provision. Those who leave to be home educated tend not to have diagnoses, and tend to have poor attendance and the families with poor engagement with school life and expectations. Those who come in to us after home education tend to have a low level of educational skills, poor social skills and often traits of undiagnosed needs. The system for identifying and diagnosing needs relies heavily with the support of the education system; often parents don't recognise needs themselves, especially if those needs are normal within the family. Not recognising needs affects self-esteem, and limits long term opportunities.

There are families doing a great job of home educating their children, often with better outcomes than schools, but that takes effort, resourcing and skill, and a lot of families don't have that avaliable. MNers tend to be of a demographic more likely to have it than the average level of the population.

I'm also finding that the school population is by far the most mobile I have known, and it's not due to physical moves out of area, and is primarily driven by dissatisfaction with the school to other local schools... but often our students return after a few months after realising that the grass isn't greener elsewhere and that other schools are more sanction-heavy in the quest for education. We're in challenging circumstances but work hard with our pastoral support, and balancing behaviour systems with realism. We have a strong community and try to be as holistic as possible. Ultimately a lot of our families just aren't keen on clear boundaries of reasonable behaviour and some try voting with their feet.

There are unfortunately families who use home education as an easy escape route from demand and scruitiny and are not necessarily making the best choice avaliable to meet their children's needs. It's certainly not all, but it is a significant enough issue to be worth acknowledging, and it is a growing issue in recent years.

@AccountDuplicated
How can one be a teacher and EHE their own child/children at the same time?

I work in a school. The behaviour of kids is so bad these days, way way worse than when we were kids and extremely disruptive for all involved… No discipline, no consequences. Loads of kids who do whatever they like when they like. Honestly if I had the money to stay off work I’d probably home educate myself. And not for social media kudos but because I think even walking in the woods would be, overall, more constructive than navigating the hell scape that is a state high school in a shit area.

Can you link to your post about children being failed in school

Thanks

Based on my child's school experience. Where they learnt nothing in several years due to school not meeting needs and was so badly damaged by the experience we nearly lost them..... Home ed even if done badly wouldn't be as bad as what happened in school.

They are doing so well through home ed but outsiders would likely think we aren't doing enough.
It's a tailored education that is meeting their needs but it doesn't follow the curriculum. So likely wouldn't be seen as dedicated enough to you and yet it is working and right for my child

Are you the home ed secret because you seem to think you have a say in home ed

I have seen them OP. You’re not imagining it. It’s bonkers.

I do partly blame the government though. I think a huge part of this is parents who would get fines for a term time holiday deciding to opt out entirely.

YANBU. We know a family who do it, two of the children can barely read.

The parents don’t seem to realise their DC won’t pass many GCSEs or A Levels, thereby putting university and top jobs out of reach.

I think many of us see the appeal, but it’s so unfair re poor educational outcomes, lack of socialisation, friendships and missing out on so many enjoyable things about school days. Too many remember the odd bad day at school 30 years ago and consign their children to no education at all.

Lots of teachers work part time.

I personally don't agree with elective home schooling in the case of the majority of students. I have three children of my own and, as an experienced teacher myself, know that they would not have achieved anywhere near what they have had they not attended school.
However, I am now an EOTAS tutor and mentor and I know this - so many of the young people I work with (nearly all with EHCP and all with SEND) are capable of so much. Bright minds with a resilience that would put many adults to shame.
It is the system who is failing them and it breaks my heart when they think that it is them who has failed. Absolutely not!
I taught for over 20 years in mainstream education and one of the many reasons I left is because I could see what damage it was doing to everyone "forcing square pegs into round holes".
I am so fortunate enough to now be in a position to be able to help advocate for these young people and their families and, I hope, give them some of their self-confidence back and encourage them onto whatever the right path is for them.

All the home educated children I know have been let down by state schools and are neurodiverse. I live in an area where home schooling is hugely popular and opportunities are varied, with young people mostly following their interests. I’ve seen everything from Japanese language tuition, groups building science/engineering projects, black smithing, photography, sports, animal farming, group maths/english, survival skills in the wild, then the usual playing with friends in parks/woodland, baking, historic family days out. There are inspirational sessions online too with excellent teachers running their own businesses teaching history or environmental sessions. GCSEs taken at local colleges or exams centres. There are also alternative provisions which offer small school type environment but with nurtured, self directed learning, reflection and a wider pupil centered curriculum.

I don't think it's an unreasonable, as part of concerns around issues in education resulting in many children ending up struggling to make steps into adulthood. I have noticed, at least in my area, a strong uptick in different kinds of support for young adults with no to few qualifications or otherwise struggling in the early parts of adulthood, including dedicated support for those with disabilities. I'm not sure it's enough or even at times the right support, but that growth in adult education options I think is a step in the right direction when we're looking at the wide gaps in what children are getting, no matter whether they're home-, school- or mixed education.

I home educated for many years due to my kids' disabilities. There have always been parents whose idea of education is doing whatever's easiest and that attitude having severe consequences. One only has to look at homeschool recovery groups to see that.

Whether such parents are a higher percentage of home educators now with the influence of social media or there are more because home education has statically grown since the lockdowns or some other explanation of them being more visible, I'm not sure we have any good evidence on this.

One of the problems in discussing this is that home education spaces on the general are on the defensive, have been since well before the Badman Review years, so discussing that yes, there are parents who use our very, very lax home education laws to neglect their kids' education is only going to end up much like this thread.

Another problem is the comparison are generally either with the best or the worst of schools against the worst or best of home education, depending on agenda, rather than getting into what many kids experience across the board and how it could be better for everyone.

I very much doubt whether these people will home educate for the whole of their children's childhood, especially without having some contact from the LA, who will have a conversation about what they are offering - which is required to be adequate to the child's age and ability. If not - they can take steps to challenge this.

From the rough data I've seen, yes, you're right that most children who are pulled out of school do return within a few years. The data is fairly weak as others mentioned, it rarely includes those who've home educated from the start so not deregistered or where there is a move or other reason a child is missing from the data.

The idea that the LA will absolutely have a conversation about what the parents are doing in any meaningful way and challenge in any meaningful way for any home educator, nevermind those who are using home ed to hide educational neglect, is sadly not my experience.

LAs have few staff on this and it's fairly normal once you've ticked boxes to get ignored. I was registered and known for a couple decades - over half of that I had no LA contact. It was useful being registered when randoms reported us, but in general, they tick the box as soon as possible and moved on. Even in the years we had contact, there was never any meaningful conversation - they got the reports, they spoke with the kids, that was it. What it takes to tick that box varies by council, but it's rare they will keep contact up over an extended period of time unless the family actively pursues it. They don't have the people or will to do so meaning things may be great at 6 and fall apart at 12 when even the basic conversation Education Welfare Officers are having ae long gone.

Also, again, home education spaces are on the defensive and have become very good at keeping the line. There have been templates and guides on how to get out of dealing with the LA well before I was on the scene, and there is even more now. There is the little they can do when parents don't engage until things get really bad - and many parents don't, unsurprisingly, if they're coming from a place where institutions like school have caused harm. While I speak out against the issues home education defensiveness causes, there are often for very good reasons behind it even when the execution of it can be troubling.

I've also been a school governor as is often recommended for those concerned about education. I have sat in area-wide meetings for Chairs and Vice-Chairs of governing boards with the LA where Education Welfare Leads openly discuss their opinions of home educators and the rise of home education. If anything was going to put off parents from engaging with LAs, it would be listening to how much those who lead the Education Welfare Officers think of us when they think everyone is on their side. The systems are not set up for those discussions to be meaningful, they're set up to see how well we fit the box they're looking for (and don't dare ask for help).

Homeschooling often involves “education pods” where students have tutors and learn alongside other homeschooled children, albeit in much smaller groups....There is no way she would have had this start if she were in a regular school 8hrs a day.

Regular schools are 6 hours a day, some private schools have longer days.

And no, home education doesn't often involve "pods" and tutors, that's like the private school version of home education that is not accessible to most people. Some home educators have that, but it's the lovely experience of the few, and there is no benefit to portraying like that's how most home educate. I've met far more people home educating based nearly entirely on free curriculums and local clubs than people using tutors or pods, especially for early years.