Home education vs school education

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My 6 year old is currently in year 1 and I constantly play with the idea of home schooling!

I’ve got a few friends who currently home school so would have friends to help me out with ideas, I also feel like I would enjoy having my son home and teaching him immensely. However I also have two other small children so maybe I’m thinking of it through rose tinted glasses and it would be too chaotic to teach at home yet?

I appreciate there’s lots of benefits to school and my son although does moan about going I get the impression he enjoys it when he is there and has friends in school.

Just wondering what others opinions are on home schooling vs normal school!

All schools should be aiming for outstanding. Of course many factors influence that. My point was that I don’t see how someone who is not a trained teacher could possibly hope to teach to an outstanding standard. It was not a comment on the failures of some schools.

My DCs benefitted massively from home education in an academic sense, but I dedicated myself full-time to preparation and teaching. I was previously a lecturer and highly qualified (to degree/PhD level) in subjects spanning most of the curriculum. We travelled a lot and I used other teachers to teach MFL as I didn't feel qualified.

I am aware of families where the DCs are just being left without any education because the parents are working and not able to teach them. DCs are being left at home unsupervised where they game or watch TV and are not learning anything of academic merit. The ability to follow a recipe and bake a few cakes (as suggested on some Home Ed. forums) does not constitute an education. In my view, this type of home education is is unacceptable.

It can work, but it is very challenging and I believe it should only happen if a parent is available full-time and has a minimum standard of education themselves, sufficient to provide suitable supervision and help to the child progress.

There are lots of unqualified teachers in secondary schools teaching various subjects because they're cheaper to employ.

There are definitely some benefits to being a qualified teacher who home eds, but it's not a requirement.

I don’t know if I’m not clear or you’re deliberately misinterpreting what I say - I have been commenting on what I view someone would need to make a success of home schooling - experience of teaching, ideally qualifications in teaching, lots of resources, qualifications in the subjects they would teach etc. I am not saying here are all the faults with state schools that you can easily replicate at home by being incompetent, under resourced, only able to offer a limited curriculum. I don’t agree with your argument that there are some poorly run schools not doing their best for students and therefore home educating also to a poor standard is ok.

I don't think home educating to a poor standard is ok (I have very high standards and roll my eyes at the "Baking is maths! Talking is English!" style some people have).

I thought you were suggesting that schools always provide a better education than home education because the teachers are qualified and experienced. Apologies if I have misconstrued your post.

We were in a home ed group. Some people had always wanted to do it, some children particularly the ones with neuro diversity couldn't cope with school. We had preschoolers up to teenagers. People just came to the lessons that appealed to them. We did all sorts of stuff, one mum was a professional artist and the children loved their art lessons, one dad was a chef and did cookery lessons, we clubbed together to pay a French tutor. Several if the parents were teachers. On top of that my children had piano lessons, went to a drama club brownies and cubs, tennis lessons and swimming.

They started school in year five and were way ahead of the kids who'd been there since reception. The deputy head was very miffed about it and insisted a parent couldn't teach a child to read, I'm not sure if she thought we were lying about teaching them to read ourselves.

Doesn't suit everyone but if you enjoy it then it's great.

I think the thing mine struggled with when starting school was being expected to mix only with their own age group, their home school friends varied in age so they found that weird.

Oh I see! I think I’ve misunderstood. I particularly enjoyed your “talking is English” quip. Got you. Absolutely some schools are very poor and some are great.

Biting my tongue in home ed Facebook groups has become a full time job 🙃

I've posted in the past looking for tips on how parents store worksheets / revision materials and had so many people replying with "why are you doing revision? Why are you doing worksheets? Go outside! Learn from life!".

Life isn't going to help DD pass her GCSEs 🙃

I had to home educate my eldest DD for a term (ill health). I really wish I could have continued to home educate her, as she was later diagnosed AuDHD and would have really benefitted from it, as opposed to hating school and being stressed (although she did very well at school in the end).

But I had three younger children when I was trying to teach her and I found it impossible. There was nobody else to have the younger ones, the next one down went to playgroup three mornings a week (which meant we lost a lot of education time driving to and fro) and trying to teach with two toddlers in the house screaming, crawling on the table, wanting to 'seeeeee' all the time meant that any real 'teaching' just couldn't happen. So she went back to school as soon as her health condition was resolved.

@TheignT You cannot possibly know that unless your dc are genius level. Schools often have a very wide range of dc. In my DDs primary cohort, 4 went to Oxbridge. I expect you would have thought your dc ahead but year 5 is not the end of education.

I’ve never seen the mixing with older neuro diverse dc as a huge advantage either. My dc had a wide group of friends in their own age group and they chose their friends. They were not curated for them from a narrow group. Older sc tire of young ones too. They cannot play sport together for example.

The brightest kids went on to the local grammar with mine so I know who went to uni and who didn't but I don't get your point, I didn't say anything about where kids ended I said mine were ahead when they started in year five and they were, they also went on to better unis than their cohort from year five and that just happens to be a fact.

I find I mix with all sorts of people, not sure what the advantage of saying kids can only mix with kids born in the same academic year as them. I think it's quite funny that on the one hand home ed is criticised as too small a group but also criticised as the group is too diverse.
You'd almost think people have their own agenda.

I know many home ed families, both here, and overseas (home schooling because of where they are living)
I did it with mine when overseas for reception and year 1

I am also a teacher and while not teaching in school now, I taught in primary schools and overseas in International schools.

I think any way that delivers a good education both academically and socially is great. That can be home ed, school, home school co-ops, online school etc.

But in my experience, I see a families that choose home ed doing a poor job, and families who choose home ed doing an amazing job.

It is a full time job for one parent. It requires serious committment to ensure your child has access to all the academic support they need and even more to ensure that they have access to a decent social group, made up of a wide variety of people.
It is hard to teach subjects that you are not confident in yourself (I have lost track of the number of parents who don't like teaching maths or spelling) and it is hard to teach well without defaulting to endless workbooks and worksheets.
But for those who do it well, they tend to be very dedicated and do an amazing job.

It is incredibly hard to do it well post primary, and child development does not support kids being home full time with parents at this age, (teenagers by definition should be becoming more independent from their parents, and building relationships with peers) so you have to be really dedicated to get them into social groups.
But if you can manage it, well it is as good as any other method of schooling

Many adult children realise their parents weren't perfect - my mother was narcissistic and controlling and goodness knows what would have happened if she had tried home schooling me.

Children who are home schooled are SO at the mercy of their parents and their aspirations for their children.

It's very worrying imo. What's wrong with school?

They can definitely get very ahead if they’ve got an aptitude in a particular subject. My friend’s Ds loved maths and was following this unusual American curriculum taught via stories (my Ds tried it and hated it!). His mum asked her uncle, an A Level maths teacher, to check he was on the right track when he was about 11 and the uncle confirmed he was at A Level Further Maths level! It wasn’t deliberate hothousing and she hasn’t rushed for him to progress (he got his 9 at GCSE at the normal age but that was a formality).

Also, the curriculum really doesn’t take long to get through at home- at any level. Ds had a terrible time in years 3 and 4, due to an NQT, the school failing Ofsted, constant supply teachers etc. He’d just reached the expected level in his year 2 SATs and i don’t think he got much further in the next two years. A year of fairly light touch home ed (1.5/2 hours a day) brought him up to scratch with the KS2 curriculum and he got into grammar school.

The same boy for various reasons didn’t attend sixth form much at all but taught himself the whole curriculum for his A Level subjects at home between March and May of year 13. Honestly the UK school curriculum is fairly basic really,

My point was that I don’t see how someone who is not a trained teacher could possibly hope to teach to an outstanding standard.

There are, and have been in the past, outstanding teachers who were never trained as teachers. An educated, involved parent who has time might be one too.

An angry, impatient parent teaching you is a nightmare though. If it all goes wrong it is very undiluted too.

@crazycrofter Many struggle with it though, don’t they?

I still don’t believe a y5 dc can be ahead in everything when you don’t know what other dc can do. I do see it in individual subjects though . Usually hothoused maths. However all dc need breadth and often bright dc do need stretching that schools cannot always do. Where I was a governor, we had outreach in maths from grammar school teachers. Schools should be creative and I certainly accept a constant churn of teachers is awful. Many NQTs are very good though if mentored appropriately. Inadequate schools don’t do this of course.

It’s also interesting how much home ed people are so keen to say their dc are beating all the other dc and better than their peers. Not sure I like that and it’s surely something to do with parental specialisms and dc ability to learn. Not sure it should be boasted about because, ultimately, if they don’t get to a top uni or get a top job, what does it matter other than one up-manship and validation of the home Ed choice? Other dc are perfectly ok for the most part.

I also think age appropriate friendships are better. I’ve certainly seen home Ed dc only want to converse with adults and not be very tolerant of other dc.

There's not a whole lot of research on the topic but what there is suggests that structured home ed is superior to school, and unstructured home ed (e.g. "unschooling") is inferior to school in terms of achievement levels. Home ed children who get to University tend to fare extremely well as they are used to being self-motivated.

You do need to consider some additional things when home edding that you don't need to give as much thought to if they are in school, including:

• Physical education
• Socialisation
• Costs of resources and experiences, including exams if you get that far

I considered it. My main worries were staying organised and having the energy to keep up a routine and stay motivated to keep going day after day, and the dynamic shift between being your child's parent and teacher. As it turns out she's a social butterfly and was adamant she wanted to go to school. She absolutely loves school.

"Look, my 9 year old made this amazing model of her dinner out of playdoh and then we had a brief conversation about the solar system, watched a documentary about panda bears and read a book aimed at 6 yos before bed. I'm so glad I home ed and have time to do all these things that most children do anyway after school!"😂

@NeverSeenThatColourBlue Superior in what way? Exams passed? Superior at sport, drama or art? Superior at being a maths genius? Often these dc have a tailored education and have super bright parents. They would probably have excelled if they had gone to school. I’m not sure being allegedly superior makes dc rounded tolerant people. Or that it’s necessarily a good thing. It works for some people and some dc in specific circumstances.

There is an American mom of 10 on social media who home schools them all, with a very heavy emphasis on playing string instruments. They all apparently passionately want to get into Julliard, the famous New York music academy. Some of the older ones are there already.

I see her posts sometimes - I am struck by the single minded focus and the lack of alternatives to these violins and cellos.

+I'm so glad I home ed and have time to do all these things that most children do anyway after school!"*

Are you saying the home Ed person doing all those things is someone to make fun of because they are a boastful, pushy parent in their attitude to their child and making the child learn too much?

Or are you saying they are wasting their time because children attending school will do all that anyway, but after their normal school day?

I am saying that there is a subset of HE parents who spend a lot of time on the Internet boasting about their child doing extremely basic tasks that most children do as part of their usual day and which do not constitute a meaningful education. I'm not talking about parents with SEN children who are enormously proud of their child's progress after being withdrawn from school btw which also exist and I have every respect for.

Does it really sound like the child is being made to “learn too much”? God help us if playing with playdoh, watching TV and having a bedtime story is too much learning to pack into a nine year old’s day.

Thank you for explaining. I had not understood the context properly.

You are right. I had misunderstood and thought the child was much younger ( early primary) meaning what they had done in HE sounded rather worthwhile.