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!

They are worthwhile of course for any age- even at 36 I find a bit of Play-Doh therapy quite relaxing and I love a good David Attenborough documentary, it's just not exactly a full time education.

The theory that children are built to learn and all you need to do as a parent is facilitate what they want to learn is not baseless but in the age of screens designed to capture and hold attention for hours on end, it becomes somewhat irrelevant.

And then when the child wants to go back to a more mainstream education setting they find themselves years behind, and with no experience of doing anything which they don't find fun.

Just to add again, this isn't all HE parents, but they are very vocal and as PP mentions will be quite rude and aggressive to anyone who imposes a structure on their HE child.

Couldn't agree more. I think the meaning of "facilitate" has been lost, too. So many HE parents think that means stick something on TV, get the play dough out, job done.

I spend a significant amount of my time each week planning learning that is appropriate for DD's development level in those individual subjects - for example, she's at Y7 in English but Y10 in Maths and end of Y11 in her subject for GCSE this year - so I'm tailoring an entire curriculum for her. I can't just stick a documentary on TV and leave her to it, and I don't understand the HE parents who do. I'm constantly creating resources, finding online and physical activities to go with that, sitting with her and working through things or ensuring that the work is scaffolded appropriately for her to do independently, recording progress and planning next steps. It's a constant process but it's so worth it, as she's getting the education she wouldn't be able to get in our local schools - she'd be held back so significantly by mixed ability classes.

I try to think "each to their own", but I do think so many HE parents are giving us a bad name at the moment.

@YesSirICanNameChange So you home Ed to crow about how clever she is? How dreadful for all those other poor dc with uncaring parents! You clearly have a lot of time on your hands but many dc in the schools you despise will get to university and will get great jobs - even though you think they have been held back - with no evidence!

I don’t think that’s entirely fair.

’Outliers’ in ability / level of need are, pretty much by definition, least well -suited to mass education in school. In the same way as increasing shortage of Special School places force parents of SEN children to consider short or long term home education to meet their children’s needs, there are areas of the country where there is little accessible provision for extremely able pupils. (In other areas, a mixture of genuinely superselective state / highly selective private schools, while they may result in the majority of pupils being a poorer school, do provide for the exceptionally able)

Successfully providing both a challenging curriculum and a suitable social environment to make sure that exceptionally able children receive a broad and balanced educational and developmental diet can be a valid reason for parents to HE.

Goodness me, these poor super bright kids!

I was top student academically in my school back in the 70s. Only i was hopeless at music, PE, drama, home educating - anything practical.

And while I was not being challenged in some subjects for sure, I learned important lessons about dealing with boredom, putting the needs of others before mine, learning to get on with a variety of people, seeing that others had skills I didn't have.

Loads of people went to uni from my school, a comprehensive in a pretty deprived area.

School is about much more than excelling in a particular subject.

My mother was a control freak who was always in a bad mood. I LOVED getting away from her to govto school. If she had tried to micro manage my entire life, including teaching me at home, I don't think I'd have coped.

Oh, I am absolutely not saying that all ‘clever’ children do best when home educated. I am talking about those within the top tenths of the 99th centile of the ability curve, for whom elective home education may be the ‘least worst’ educational option of those that are accessible to a particular family.

sounds like he's doing fine at school and you want to do this because you'll enjoy it. That's not a reason to do. Who will be making sure the needs of your younger two are met? If he's getting on well in school, don't change anything. I think home schooling could work well for a child who isn't suitable for a school environment but sounds like that's not your child

But there are schools with extra bright dc. They might not see them that often, but my friend’s dc went to a grammar and then Trinity Cambridge for maths. They took A levels for fun. Clearly special boys and their needs were met but their school was outstanding.

Bit of an extreme reaction. I taught in a couple of those schools; I know they aren't the right environment for her - academically, socially or pastorally. I know the parents of 99% of the children in those schools are doing their best for their kids, and I know that many of those kids will go to uni and succeed. I went to a crappy state school and went to uni and did very well. I'm not a teacher anymore; I don't care how other students do beyond a general "hope they get what they need for their next steps". I care about my daughter and her education.

If we had grammars here or could afford private, we'd send her to a school, no question about it. We're "lucky" (the circumstances aren't lucky at all but it's a silver lining) that I'm able to stay at home and home educate her, and yeah, I'm proud that home educating means she's able to follow her interests and she's thriving academically and she'll get qualifications early. There is no provision for G&T / MAT / HLP children in these schools; they're used as behaviour buffers for low achieving boys. I want better for her than that.

At the end of the day, though, the outcome isn't what I'm worried about - DD goes through potential future jobs on a daily basis and very few of them require A Levels or a degree, so it isn't about being better than anybody else. It's about her experience of the next 5 years - I know that for her, home ed and a packed social calendar will be better for her than school.

I think you're projecting something onto my responses.

You know learning and teaching are two different things, right? The point of home education is that there is NO limit to what child can learn. They're not limited by their school, the curriculum, or their peers. The job of a home educating parent is not to teach as much as to facilitate. That's done by observing and feeding their interests. My children's knowledge and ability had surpassed mine in many subjects by the time they were teens. I can assure you that I know not a word of Norwegian and taught my child nothing, yet she is fluent.

As always with these threads, all the posters have an opinion, many without the knowledge of experience, or at best, with limited second hand experience.

Another poster said home education was 'almost unkind' before suggesting that all children dislike school at some point but should be made to go. Perhaps they should, but if that's the case, it's not kindness we're concerned about. Another mentioned the Mum being selfish for choosing home education, despite sacrificing a career and independence to do so. The unselfish choice is apparently to send the children to be raised within an institution for most of their formative years.

I don't believe there's a right or wrong, only that this topic always brings out an extraordinary manipulation of facts by those who find alternatives to the status quo difficult to tolerate.

Yes, of course there are. But not everyone has access to them - they are not evenly spread geographically and there may be barriers of cost (one of the brightest children I have ever taught lived within commuting distance of a superselective grammar but could not afford the bus, whereas local poorer school was free)

Like most schools, it sounds like you missed something significant with these children, which is likely why the parents had chosen to home educate in the first place.

Your description of them in a school setting justifies that earlier decision. The tragedy is, rathef than acknowledge and meet their needs, it sounds like the school simply blamed the parents and attributed it to home education. I see it all the time. What you've described is classic signs of neurodivergence. The children AND the parents were likely failed, and then the parents blamed for the failure.

Fsm could ask for transport to be paid.

Absolutely. I would have hated being at home for learning. I was always delighted to be going to school. I had my worries of course but generally I loved getting out the house. I fought like cat and dog with my mum - no way she could have taught me. How do people manage to teach their kids without WW3?