Would any teachers on here consider home educating their own children?

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Whether yes or no, why? And if yes, at what age/stage? I'm curious.

Many thanks.

It's a very rare person that could get through A Levels using a book!

How, for example, do you do chemistry practicals?

Or practise your French oral skills?

I couldn't even have done History from a book. You need the discussion-exchange of ideas and someone marking the essays. I don't think my DS could do his A'level Art from a book.

I do find it odd that no one needs a teacher-you can just pick it all up for yourself.

have you heard of the IGCSE? International GCSE. There is no coursework/practical for the sciences. The qualifiation is based on exam only. This means that you have to know your stuff. It is a highly recognised qualiication for university. Most of the top independent schools are doing them. They are supposed to be more challenging then the gcse, and a route many HE teens go down.

This may be after years of autonomous home education, which goes to show that child led learning does work.

Does it? Do you have any stats for how many HE kids take and pass that exam. And in this country most children take 8 or 9 GCSEs and 4 A Levels. I think it would be very, very difficult to cover that sort of ground it you HE.

Not answering the questions, Melissa? I think I will start a thread on its own, to avoid further hijacking. Apologies all who are busy debating.

Don't you think that doing practicals would be fairly essential if you wanted to become a scientist and that pracitisng your speaking and listening skills would be essential if you wanted to be a linguist. I'm struggling to see how your options would not be limited by HE. There is nothing I can think of that you can do in HE that a school educated child couldn't do but quite a lot that would be difficult if not impossible the other way around.

My older HE cousin went on Cambridge to study engineering, having done A levels at FE from 14 onwards.

Second HE cousin went to do some highly specialised IT course at university (can't remember which).

My aunt helped set up Education Otherwise. Any subject she or her husband (she maths, he English graduates) felt unable to teach they got tutors for. My cousins have a perfectly varied and balanced education (although their history is heavily skewed towards the years 1650-1666 due to their parents' passion for re-enactment).

HE can and is done all over the country extremely successfully. It is a myth that you need school. Caitlin Moran is another example of a successfully HEed person.

Ok, do you really wanna know why I HE?

I HE my children because I think it's wrong to force children to do things they don't want to do. I think it's disrespectful and harmful to coerce children. I think school is, at best, a total waste of time, time that would be far more efficiently used in a family-based situation, and, at worst, extremely harmful. Chidlren kill themselves because of problems at school!

I do not want to have control over my children, I want them to be free. I want them to be free to learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it. I want them not to be constrained to only learn the NC, and to not be able to follow their own hearts because they are too busy following what the schools want them to follow.

I want them to be happy, to be able to have friends of all ages. I want them to be able to escape bullies - both child and adult. I want them to learn to question things. I want them not to lose their curiosity.

I desperately want them not to be put off learning by being bored if they're brighter than the other children, or stretched too far, making them lose confidence in themselves. I want them to learn for them not for the system.

I don't want them dumbed down, or institutionalised. I want them to have high self-esteem and not to feel they need to dress a certain way or like a certain thing to fit in with the crowd. I want them to believe in themselves. I want them to learn to work co-operatively, not competetively. I don't want them to be punished, or rewarded, but to make choices based on reason and on intrinsic motivation.

I want them to do a degree because they want to, not because they think they ought to. I want them to choose a career they feel happy and fulfilled in, whether that requires qualifications or not. I know that if their chosen career does require qualifications, then they will work to get them.

I don't force them to not be in school - they want to be home educated because they love it. My children would be wrecked if I forced them to go to school.

Fair enough, some people don't want to home educate, and I would fight to ensure that the right to send children to school was never taken away - children belong to families, not to the state. Actually, they belong to themselves. But I do want to home educate - not for myself, not because I'm selfish, not because I want to indoctrinate them, but because I love them and want them to be who they want to be.

I think it is perfectly possible at home, especially if you are someone who can teach yourself and work in isolation-it just makes sense to me to join others who are doing the same thing and debate and exchange ideas and have a teacher who has a degree in the subject. The good thing about A'levels is that everyone wants to be there -you also have the choice of being more adult and going to college. (if you really don't want to mix with your peer group you can do an evening class with all ages). With the choice available I don't see the point of doing it at home at the 16 yr old stage -unless a parent has a degree in the subject .

oh thanks duchesse, was getting a bit lonely fighting the cause!!

As i said before, and julienoshoes will back me up (where is she when we need her!) some HE children go direct into A levels without doing any gcse's, whether that is at home, tutor or college.

Linden, I do respect your choice to HE but I do not respect your implication that your list of wants for your children are not possible to achieve in school and I do not appreciate your scare mongering. It is a tiny minority of children who kill themselves because of problems at school. My children love school and are in no way 'dumbed down' or 'institutionalised' or bullied or any of the things that you suggest go hand in hand with a school education.

Jumping in because I wanted to respond to two things you said FiveCandles

"And if you are going to follow the NC sort of begs the question of why not go to school?"

Because for many children going to school is an unhappy experience (school has caused my son aged 7 to threaten taking knives into school to attack the dinner ladies and also suggested killing himself both in the last month)

The fact that school is a difficult experience for many children doesnt initself make the NC dreadful

RE How can you HE and practise speaking and listening a foreign language - surely that is easy enough go to France/Germany wherever and practise with the locals?

Which would be much better than the out of context so called practise I got at school!!

'I do not want to have control over my children, I want them to be free'

I think that we will have to agree to differ-this is why I send them to school!

I understand your views, you are making a valid choice for your DCs and I am not telling you that school would be better for them-you are obviously passionate about what you are doing. I dare say they will think the same so you will all be happy.

Luckily my DSs take after me and enjoy or have enjoyed school. I loved it so much as a DC that I am still there! So we are all happy.

I just think we have to agree to differ-one size certainly doesn't suit all-it would be boring if it did.

Just wanted to add that I didnt know that anyone had mentioned children killing themselves because of school when I added my comment

My ds has in all seriousness suggested it as an option - purely because the school dont seem able to treat him as an individual

I find it most easy to understand parents who HE because their children are deeply unhappy there Yurt.

Of course going to another country would help you learn the language of that country but not a desperately practical solution and the odd holiday is really not going to be adequate. By the way, there's nothing to stop you going to other countries AS WELL as practising your language in school. We do this and my dcs go to summer schools on French etc.

Sorry, HE because they're deeply unhappy at school.

cd roms for learning languages are also very helpful. My son has been doing his German this way and is really enjoying it.

I learnt two MFL in a classroom, I can hardly remember a word now

I can remember a lot more of the learning I did by choice at home.

FWIW there are some excellent resources that many adults use to learn a foreigh language - I can see no reason why these cant be used and adapted if necessary for use in HE with additional visits and foreign exchanges.

I trained to be a teacher so in response to the OP - Yes I am seriously considering it

The two are not mutually exclusive. It is wrong to imply that because your children go to school they miss out on opportunities at home or with their families.

It's not scaremongering, it's the truth! Children have been so unhappy and felt so unable to escape their unhappiness in school that they've killed themselves .

I'm not saying that every child in school will be this unhappy. I wasn't - I loved school, but I think I'd have been even happier if I'd been home educated. But I am saying that there's a far higher chance of my children being bullied, bored, belittled, etc. - just unhappy or stifled - at school than if they are home educated, so that's why I do it.

Not sure why you think that sending children to school gives them any freedom, though? Are they allowed to leave if they want? If not, then that is not freedom at all!

You're talking about an minority of extremes. And there are also children who are deeply unhappy at home. And plenty of widely reported cases of HE children who were deeply unhappy and went on to have tragic adult lives. Don't think we can draw any conclusions from any of these individual cases and therefore it is scaremongering to raise the 1 child in a million as a reason why school or home education is a bad thing.

Some children have a damaging experience of school. Maybe I was just lucky but I wasn't institutionalised, I was always treated as an individual and I wasn't bullied. I do want my DSs to do things they don't want to-it is life. I didn't want to cook a meal tonight, I certainly don't want to tackle the pile of ironing, I don't want to get up at 6.30am tomorrow to go to work-I would much rather choose my own time, I don't want to deny myself the chocolate I know is in the fridge but I will.It would be wonderful if everyone could do exactly what they wanted when they wanted-unfortunately it would impinge very badly on other people.
I want my DSs to learn subjects that they might not choose because I want them to have the widest possible opportunities in life, if I know they need them it is sad to let them find out when they are adult and then have to do it the hard way. They have lots of friends, I am special, I am not their best friend, I am their mother and the adult.IMO a child needs boundries.
I give them security and unconditional love, they are the all important things. I tell them they will thank me one day and I know they will! I am very grateful to my parents.

Wasn't be that said school gives 'freedom'. I think a school education gives a child options which may not be available at home. But presumably HE children are not allowed to leave the home (or adult supervision) any more than they are at school so sort of odd that you should bring up the idea of them leaving when they want.

Feel same way as you pisces. Also think there's an enormous amount of satisfaction to be gained in tackling things that seem too hard or unenjoyable at first and then getting them. As I said I teach English. Sometimes I have to teach texts I'm not keen on and obviously I have to study them before I teach them. But I really appreciate that opportunity. YOu have to do the bad to appreciate the good but also it's important and intersting for me to get a sense of the history of literature and how x might influence y and so on. I'm so glad that I've not been able to just opt out or avoid so very many things that I wasn't initially enthusiastic about.