If you are against Home Ed, can you tell me why?

[Bodenbabe]

I'm in the very early stages of thinking about HE and want to know all the pros and cons. If you are against HE, can you tell me why?

Im not against HE - I did HE for a year - my child has now returned to school.

The advantages i saw were

children were much more "mature" in most cases
they were better able to hold conversations with adults
I very much like the idea of child led learning - following the childs ability levels, their own pace of learning etc etc
the freedom to go to events when most children at school and therefore quiet
knowing your child is not being teased or left to struggle at school
generally the parents who HE very caring about their children - not to say those that send them to school arent but you always get children that are not as cared for
I met some great people
We did some fantastic trips and had great opportunities to do stuff that wouldnt do at school

The disadvantages

i found it incredibly hard having 3 young DS's at home and having little time for myself

ifound it hard to cope with DS'd behaviour - the bickering with brothers is hard for a few hours a day when at school let alone from moment they wake up till moment they go to bed.

I need time out for myself and to be on my own - i dont have a never ending supply of patience. Having 2 others under 3 was very difficult.

Some of the HE children (as in a classroom) could be challenging

Not all HE children are little darlings - you still have children that bully, some that tease, some that are nasty, some that are lovely caring people

I think some of the HE children dont spend enough time with other children - they can be mollycolded and smothered

MY son became very lonely - there was no one locally that HE'd - and i mean on our estate - you would have to travel to meet them which is not always an option

I cant always offer the facilitites that school offer

I do feel HE works very well for some families and I dont regret HEing it built my sons confidence which had been badly effected - it raised his reading levels and maths levels.

I am glad however that he has returned to school - he has settled in very well and the school he now attends is far superior to the one i took him out of

Rather than being against HE, why I don't think that HE is right for me is due to the following reasons:
I haven't got the patience to teach, even practising musical instruments at home, my children and I can clash.
I have a traditional view of education, and like things to be taught, and in a very formal setting.
I don't have enough all rounder knowledge, to teach about stuff like history etc in enough knowledge.
I like to have a break from the children during the day, and appreciate the quality time that I have with them on their return.
Hope that helps, even if you think, actually that's not an issue for me, at least you've considered them.

I'm not against it for other people. I don't care how other people educate their children.

I am against it for me because I am not a teacher - I would not be able to give my children the level of education they deserve. I lack the ability to explain things clearly and I don't have a lot of patience if people don't understand straight away.

I am not a sociable person and would not be able to create the social opportunities that a HE child needs even more than other kids, since they don't get to socialise in a school.

And probably most important, I would go stark staring bonkers if I didn't get that break and peace and quiet when they are at school.

I am not against HE, I just know it is nt right for me, our DCs and our family life

i loved school very much, teh school the DCs go to is stupendous, and supportive and they both enjoy it , maybe if schools in the area had not been as good, or tehre were SN issues, etc etc i would have considered, but my circumsgtances are such it is not right for us, and they are happy at shcool

For me:
My dd loves school
As an only child she needs school to help her with social skills and to add to her circle of friends.
I teach but am not trained to teach primary or outside of my subject area
I am more useful to society teaching hundreds of students very well than doing an acceptable job of teaching one.
Where we live can feel quite remote and cut off, HEing would only add to that
I love going out to work and feel my relationship benefits from the fact I go out to work but still have extended times at home with her

have no views either way but the other year a clients daughter did work experiance with us for 2 weeks. She was HE. As she or her parents had no interest in computers she had never learned IT skills. In the wrold we live in now I doubt there are many jobs you could do without basic IT skills. My point is with HE you tend to concentrate on topics/subjets which are lead by child but at school you may have to do topics/subjects which you really dont want to but are vital in preparing you for work/life.

She was a lovely well rounded person but we all felt she would be eatten alive when at some point she would have to enter the big scary world.

I'm not against it. But I only know one HE family and they are ... what's the word? ... oh yes ..odd.

They are HE mainly because of religious reasons - they don't want their children exposed to modern scientific things like evolution or climate change. They do a lot of Bible study. Its all a bit intense, somehow!

I'm sure that most HE people are not like that. the ones we know are though, and I worry about the worldview their children are developing - its not exactly balanced! Its not exposing them to different ideas or ways of life.

We're Christians, so I'm not against the whole way of life - just the narrowness of it, whcih I suppose is a risk with HE more than with school.

Boden - there is a fantastically interesting thread somewhere on this topic, hopefully someone will find it.......
I think it is called "If you are a teacher would you he your own kids" or similar!

Thanks for your replies everybody, some interesting thoughts there. I will have a search for that thread Laura, many thanks.
Heget, your reasons are some of my main concerns. The IT thing was also concerning me, sunshine78 - I can imagine learning many things alongside my DD but have no idea how I would deal with IT as I am rubbish at it!

Hiya,
I am a former teacher and for various reasons ended up doing a project which involved visiting lots of home ed families to see how they were getting on.
I am more against it than for it, after all I've seen.
Parents are just too easy going on their kids, imo, to insist on kids doing the difficult stuff. Yes we all enjoy making the leaf collage, but who wants to do the 8 x table, especially if it's not coming easily to the kids?
Trouble is, you get off to a flying start as I do think everything in reception and Y 1 can be done better one-to-one by mum/dad at home. It's just that by thet time they are in Key Stage 2, one family just can't offer the wealth of input that's taking place every day in school. Plus kids teach each other a lot, so there is a real poverty of social skills, sport and stuff like plays, choirs etc.
That said, the h e kids I met were comfy round adults and quirky original types, probably because of their different experience, school being a bit of a leveller/sausage factory.
Almost all the parents I met who h e did surprisingly (shockingly) little in terms of actually educating their kids. Lots of just hanging around having gossipy toddler-style coffee n get-togethers with other H E mums while the kids aimlessly cut out shapes out of coloured paper or just played. And I lost count of the times I heard "Maths? well we do a lot of cooking, so that pretty much covers it, doesn't it." No it doesn't, imo.

DP was HEd and would rather he hadn't been.

I wouldn't say I am against HE, but I am not for it either.

You might get more answers if you asked something like 'people who do not Home Ed, tell me what you think of it', rather than asking for people who identify themselves as 'against', which would be a brave thing to do around these parts

Trillian, maybe my question was badly-phrased but I know all about the pros so have no need to ask for positive thoughts. It was specifically negatives I wanted to know about.

ProfessorPP, the KS2 stage is my main worry - I have no doubt that I could do a great job of teaching KS1 (I know HE isn't formal like that, but you know what I mean) but I can't begin to think how I would deal with KS2, despite sort of wanting to.

I am a secondary teacher and although I have never attempted HE I don't think I could do it.

I find it very difficult to get the same enthusiasm and "buzz" out of a class size fewer than 8 just because the pupils find it more difficult to feed off each others ideas and spur each other on and that puts a lot of pressure on you as the teacher to continually try and stimulate that interest. Do that for 5 + hours a day and I'm sure I'd be completely frazzled. I teach science in a very pupil led and enquiry based way and puzzling something out as a group or by having the opportunity to talk through and test their theories with peers gives my pupils huge satisfaction.

Having said that I can certainly see the advantages of some 1:1 time especially for pupils with SEN (including G&T) I'm just not sure I could personally do it because of the type of person I am and the style of teaching I do.

Good luck which ever way you decide to go

I do HE and have done all my 3 children at various points and I think the reason id be against it would be if the children/child wasnt receiving an 'education' - it is very difficult to gauge how you teach and different people approach it different ways ....myself I had a 8 year old boy who could barely read and was being classed as SEN after 3 years at home he entered secondary school and is in top-middle banding despite having a serious chronic illness.

There are many days when it is easy to think 'lets have a day off' but I really have to be strict with myself and work to 'targets' - the way I H.E is similar to a classroom...other mumsnetters such as Julienoshoes and Riven have approached it differently and been very succesful.

It would be impossible to H.E 5 hours a day thats why we do upto 2 hours of intense formal learning then we do individual pursuits which could mean a project he researches off the net or a craft project etc.

So in short I would say the only thing that makes me against H.E is bcos some people who choose this path dont actually educate at all.

Nickschick,
Yes, that was what I found. Substantial no. of the HE parents were mums who just couldn't bear to be parted from their kids (often it was when the littlest went to school they upped and took the whole lot out, rather than adapt to having all kids at school and nowt to do all day. They did sod all except natter with other similar mums and let the kids loaf.
Others were extremely libertarian types happy to have their kids bouncing basketballs at 3am in the garden and sleeping all day, cos that's how they lived too.
In a way though I felt sorriest for the kids whose parents really were trying to create a classroom at home. I saw some really dull old-fashioned style lessons going on in kitchens with say one 8 yo one 4 yo and a 12 yo, all with one frazzled mum doing "The geography of Africa" which was mot much more exciting than colouring in a map and copy stuff out of Children's encyclopedia.
Bodenbabe, you need to think this one through v carefully. Is massively knackering teaching, is also knackering being a mum. To do this halfway well, you need a ton of energy, money and time. Only way I owuld consider this was if I had a SEN child who really wasn't being catered for in mainstream. Or one who was being dreadfully bullied and there was no possibilyit of changing schools instead.

..Because me and 9 year old very strong willed DD1 would end up killing each other.

I personally don't like home ed as I feel that children do not have the same opportunities to develop social skills vital for life.

Proffesorpoopypants,I try so hard to avoid the lessons you describe and with the aid of the internet it is much easier but there are times when ds will say mum this is soooooooooo boring but I say to him thats life not everything is fun ....and try to counterbalance the bring but neccesary learning alomgside the fun interesting stuff.

The clodhopper Im not trying to take over this post and i know your comment wasnt aimed at me but I must say that the H.E child meets far more people and has far more opportunity in the course of a day to meet lots more interesting people and experience things that arent accesable in a school so your point however valid isnt entirely true- for example my ds mixes with a wide variety of people peers and others such as the gasman etc who arent child orientated and he has had to develop skills to 'fit in' -in a school the majority of people are child focused and enjoy being with children - when you have a grumpy plumber fixing the central heating and a very inquisitive 8 year old desperate to watch it warms your heart to watch the child use his 'people skills' and end up going out with the plumber to the merchants after measuring up for copper piping etc.

Nothing against home education - but I couldn't consider it because I want and need to have a break from my children and am fairly sure they want and need to have a break from me.

bibbity that is something I understand.

I can't imagine HEing my child! I think the parents need so much self discipline!!

Educational methods change all the time (sometimes, surprisingly, for the better). Parents have no access to courses, or to assessment arrangements. (They may need their child to enter mainstream at some point, so they really have to keep up with the required standards.)

As a Y2 teacher, I agree with GoofyGumdrops. The children feed off each other. When we do shared writing, we produce writing to match JK Rowling!! I couldn't do that; each individual child couldn't do that; but with 27 of us feeding our ideas, we are brilliant! In a class of children, you also rely on different children's talents to spark ideas. A particularly creative thinker will encourage creative thinking from his/her group or the rest of the class.

I have an idea HE is a rather old-fashioned way to educate. In schools these days, we allow the children to take us on a journey, with the added advantage of community and shared experiences.

Iamtheeasterbunny - but fir some it really works I myself find its very succesful and people like julie and Riven have absolute proof its a great way to learn.

Yes, I'm sure it does, but your self discipline must be tremendous. I know, that had I done it, I would have been taken off at a tangent, my child would have learnt this (quickly) and he would have learnt nothing!

I admire you all if you do this successfully!