Future of HE?

[Butterpie]

What do you all think lies in the future for HE? I have found (very unscientifically) there are loads of people planning to HE from the start atm, as opposed to the way that a lot of the older children have been to school and not got on with it.

In about ten years, I bet HE is at least on an equal footing with private, especially since less and less can afford private these days.

There is also the aspect that previously minority "hippy" ideas are becoming mainstream, such as organic food and recycling, and the internet is allowing people to contact each other.

PLUS (can you tell I've been thinking about this?) more and more people are working from home, which is likely to increase, meaning HE becomes much more practical.

What do you think?

Yes, I agree. Many of my friends have started saying they'd love to do it - many of them are quite traditional and unhippyish.

Ten years ago, I thought it was something only children in the wilds of Australia did. Now we do it, I find it so remarkably easy and natural and enjoy seeing my children figure out their interests and activities themselves, rather than hopping on what's popular at school.

Well, all the signs say that the numbers of HEd children are just going to grow and grow, but what that will mean for HEors is anybody's guess!

Governments don't like large groups of people who question things and think outside the box, and who aren't taught to blindly follow authority just 'because'.

MrsWobble: I'm kind of hoping for it to be more popular, in the hope of more places being geared up for us. How great would it be to have a resource centre/meeting place in every town? A little building, with maybe a drop in room (books, a couple of computers, toys and coffee for the grown ups) and a couple of group rooms where there could be specific groups running (some structured around particular subjects, some just "under 7s" or "steiner" or whatever). Kind of like really small, really casual, really part time school. With parents there. And optional attendance. And no national curriculum.

Thay way I could cut down on the amount of time I spend getting lost :D

Would be good...but I think unlikely!

I think if it becomes that much more popular, the government(s) will feel more inclined to put in more requirements and safeguards. As long as it's a smallish niche, they can usually be persuaded to leave it alone. If it becomes a sizable group of children, they will want to set standards, test progress, put in "safeguards" etc.

They won't feel able not to - if they argue that there should be a national curriculum because its important for all children to learn the same, it is tricky to try to enforce that while allowing a big group of children to opt out.

But they let private school get away with it- I expect that we would come under the same kinds of rules, although I reckon that more HE families could mean it was less easy to demonise us.

Private school was there before state school though - it's too entrenched to start regulating.

Private schools don't follow the NC but they do have to have a lot of paperwork about other things. Most of them also have published exam results, a clear curriculum etc. There are some small ones which have less of that, and are maybe more comparable with HE in that way, but most are big and organised and could easily tick any boxes the government wanted to suggest, so there is less feeling that the government needs to jump in and get involved. The current lot would probably say that "market forces" are doing that job for them anyway.

I really hope it becomes more popular although I do agree it'll be more regulated - which may defeat the point somewhat! as the main reason DH and I wanted to HE was because of the restrictive nature of the NC.

it'd be great though for HE families to not have to put up with all the judgypants people though. when I got talking to another mum - who is now a good friend - I asked her where her DD would go to school, she told me she'd be HEing and I said "wow, that's so cool, I'm jealous!" and she practically fell over in shock! she was so surprised I wasn't reacting negatively.

I think so many families face a real dilemma over HEing and if it was more popular it'd be easier to just get on with it.

although having said that, maybe if more people were HEing maybe the rules about regulation etc would have to get clearer - as opposed to stricter - and that would mean less confusion, I keep reading about inspectors getting giddy with power etc and interfering with HE - maybe if there were more HEors then LEAs would be more likely to know where they stood.

It's not difficult, though, MMM. Bad LAs use that as a rather pathetic excuse. Our LA is wonderful and you have to practically beg them to get involved if you want any advice; while they bend over backwards to make sure we know we don't have to ever meet them or talk to them or anything!

There's a tipping point.

Mike Fortune Wood (long term HEer and vocal on the issues) was maintaining, IIRC, that the Badman report and planned CSF bill after it was close to being the last chance for the UK State to put in punitive regulation.

A tipping point is really close, where HE becomes visible and an alternative to school that lots of people have heard of. Then, families whose children aren't thriving in school for whatever reason, or who just aren't up for school and the NC with all that goes with it (remember that we've just had a socialist government for however long it was, with very politicised state education) just opt out.

And when the numbers of opted out people get large enough, it begins to be an election issue. At the next election (though not at this last one tbh) there could be marginal constituencies where the home ed vote is critical. So a party promising the sorts of nonsense that labour have tried on in the last 18 months would lose those seats. They really needed to get us properly controlled and regulated and squashed and marginalised before the tipping point was reached - there's a good chance we'll reach it before the next change of government yay!

In Texas a few years ago, I understand that the governer was trying to put through some form of regulating HE that was much more intrusive than whatever they have now. And then it was explained to him how many HEers there are there and how many votes he'd lose when trying to be reelected. And he dropped the proposals. That's what we have to aim for

That's interesting, Ommmward. So it is in our interests to recruit as many new HEors as possible in the next four or five years; or at least people who believe very strongly in the right to HE as you see fit!?

Where I am in CA, they're becoming quite geared up for home schooling.

The government have come round to it by creating the Californian Virtual Academy (CAVA) which is a state-funded public 'school.' In effect, this means children get their 'portion' of educational funding to get a free computer and online curriculum. (But if you do it through CAVA, you have to have an outside assessor assigned to you so we do the same curriculum privately).

There are also numerous charter schools - some of which operate like normal schools but some of which are geared for home schoolers with drop-in music classes etc.

The local ballet school, museums etc. also offer home school daytime classes. It's becoming fairly acceptable here which is really nice.

Are steiner schools a good alternative to HE?

Not in my opnion Lucinda.

Can you HE if your child has a statement?

Yes. If they are in a special school (or you are in Scotland) you have to ask permission to deregister (but it "should not be unreasonably withheld"). If they are in mainstream in England and Wales, you can deregister immediately by sending a letter to the head.

Lucinda - Steiner schools have a very definite curriculum and agenda, therefore they would not be an alternative to HE for a family that wanted to be child-led / autonomous in their approach.

Their system is different from mainstram schools, so I can see they might appeal to some families who are unhappy with the NC and SATs, but because they'd only be swapping one system for a different one (which they may not have even looked into in depth) I'd say any parent looking into it would need to read up on it quite closely before deciding it was something they were happy to sign up to.

Lucinda...I looked at a Steiner school and had a big shock...I am sure they are not ALL bad but the one I saw was weird and scary. I did a lot of research after that and didn't like what came up...google "Steiner Survivor"

I may get flattened for saying that here...but hey...