How do you afford to home educate?

[EspressoPatronum]

Hi everyone! I'm an ex primary School teacher with a 2 year old who is interested in home Ed when the time comes.

But I'm concerned about how we will be able to afford it, and if I'll be able to work at all/ what to do about childcare.

It would be really helpful if I could get an idea of how other people manage these things so we can work out of it's a viable option for us. Thanks!

Argh! Meant how do you afford to home educate not spell... Have reported to mnhq to ask them to change it!!

We are a single income family. When we started, that income was above the national average, and we simply cut our coat to fit our cloth. Holidays visiting family in UK; did not run a car; lived in small rentals, not big expensive houses; clothes, books, toys second hand; not eating out or expensive trips... Given that our family income was somewhere around £30k at that time, we weren't wealthy, but by living modestly we were perfectly comfortable.

People I know use home ed child minders, forest school, extended family, various home ed drop off activities, one parent working Monday to Thursday; the other doing Thursday to Saturday, resulting in 1.4 worth of a single income but only one day of child care. It all works out!

The obvious thing for you to do would be to tutor when your partner is home.

Or run groups for home edded kids. You also get home ed Childminders and small scale flexible part time schools round here.

Thanks! Childminding is an interesting idea as it's something over toyed with anyway...

I presume I wouldn't be allowed to 'educate' my mindees though?

When there are home ed child minders, the parents remain responsible for the education, and the child minder just provides child care. Very important legal distinction that stops the child minder becoming an illegal school...

I don't think you have that quite right, ommmward. It's true that someone who is providing education to other people's children would have to register as a school in certain circumstances, for example if they are providing full-time education to at least five children.

However, there are many scenarios in which education and childcare can be combined without qualifying as a school. (In fact, many of the unregistered faith schools which are currently attracting government attention manage to avoid the classification of "school" despite looking exactly like schools to the untrained eye!) Some home educating CMs provide some tutoring as well; in fact the arrangement which was traditionally popular among the aristocracy of employing a full-time governess/tutor to care for and educate children is still legal today.

In addition to ensuring the setup doesn't qualify as a school, it would be good to take care that it doesn't prevent parents from claiming any subsidy to which they are entitled such as the childcare element of Tax Credits. Parents can't claim that for settings which are primarily educational. But so long as these issues are checked out beforehand, I think the OP could easily create a setting which would work within the guidelines.

I do often suggest to HE parents who are looking for a CM that they specify that they only want childcare and not education. But that isn't because the two need to be kept distinct for any legal reasons. It's just because many CMs would run a mile at the prospect of being required to provide an education alongside childcare. They wrongly imagine that they would be subject to all sorts of requirements, paperwork and inspections. Or they may just not fancy the idea of having to "teach", or think it would be too time-consuming.

"When there are home ed child minders, the parents remain responsible for the education" This is correct. In home education, the parents have ultimate responsibility for the education provided. They may provide it themselves, or employ someone else to provide all or part of that education.

I continued to work 2 days a week; DH worked compressed hours, so was at home for 1 day and we had a nanny for the other day, who did crafty stuff, cooking, sewing etc and supervised them while they finished off anything they needed to.