Do any of your dc homeschool themselves?

[Mycatatetherat]

My dc are in primary school at the moment but I don't want them to attend high school. They are both very self motivated when learning things that interest them and can be focused and sensible when given a task. I'm wondering would it be too much to expect them to be able to basically school themselves? I'm a self employed single parent and couldn't possibly stop working (although I often work from home) so kind of had it in my head that I could set them tasks and pop in on them every so often. Am I being unrealistic? How much input do other homeschooling parents have?

I actually think that the state needs to intervene in cases like this. It isn't fair on the children.

I'm sure that some HE families do a fantastic job of educating their children, but there needs to be some sort of quality assurance process to weed out the parents like OP, who really haven't got a clue. All children deserve better than this.

Have a look into 'unschooling', OP. (Peter Gray is an academic who writes / speaks / researches into this and there's lots available online).

There are many happy and successful unschooled adults who directed / led their own education - some of whom went on to do qualifications and university etc., some of whom followed a less traditional route and have careers now that reflect that - entrepreneurs, in art, performance etc.

Unschooling can require a lot of parental involvement in terms of support, resources etc., but not a need to 'know the answers'.

Obviously there are plenty of kids who've been taken out of school and failed by their parents. These kids aren't home educated; they were neglected. Sounds like that's not your plan 😂.

If you only have a semi working old laptop, of course they will fail from the off! How on earth will they access information? You sound bonkers and this idea will be damaging to your children

HE can be fantastic. But there are lots of red flags here. Not least the not wanting to hear from teachers because they are assumed to all be opposed to HE.

Hi OP, you are absolutely right to question how many of those responses come from people who have first-hand knowledge of home education. The understanding of home education on this thread is really extremely poor. Specifically, autonomous home education (a.k.a. "unschooling") looks completely different from school. Even many home educators don't fully understand it. Nevertheless, most people who have home educated for any length of time and have mixed with a number of other HE families do recognise it can be successful, for some people at least, even if they themselves wouldn't choose to HE in that way.

My kids are 19 and 12 and have been autonomously home educated as you describe. It can work very well. Many home educating parents work in addition to educating their kids. I don't work, but I know plenty of HE parents who do. It certainly isn't out of the question.

You seem to have made a good start at thinking things through. I'm sure there will be challenges, and not necessarily the challenges you are expecting! But that's okay. You can try it and see how you get on and what solutions you find. In the worst case scenario, if home ed doesn't suit, your children can go to school after a year or two. That's no disaster. Those few years out of school would have given them some wider life experience, an insight into other ways of learning, and an appreciation for whatever school can offer which they weren't getting at home. Not everybody who starts home education continues with it all the way through, but I haven't met anyone who says they regretted trying it. You would, however, want to start your children at school by the beginning of Y10 at the latest. The school system is too inflexible to accommodate children who arrive partway through GCSE preparation. It can be quite awkward even to change from one school to another in Y10 and 11!

Be aware that if your kids want to do GCSEs, as most do, that usually involves quite a lot of time from parents even if you are outsourcing some of it. For example, you may be helping your kids research which subjects and which exam boards to do, finding resources for them, arranging a tutor or two, sorting out exam centres where they can sit the exams, and ferrying them to tutor-led study groups or college classes. All of this is often done separately for each subject! Some people say this is by far the most time-consuming and difficult part of home education. However, by then you'll have had a few years to find your feet, research the options, and network locally to see what's available. As a fallback plan, you might send your children to school or college at that age (some colleges offer some GCSE subjects to 14-16 year olds), after they'd had a good few years at home.

It would be well worth contacting a local home ed group. Your children's experience of HE is likely to be affected by the ease of access to educational and social activities and other HE families. In some areas there may be good public transport so older children can go do things under their own steam, many local families ready to do lift-sharing, and plenty to do. In other areas, it may be that parents have to work considerably harder to prevent their children feeling isolated. If you meet some local home ed families, chatting with the parents of teens will be useful and should give you a wider range of ideas of how home education can look.

I don't have the energy to tackle every one of the many misconceptions from previous posters who don't home educate. I will just ask you, OP: what concerns do you have? I am happy to answer any questions.

Oh dear OP. You really haven't thought this through.

Firstly, it's not about you. You say "i don't want them to attend high school" and "they will hate high school". You are not saying what THEY want and aren't even prepared to give it a go. That's a very different scenario from taking a child out of school because the child is unhappy, or being bullied or whatever. And it''s a self-fulfilling prophecy, you're determined that they will hate it and I'm sure you've voiced that to them too.

If you'd posted saying that you'd researched groups, spoken to several other parents, had already found out about drama groups or a homeschooling history club or whatever, you'd be getting a very different response. As it is, you appear to be relying entirely on a "semi-functioning laptop" to teach your kids. Not going to work.

As for the let them learn what they want - might work for some children but in my experience (and I have three secondary age kids), they will focus on their interests. My eldest would have spent his entire time researching microbiology and world war 2. My middle child would have baked to competitive standard. And my youngest would have been an expert on anything animal related. Which is all great but it's not a rounded education. They need the basics in English, Maths, social sciences, all the rest of it. That doesn't mean following a rigid curriculum if you don't want to but come on, you need to step up here and at least provide decent guidance.

It sounds like it's more about your personal non-conformist ideals rather than it is about your children and what's best for them. Home educating is different to removing from school and telling them to Google things the odd time and it is clear you

I have relative who's mum was the same. She is working in a clothes shop which she's lucky to have with her lack of GCSEs and has fuck all social skills. Can barely hold a conversation and acts like she's about 6. I thought for a while she had a learning disability because she's so far behind intellectually and socially.

I home ed - but mine are 5 and 2. Hard work. I work part time, GPS look after kids 3 days a week. We do a 4 of sheets of work books each day (stuff bought at stationer’s) which takes between 1-2hrs with breaks - 5 year old is a couple of years ahead.

This says it all! You don't 'home ed' your children, they just don't go to school. One isn't even old enough to go to school! In a school, a 5 yr old would not do pages and pages of worksheets from a book bought in a stationers! They would be building relationships, exploring ideas through play, socialising, being exposed to numerous experiences that you're not providing them with at home.

Home ed, done properly, can be fantastic. There are many successful adults out there who did not go to school, but there are many many more who are isolated and very unsuccessful as adults. ThTs because their parents didn't think through the whole home ed philosophy.

My DB home educated my DN letting her follow her interests. Despite my DB being a science graduate, DN mainly read and watched classic dramas. After she stopped going to school friends didn't come over any more.
She's now in a nurturing secondary school and thriving.

I home ed my eldest. We use a semi structured approach. He attends groups/ classes for specialist subjects such as languages, science and coding. He uses the laptop or PC for quite a lot for stuff like maths (khan academy), duo lingo and for his coding and he is pretty much self directed at these things so will just crack on and ask me if he needs help. Trying to home ed without a decent computer/ laptop is madness IMO. There is so much stuff online especially if you want them to be self sufficient.

I have done home Ed and will be again next year. You virtually all (probably except the OP herself) have an extremely misguided view of what home Ed is about and are making to common mistake of directly comparing home Ed with school. Home Ed is actually the freedom to choose whether you recreate school at home or do completely the opposite. The op is talking about unschooling or a better way of describing this method of learning is autonomous learning (used in schools frequently within the narrow confines of the national curriculum!) I suggest the pp's who don't know about home Ed educate themselves before commenting. Home education is a legal right under law. The law states that a parent must cause a chid to have a full time education suitable to the age, aptitude & any SEN they may have. The law also states that this may be done in school or elsewhere (home, the moon, Timbuktu). All my children bar 2 have had a mixed education of part school and part home education. The eldest is predicted 4 A*s at A levels which she is taking now (her choice to take A levels at school she could have done them via home Ed). All methods of education have merit and pitfalls. One won't suit one child and one won't suit another. Within home education there are many styles and philosophies - again some suiting one child more than another. Education, education, education!

Agee with Bluestitch! Sorry for typos!

Sounds like neglect to me.

OP I would be joining home ed groups on Facebook and also reading into unschooling.

I home ed although mine are younger(6&8) and have seen a broad spectrum of approaches from school at home to radical unschooling. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

You can and should be teaching them your skills along side their education.
I think you also need to know what they want to do for a job. If they want to do something such as dr, vet, solicitor, architect- basically anything that requires a degree this will not work.
If they want to be an artist or an actor it may be something you can facilitate with an extra-curricular club.
At the very least I would make sure they get formal education in English and Maths, that could be via a tutor or in a school setting.

Reading this post, I think you are projecting yourself and assuming an awful lot about your kids. I understand that you didn't use your qualifications but what if they want to do medicine? It's not that you use the knowledge and skills you obtained in 6th form now in your every day life, it is that you needed A levels to go to uni. I think to HE would be a big mistake. Most kids don't want to go to school and prefer to stay home. This doesn't mean that they should.

In terms of qualifications, I see a lot of basic jobs that would have required no qualifications even 15 years ago, that do now require qualifications. Without qualifications it is very hard to get on these days, unless you go the self employment route.

You don't have any qualifications OP, but for most people if they were asked to sit down and learn a subject off the internet and books for 3 years for a degree, they would not be able to. And that is adults, not children. Yes people including me do distance learning qualifications, but there is a set structure, deadlines and tutors checking in.

I was a very self motivated and bright kid and I don't think I would have managed to do what you were suggesting. They obviously have access to the internet, so yes they can spend their time looking up lots of age inappropriate stuff.

Also the idea they could do this on one ancient laptop is unrealistic. They would at minimum both need a laptop to access learning resources online.

You say you haven't given much thought to qualifications? Are you nuts?,! How on earth do you think they are going to get jobs, study A levels or go to uni if they don't have qualifications?!
It's a ridiculous idea. Home schooling takes great time and dedication from the parents. They teach instead of a teacher, kids don't just wander around absorbing how to learn a language, long division and the periodic table.

I think what you’re describing is definitely possible for older kids, and I don’t think you’re naive as some other posters have said-I think you just need to do lots of research and talk to lots of Home Ed families. I had a year 11tutee a few years ago who was Home Ed. She was super bright and motivated and for the past few years had agreed with her parents what subjects she’d study for that year. So over the course of about 4 years she’d studied the subjects she was interested in at that point, got a tutor for the last 6 weeks of the year to learn the exam style, and then sat the GCSE. By the time I met her in year 11 she already had 8 GCSEs, in a much wider range of subjects than she’d have been able to do at school, at extremely high grades. She saved Maths and English for year 11, and got A*s. She taught herself the whole curriculum for each subject-as a tutor my job was literally to just ensure she knew how the exams, mark schemes etc worked. Because she only did 2 or 3 subjects per year, she focused on them intensely. I’m not saying this is possible for everyone, but it worked for her! She’s now at a top university.

“By the time I met her in year 11 she already had 8 GCSEs, in a much wider range of subjects than she’d have been able to do at school, at extremely high grades.”

My understanding is that this is exactly the sort of thing that isn’t impressive from home Ed. Taking GCSEs one or two at a time isn’t really the challenge. The challenge is taking 8,9,10 in a 2 week period following a set 2 year prep whilst meeting the usual demands of being a 15 year old and FE colleges and unis recognise this above a 13 year old with an A in GCSE math

OP, I have to agree that your plan at the moment sounds bonkers. Firstly, it seems many years away so all this talk of an old laptop etc is irrelevant for 5 years time. Secondly you need to understand what your children and the world around them want, not what you want based on school experience from 20 years ago.

Yes I too have heard adults who were HE say that the fact they took GCSEs a few at a time held them back. From what I understand, they were told it was because it did not demonstrate an ability to handle a large workload. Taking a few GSCEs at a time is always going to be easier than taking 8 or 9 together.

I have successfully studied a degree at the open university, as have around 2 million other people over the years, so clearly studying at home is a more than satisfactory way of gaining an education.

However, I was an adult when I did this. Even so I found it hard to motivate myself at times, I found some areas of the course 'dull' but new that I had to study all of it in order to achieve success across the whole degree. I found the time management side of distance learning was a particularly challenging skill to develop.

Even if you access/pay for course material for your children to study, these are the types of challenges you and your children will face.

If you choose to home educate (which I may well do) you, as the parent, take on the responsibility of facilitating their learning, motivating them and teaching the study skills they will require to be able to distance learn or self study the actual subjects themselves.

Gosh I didn't expect to come back to so many responses. Just to quickly clarify, my plan to thoroughly neglect my children won't be coming into play for a couple of years, it's not imminent, I have plenty of time to plan their full and proper neglect. As for the semi functional laptop, as above, I have a couple of years to make sure it's good and dead before they start trying to use it to access the Real World.

Fair enough, mycat. Ignore everything that’s been said. Not a lot of you you posting in the first place, was it?