Home education

[loodledoo]

My DH is really keen for me to home educate our DD, she’s currently only 18 months so we’re a way off but I’d be really interested in others experiences of home educating their children in the UK. I’d love to know what a typical day looks like and what resources are available to you in your local area to help with home educating, such as groups with other home educated children, and what made you decide home educate your children/ what you think the benefits are, please. I’m looking into this now because if we do decide to home educate I’d like to do some sort of home preschool prior to her being primary school age. Thank you so much in advance.

I couldn't afford to send a child to private school.

But even if I could, I wouldn't.

"The other thing that puzzles me is that if a family has enough resources for one parent to homeschool, then they could afford private education if that parent went out to work - at least with only one child. So are some HE families - setting aside the ones doing it for reasons of SEN etc - rejecting both state and private education?"

Yes, some HE parents dislike private schools as much as, or more than, state schools. The private schools in my area have quite long days (though they get longer holidays), which I think is hard on young children, and on older ones who don't enjoy being in a classroom. There's less diversity than in state schools. And (also just judging from the private schools in my area) they can put huge pressure on the kids to perform academically at all costs.

But it's also the case that not all home educating families have chosen for one parent to give up work in order to home educate. Some have a parent at home anyway for other reasons: parent or child disabled, parent looking after a younger sibling, parent retired. In some two-parent families, the parents work opposite shifts so someone can be home with the kids. Some people have jobs they can do with kids in tow, such as farming or childminding. Older kids may be able to be home educated without full parental attention all the time. For example, one of my daughter's teenaged friends has a dad who WFH all the time and a mum who WFH half the time. She does some online school and has music lessons, but it costs less than private school.

And if you had several kids, staying home to home educate them all would be cheaper than sending them all to private school, I think, assuming the parent isn't in a high-powered job. I've just googled to see that my local private school costs £15k-27k per child per year.

I don't know any families locally that HE and have one parent full time at home, most families need two working parents to survive these days.
And even if they did - the nearest private primary to me is almost £20k a year, and the nearest secondary is £14k per term.
Most people could not earn enough to pay that.

I'd agree with a PP who said that school is an unhealthy form of socialisation. In the rest of the world, how often do you get shut in an environment five days a week with people whose only thing in common is that they were born in the same academic year as you?

OP, there's an interesting documentary on Amazon called Class Dismissed. It's American, but very interesting!

Do you live in an area with a lot of other home educators? There are groups that meet up, sometimes do classes together, or go on days out to things of interest, or just to socialise! Have a look on social media to see if you can find a home education group near to your areas. I seem to have found myself in an area with quite an active HE community, so they have sessions at a forest school, a gymnastics club, and even aerial silks class!

You can buy ready-made curriculums online, or you can come up with lessons by yourself.

I'm an ex-primary school teacher, and don't think that being in a group of 30 is good for children. The only ones that really stand out are the noisy ones, or those who have difficulties in managing their behaviours. What about the shy ones, or the bright ones, who get lost in this mix?

I now work for a college. The only students that I've come across who were truly happy with their 4-16 educations were the HE ones, which says a lot! I would, however, recommend getting them GCSEs at 16, otherwise they might get put on the lowest-level college courses (I've questioned this, but I'm not in charge of that department), despite their intelligence. Some colleges also run GCSE classes for home educated children, usually just in English, maths and possibly a language, so that might be something to consider when your LO is a lot older.

I'm not a home educator, but it would be my first choice if I had school-aged children.

Good luck, OP!

It's really not the case in my experience that parents who H.E. can generally afford private. When I was home educated as a child most of the H.E. families I knew (including mine) were low income, although we lived in a pretty deprived area, so I can't speak for the rest of the country.
Of the families I knew fairly well, there were:
Several parents of children with sen who couldn't work anyway because of their children's needs and a lack of suitable childcare.
Several mums who were childminders.
Several families where one parent stayed at home but used to work in a job which wouldn't have anywhere near covered the school fees for 2-6 children.
Several self employed parents who fit that around h.e.

When my son was that age I started joining home ed meet-ups for home-ed families that had very young children- and also visited local forest school groups etc in the day time as these often included home educating families.

This gave me insight into the culture and practicalities, and for me it helped me realise that home-ed wasn't something I felt ready- so opted for a local primary with a child-centred approach (learning through curiosity, allowing individuality e.g. no uniform, teachers use their first names with learners).

As I still have good understanding of home ed, I feel confident in considering it instead of secondary school nearly a decade on (as local secondary age child-led education options have sadly closed in the last couple of years).

TLDR: start checking out your local home ed groups and settings now - it will help you to decide if it is for you.

*edited to add that our local child-led primary isn't private, the secondary option that recently closed was private but costed to be affordable to working families.

Do you home educate?

Coming to this a bit late I know but just wanted to add some balance. I'm a long term home edder with two adult sons and a teenage daughter who is 15. Both of my sons went to college after never having been to school and didn't find it to be the brutal experience that you said it is for kids who have not experienced secondary school. My eldest son went to college at just turned 15 (he joined straight in with the 16+ cohort) and had no problems with any aspect of college life, made lots of friends and met his first girlfriend there. He stayed at college for 4 years. My second son started at almost 17, again integrated really well, made friends etc, got awarded double distinctions and a special award at the end of the first year, as did the other home educated young adult in his class. The only 'issues' that he had was with some of the kids who obviously didn't want to be there, kept messing around, rolling round in the floor, interrupting the teachers etc. As someone else has mentioned, when HE kids choose to go to college they are not coming to it after years of forced schooling and rigid, often petty rules, so they don't have a negative association with educational institutions and are often very keen to learn. He has just started his 3rd year this September and his predicted grades are all distractions plus he has enough UCAS points to apply to the university of his choice. My 15 year old daughter has just gone into her second year at college and again it's a similar story. I think that we often form opinions based on our own individual experiences which is natural so if you have only experienced what you see as home ed 'failures' then I suppose you would form the opinion that it must be like that for everyone. So as I said, I wanted to offer some balance and also point out that there are many home educated children who have had similar experiences to mine at college and beyond.

How did he enter in the 16+ group (presumably for A levels) but stay there for four years? Did he take two sets of A levels? Doesn't SFE only pay for three years of level 3 education?