Home Schooling - Pros and Cons

Aveline

I've just checked and we have a very special school, a 'second chance' school for children who couldn't cope with mainstream education for a whole host of reasons. The testimonials are amazing. It really seems to be excellent for more fragile children but I see the fees are £31,000 pa per child. I wonder if local authorities pay for this?

Wouldn’t it be great if they did?
However with budgets being squeezed what would have to be “given” up to fund this.

We have at least two schools like this near me that are LA funded.

My Dil’s DM and step-father live behind it, near the back entrance.

Every single day there are children climbing up on the roof, chucking others bags out of upstairs windows, screaming and swearing in the playground.

It takes amazingly special teachers and Heads to successfully run schools like this and control unacceptable behaviour for children who believe rules don’t apply to them.

Simply “dumping” children who’ve been excluded from other schools due to “poor” behaviour, isn’t really the whole area.

Interestingly though, my DiL’s step-father works in a local boxing gym where these same children are taken once a week and behave so much better there than inside school.

Further afield is another specialised unit where Secondary aged children, who for many many reasons, are not or cannot attend mainstream schools. This “school” spends mornings doing core subjects, maths, English and IT and every afternoon learning some practical trade, these include hair/beauty, mechanics, animal husbandry, the incidents of truancy and poor behaviour are far lower than the school I mentioned earlier.

Whatever the approach though, all children need boundaries, need to feel safe and need to be prepared for adult life (imho).

Sago

I started a thread on this matter some years ago.

I was involved with a family who were home educating their children.

In the very immaculate home there was not a picture, piece of artwork or any evidence of homeschooling.

The kitchen was really only used to prepare cold food (cooking made a mess) and there was no outside play.

We took the children to the beach for the day and they had a wonderful time but then got stressed on the way home they Mummy would be cross because of the messy sand!

There were very many safeguarding issues, I cannot believe they were checked out and signed off.

I did of course take appropriate action but do not know the outcome.

The two children were desperate to have a normal life, friends and school.

I’m sure there are good home educators but any parents that go down this route should be “red flagged” and closely monitored, there is no better way to hide neglect or abuse.
Sara Sharif was a prime example.

I couldn’t agree more!

Luckygirl3

I am very pro home ed. Done well it produces confident well-educated children.

I find the sausage factory one-size-fits-all approach of state schools, especially large ones, quite disturbing and know how damaging it can be to some children.

One of the biggest assets of home ed is that the child is free from the stranglehold of the narrow national curriculum with its emphasis on academic and STEM subjects and absence of cultural input.

I get the danger that a child in a disturbed home will have no external agencies monitoring their safety and well-being. Better input from LA is the answer to that - I wish ......

I know several home educators and they are doing a great job in every way. They should absolutely have the right to do this.

The argument that home educated children do not know how to socialise keeps being raised but is nonsense. Good home educators get together for group sessions and their children are in the ordinary local sports teams and gyms clubs, and Brownies etc.

I have serious reservations about our current education system and applaud those who are brave enough to take on the task of HE when they feel it is right for their child.

I agree, as you’ll see from my post.

However, I do think we also need different types of formal schooling for different types of children at Secondary level.

Isn’t this what AB is attempting to do?

Also, it’s a little ott to completely dismiss our entire educational system, as it does and has worked for many children.

I absolutely agree that children need schooling which matches them, rather than attempting to mould the child to meet the school requirements. However school is about far more than just academic learning. It’s about preparing children for “real life”. In our working and adult lives we have “rules” and “laws”, so whilst I do agree schools need to fit the child attending, there comes a point where children have to learn that in life things are not always going to be “on their terms”. Companies are not going to amend their processes and policies and daily activities to suit every employee.

However, how would you deal with both further and higher education without the nationwide uniform entrance criteria?

Personally I have no issue with our Primary school education system, it works for most children and most schools have good teachers prepared to utilise the national curriculum flexibly.
If I changed anything, I’d change the approach to formal learning and make it slight later in infant education and far more emphasis on learning to play and socialising.

It’s Secondary school where I think we absolutely fail too many children.

I started a thread on this matter some years ago.

I was involved with a family who were home educating their children.

In the very immaculate home there was not a picture, piece of artwork or any evidence of homeschooling.

The kitchen was really only used to prepare cold food (cooking made a mess) and there was no outside play.

We took the children to the beach for the day and they had a wonderful time but then got stressed on the way home they Mummy would be cross because of the messy sand!

There were very many safeguarding issues, I cannot believe they were checked out and signed off.

I did of course take appropriate action but do not know the outcome.

The two children were desperate to have a normal life, friends and school.

I’m sure there are good home educators but any parents that go down this route should be “red flagged” and closely monitored, there is no better way to hide neglect or abuse.
Sara Sharif was a prime example.

I've just checked and we have a very special school, a 'second chance' school for children who couldn't cope with mainstream education for a whole host of reasons. The testimonials are amazing. It really seems to be excellent for more fragile children but I see the fees are £31,000 pa per child. I wonder if local authorities pay for this?

It really depends on family- some home-schooled children do extremely well academically. However, it can also allow parents to isolate their children from outside influences that might allow them to have a somewhat balanced view of the world. Some of the extreme religious sects in US home educate their children and some who have "escaped" have told about abuse and brainwashing.

In Ireland there is a notorious family of 10 children, all home educated by qualified teacher mother. They all took state exams and achieved high grades, and continued to university. But their extreme fundamentalist Christian beliefs have caused them and employers huge problems and cost!

Burke family (Castlebar) - Wikipedia share.google/Dp3hCQBaYJ2etxi5R

I have serious safeguarding issues with home schooling, and i do think that risk needs to be acknowledged. However I am aware of numerous children with SEN who are currently receiving in some cases as little as one hour a day of education in schools, so it is perfectly understandable that people opt for homeschooling.

I am very pro home ed. Done well it produces confident well-educated children.

I find the sausage factory one-size-fits-all approach of state schools, especially large ones, quite disturbing and know how damaging it can be to some children.

One of the biggest assets of home ed is that the child is free from the stranglehold of the narrow national curriculum with its emphasis on academic and STEM subjects and absence of cultural input.

I get the danger that a child in a disturbed home will have no external agencies monitoring their safety and well-being. Better input from LA is the answer to that - I wish ......

I know several home educators and they are doing a great job in every way. They should absolutely have the right to do this.

The argument that home educated children do not know how to socialise keeps being raised but is nonsense. Good home educators get together for group sessions and their children are in the ordinary local sports teams and gyms clubs, and Brownies etc.

I have serious reservations about our current education system and applaud those who are brave enough to take on the task of HE when they feel it is right for their child.

Home schooling is my idea of hell, for me and my child/grandchild.

It was bad enough during Covid…

I have similar concerns to you re safeguarding.

Also forming friendships and interaction with others.

I agree. There's much more to formal school attendance than just the imparting of knowledge. I'm a big believer in there being a range of schools. The mainstreaming agenda has been a disaster for a lot of children and made life even harder for teachers.
When I started there were all sorts of schools from those with severe physical and learning disabilities up to and including schools for gifted children.