Home Schooling - are you for or against?

My experience of home schooled children was not positive. I accept some children do well but not the many I was involved with.

As Elliane said, school life provides much more than its educational component.

I find gaga’ s negative dismissal of the state system as one sided as my negative experience of home schooled children. I don’t claim that my experience ‘proves’ home schooling always fails and exposes children to negatives, just that was what I found. My experience of my own children and grandchildren in the state system was and is positive

It wasn't a dismissal of the state system. It was a comment on schools which are not working. There ARE good state schools. And those that aren't good are that way mostly due to lack of funding.

Most state schools are good for high achievers. But for the 70%+ who aren't high achievers, they need more. And you can't get too much more out of a teacher who works 70 or more hours a week and has a classroom so full of students that they physically can't get to the back of the classroom to help those students.

I have seen some astoundingly good teachers. But if they're on their knees tired, they aren't going to perform their best.

As a measure of home schooling... My neice dropped out of school due to bullying. Her dad did maths with her, and I long distance tutored her (remote work and some online teaching). She got GCSE B's in English Lang and Lit and also in Maths. She was far from being a great student, but it was easy to tutor her outside of a classroom.

Genuine homeschooling is a big commitment. We spent all our waking hours in “teaching” mode when we were homeschooling.

Boiling an egg was physics- apply heat and matter changes, shopping might be maths or geography or social science. All day every day we were on the lookout for educational opportunities.

As they grow, so does your own knowledge. We were facilitators rather than tutors and helped our children follow their skills, passions and dreams. We largely were led by them - so if they wanted to spend ten weeks on an electronics project we didn’t cut them off at three - though we did insist on Maths English and a language.

Now our oldest is homeschooling her boys. She is the same regarding her teaching though does buy into some “systems” that we never did. She, as we used to, meets with lots of other homeschooling families and they do lots of things as a group.

I am glad that home-education is not for everyone. On a selfish level it means that those who do choose it still have the benefits of empty museums and art galleries from 2.30pm, the option of children’s activities when the schools are busy, and the freedom to pick a route through learning on an individual-child basis using the skills of the whole community.

All of my five have more friends than I do, or ever have, some from when they were tiny. They were members of swimming, cricket, dancing, basketball, drama groups and some continued to play sports etc into adulthood. They have visited and hosted homeschoolers and other friends from all over Europe and beyond and two have moved from the UK to live elsewhere. They are all different, exactly as other children in a family are.

Educationally, they are a mixed bunch but all have either great or better than average GCSEs and Alevels. Now, two have their own companies. Four have degrees, two have postgraduate degrees. One works in medical research, two in computing and two the arts. All seem to be as happy and settled as the next person and, basically, “normal”. All, except the one with no degree, have a reasonable income - the one with no degree definitely is the most affluent. This one was my “party animal”.

So really, although I enjoyed our thousands of hours homeschooling I don’t think it’s right for everyone. We “fell into” it almost by accident and although we looked at schools and options pretty regularly, only one of the four thinks he would have “done better” at school - and yes, you guessed it, he is the one with his own company and the “best” income.

On the down side, homeschooling in our case meant one income (actually two part-time ones) for many years. It meant a too-small-really house that we rented rather than bought. It meant camping holidays rather than trips abroad and only old cars, and it meant lots of mending and hand-me-down clothes and growing our own veg. But what no one can take away is the abundance of time we had together. For that, I am truly grateful.

Sorry gagajo to keep picking. I promise this is my last post on this. Your initial post said "an average, middle-ability class" now you're saying 'the same students...disrupting every lesson, until they're suspended'
Those sorts of kids exist, but not in classes of 35. They're possibly in SN, or bottom small group.
My gripe is you're making sweeping generalisations to lay-people who imagine, like Waterloo Road, that classes like this are disrupting every pupil. And this is at a time when teachers desperately need the support of the public. Teachers will be leaving in droves soon (same as NHS workers) because of vile negativity, perpetuated by Daily Mail and their like. I taught secondary for 39 years, all over England, rich areas, desperately disadvantaged areas etc, and I don't recognise most of what I read in the media, particularly when individual incidents are passed off as the norm.

No Chardy, they are NOT always in bottom class small groups. Children with poor behaviour aren't necessary low ability. That is such an educational basic. I taught a class like this a year ago. ALL lovely children BUT there were a core 6 or 7 in there that were in and out of school due to ongoing behaviour issues. Socially disadvantaged. After I left, one of them was permanently excluded. She was also a nice child, BUT had serious social and emotional issues. She also happened to have been quite capable of GCSE 7s & 8s.

As I am sure you are only too aware, if you are as experienced as you say, all of her data supported her to be a top set student, but due to her poor attendance and suspensions, she was in a middle set. The other students with behaviour problems didn't help either.

And this was not a problem class. There were many in that (quite nice but massively underfunded) school who were a lot worse.

And yes, they WERE a class of 35, as were others who were more of a handful. There were also classes of 10 or 15 who were bottom sets / SEN who are much harder to deal with. But those children do not have data supporting top grades.

This IS the reality of state schools today. Children do learn and teachers work very, very hard. But I stand by my belief that many children in that and other similar schools average about 2 hours a day of learning.

Chardy Unfortunately, I don't think Gagajo is wrong. Disruptive pupils aren't confined to SN or "bottom" sets. Some subjects in some schools only have mixed ability groups anyway. It is not uncommon, for example, for MFL to be taught in mixed ability groups in KS4 because the timetable won't work any other way. Some disruptive pupils are very bright and the dilemma is whether to put them in a "top" set, where hopefully the majority will get on with their work or in a "bottom" set, which might be somewhat smaller.

I'm not going to quantify the number of hours lost through disruption because I don't know. It's anecdotal, but it's based on my own experience in two schools, where I worked for a short time (fortunately I was able to leave quite quickly), the experience of one of my own children (again I was able to find her another school) and what my tutees have told me. All of this took place in an area which wouldn't be considered deprived. I did spend most of my teaching career in schools where discipline was acceptable, but there most certainly are schools (and not just a tiny number), where the poor behaviour of a few pupils disrupts the education of many.

Chardy Teachers do need the support of the public. I don't blame most teachers for poor behaviour. The responsibility lies with the pupils and, in some cases, parents who blame teachers for poor behaviour. I have sat in meetings and told parents that their children are disruptive and the parents themselves have just shrugged their shoulders and said they weren't good pupils themselves and have just said that their child isn't cut out for school. Some school "leaders" and others blame teachers by claiming that lessons aren't engaging enough. Sorry, but teachers aren't performing clowns and I don't remember my own teachers going out of their way to entertain me. Pupils and their own parents (and the public) have some responsibility to accept that learning can hard and sometimes boring.

BTW The Daily Mail and the like would be doing everybody a favour if it stopped knocking teachers for being "lazy" and running stupid stories about school uniform. It would be doing the pupils themselves a favour, if it highlighted how unsupportive a minority of parents are and how it can be their own children who are the disruptive influence.

It's ironic that the Daily Mail runs campaigns to get all children back in schools. It seems they're more concerned about childcare issues or maybe it's because some parents can't cope with their children and are desperate to offload them on to others. The DM doesn't usually show much concern for education as an idea or mental health, so there's a decidedly hypocritical air about its stance.

Most of the primary schools here are really good so I can’t personally understand the necessity for home schooling at that level. High schools ? are a different story. If you can afford private, well and good, but it very much depends on the area you live as to whether you get a good state school. Trouble is ,to home school at this level requires a fair bit of skill but most of the home schoolers I have come across simply don’t have it. The result is the children finish school with absolutely no recognisable qualifications. If they are lucky they will get into some sort of technical training but it is very hard to get into University from home schooling. Some do, but they seem to be very much the exception. It is too widespread here, they need to reign it in and control it more.

Iam64 I have some experience of the kind of children and families you mean. I worked for a few months in a small unit for children who wouldn't attend school. Parents had supported (often encouraged) their non-attendance and had tried to home-school, but it hadn't worked out, so they looked for something more structured, which we provided.

Most of the families had some kind of problem, not usually associated with finances, but mental health. It wasn't uncommon for the parents to have serious mental health issues themselves and to transfer the issues to their own children. Their children commonly lacked any form of resilience and being at home without any outside influence was the worst place for them. The children needed a flexible combination of individual tuition and counselling. Of course, this was expensive and funding was always an issue. The majority of such children are being home-schooled and are operating "under the radar".

The above notwithstanding, there are parents who opt to home-school their children and make an excellent job of it.

GagaJo I hold you entirely responsible for a disturbed night's sleep. I was teaching needlework in an old castle and the children started to run amok all through the building. Then they wanted extending dog leads in all colours and proceeded to tie each other up. Discipline went right out the window.
I can't blame you for the WW2 bomb that exploded in the playground, but I'm washed out this morning!
Never before in my years of teaching!

nanna8

Most of the primary schools here are really good so I can’t personally understand the necessity for home schooling at that level. High schools ? are a different story. If you can afford private, well and good, but it very much depends on the area you live as to whether you get a good state school. Trouble is ,to home school at this level requires a fair bit of skill but most of the home schoolers I have come across simply don’t have it. The result is the children finish school with absolutely no recognisable qualifications. If they are lucky they will get into some sort of technical training but it is very hard to get into University from home schooling. Some do, but they seem to be very much the exception. It is too widespread here, they need to reign it in and control it more.

I can understand the desire to home-school. Every parent has a different idea about what schooling should be and every education system and society has common goals, which might not coincide with what parents want. Sometimes, the two can't be reconciled. You only have to look at anti-vaxxers to get an idea of people who don't want to conform to what the "powers that be" consider to be in the common good. The same thinking exists in education.

Ellianne It must have been something you read about. Needlework sounds very twee - my mother once told me she did it at school, but I never did (thank goodness).

Every parent has a different idea about what schooling should be and in a private school they're very often on your back to produce this.

Occasionally too parents approach private schools in year 5 and 6 just to get their homeschooled kids into the best secondary schools. That is certainly not always an easy task either.

I agree with Gaga’ s point about middle sets that can be disrupted by bright children whose academic ability puts them in top sets but who are put into middle sets. I assume to ensure the others in the top sets get a*.
One of my children was middle set maths. The teacher told me she needed to work harder and he could move her up a set. When I told him she’d complained all lessons were disrupted by a group of boys, he acknowledged this. He turned his register round, pointed to 6 names with a * beside them. He said those boys were all capable of set 1 but placed in his set to avoid disrupting set 1 and also because they’d get a C with no effort.
This was a ‘good’ school, with Ofsted outstanding and 2nd only to our local private school for exam results

Ellianne

^Every parent has a different idea about what schooling should be^ and in a private school they're very often on your back to produce this.

Occasionally too parents approach private schools in year 5 and 6 just to get their homeschooled kids into the best secondary schools. That is certainly not always an easy task either.

The unit where I worked had older children, but it was a similar situation. Occasionally, families had support from the local authority, but usually they were self-funded (and it wasn't cheap). I could be very non-PC and say what I thought of some of the parents, but I won't.

Yes we were told that my son should work very hard to move up from set 2 (out of 4) in a particular subject so he could have less disruption.

Again outstanding school with a lot of competition to secure a place.

Interesting isn’t it. If it had been an inner city school serving a very deprived area, maybe parents evenings would have been very different. Maybe those disruptive bright boys would have escalated in a less constrained environment and been excluded

DS was moved down a set in maths, simply because his hand writing was so poor. As we discovered later, he is dyspraxic.

Fortunately he wasn't the disruptive kind. Unfortunately he is the kind who sat quietly and disappeared into a world of his own and the world could have come to an end and he wouldn't have noticed, so as he caused no problems, teachers took no notice of him.

This is why I say, in retrospect, I wish I had home schooled him.

I think parents and Ofsted should stop being obsessed by outstanding exam results. TBH, they're not difficult to manipulate, especially with bright children and supportive parents. SN classes are often well-managed too.

I think Ofsted should concentrate on the middles sets. They should speak to the pupils themselves and ask them about their experiences. Ask them whether they can get on with with whatever they want to achieve and whether they feel they're doing what they could and whether they're satisfied that they're not being disrupted or bullied. I wouldn't mind betting that a different picture would emerge of schools, even some which are considered outstanding.

Iam64

Interesting isn’t it. If it had been an inner city school serving a very deprived area, maybe parents evenings would have been very different. Maybe those disruptive bright boys would have escalated in a less constrained environment and been excluded

I agree. There's a sort of critical mass, where disruption and low motivation can no longer be controlled.

The simple fact is that there is good and bad home schooling and good and bad schools.

growstuff

I think parents and Ofsted should stop being obsessed by outstanding exam results. TBH, they're not difficult to manipulate, especially with bright children and supportive parents. SN classes are often well-managed too.

I think Ofsted should concentrate on the middles sets. They should speak to the pupils themselves and ask them about their experiences. Ask them whether they can get on with with whatever they want to achieve and whether they feel they're doing what they could and whether they're satisfied that they're not being disrupted or bullied. I wouldn't mind betting that a different picture would emerge of schools, even some which are considered outstanding.

Slightly off at a tangent but I always used to say Ofsted inspections were a waste of time, quicker to ask the students ! They knew a good teacher when they saw one ! Even if they didn’t like that teacher they would say he/she was good. BUt then I believe these inspections are just data based number crunching exercises now !

Why is it Ofsted inspections are so feared, dreaded and hated? What are they doing wrong?
My husband is an inspector and enters schools with the premise that the inspectors are there to advise and to sometimes suggest changes for the better.