Register for Home Education

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I remember thinking, many years ago when my family and I moved south that I could easily stop sending my children to school,as there didn't seem to be any way that the authorities could track us, especially if we didn't register with doctors or claim family allowance.

One drawback of our education system is its rigidity. Governments face a huge challenge to provide the best possible education for millions of students with a limited budget. Because of the school program, my daughter does not have time to do all the homework, so she orders an assignment on the site ukessay.com/buy-assignment-online to save time. This often means that students are not being offered the best possible education in school. If you home school your child, you will have the freedom to direct their studies towards areas that you feel will be the most valuable to them.

This is NOT a knock at the many parents who home school responsibly but it has become a bit of trend a manager of a local shop I know well has a 14 year old who won’t go to school ‘as she is bullied’ if you knew this girl you would know she isn’t a candidate for bullying she is now home schooled, by herself, whilst both parents are at work ! She meets up with her best friend who is also home schooled because ‘she was being bullied’ and supposedly do some computer work together I have a family of 8 live near me 2 have left home and one a girl of about 12 has chosen to go to school the rest play out in the alley with the family of 5 who live down the road, who are also home schooled The parents of the family nearest me were both school dropouts who do not work not bad people at all and perfectly nice neighbours but not in any way educated to the standard these teens and pre teens need
I also have a nearby family who all work at varying times in their dads shop when they aren’t walking the dog or playing football
By contrast I have an acquaintance with an autistic son who does everything with him including taking him to some outdoor type group teaching sessions
So yes in my opinion it needs much more vibrant scrutiny it’s too easy to say ‘I m home schooling ‘

Long overdue. And these illegal schools I’ve heard about on the news need closing down.

We educated my middle daughter at home for a year (due to bullying that wasn’t dealt with by the school) We had someone from the LEA come out to look at her work, and check we were doing it properly.
In her case I taught her some subjects English, Geography and Law (my degree) , my husband History, ((his degree subject) my eldest daughter taught her psychology and sociology (social work degree).We paid a friend who had a doctorate in physics to teach her maths and physics, and a lady (who was recommended) taught her French.
This all tided her over until she was able to get into the local further education college to sit her GCSE’s, a year early.
It worked out fine. She was still seeing friends from school, and doing her previous extra curricular activities. Plus we were able to take her out to museums and NT places on days off. We all had to juggle this around other things. I worked 4 days a week and elder daughter was at uni, but her father was medically retired and we managed to make it work well.
I would have had no issues with additional scrutinising by the LEA but I can understand why some home educators might.

I knew a couple who tried to home educate their son. The mum had learning difficulties and the dad was of below average intelligence. Needless to say the result was disastrous. When the child went back to school he was very behind.

There are no fines in the school where I work

maryeliza54 I don't know how children are tracked through the system as they grow up. In rare cases some children may not even be registered with a GP (those who are most at risk probably) which is why I think the tracking should start with a birth certificate as I believe that all children are registered at birth. On second thoughts though, there are the children who are brought into the country later on, and I don't know what the solution would be there. Some form of registration would be a start, as I think it is highly unlikely that all the parents who choose to home educate can do it to as high a standard as a school. For one thing it takes a huge amount of time and expense to home educate. I am not saying that all home schooling is inadequate as I am sure it isn't in a lot of cases, but there will always be children who miss out on a quality education at a state school......no, wait.

Lovely to hear such a success story minimoon !

A register and more inspection and assessment would be great, but who on earth is going to pay for it. Certainly not this government who have cut spending per head to schools. You can find out about your GCs school here schoolcuts.org.uk/?link_id=0&can_id=9829bb41bfffd3f4f3af96114a8cf8e2&source=email-bad-news-its-worse-than-we-predicted&email_referrer=email_518798___subject_669656&email_subject=bad-news-its-worse-than-we-predicted

This thread has got me wondering how children are in fact tracked through the various systems - if at all. For example being registered with a doctor. I know a baby is in the system after being born as records etc are sent to the GP but how do leas know who should be going to school in their area once a child reaches the age for education? Does anyone know?

Yes I agree Antonia not everyone who keeps their children away from school are acting from the best motives. The cases are rare but exist, there needs to be joined up care supporting children.

I think there should be a register, but the idea is to identify those children who are missing out on education, attending illegal schools or being educated on a religious basis. Some parents or guardians are unlikely to conform to a registration scheme so I can't see how it could be implemented to ensure that no child slips through the net. I think the scheme would need to start with birth certificates and correlate those with a place of education when the child reaches school age.

Well EV not having to sack teaching assistants, not having to increase class size, not cutting in real terms the money given to CAMHS , not closing Sure Start Centres , improving housing, higher pay - all this would be a start if we really cared about our children but there is not one example I can think of as evidence that this government cares about ‘our’ children because these children are not their children and anyway, keeping public expenditure and taxes down is all that matters.

Classrooms now are full to capacity. More and more children suffer from mental/physical problems, i.e. ( behavioural ) how the dickens can any teacher be made to cope with such a volume of unruly children as well as trying to teach them ? They may as well stay at home !

Discipline has well gone !! Result-----feral children.

Lucky, the lady from the LEA who visited my daughter has a huge area to cover. After visiting my daughter she had to phone her next family to cancel her visit until another day.

DD took my grandchildren to visit Souter Lighthouse as youngest grandson is interested in all things lighthouse related. When they reached the light, the lady volunteer guide asked them if they had any questions. She was amazed by the things they wanted to know, and asked which school they attended. DGD told her they were home educated. She then said that school parties barely ask any questions, and it was refreshing to talk to such interesting, intelligent children.

I thought this already happened and that they were inspected as above. I know that the inspection rate is low and not very efficient in some areas - but in theory it exists.

Home schooling can be very successful with intelligent well-motivated parents; and I am hugely in favour of it. I think that the environment of pressure in many schools is not a place that I would want a child of mine to be.

However there is indeed a safeguarding issue and the authorities should be making more frequent visits to those home schoolers about whom the have doubts - but is there the man/woman power to do this?

Well in some rare cases yes because they have something to hide.

My DD was inspected in Glasgow, and her details were passed to the relevant LEA when they moved here. Why is this not being done, I wonder? Are parents trying to hide from the LEA?

I think it is absolutely essential.
At very least it’s a safeguarding issue not just an educational one

We do hear of cases of child neglect/abuse which sadly slip through the net despite the suspicions of schools, but if a child is home schooled and there are no regulations at all in place then this would be so much more difficult, if not impossible, to discover.

I'm sure that most parents who home school are extremely conscientious like MiniMoon's DD, but there will always be the exceptions and better regulations may well discover problems that arise both in education and in the child's well-being.

I can see no reason why children being home educated should not be registered and known to the local authority.

Most parents, who are home educating their children, and I was nearly one, provide their children with, possible an unconventional, but more than adequate educatio.

However, there have been a number of cases where children have been malnourished, neglected and abused, and in one case a child died, in the care of parents who had withdrawn them from not just from school, but from society, to pursue misguided religious or philosophical beliefs that have affected the childs physical and mental welfare and, on rare occasions, social services do need to step in to protect the children. This hasn't always happened in the past because those responsible for protecting children were unaware of their existence.

Mini that’s very heartening - this should be the national standard and it isn’t. Also a national register should be able to track children if they move areas as that is one way that problems can be hidden and children fall out of sight