Home Schooling - are you for or against?

Geekesse your King Herod reference ???

Primary school kids .... let them think you're capable of a good shout (and clout!). You never need to worry further!
I have every respect for secondary school teachers. Their charges are far more devious.

Taught mine to read with Ladybird. Mind you was nearly 50 yrs ago ?

This idea that children are loosing out on so much learning by not being in school is OTT in my opinion. One of my Gds does not like her school and with 2 hours a day home schooling has improved phenomenally in her reading, handwriting and maths. She is not looking forward to going back to her chaotic year 6 classroom which contains several disruptive boys. Her parents are seriously considering keeping her at home for the rest of the school year.

I can’t agree with those who say children only have two productive hours per day. Surely not in every school?

Agree with whoever said it’s not a case of for or against. Some children are totally unsuited to the school environment for example

I think someone said the curriculum could be covered in 2 hours a day. Maybe, but there is far more to learning. Especially where younger children are concerned. We spend time in the school day on plenty of other valuable tasks.
All very productive activities.
- learning how to dress and undress for PE
- learning how to eat with knives and forks
- learning how to sharpen pencils, tidy our trays
- learning how to use the library
- learning how to share and consider others
- learning how to play fairly in the playground
- learning to care for our school environment
The list goes on. Not everything should be measured by academic achievement and those who aren't cut out for the desk and chair should have other opportunities at which to excel.

Think of an hours lesson with 35 students. Dependant on the class, obviously. But the average, middle ability class. Lining up outside. Waiting until they're quiet. 5 minutes? Getting them into a room, that really, is too small for them. Bags, coats etc off. Another 5 minutes. IF you're lucky. Starter activity while the teacher does the register, 5 mins if there are no distractions. Which there will be. Talking, bickering, Miss he did this, I never did etc etc. 5 mins.

Ideally, teacher explains the task without interruptions. Which rarely happens. Waiting for good behaviour, implementing the schools behaviour policy, warning the disrupters. 5 mins IF you are VERY lucky. Taking questions. 5 mins. Silent work, which is when the class should be engaged in active learning. Which isn't silent and at least half of them will be quietly or not so quietly doing other things. Which requires teacher intevention, because if the teacher doesn't intervene, they can escalate into louder disruptions. Obviously, allowing packing up time.

But altogether, probably no more than 20 / 25 minutes of active learning in there. Those in there that cause the problems are not the majority, but they prevent the majority from concentrating.

Of course, with a top set, focused class, yes, there will be 45 minutes of learning. But those idyllic classes are the minority.

This might be an unpopular viewpoint, but it is the reality of a state school classroom these days. And that isn't a bad class. Just a lively one.

AND on top off all that, try keeping masks on them!

She is not looking forward to going back to her chaotic year 6 classroom which contains several disruptive boys.
Have her parents had a word with the teacher if they are concerned seamstress?
She will face even more trouble in this last part of year 6 when the disruptive lads have demob fever.

I don’t agree about the two hours in every school either Lucca. All the schools I’ve taught in, even in the middle of big cities, weren’t like that.
I do agree that behaviour has become an increasing barrier to learning though.
Home schooling? I did it for several children in lockdown 1 via Zoom or Teams when I wasn’t actually in school.
Apart from DGC I helped where a couple of parents said things like “I can’t get him to settle.” “She won’t do anything when I tell her!”
This second lockdown has been different- in school with EW and SEND children and at home preparing and delivering online lessons.
There’ll be a big difference for me and other teachers to cope with when children return. Some parents have been willing/able to do over and above what was provided with their children. Some have done their best with the limitations of working from home, other children and equipment problems. Some parents have flatly said that teaching is not their job so they’ve done little or nothing, even in one case complaining that we were not providing physical activities like PE or the daily run!
If parents were already homeschooling, their children won’t have missed out but I’ll be watching to see if the number of children withdrawn from school and home schooled goes up after Covid.

adaunas, it seems some parents never change. In the 1960s, my mother asked the children she taught, to use books in the school library to fnd out certain things. One child's parents came rampaging in to say, that they were not paying fees for their child to have to find things out for himself. It was the teacher's job to give him the information he needed.

I am very pro home schooling when it is done properly, following an accredited curriculum.

The myth of home school children not being socialized is greatly exaggerated in a healthy home school environment.

gagajo I'm horrified that you think a 60min lesson means 20/25 minutes of active learning. I have taught tens of thousands of hours, and observed hundreds. Unless you're talking about a weak student teacher, what you've described is just not true.

My original question was how can anyone teach a secondary curriculum? A parent has neither the depth of subject knowledge nor the interest/passion in the subject to provide an education in 10 subjects. They don't have the experience in exam preparation in those subjects. They don't understand different styles of lessons in 1 subject, never mind 10.
Teaching isn't just transmitting information.
Obviously if the child is recuperating from hospital or some other temporary issue, an enthusiastic parent is great. But we're talking about 13 years from 5 to 18.

Chardy

gagajo I'm horrified that you think a 60min lesson means 20/25 minutes of active learning. I have taught tens of thousands of hours, and observed hundreds. Unless you're talking about a weak student teacher, what you've described is just not true.

No, I am talking about a standard lesson in an inner city school. It may not be what you have seen but unfortunately, it IS true. In some classes, there is barely any active learning.

A parent has neither the depth of subject knowledge nor the interest/passion in the subject to provide an education in 10 subjects. But why might they need 10 subjects? Collecting GCSEs like charms on a bracelet is neither necessary nor desirable.

Home-schooled children do have the opportunity to learn a variety of subjects at secondary level - they use written and online resources designed for home-schooling; and groups of parents get together and share their skills and knowledge with a group of children. One parent might be a music specialist, another have a physics degree, another be a skilled carpenter or a plumber, another an artist.

These parents and children are pursuing knowledge for its own sake, going off at tangents where the pupils' interests lead them, exploring what is out there to be learned. They (both adults and children) are not shackled by Gove's diktats - they are pursuing real education.

Evidence gagajo please

Maths, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Double Science (or 3 individual sciences), hist/geog/humanities, a foreign lang, a creative subject, a technology, some kind of ICT qualification is considered to give a balanced education, and preparation for A levels and university as appropriate. Plus PE & RE

Of course I am not going to publicly name and shame Chardy ?. But I have seen this first hand, in at least 3 schools.

Exactly, Luckygirl. Overseas students take 4 or 5 good iGCSE's and still go on to do International Baccalaureate Diploma or A Levels. AND still get into Ivy League or Oxbridge.

A friend home-schooled both her children from the age of 5 to 16. They went to sixth form college and on to university (one to Oxford). I don't think either suffered from lack of socialising, as they belonged to all sorts of different clubs. The only GCSE they needed some help with was French.

It's a big commitment and it really does depend on the personal circumstances.

I wish I'd been able to home-school my son up to 11 because he really was very unhappy at primary school.

Sorry, I didn't expect you to name & shame, gagajo, I actually meant research, statistics, that sort of evidence.
You say you've seen it in 3 schools. Is that every teacher, every lesson?
Is this secondary, primary? Were you a teacher there, an inspector, an advisor? I've got no context.

Silent work, which is when the class should be engaged in active learning.
I think this is the big difference between primary and secondary. Silent work is probably the time when the younger children, certainly KS1, are learning the least!

Ellianne

^Silent work, which is when the class should be engaged in active learning.^
I think this is the big difference between primary and secondary. Silent work is probably the time when the younger children, certainly KS1, are learning the least!

That's why I would have loved to have been able to take my son out of primary school. He loved nothing more than to be on his own and just have time to think things through. He certainly did learn when he was allowed to work silently.

Yes, I have a grandson like your son and to be fair he has come on in leaps and bounds with his work at home. But he is desperate to get back to his teacher and his friends. It's all a balance.

Ellianne

^Silent work, which is when the class should be engaged in active learning.^
I think this is the big difference between primary and secondary. Silent work is probably the time when the younger children, certainly KS1, are learning the least!

True, Ellianne! In secondary though, individual work is where they apply whatever they have learned in the lesson.

Chardy, secondary, for some classes with every teacher they have. The same students go round the school, disrupting every lesson, until they are suspended. Even though some of them were over 10 years ago (some a year ago), I can STILL name the students. Not bad kids per se, but disadvantaged or undiagnosed/supported SEN (lack of money).