Home schooling your kids......
Discussion
Anyone done it? Seems to be a growing trend.
So what qualifications do you need as a minimum to do this? Is there any kind of check as to level of parents education if they are taking responsibility for their kids tuition?
The girl that lives next door is being 'home schooled' by her mum. Has been for a number of years. Probably doing her GCSEs in the next 12 months I should think.
But her mum shows no sign of an education. She's a gym bunny, a personal trainer. Maybe she's clever and educated, but I see no sign of it.
Would her child's progress be monitored in any way by the authorities, to see if she's hitting key targets etc?
The man of the house works away 10 months a year or more.
Is there a qualification for home schooling, and is there a monitoring system....?
And the kids of home schooling, is there a reliable gauge of their performance? I'm aware that some are home schooled because they are brilliant students far brighter than their peers.... but this isn't always the case is it?
Thoughts?
So what qualifications do you need as a minimum to do this? Is there any kind of check as to level of parents education if they are taking responsibility for their kids tuition?
The girl that lives next door is being 'home schooled' by her mum. Has been for a number of years. Probably doing her GCSEs in the next 12 months I should think.
But her mum shows no sign of an education. She's a gym bunny, a personal trainer. Maybe she's clever and educated, but I see no sign of it.
Would her child's progress be monitored in any way by the authorities, to see if she's hitting key targets etc?
The man of the house works away 10 months a year or more.
Is there a qualification for home schooling, and is there a monitoring system....?
And the kids of home schooling, is there a reliable gauge of their performance? I'm aware that some are home schooled because they are brilliant students far brighter than their peers.... but this isn't always the case is it?
Thoughts?
Any parent can home school their child - no requirements and checks (whilst possible) are unlikely unless the child is involved in either criminal activity or is on an at-risk register.
At the school where I work it's normally an option taken up by people who have an objection to the curriculum, want their child to follow a non-academic career path (i.e. construction, motor repairs etc.) or they have had so many disciplinary issues that they pull their child out just to reduce the hassle that they are getting. We do get a number of children removed for home schooling that return a couple of months later, their parents realizing that they can't provide the resources that they want for their children
Finally some parents pull their child out of school for "home schooling" when the intention is that the child is leaving the country and won't return for months (or ever) and they don't want any local authority questioning them.
At the school where I work it's normally an option taken up by people who have an objection to the curriculum, want their child to follow a non-academic career path (i.e. construction, motor repairs etc.) or they have had so many disciplinary issues that they pull their child out just to reduce the hassle that they are getting. We do get a number of children removed for home schooling that return a couple of months later, their parents realizing that they can't provide the resources that they want for their children
Finally some parents pull their child out of school for "home schooling" when the intention is that the child is leaving the country and won't return for months (or ever) and they don't want any local authority questioning them.
It's generally seems to be favoured by parents with mental health issues or extremist beliefs. Rarely does it appear to be being done for the genuine benefit of the child.
Religious nutters and sad, lonely mothers with no partner or friends and desperate to not be alone seem to be the two more common types.
I do t know what percentage of cases are purely for the benefit of the child but it doesn't appear to be strongly into double figures at first glance.
Religious nutters and sad, lonely mothers with no partner or friends and desperate to not be alone seem to be the two more common types.
I do t know what percentage of cases are purely for the benefit of the child but it doesn't appear to be strongly into double figures at first glance.
Monkeylegend said:
but to say they ended up becoming socially inept loners is probably an understatement.
I imagine this is pretty common amongst homeschooled kids? I mean you see your friends everyday in school. At home you just see your mum and maybe a private tutor. Who do you play football with at lunchtime?DonkeyApple said:
It's generally seems to be favoured by parents with mental health issues or extremist beliefs. Rarely does it appear to be being done for the genuine benefit of the child.
Religious nutters and sad, lonely mothers with no partner or friends and desperate to not be alone seem to be the two more common types.
I do t know what percentage of cases are purely for the benefit of the child but it doesn't appear to be strongly into double figures at first glance.
90% are vegan as well. Religious nutters and sad, lonely mothers with no partner or friends and desperate to not be alone seem to be the two more common types.
I do t know what percentage of cases are purely for the benefit of the child but it doesn't appear to be strongly into double figures at first glance.
DonkeyApple said:
It's generally seems to be favoured by parents with mental health issues or extremist beliefs. Rarely does it appear to be being done for the genuine benefit of the child.
Religious nutters and sad, lonely mothers with no partner or friends and desperate to not be alone seem to be the two more common types.
I do t know what percentage of cases are purely for the benefit of the child but it doesn't appear to be strongly into double figures at first glance.
Nail/head. You will never find teachers home schooling their kids, and they are probably in the best position to do so. Perhaps because they realise that the lessons are only a part of the school experience. Learning how humans interact with lots of other humans (and the odd sub-human) is also part of the gig. Religious nutters and sad, lonely mothers with no partner or friends and desperate to not be alone seem to be the two more common types.
I do t know what percentage of cases are purely for the benefit of the child but it doesn't appear to be strongly into double figures at first glance.
extraT said:
The kid might be having private tuition? I'm a private tutor for two kids who are home schooled, parents do teach them, but for Maths, English and Coding (yes computer coding!) they have private tutors.
No sign of private tutors calling. But who knows. I was more interested in the general query about results of home tuition against general results as a whole. Is there any organisation actually measuring these results?
My early career was as a private tutor, I did quite well out of it. I seem to have a knack of explaining really complicated stuff in ways people understand.
Legally, a parent has to provide an education, but that can be at home. Councils will have a registration scheme and the home education advisory service provide a lot of help.
Parents pool tutors, holding classes of 4-5 kids at a time, and generally support each other, there's quite the community out there.
The children I taught were removed for a variety of reasons, but generally followed the trend that their individual needs were not met. Mainly through bullying or lack of support. I had a 12 year old with aspergers, who was the best kid ever despite being told by a teacher he'd be better off dead; a 14 year old who had attempted suicide as a result of bullying due to his sexual orientation, a 15 yr old in a wheelchair and several cancer patients.
Tutors need to be DBS checked (what used to be a CRB check and list 99 check - list 99 is the database held by the department of children schools and families of people who are barred from teaching for whatever reason, sometimes kiddie fiddling offences but also mental illness, alcoholism etc gets you put on the list as well), agencies do the DBS checks but parents are legally entitled to also run the checks as well.
At the time there was no legal obligation for local authorities to run checks but holy f
k on a stick the pyjama mama advert is running right now and it really annoys me... anyway that has since tightened up after a number of incidents where home schooled pupils were victims of abuse and the normal child protection policies operated by schools could not be implemented. However this varies considerably from county to county.
At the very minimum, local authorities insist on a registration scheme, a few do fall through the net.
The law basically states the education provided has to be appropriate for the age and development of the child, which is so airy fairy it's impossible to enforce but if they can't read and write age 16 then somethings gone awry.
All the parents I dealt with were without exception (bar one) at their wits end with the system and doing it for the good of their child.
The flipside was the sheer number of students who were getting help from uncle this or auntie that or dads mate from the pub who knows a thing or two and getting things hopelessly wrong. On top of that, the number of part time tutors who thought they could do it as a bit of easy extra cash creating mayhem.
Legally, a parent has to provide an education, but that can be at home. Councils will have a registration scheme and the home education advisory service provide a lot of help.
Parents pool tutors, holding classes of 4-5 kids at a time, and generally support each other, there's quite the community out there.
The children I taught were removed for a variety of reasons, but generally followed the trend that their individual needs were not met. Mainly through bullying or lack of support. I had a 12 year old with aspergers, who was the best kid ever despite being told by a teacher he'd be better off dead; a 14 year old who had attempted suicide as a result of bullying due to his sexual orientation, a 15 yr old in a wheelchair and several cancer patients.
Tutors need to be DBS checked (what used to be a CRB check and list 99 check - list 99 is the database held by the department of children schools and families of people who are barred from teaching for whatever reason, sometimes kiddie fiddling offences but also mental illness, alcoholism etc gets you put on the list as well), agencies do the DBS checks but parents are legally entitled to also run the checks as well.
At the time there was no legal obligation for local authorities to run checks but holy f
k on a stick the pyjama mama advert is running right now and it really annoys me... anyway that has since tightened up after a number of incidents where home schooled pupils were victims of abuse and the normal child protection policies operated by schools could not be implemented. However this varies considerably from county to county.At the very minimum, local authorities insist on a registration scheme, a few do fall through the net.
The law basically states the education provided has to be appropriate for the age and development of the child, which is so airy fairy it's impossible to enforce but if they can't read and write age 16 then somethings gone awry.
All the parents I dealt with were without exception (bar one) at their wits end with the system and doing it for the good of their child.
The flipside was the sheer number of students who were getting help from uncle this or auntie that or dads mate from the pub who knows a thing or two and getting things hopelessly wrong. On top of that, the number of part time tutors who thought they could do it as a bit of easy extra cash creating mayhem.
I can see why people choose it. I have a couple of friends who chose to homeschool their kids.
First family were fed up with bad teachers. Homeschooling did wonders for their daughter.
Second family were sick of their daughter suffering from a bully at school. School did nothing to help so they chose homeschooling with the father giving up his job to do so. They struggled to begin with but it benefitted them in the end and she passed her GCSEs last year.
The important thing that both families did was making sure that the kids still had a social life via clubs, sports and keeping contact with friends.
First family were fed up with bad teachers. Homeschooling did wonders for their daughter.
Second family were sick of their daughter suffering from a bully at school. School did nothing to help so they chose homeschooling with the father giving up his job to do so. They struggled to begin with but it benefitted them in the end and she passed her GCSEs last year.
The important thing that both families did was making sure that the kids still had a social life via clubs, sports and keeping contact with friends.
My aunt took the decision to home school her children, my cousins, instead of sending them to the local primary school. It was never really explained to me at the time but she clearly knew something was "off" at the school because a few years ago there was a teacher arrested there for "historic sex offences against children"
Three of them continued on to secondary school but the youngest continued to be home schooled. As has been mentioned there were a few other home school children in their area so they tended to share out the workload between them all for the various subjects
Fortunately, none of them are socially inept weirdos. None more so than the rest of us, anyway.
Three of them continued on to secondary school but the youngest continued to be home schooled. As has been mentioned there were a few other home school children in their area so they tended to share out the workload between them all for the various subjects
Fortunately, none of them are socially inept weirdos. None more so than the rest of us, anyway.
Wiccan of Darkness said:
a 14 year old who had attempted suicide as a result of bullying due to his sexual orientation,
OT, apologies. But what is it with teenagers these days and their sexual orientation? Why's it so important that everyone else knows? Yes, you could argue that in today's enlightened society no one should be bullied for it anyway. But kids are cruel b
ds. I found out a few years ago that one of my best friends at school is gay. Probably was then, who knows. Point is, at 14 we didn't bang on about it so he didn't get bullied for it.
No one knew what anyone's 'sexual orientation' was because we were frankly far more interested in bikes, cars, computer games and football.
Ari said:
Wiccan of Darkness said:
a 14 year old who had attempted suicide as a result of bullying due to his sexual orientation,
OT, apologies. But what is it with teenagers these days and their sexual orientation? Why's it so important that everyone else knows? Yes, you could argue that in today's enlightened society no one should be bullied for it anyway. But kids are cruel b
ds. I found out a few years ago that one of my best friends at school is gay. Probably was then, who knows. Point is, at 14 we didn't bang on about it so he didn't get bullied for it.
No one knew what anyone's 'sexual orientation' was because we were frankly far more interested in bikes, cars, computer games and football.
So you never talked about girls as a teenager?
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