Home Schoolers??

[Guest55]

I'm sorry - where is the report you quoted - the links are about a few LAs.

LAs do have legal duties:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... sev2_0.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To condemn them all is very unfair and hardly 'balanced'.

[meerme]

I just added the words "with a few exceptions" before I saw your post. So you're right, it's not all, it's almost all. There are about 10 LAs who have zero misleading statements on their website/policies. In an earlier post I've pointed out where Birmingham have taken liberties.

You keep asking for a link to the report. I've intentionally not provided it as it's easy enough to find given all the clues in my posts.

You have pointed to a document that's a very important one - it governs how the LAs should treat home ed. Most LAs show either a complete disregard for the document or modify bits of it to suit their convenience. Essex took the line "LAs have no statutory duty to monitor home education" and simply replaced the word "no" with "a" to give the impression they were entitled to inspect home ed families. For years they refused to correct that "mistake" and only did so about a couple of months ago after a lot of pressure.

[doodles]

You keep asking for a link to the report. I've intentionally not provided it as it's easy enough to find given all the clues in my posts.

Why do that? It's just irritating meerme, this is an interesting discussion not a test of other people's googling skills!!

[meerme]

doodles, yes there've been some interesting posts, including from those who disagree with me. However, if I see a poster's contributions as being just bad tempered objections (with no attempt to provide intelligent supporting arguments ... or any arguments), asking of questions just so they can find something new to disagree with, and being aggressive not just in the thread but by via the PM system as well, you must forgive me for not feeling inclined to respond to their every demand. I've been trying to ignore those posts. I apologise if this has caused inconvenience for you / anyone else.

If it's any consolation I've spent ages on Google trying to find that elusive European study about home ed children being socially backward.

I've just discovered this forum has a useful "Ignore" feature. Cool! That's a good way for me to block a poster. It should serve just as well for anyone who wants to block my posts (though I can't see why anyone would want to do that ).

[Guest55]

Unfortunately your refusal to properly apologise for the word you used has weakened your case.

Ignoring people you disagree with is not a very healthy way forward and makes me question your real motives for this thread.

[aliportico]

It is also interesting to see how home ed children adjust to grammar school as I certainly know some who have gone, including children who had never previously set foot in a school. I guess it's very much down to the child's personality and their appetite for knuckling down with work.
I wondered how dc3 would adjust after 9 months of spending the mornings reading in bed and the afternoons on other activities, which included rather a lot of science but a bare minimum of writing! I was surprised that, although she became quite tired before half term (I guess that many Yr 7s would have done too, though!) she has felt generally settled and made friends quickly. I am grateful for the time she had at home, because, in her particular case, it made a huge impact on her confidence and emotional well-being to have that time out.

My eldest put this on facebook this summer:
"When I go back to school in September, it'll be the start of my seventh year in formal education, which marks the point where my years at school start to outnumber the years I spent being home-educated. Even though home-ed seems eons ago, to this day I still forget that other kids actually went to school before year seven. Home-ed has been on my mind a lot in the past few weeks, because of various things, and it's really reminded me how absolutely thankful I am that I was home-educated instead of going to school. I wouldn't be the person I am today without home-ed (and despite what people seem to think about home-ed kids, I have pretty good social skills). I don't think any primary school could have matched the learning and experiences that I got from being home-educated (and I don't think I would have the same relationships with my family either.) People are always going to have ridiculous criticisms of home-education, but as a kid who's been through it and come out (hopefully) fairly normal, I can honestly say that I think it was one of the best decision my parents made about my life."

I think on the whole that people who do/have/have been home educated realise that it's just not such a big deal as some people think. Children learn, that's what they do.

[meerme]

That's a very smart (and articulate) kid you've got there, aliportico. Thanks for sharing that post.

I think on the whole that people who do/have/have been home educated realise that it's just not such a big deal as some people think. Children learn, that's what they do.

When my children were in school I would have had trouble with the above. Children learn, yes, but to learn formal maths and English and "stuff" you've got to go to school! It took a lot of reading and research before I was convinced otherwise.

My neighbour's a retired teacher. She sees our kids out all day in warmer months playing in the garden or out on their bikes and knows that in winter we're off visiting NT properties, museums and the like. When we had her over for dinner one day we let the children show her what they were working on. She was stunned they were so far ahead of their peers because they seemed to be not doing any studying at all. When you don't have the limitations of 30-40 children in the class - one local primary has several classes with 34+ pupils - you can cover in the odd morning more than a teacher covers all week. We don't follow the N.C. but looking purely at GCSEs - it's 3-4 years worth of "full time study", not 12. Only the highly inefficient model of bulk education in mixed ability classes can drag it out that long.

My neighbour is recommending her daughter deregister their child.

I get the impression that most posters in this thread are of the view that it's horses for courses. If HE works for you, great. If you prefer school, that's good too. A few wouldn't consider HE, or have grave reservations about it being allowed at all. Based on the arguments offered so far (from those who are capable of explaining themselves!) it appears some are swayed by the myths and misconceptions around. Like the one about socialisation. And the other one about safeguarding. It would help future visitors to this thread if those points could be discussed some more, in a calm fashion, so views on these issues can be shared.

[Sally-Anne]

This thread has gone a very long way off topic, and I doubt that that is adding any value to the OP's request for shared experiences of HE.

It has been locked.

Sally-Anne