Probably one for mumsnet but knowing a lot of you are parents and we’ve all been children, I thought I’d ask. Thinking of homeschooling my 11 year old through secondary education, has anyone done it, considered or experienced It?
If you do consider it, talk to a proper group, who get together, and follow a plan.
As there are absolutely no legal requirements for what you do, it is easy to get lax.
My sons partner is “home schooling” our grandson; a complete disaster.
I have seen two different families, in our village do it, and they were brilliant.
Involved in a proper group, designed lessons, meet ups, group days, etc.
Cheers Gregg, yes a group would be great, it’s fulfilling the social aspect of school that concerns me most. A group would go some way towards ensuring regular contact with peers.
Get in touch with Education Otherwise a really good support group (they used to be and if they still exist). I once (about 20 years ago) wrote a paper about their work and how well home education worked for University entrants.
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Seems they still exist, I will check it out, thanks 
You know your child best of course. I would always want to make sure that there was a good balance of not just the academic which is something that you can associate positively with home schooling, and the social development of the person as a whole, which fairly or unfairly is a risk when home schooling a child.
So much of secondary education is about daily interaction with peers. I don’t see how you can replicate that. Qualifications are only one part of any education.
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You can if you join a local home schooling network and group maintain the social and peer development. You can also tap into the subject expertise of other parents in the group to help with the delivery.
I recall that the LEA would keep a very close eye on home schoolers to ensure all aspects of development were catered for, including the social development. The most isolated children I saw during my research, were those so called high fliers pulled out of school to be taught at home.
I did a lot of research work with one such group a long time ago in a previous life, and with care they can be very successful. But they do produce students with very different learning styles. At the time i was doing my resesrch almost no home learners went beyond GCSE particularly in the sciences and more practical subjects, so if the children wanted to study beyond GCSE to A’Level, they’d have to go to 6th form or college and would struggle terribly as they had no experience of school and it’s structures.
If they did manage to get through the challenge of A levels to University, at the time home learners adapted more quickly to independent and explorative learning styles expected at University, but that difference flattened out within one academic year.
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@loo Claire is a FE lecturer, I asked her for her view.
She has taught a small number of home schooled kids, and found they struggle to integrate into group activities and even settling into a classroom environment at first.
However, the ones that had been taught properly generally had a really good knowledge base and were usually comfortable by about halfway into their first year.
The kids who adjusted usually went on to do well. These were always the kids whos parents / tutors had followed a proper syllabus type of education. The kids who’d had a more “woolly” sort of regime usually failed to thrive, which I suppose is unsurprising.
Some poor kids had basically just been crammed to pass GCSE exams over a couple of years, and couldn’t cope with actually doing any coursework or thinking for themselves and fell apart in a big way when required to do so.
I concur with these views. I gave up school teaching nearly 30 years ago, but for a period of 18 months before I started my academic career at University, I was working towards an MEd where I was working very closely with a home schooling group and Kirklees Council looking at how well home schooled children adjusted to University. Whether what I found out then still applies today, I don’t know.
I did supervise a final year degree project last year of a student who was home schooled, and the impression I got was that he was a very well developed independent learner…but a sample of one doesn’t tell me much
Is there any particular reason you want to do this loo?
I imagine it has the potential to be an immensely rewarding experience, but if you’re going to provide a full range of subjects I would guess it’s going to be a full time job, plus a fair investment in, say, lab or workshop equipment for instance, unless there are some easily accessible communal facilities available. And don’t take this the wrong way, do you honestly feel you have the expertise to this?
Not trying to put you off by any means, just interested, because I know I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of doing this successfully. At times, TBH, I wish I’d had the money to send ours to boarding school…
Even though I was already at a Grammar School, because I got into a lot of trouble - fighting mainly, my Mum (Dad died when I was 11) sent me to boarding school. It was the proper Tom Brown’s schooldays job - clock tower, cloisters, dormitories, army cadet force. I absolutely detested it and couldn’t get away quick enough.
I hated travelling down from Liverpool to Herfordshire, hated being away from my mates and family and the corporal punishment regime at the school was terrible.
Bet you were great at the biscuit game though
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Was it Hitchen in Herfordshire by any chance?
Ha, no didn’t really go in for that. Spent most of the time with my school friends looking for somewhere to smoke an illicit fag, which got me into shitloads of trouble - got beaten regularly for it.
That it was an all-boys school fucked me up for a long time - I was really shy around girls for many years.
Bushey.
Whoosh…
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Boarding, like home schooling, suits certain children and not others.