Another thing that worries local authorities...

A well known phenomenon in schools is the drop in knowledge and skills that typically occurs during the long summer holiday. This has a profound effect on the education of children at school and is why many feel that it would be a better scheme to have four terms in the academic year, separated by holidays of equal length. What happens in effect is that when children do not attend school for six or seven weeks, they forget pretty much everything that they were taught in the previous term. The practical consequence is that when children come back to school in September, a lot of them have lost much of what they learned since Easter and so the autumn term is taken up with repeating a lot of stuff that was done in May and June. If this happens after six weeks of doing nothing much academically, just imagine the effect on the average child of spending nine or ten months like that!


Years nine and ten are popular times for deregistering children from school and educating them at home. Many parents who take this step don’t really know what they should do next and often join internet forums and local home educating groups for advice. I dare say that some readers will know what advice they are offered when they complain that their children are disaffected and will not get up in the morning and study maths, English and so on? That’s right, they are frequently advised to back off and spend some time ’deschooling’. For those unfamiliar with this expression, it is the process of ’allowing the toxicity of school to leach out of the child’s system’. Of course, to normal people, this sounds quite mad, but it is a recognised treatment among some home educators. The idea is to allow the child just to loll about, doing exactly what he wishes and not bothering him at all about schoolwork. The generally recommended length of time is one month of deschooling for every year that the child has been at school

I am sure that readers will at once see the nature of the problem here. If children regress academically after six weeks holiday, what is likely to be the effect of the nine or ten months holiday suggested by certain home educators? This is especially bad news for those in years nine or ten whoc are  embarking upon  intensive study for GCSEs. Taking the best part of a year off at this stage practically guarantees failure.

This sort of thing is very worrying for some local authorities when teenagers are withdrawn from school. It marks the end, in many cases, of any hope of formal qualifications for the children concerned, to say nothing of any progression into further or higher education. One thing which puzzles me is where this whole notion of deschooling for one month for each year of school comes from.  Why a month? Why not a week or two months? Does anybody know anything about this business, for example the rationale behind it and how the figure of a month for a year was arrived at?

'De-schooling' and other matters

Meanwhile, over on one of the Internet lists for home educators, some hapless woman about to take her child out of school is already being targeted by cranks who are determined to sabotage the kids education before the mother has even had a chance to begin. The most idiotic advice being offered to her is about what is known as 'de-schooling' The theory behind this is that once a child comes out of school, the toxicity which has accumulated in his system psychologically (!) should be given a chance to leach out. This means attempting no work or anything even approaching an education for some time after being de-registered from school. The urban myth associated with this mad idea suggests that one month of de-schooling should be allowed for every year that the child has spent at school. Any normal person should at once be able to see the disadvantages of this crazy scheme.

Since the majority of de-registrations take place at secondary age, the time wasted in this way can be considerable. Fourteen is an increasingly popular time to de-register children; right in the run-up to taking GCSEs. How sitting around doing nothing at all for nine months at that critical stage in a child's education is meant to help the education is a very interesting point indeed.

Other advice on offer is equally mischievous, although I am sure not intentionally so. One mother recommends a maximum of twelve hours a week once the education actually starts. Her own child is studying for a GCSE in astronomy (just what employers are looking for!) The mother of a twelve year old girl explains what a success home education has been for her family. Her daughter was a little bad tempered when she had to go to school; these days she is pleased as punch. No word though on any educational benefits which might have accrued to her through the change in educational setting.

The general tone of the comments on this particular thread seems to be about the improvement in mood of the children concerned, rather than education per se. This is fairly common when parents take their kids out of school shortly after they move to secondary. Most children change a little after they leave primary school and few parents welcome these changes. The fact that this is often a sign that the child might be wishing to grow up a little does not seem to occur to these people. I would have been sorry indeed if my own daughter had behaved in the same way at thirteen as she did at ten. Children do change around puberty and there is little point in trying to delay, let alone reverse, these changes. This seems essentially what many of those who take their children from school at that age are trying to do. Of course their children become more cheerful in many cases once they have been taken out of school. No getting up early in the morning to study boring subjects, the chance to loll around watching television or browsing facebook rather than having double maths; most kids at that age would be very pleased with such a lifestyle and would probably feel it worth rewarding their mother with some cute smiles and hugs. Whether this is good for them either educationally or developmentally is quite another thing. It strikes me that the immediate result of such a move at the age of twelve would be to infantilise a child and delay the onset of maturity.

Deschooling

It is more or less an article of faith among some home educating parents that children and teenagers are natural learners who are inquisitive and enthusiastic about pursuing their chosen interests. All this is perfectly true. Sometimes. Some, on the other hand, are lazy and incurious, wanting nothing more than to stay in bed until lunchtime before slumping in front of the television for the rest of the day. We know that this is the case because we see various cries for help and advice on the Internet lists from parents who are at their wits end over this sort of behaviour on the part of their teenage sons and daughters. The standard advice given to the parents of such children is to relax and stop worrying. if they wish to get up at two or three in the afternoon, that is simply their biology at work. if they wish to watch television all day, that to is fine. They will probably get fed up with doing this after a while. Try a period of deschooling, just let them slob around for a while. The recommendation is one month of 'deschooling' for every year spent in school. The idea is that the toxicity of school needs time to leach out of the teenagers system! So a fourteen year old who has just been de-registered should spend the next nine months or so doing nothing at all. That will help in the run-up to his GCSEs!

Those of us who work in certain areas will be aware that for many people, getting up at lunchtime and spending the day watching television is quite a popular lifestyle for those wholly reliant upon state benefits. They do not seem to get fed up with it, no matter what the well meaning advice given to home educating parents might suggest. The problem is that the sort of people who dish out this advice are often intelligent people who read a lot and are not very keen on television. They just cannot conceive of anybody choosing this lifestyle and so reassure anxious parents that it is just a phase their kid is going through. By the time that the kid is sixteen or seventeen and it has become clear that this is how he is planning to spend his life, it is often too late to do anything about it. All you can then do is say, 'Well, he can take GCSEs at any age and if he wants to he can always study with the Open University'.

Local authorities have noticed a third spike in de-registration from schools. Traditionally, de-registration took place in the first year or two after the age of five and also at the changeover from primary to secondary school. They are seeing a lot of thirteen and fourteen year olds these days being taken out of school. The worry is that many of these children might end up doing little apart from watching television or surfing the Internet. For some, this is not a problem. They can learn a lot on the Internet! It is these children about whom many are concerned. because if once they get into the habit of staying in bed half the day and doing nothing except staring at a screen, this can easily become their chosen lifestyle. They are liable to become unemployed, indeed unemployable in later life. We have no idea how common this is, because of course official interest ends on the child's sixteenth birthday. This was one of the concerns which prompted local authorities to try and acquire additional powes for the regualtion of home education.