I cannot get my head around the home school issue. I’m a secondary school teacher but would never feel that my knowledge and skills lent themselves to delivering an entire curriculum to children of different ages.
I just hope her children don’t end up without any qualifications. I know they’re not everything but career choices depend on them.
I think schools are so much more than academia as well. Learning to thrive and building confidence away from your parents, peer group socialisation in a diverse group (not just other home schooled kids who probably have a similar home life to them), timekeeping, structure, conformity.
I do think home schooling has its place, but only for where the person teaching has the skills and capability to do so. I don’t think she’s got the capability of teaching beyond a P4 or 5 level.
Can she teach them sports? Musical instruments? Foreign languages? Will they get the opportunity to be in drama productions, competitive sporting events, STEM groups? No, no and no. But she’ll selfishly keep them home so she doesn’t have to drag her fat arse out of bed in the morning to get them to school on time and can avoid the scrutiny of the school when they decide to take impromptu days off to go on some stupid holiday they can’t even afford. She claims she’s protecting them from the big bad world and bullying, but in effect the lasting damage of what she’s doing will go far beyond the bullying they MIGHT encounter.
Imagine those children being at home when the bailiffs come to the door trying to enforce a writ. It’s mortifying. Those children will grow up with the harsh realities of poverty but won’t have the intelligence, qualifications or social skills to get themselves out of the cycle... she’s setting them up to fail.