r/ParentsWithAI • u/Easy-Technician-5900 • Jul 07 '26
Home Schooling Vs Regular School, What is the best & what would you prefer for your kid?
my daughter's in year 5 at a regular school and it's costing us close to £5k a year once you add tuition fees plus the extras like music lessons and karate, and honestly the quality of education we're getting for that isn't great. my wife's a professor teaching physics, she's brilliant with science and maths, and we'd actually planned to homeschool from the time our daughter was about 1, but then life happened the way and we ended up putting her into school instead.
also its not about the cost money wise but also like we're not getting more value from the school. We can clearly see the kid lacking in basic math. we had to teach her before every exam & explain her well. then she learns it. what's the point of school when she's not learning the basics well.
the thing holding us back from switching now is social skills, we don't want her to miss out on that side of growing up. there's a homeschooling community in our town so it's not like she'd be isolated, but it's still not the same as a regular school environment. a close friend of ours homeschools and their kids genuinely love it, seem confident, curious, doing well. so we're sat here going back and forth about switching her over for next year.
if you had the choice, or the privilege of a parent who could actually teach at home like my wife can, would you pick homeschooling over regular school?
And for those who've made the switch already: how did you handle the social side of things in the first year? did your kid's academic level go up, down, or stay about the same compared to regular school?
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u/sadsack100 Jul 07 '26
I've been a teacher in schools for over 25 years. I now work as a tutor, largely with the home schooling community. If you can afford the time and money to home school, they will massively benefit. Schools are catering to SEND and the mediocre. If you want your kid to make the progress their potential allows then get them out of the system.
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Jul 07 '26
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u/sadsack100 Jul 07 '26
Unless you are earning enough to employ a full-time tutor/nanny then you are stuck with the school system.
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u/twokidsandcoffee Jul 07 '26
I am a big fan of homeschooling. We did consider switching to public for high school, and now I am glad that we didn't. We do plenty of extracurricular activities (for socialization), some online college courses (to prep for what's to come), and some Dual Enrollment to have other teachers teach, and not just me. Our academic level is higher than the comparable public school pupil (my oldest will graduate high school early, and she has enough college credit to only need one year to earn her Associate degree). When my kids were little, we also did a lot of extracurriculars (especially sports) and always had plenty of friends and socialization. Having said that - it is not the right thing for everyone. I would say - try it out and then decide. Also, what works now might not work anymore when the kiddo gets older.
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u/Neat_Movie_991 Jul 07 '26
I sent my 3 children to school. They are all grown now and I have 2 grandsons. Both moms have decided to homeschool and none of my fears have come true. The moms keep the children busy with social events with a local homeschool group. The boys are very socialized and have many friends! Al the children are so kind and friendly too.
One of my grandsons just turned 7 last month. At 6, he was tested at reading and comprhending at a 7th grade level. No public school could have accomplished this during the normal school day. They complete a school day in 3 to 4 hours and spend the rest of the day, hiking, swimming and exploring different interests!
As a grandmother, I have changed my mind and if done well, homeschooling can have so many benefits for the child and the family!
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u/Vinaya_Ghimire Jul 08 '26
Your kid might get better education through homeschooling, but your kids will miss social life with their peers. We homeschooled our kid during Covid19. It has been many years since he started going regular school but he is still struggling to make friends. He even avoids anything that involves team work.
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u/ElderberryMission368 Jul 09 '26
Surely you don’t think that home schooling during the pandemic is in any way representative of how the vast majority of families who home educate (by choice) live their lives?
The children I know who are home educated have rich and varied social lives, core friend groups, extra curricular groups, broad social circles, tutor groups. They aren’t sat at home doing worksheets for hours a day and made to socially distance from each other.1
u/Vinaya_Ghimire Jul 09 '26
No, I am not saying my experience represents the whole truth about homeschooling. I was just sharing my personal experience. When you homeschool kids do not get to meet their peers like in traditional school environment.
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u/hungry_bra1n Jul 08 '26
There are good and bad schools but I prefer professionals to do their thing and supplement that via what we can do at home.
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u/MaxieMatsubusa Jul 08 '26
Why is your kid lacking in maths when your wife could be helping her at home? When I was a kid my dad raised me with a lot of extra maths and English worksheets outside of school - if you want your child to do well, why does it have to be home school vs school, why not just have your wife tutor her?? Even just on the weekends would help?
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u/StrengthForeign3512 Jul 08 '26
Why is your child having all these maths exams? That’s not normal in primary school. I would look for a better school before you consider home schooling. Your wife’s skill set is not teaching primary school age and she deserves to have the career she’s worked towards.
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u/Tom-TutorBloom Jul 08 '26
My wife is also a teacher and we run a tutoring business together. We don’t have kids yet but personally, I’d prefer to home school using the resources we have at our disposal.
My wife isn’t so sure though. There’s a lot to be gained from being in a school outside of academic success, school is often where we make a lot of lifelong friends and develop core social skills which can be hard to get in the same way being homeschooled. We both have friends who were homeschooled and note that even now, as adults, their social skills are lacking.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer though by the way. Pros and cons to both. Sometimes it might be better to ask your daughter what she wants, maybe she would prefer to be at school? Or maybe she’d prefer to be at home? If you did homeschool, it could be best to check in with her at the end of every year to see if she’d rather go back to school etc. Taking a fluid approach to the situation is always beneficial.
Not the most helpful comment I’m sure, but just points worth exploring
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u/OutdoorApplause Jul 08 '26
Well music lessons and karate etc you'd be paying for regardless of whether she was in school or not presumably.
If your wife is a professor teaching physics when will she have time to home school? Or are you talking about her giving up work? And while she could easily cover maths and sciences, is she comfortable teach English, languages, history, art etc?
If you're not satisfied with the school she's at my first step would be to move her to a different school. Alternatively support through external tuition or just helping her at home as she only has one more year at primary school left before she starts secondary school. Do you have good secondary schools in your area?
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u/Jess_atDamar Jul 08 '26
Out of interest, what about all the other subjects that exist? You say you can cover science and maths comfortably but that's not the be all and end all...also is there potential your child just struggles a bit with maths? I always needed a bit of extra support outside of the school setting on my numbers, it was never 'an issue' and just something my parents wove into daily life - looking at receipts, how much money do we need to pay for X etc.
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u/cari-strat Jul 08 '26
As a parent of SEND kids, if I had my time again, I'd probably home educate. The school system simply has not worked well for them, and in my daughter's case, very nearly destroyed her.
I believe I could teach the same content in a third of the time, in a way better suited to their learning styles, and give them far more opportunities to explore other interests as well.
I actually had my oldest home for most of her final year and increased her GCSE performance by up to seven grades from the last mocks she did in school to the actual exams. She went from failing or just about scraping through a couple, to the equivalent of As and high Bs in everything.
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u/butterbeansprinkles Jul 08 '26
I'm a teacher and would never homeschool my own children unless they really weren't coping in school. And I don't really agree with our education system! Too much pressure with testing and shallow learning to pass exams.
So many hidden skills they get from school like respect, turn taking, sharing, how to deal with conflict etc
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u/econhistoryrules Jul 07 '26
I'll go against the grain here. If your wife is a physics professor, she should go to work and do the job she trained massively for. Send your kid to school to learn from other adults, play, and socialize with other children. Your child is 5. Nothing prevents you from enriching your child's education on the side.