Homeschooling Becoming The “Norm”

Recently I have seen a massive surge online of people talking about homeschooling their children. The comments on these posts are very diverse. Everyone seems to have a different opinion. So is homeschooling the right thing to do? Does it actually provide a better education than public school?

After doing some research, I have realised that homeschooling has always been around but has surged in popularity since the pandemic in 2020. The most recent census from the Autumn of 2025 showed there is now a massive increase in the UK, and it now stands that there are about 126,000 students in home education. I never realised how easy it was for parents to take their child out of school. From what I see, it only takes the parent to write a letter to the head teacher to advise them to remove your child from their register and you’re good to go. According to my research, this is only ever an issue if your child is on the SEN register or if they have severe attendance issues already, then it could become an issue to remove them.

The main debate on this topic is whether children will receive a good education through homeschooling. And obviously there are good points on either side of this debate. Doing some further research into social media posts, I have found quite a few accounts solely based on speaking about their experiences with homeschooling and most of it seems positive. People are saying that this has created a better lifestyle for them and their children and has made their child less stressed about completing work on time limits and has improved the children’s mental health significantly. The main reason I have found that parents are making this decision to teach their children at home is due to bullying, or because they feel the school hasn’t supported their child in the right way or that school just gives children too much work. Another big reason is that parents do not feel safe with there children being away from home in the modern world. Teaching your child yourself, you are offering a more personalised education for your child’s individual needs, which parents are claiming is making their children have a better education than if they were still in public school. Also, this gives children more of an education in life more than just textbooks. I saw one post online that claims that adults that were home-schooled genuinely have a better CV for work than those who have attended school.

The main concern that people seem to share with children who don’t attend school is that they believe this could significantly cause the child to become inexperienced in social situations and not be able to make friends later on in life. The other big reason that people are against it is because they don’t believe that parents can fully give a child the full education they need. In the UK, it states that you are not required to follow the national curriculum, which means you can teach your child however you like as long as they are receiving a full-time education. But, of course, this means that children could miss out on things like trips, scholarship programmes, work experience, and also a good point I did find was that children thrive in a reward system. Yes, you could reward your child at home, but the feeling of being in an assembly and receiving an award for good work, people believe is a lot more rewarding than just being told by your parents you’ve done well. School offers structure and routine, which many believe is a vital thing that children must learn to go into the real life of adulthood.

For working parents, homeschooling is just an impossible concept to be at home every day. But there seem to be many people out there that believe children should be free and should learn in real life situations and be able to travel without the worry of a fine from the government. Should we really need to get permission from the government to take children out of school for a holiday? which could be educational. These are not issues that homeschooling parents have; they take their children out of school, and they are free to live whatever lifestyle they want. I can’t help but wonder personally, is this the new way forward? If you have the ability to be at home and it does not put a big pressure on you financially, could offering this lifestyle to your child be the best decision you ever made? Or is it true, will some children suffer going into adulthood because they haven’t developed skills that some people believe they can only gain from being in school with other children?

It’s an interesting debate and definitely one I have considered personally. But is it the right decision? Who knows? I think it depends on the person, and the time you have and what home education looks like for you. But the final note I have here is that I think each parent knows what’s best for their child.

This is Plural | By Mollie