Monday 13 June 2011

School-aged children attending college

I recently bumped into a father who I have not seen for over a year or so. He and his family live some way from here in a village. His son was always bullied at primary school for being, shall we say, not as masculine as the average boy. The problem intensified when the kid started secondary school and so he deregistered him and began to home educate. It didn’t really work out, because however dreadful school was, at least the boy was mixing with other children. He missed this when he started spending all his time with his parents. They carried on for a couple of years until they managed to persuade the local authority, Essex, to allow the child to attend college part-time. This was the last I heard of the family until the other day.


The college placement fell through very quickly. There were a number of other fourteen and fifteen year-old boys at the college and they were a pretty rough bunch. They made this boy’s life a misery and because the college was really geared to the needs of sixteen to eighteen year-olds and not schoolchildren, the policy on bullying was pretty feeble. After one term, it was back to home education; which did not really suit either parents or child.


One of the problems with arranging college places for fourteen to sixteen year-olds, something which many home educating parents see as a solution to their problems, is that the sort of teenager of this age who usually fetches up at an FE college is a very different kettle of fish from the average home educated child. Home educated children have sometimes been withdrawn from school because they are vulnerable or the victims of bullying; the fourteen year-olds offered places at college are often the bullies themselves who have now been excluded from school. This can create problems for a sensitive child who is found a place at college. Our local college has a group of younger teenagers and they are all studying vocational subjects; mainly motor car mechanics. I see them at lunchtimes and they look and behave like the kids in Lord of the Flies. Heaven help a vulnerable or delicate child of the same age who was attending college with these characters!


I have myself remarked that it is unnatural for children at school all to be lumped into a group of the same age, but of course this does provide a measure of protection for them. The fourteen year-old girls spend all their lessons with fourteen year-old boys. This can serve to prevent the more mature of them from getting up to much mischief or being exploited by older boys. Most of the students in an FE college will be in the sixteen to eighteen year-old bracket. Some will be nineteen and one or two will be twenty or twenty one. Mixing freely with boys this age could present a hazard to a vulnerable girl of fourteen attending a college.


I am not really sure why so many home educating parents seem to be keen on the idea of college for their young teenagers. This subject often comes up on Internet lists and forums and the impression sometimes seems to be that local authorities are being unreasonable when they will not fund places for fourteen or fifteen year-olds who have been home educated. It might be more that those working for the local authority can see the pitfalls of this sort of thing more clearly and are trying to protect the children. If anybody wishes for their fourteen year-old child to receive education in a formal setting, rather than being educated at home, there exists a large network of purpose built institutions, staffed by trained professionals. All children are guaranteed free education at such places and there is sure to be one near most homes. They are called schools.

10 comments:

  1. I am not sure I agree with you really. My dd goes to college to do animal care, admittedly with children her own age but in a different setting to school. She did English at a different college with a mix of over 18's, 16-18yr olds and several HE kids, and she has just done a Math exam which she sat with a mix of 14-19 year olds including HE kids and 'schooled' kids in a school setting.

    What appealed in each case was that it met a need, either because it allowed dd to follow an interest, or to access a subject I didnt feel willing/able to help dd learn. If our local school had to option to pick subjects to learn, we would have possibly done that but they dont; it was all or nothing and dd didnt want to go into school full time.

    Whilst I can see there could be difficult situations when 14-16 year olds are mixing with older children (not just sexually, but also in the area of going out, smoking etc), I do not think this is any greater a risk than if a school had a sixth form attached. And peer groups can present just as much peer pressure, be just as cruel, or manipulative as any older child/young adult.

    There are benefits and draw backs to using colleges and I think its important for parents and institutions to balance this. However, I dont think children aged 14-16 should be forced to attend a school setting 'because its free' in order to achieve their goal.

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  2. It obviously depends to some extent on the child and the reason they are HE. My DD for instance, was HE from the beginning and wanted to begin attending college at 14 (very definite about college, not school!). For the reasons you mention, I was almost happy that we were unable to sort anything out for my DD (though she fumed that 'naughty' school children could do it but she couldn't). However, she is a very confident person so would maybe have been at less risk than the child you mention.

    The college course she eventually attended at 16 was at GCSE level so the other members tended to be those who had failed school (or had had a change of direction). So not as bad as those who failed badly enough to go to college as 14 I suppose, but lack of interest and the, 'only there for the EMA', mentality was there in abundance and my DD coped fine. The next class (A level equivalent) was obviously much better in that respect.

    It will also depend on the college. I know a family where two HE-from-the-beginning boys both started college at 14 in another area and did really well. The college sounds much better organised than the one you describe!

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  3. I share some of your concerns - it is all too true that some colleges and the courses they offer are used as a dumping ground for the less able/motivated and particularly if the home edder is a young person who either has some sort of SEN or previous history of being bullied, the college experience may be less than helpful. One of my boys did do a practical motor engineering type course and for him it was pretty positive, but he was no retiring lily anyway. Dd would have been a disaster area.

    One of our local group has done a funded course this year (funded by being put onto a school roll) - this has been a good experience and he will carry on with a higher course after GCSES this summer. For him it confirmed that the subject ( engineering) was what he wanted to do, but the standard for the courses ( NVQ 1) are pretty low, so it isn't worth studying for that reason alone.

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  4. I love the Lord of the Flies reference. I often ask people if they have read this when they ask about socialisation.

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  5. From the comments here it seems like college can work for some children but it's not something I would consider. To me (so just a personal opinion), a college seems an innapropriate environment for a child (as inappropriate as university for the genius/hothoused child).

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  6. that'll be inappropriate!

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  7. ' a college seems an innapropriate environment for a child (as inappropriate as university for the genius/hothoused child).'

    Spot on both points.

    Simon.

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  8. i did a short course at 15 at my local college to experience an adult learning environment before leaving school. i LOVED it. i decided to go to college after school but soon found that taking a full time course aimed at school leavers was very different. there were only 2 "mature" students in my class who were in their 30s and soon became my best friends but i found that with the exception of these 2, the atmosphere was very much like school which i hated. i never went back after the christmas holiday.
    i'm now considering HEing my 2 daughters. if i was going to send them to college early, i'd look for part time evening courses aimed at adults who are learning while working or maybe choose a course that i could do with them.

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  9. i did a short course at 15 at my local college to experience an adult learning environment before leaving school. i LOVED it. i decided to go to college after school but soon found that taking a full time course aimed at school leavers was very different. there were only 2 "mature" students in my class who were in their 30s and soon became my best friends but i found that with the exception of these 2, the atmosphere was very much like school which i hated. i never went back after the christmas holiday.
    i'm now considering HEing my 2 daughters. if i was going to send them to college early, i'd look for part time evening courses aimed at adults who are learning while working or maybe choose a course that i could do with them.

    ReplyDelete
  10. i did a short course at 15 at my local college to experience an adult learning environment before leaving school. i LOVED it. i decided to go to college after school but soon found that taking a full time course aimed at school leavers was very different. there were only 2 "mature" students in my class who were in their 30s and soon became my best friends but i found that with the exception of these 2, the atmosphere was very much like school which i hated. i never went back after the christmas holiday.
    i'm now considering HEing my 2 daughters. if i was going to send them to college early, i'd look for part time evening courses aimed at adults who are learning while working or maybe choose a course that i could do with them.

    ReplyDelete