[graemep]

This is very similar to my own experience. My older daughter was home educated until she was 16, then went to a sixth form college (school for 16 to 18 year olds) to do A levels (American equivalent would roughly be APs, AFAIK). Younger daughter is planning to do the same.

I did not even spend two hours a day teaching. They mostly taught themselves. It was fun for them, and rewarding for me. I also work remotely (self-employed) at that was vital.

So far both have done well academically.The older had offers of places at multiple good universities (Durham, York...) but decided to do a degree apprenticeship (govt funded, employer funded, degree + work) with Jaguar LandRover (and uni of Warwick, which is good for engineering) instead so dad's wallet is off the hook!

I am really glad we did it, and my kids are too.

[mdip]

Very cool -- it's always interesting meeting other (what I like to call) "normie" home-school parents. I would say the story of "2 hours of lessons, max" is probably the most consistent thing I hear from other home schooled (the kids will tell you way before the adults will -- when my kids found out other kids went to school for 7 hours, they were shocked)[0] :).

I had two families who led me to the decision, myself. If people really knew what a typical "I don't have an axe to grind, I just want to direct my child's education" home-schooled parenting life was like, everyone would choose it if their life situation allowed. I understand that I was blessed to have circumstances that allowed us to do this for our children[1].

[0] Many in the homeschooling community find themselves having to explain their choices, often, to outsiders so they tend to over-compensate with their kids out of a desire to not have others' think of their children as "weird". I tell my kids to be as weird as they want.

[1] Well ... my circumstances were anything but ideal despite how it sounds. We just made it work.