How to start homeschooling in midterm?

[Monomial]

So I have looked through every thread I can find on this forum, and still have not found any English language information which explains specifically how a parent interested in moving their children into homeschool can go about registering.

 

Here is the status: I am paying a lot of money to send my children to a private school in northern Bangkok, mostly because I thought the brand would indicate some level of commitment by the school to make sure the students learned. My twins are now in 4th grade, and I am quite simply appalled at how little they are learning and the lack of response by the school. They recently scored (both of them) 1 out of 10 on their midterm exams in Math. They are currently on mid term break, due to go back next week, and I no longer feel it is cost effective to send them. I checked out a few other schools in the area, but was told it was too late to move them this year and I should come back in January.

 

I can understand this, but I also do not want to pay the existing school any longer. For the amount of money I am paying, and the 2 hours a day I spend driving them to and from school, I feel I can do much better by homeschooling them.  The question is, how do I actually register for this?  My wife is Thai, doesn't like conflict, feels like she is losing face with the school by pulling them out, and instead wanted me to go beg and plead with another school to take them so she could tell the existing school that they were "transferring". This is something that from experience I know she will get over in a few weeks, but I also know that when she gets in these moods she is going to be of no help whatsoever. I am completely on my own to resolve this.

 

So can anyone advise me on how a farang, who speaks marketplace Thai but certainly can't have a meaningful conversation with a government official, find out how to get a child registered for homeschooling for a term that begins next week? I am located in the Rangsit area of Bangkok.

 

And if anyone knows a Thai who could explain to my wife the advantages of homeschooling and help to persuade her this isn't something she should be ashamed of, I would appreciate that as well.

 

Recommendations and advice are appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

[Monomial]

OK. So through research I understand I need to visit the Primary Education Service Office, and they will require several documents, the only one of which seems to be unclear is a curriculum. Does anyone have an example of an approved curriculum for a 4th grader?

 

Thanks again for any help.

 

[otherstuff1957]

This is a link to an English version of the Thai MOE curriculum.  Beginning on page 48 you will see the knowledge and skills (Strands, Standards and Indicators) that a student should have learned for each grade and each subject.

 

To make a curriculum you need to list the Strands, Standards and Indicators for the 4th grade and then make a detailed plan showing how you will teach your kids these.  You should include the materials you will use and a plan of lessons for each subject, along with your planned assessment.

 

http://act.ac.th/document/1741.pdf

 

Good luck!

[Monomial]

So this has been an incredibly frustrating experience so far.  There are 2 primary educational service offices in my province. I went to the closer one this morning to try and get information. Everything started very well, they were trying to tell me all the information I needed to have and they recommended I get everything done by Friday because the term was about to start. I thought things were going OK until we got to my address. Turns out that I am 2km outside their boundary. I needed to apply at the other office. So I started on the trek across the province to the far office, thinking that at least now I would make some progress.

 

Unfortunately, the people at the other khet were rude, arrogant, and totally unhelpful. They basically told me it was impossible as it was "too late" and it was my fault for not knowing their rules about when I should have submitted the paperwork. I tried being polite and asking if there was anything they could do, but the obnoxious attitude was just overwhelming and eventually I had to leave or I was not going to be able to maintain my composure and calm demeanor. So I left with nothing, and no plan on how to move forward.

 

Isn't education in Thailand a fundamental right? Can the educational service office really tell me that I am not allowed to educate my children this term because I didn't submit their forms a month in advance? Shouldn't I be allowed to change schools anytime I want? What if I had to move mid term? Are they really saying that everytime a child moves midterm that they are denied education?

 

This is incredibly frustrating. I kept hearing about how easy and accomodating Thailand was for homeschooling. I can tell everyone that so far, my experience has been that it is next to impossible to homeschool your kids in this country.

 

Can anyone suggest a next step for me?  I am certainly not paying to send my children back to the private school. And I am not going to allow them to sit out a term simply because the Thai government is refusing to allow them to register. I am going to teach them anyway. Does anyone know what will happen next term when I try to enroll them for homeschooling for 5th grade, and they were never allowed to sit the exams for the final term of 4th grade? 

 

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there any higher authority I can appeal to?

 

Any advice is appreciated.

 

 

 

 

[BritManToo]

Why not just send them to the local Amphur school closest to your house.

The education won't be any worse, and you'll save a packet of money as well as 2 hours travelling time.

 

Can't help thinking most of your problems are self created by you being too 'wordy'.

[Monomial]

4 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Why not just send them to the local Amphur school closest to your house.

The education won't be any worse, and you'll save a packet of money as well as 2 hours travelling time.

 

Can't help thinking most of your problems are self created by you being too 'wordy'.

 

Because I need to teach them.  They won't learn at a temple school.  They aren't learning at an expensive private school.

 

[BritManToo]

2 hours ago, Monomial said:

Because I need to teach them.  They won't learn at a temple school.  They aren't learning at an expensive private school.

My daughter went to a village primary school until 11 (no electricity), then a temple primary school (Doi Saket), then a government high-school (Mae Rim), she's top of her class in everything at University. Our kids speaking two languages is all the advantage they need.

[Monomial]

My children got 1 out of 10 on their math midterm. They obviously need more advatages. They are at the bottom of their class in everything except for English. Every child is different. I need to take action now. I know they aren't stupid because they learn it when I explain it to them. But they can't seem to learn from anyone else.

 

Hence, my desire to homeschool them. I was not expecting it to be so difficult to register them, given that the government is supposed to support this option.

 

 

[jany123]

It appears that with ten hours a week locked in a car with the kids traveling to and from school, plus daddy directed home work standards when at home, and your still unable to assist your own beyond a 1 out of 10 in math.... what on earth makes you think your qualified to do home schooling, or that it would be better?

[jastheace]

1 hour ago, Monomial said:

My children got 1 out of 10 on their math midterm. They obviously need more advatages. They are at the bottom of their class in everything except for English. Every child is different. I need to take action now. I know they aren't stupid because they learn it when I explain it to them. But they can't seem to learn from anyone else.

 

Hence, my desire to homeschool them. I was not expecting it to be so difficult to register them, given that the government is supposed to support this option.

 

 

book them in a local school as soon as you can (there are good / bad amphur schools also, do some research) they won't do worse (? 1 out of 10 ?) use an hour a day to go through work with them, esp math. u save an hour on the commute each day. plenty of free online tools, eg BBC Bitesize (math is same in any language on paper), and maybe pay for some private tuition a couple hours a week for the thai side of things.

I think with this in place, you will notice an improvement within a few months. talk over with the wife. I hope she will agree.

you mention they learn when you explain it to them, that's the key IMO. 

PS. home schooling is not for the feint hearted.

there is verbal reasoning in math, that's where the private tuition comes in btw

[BritManToo]

14 hours ago, jastheace said:

plenty of free online tools, eg BBC Bitesize (math is same in any language on paper), and maybe pay for some private tuition a couple hours a week for the thai side of things.

You did note these are primary school children.

Apart from counting to 100, I didn't even start math until high school (and still managed a degree).

Too many pushy parents, IMHO primary school is mainly for fun and learning the basics of reading and writing.

[BobbyL]

In my opinion (being a qualified teacher from the UK), home schooling has very little benefit. If you don't know what you're meant to be teaching them then it is a worry. You can't just blag your way through something like that. 

 

By not going to school they also miss out on some very important social skills that you do not learn at home, as well as any extra curricular stuff that is offered. 

 

[DavisH]

Why are the children only doing well in English. Is this a regular Thai private school? Do they learn all their other subjects in Thai? Thai schools and their teachers often teach well beyond the basic curriculum (Thai teacher syndrome, I call it). Many of the kids struggle, even those of average ability. They end up taking extra classes to keep up. If I was the OP, I would be looking closer are why the kids are not performing well - Talk to their teachers, for a start. After that, it may be that they need some extra tuition after school. 

The Thai curriculum is vague at best; there is no detailed curriculum as one would find in A-level documents. 

I would avoid homeschooling unless the OP is a qualified teacher and can teach multiple subjects. The kids also need to learn Thai language/buddhism/social (in Thai). I think that is a non-starter. 

 

[BJTM]

I started my half Thai son in the Thai Catholic system, moved to a private EP school and then finally to an international school. We were very dissatisfied with all of them and eventually out of desperation I decided to homeschool. Didn't register him with the Thai authorities and am following the same curriculum as the international schools with a view to putting him back into international school for IGSCE after he's done KS3. 

 

To my surprise homeschooling has been easier than I thought. It's been a year already and he is making much better progress than he was at school (which wouldn't be hard as he wasn't learning anything there). I respectfully disagree with other posters who advise against it. There are loads of resources online and you can't beat one on one instruction. You've just got to do better than what he can get at the schools and to me that's not difficult as the bar has been set so low.

 

 

 

 

[justin case]

best investment = go back to your home country = FREE EDUCATION, HEALTCARE, SOCIAL SECURITY, CHILD ALLOWANCE

[BJTM]

"best investment = go back to your home country = FREE EDUCATION, HEALTCARE, SOCIAL SECURITY, CHILD ALLOWANCE"

 

It's not quite as clear cut and simple as that.

[Monomial]

Definitely not as simple as that given that my job is in Thailand, but there is certainly a loophole along these lines if I can not find a way to navigate the Thai bureaucracy.  Turns out that the state of Texas has very forgiving homeschooling regulations. All you need is a mailing address in Texas and a parental statement that your children are being homeschooled according to Texas state regulations. There is nothing that requires you to be physically located inside the state, and there are no records or other requirements by the government.

 

In effect, if I continue to receive pushback from the Thai authorities, I can simply state that they were schooled in the US. If they ask for paperwork from the school, I can legally create anything they need and hand it to them.

 

To me, it seems ridiculous that I should have to resort to this, but the idea of doing homeschool by defering to a more competent country does appear to be an option.  I would rather figure out how to make it work in Thailand though if at all possible. It's worth a 4000 baht deduction on my taxes.

 

Again, if there are any parents that have experience homeschooling in Thailand according to Thai regulations, I would love to speak with you.

 

 

 

 

[Monomial]

BTW, for everyone who said don't try to homeschool or that there is little value in it, I appreciate your input, but I have already made up my mind this is what I am going to do. I am quite competent to teach them (my wife will do the Thai and Thai culture classes), and while I am not a professional teacher, I certainly have more credentials than 99% of anyone in Thailand. My daughter in particular is fascinated by science, to the point where we were discussing quantum mechanics and electron orbitals last night. This is a 9 year old. This is not an issue of the children being too ignorant, but the school and teachers being apathetic. If I am paying someone else, I expect them to do the teaching. Schools aren't supposed to be glorified baby sitters. If I am expected to do the teaching, I will, but see no reason to waste my children's time or pay a neglectful teacher/school in that case.

 

Homeschooling is a much better option for me.

 

[BJTM]

 

9 hours ago, Monomial said:

BTW, for everyone who said don't try to homeschool or that there is little value in it, I appreciate your input, but I have already made up my mind this is what I am going to do. I am quite competent to teach them (my wife will do the Thai and Thai culture classes), and while I am not a professional teacher, I certainly have more credentials than 99% of anyone in Thailand. My daughter in particular is fascinated by science, to the point where we were discussing quantum mechanics and electron orbitals last night. This is a 9 year old. This is not an issue of the children being too ignorant, but the school and teachers being apathetic. If I am paying someone else, I expect them to do the teaching. Schools aren't supposed to be glorified baby sitters. If I am expected to do the teaching, I will, but see no reason to waste my children's time or pay a neglectful teacher/school in that case.

 

Homeschooling is a much better option for me.

 

Per my comment above why bother to register them if they aren't going to go back into the Thai system? Just get them international accreditation through external exams or put them into an international school for the final years. 

 

Good luck. 

[BJTM]

Per my comment above why bother to register them if they aren't going to go back into the Thai system? Just get them international accreditation through external exams or put them into an international school for the final years. 

 

Good luck. 

[Jaggg88]

Enroll them in a local school and use the money and time you save for extra tuition.

My son goes to one of these centers. https://th.kumonglobal.com/?lang=en

 

[Angry Dragon]

On 10/31/2019 at 8:23 PM, Monomial said:

BTW, for everyone who said don't try to homeschool or that there is little value in it, I appreciate your input, but I have already made up my mind this is what I am going to do. I am quite competent to teach them (my wife will do the Thai and Thai culture classes), and while I am not a professional teacher, I certainly have more credentials than 99% of anyone in Thailand. My daughter in particular is fascinated by science, to the point where we were discussing quantum mechanics and electron orbitals last night. This is a 9 year old. This is not an issue of the children being too ignorant, but the school and teachers being apathetic. If I am paying someone else, I expect them to do the teaching. Schools aren't supposed to be glorified baby sitters. If I am expected to do the teaching, I will, but see no reason to waste my children's time or pay a neglectful teacher/school in that case.

 

Homeschooling is a much better option for me.

 

If you have the time (you mention you work in Thailand) and the motivation, then more power to you.

 

I'm glad you're ignoring advice to send your kids to local village schools - the worst international schools will provide a better education than the vast majority of these village schools.

 

Even if you send your kids to another school, you will still be doing some degree of homeschooling.  Kids are at school for around eight hours a day, five days a week, and the best international schools will encourage you to help with the learning at home.  It's imperative, especially if you hope to send your kids to a decent university outside of Thailand.  If you're ok with the local universities, then it's much less of a concern of course, but then you're doing your kids a disservice from the get-go by sending them to a Thai university.

[Monomial]

Thought I would give everyone an update on this.

 

Good news first. I have finally had my children's homeschooling plan approved by the Office of Primary Education. It has been extremely challenging, and I would just like to let everyone know that you absolutely should not attempt this without being fluent in the Thai language and being very capable of critical thinking.  Do not believe the reports you hear that Thailand supports homeschooling. It is supported by law, yes, but depending on the khet you are in, your office may not support you at all.

The first challenge was to even get the office to consider letting my children homeschool. As I stated in the first post, I was given the run around and told that it was impossible to get my children into homeschool this term because I only began the process a week before the term started. I still don't have a complete understanding of what happened here, but persistence finally paid off. It seems the issue came down to who would get the few hundred baht budget for the students. Apparently the government doesn't care about the children, but they do very much care about whether or not they are going to be given money for the children.  And if you start your students late, there is a question of whether or not the money can be redirected to them in time. In this case, after they realized I wasn't just going to go away and it was going to be more of a problem to get rid of me than to deal with me, they decided to call to head office. After being told that yes, they could still get paid, that issue evaporated.

However, the struggle wasn't over yet. Apparently, again depending on your khet, they have different formats for the education plan. We must clearly have the worst luck in the world and wound up in a khet with an unimaginably pedantic officer whose very important concern was that we refer to her by her honorrific "Mom".  While most offices only require a plan for the term you are in, ours required that we submit an entire educational plan for 4th, 5th and 6th grade. This was extremely distressing, because all of the examples online only had a single year, so we had to find multiple examples, and then mix and match as necessary to piece together an entire 3 years of study.

For anyone interested in this, the English translation of the curriculum that @otherstuff1957 posted earlier in this thread, is actually available, along with many other materials, directly from the Office of Basic Education (https://www.obec.go.th/). I suggest anyone seriously interested in contemplating homeschool become very familiar with the information on that site, as the government officials in charge expect you to be familiar with it. The process is not as rigorous as setting up an entire for profit school, but the demands they place on you are similar in scope.

We actually had to create a school complete with a school name and get our facilities approved for class.  They came to our house and did a site inspection to ensure that we had sufficient resources to teach our children. They want to see large whiteboards or chalkboards, desks or other dedicated tables, a decorated classroom that stimulates learning, books and materials and other paraphenalia that indicates this was a genuine school.  During the site vist, they stressed it was very important we made the children sing the Thai National Anthem every morning when we began class.

During the process, a lot more emphasis was placed on the proper format of the documents than I thought was necessary. It was rejected once because they didn't like a page break in the middle of a table.  I definitely felt it was much more of a style over substance process.  In the end we had to submit a 67 page curriculum for the children. Most all of it was copied from the OBEC documents, although some we took from examples provided to us by a Facebook group. My wife, despite her initial reluctance, came through like a trooper, staying up all night twice to prepare documents for the office. I got an earful about it and thought several times my marriage was coming to an end.  We also had to hire a skilled Thai typist because the OBEC books can not be copied and pasted (they use a custom encoding in Thai so any attempt to paste just gives you gibberish). Thus, the relevant passages had to be transcribed manually.

 

And now, having been teaching my children for 3 weeks, I am realizing what a horrible job the previous school did.  I would encourage anyone with the time not to believe anything you hear from your child's school in Thailand. Parent teacher conferences are meaningless, and paying a lot of money does not mean they are being educated. The schools and teachers here have a predisposition to simply pass students along and mark time rather than teaching them. Apparently teaching is too much work. And this is at a well known private school with an expensive English program and branded curriculum from the UK.   I would hate to think what a conventional school in Thailand would do.

For me, this process has been challenging but very illuminating about the Thai education system, and I am very happy I made the choice I did. I realize now that I have to start over with second grade material even though they are in the 4th grade, but that is OK. We'll catch up quickly, and I am certain they'll be well ahead of everyone else in a very short time.

 

P.S. Some people have asked why even bother with the Thai system? And the answer is simply to have options. If you come from a European country that gives free education to everyone, or happen to be a billionaire, then maybe you don't need to consider this. But for the rest of us, university can be very expensive. Some universities in Thailand, like Chulalongkorn, are actually very good value for money.  Depending on circumstances, it may be much better to go there than to pay more than $100K for a second rate school in the US.  I am simply trying to give my children every option.

 

 

[KhaoYai]

Interesting that home schooling is available in Thailand - I wasn't aware of that.  It could possibly provide a solution to something I previously gave up on. Maybe someone could advise?

 

I intend setting up a business in Thailand before too long.  My daughter could offer a lot of help to that business as she is extremely well qualified and could train staff.  However, she has 3 kids, all of school age. I doubt it would be a permanent move - possibly 2 or 3 years. Does this 'home schooling' allow an English curriculum?  There would be little point in her kids learning under a Thai curriculum and then returning to the UK in a couple of years.

[Angry Dragon]

On 11/16/2019 at 9:28 PM, KhaoYai said:

Interesting that home schooling is available in Thailand - I wasn't aware of that.  It could possibly provide a solution to something I previously gave up on. Maybe someone could advise?

 

Take a look at the immediately preceding post - the poster does a great job detailing the issues he faced when getting home school approval.

[KhaoYai]

1 hour ago, Angry Dragon said:

Take a look at the immediately preceding post - the poster does a great job detailing the issues he faced when getting home school approval.

He does give a good description but he doesn't say whether it is allowable to use an English curriculum.

[KhaoYai]

OP could you please advise on whether the Thai authorities will accept home schooling under an English curriculum?  Also what, if any, religious input is required.

 

My only and limited experience of Thai education was that received by my ex wife's son. As far as I could determine, he spent much of his school time learning about Buddha and how wonderful his country is.  That may be fine but it doesn't really help prepare a child for life. I doubt my daughter would object to a degree of this as her kids would be being taught in Thailand, I do however, think she would be horrified if her kids had to spend as much time learing those things as kids do at Thai state schools.

 

The English my ex's son was taught was clearly by someone who wasn't very good and the text books I saw contained fundamental mistakes and the usual Amertican English which is not the International language - hence he would say 'eraser' instead of rubber. On that basis alone, I can understand your reasoning in wanting to home school your kids.

[Vacuum]

On 10/25/2019 at 12:45 PM, Monomial said:

My twins are now in 4th grade, and I am quite simply appalled at how little they are learning and the lack of response by the school. They recently scored (both of them) 1 out of 10 on their midterm exams in Math.

Are you blaming the school?

[Monomial]

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

OP could you please advise on whether the Thai authorities will accept home schooling under an English curriculum?  Also what, if any, religious input is required.

 

My only and limited experience of Thai education was that received by my ex wife's son. As far as I could determine, he spent much of his school time learning about Buddha and how wonderful his country is.  That may be fine but it doesn't really help prepare a child for life. I doubt my daughter would object to a degree of this as her kids would be being taught in Thailand, I do however, think she would be horrified if her kids had to spend as much time learing those things as kids do at Thai state schools.

 

The English my ex's son was taught was clearly by someone who wasn't very good and the text books I saw contained fundamental mistakes and the usual Amertican English which is not the International language - hence he would say 'eraser' instead of rubber. On that basis alone, I can understand your reasoning in wanting to home school your kids.

 

If you want to educate under the Thai system and get approval from the government, your curriculum must include Thai language, Thai culture, and Thai history. You do not need to teach Buddhism. In fact, many Thai Muslim children homeschool for exactly this reason. You can base it around any religion you want, or presumably just a generic "spirituality" course if you are agnostic. The curriculum must include some kind of spirituality course however.

 

Beyond that, you can use almost any curriculum you want that teaches all the basics, however the children will be tested on specific things by the government. If you are following an established international curriculum, then all the important topics should be covered.

 

 

 

[Monomial]

1 hour ago, Vacuum said:

Are you blaming the school?

 

Yes. I also blame the teachers. Homeschooling is a much better option, as if I am expected to teach the children myself anyway, then there is no point in paying a lot of money for a "teacher" who is basically nothing more than an expensive baby sitter.