Kids making him want to go to school

[BillywigStings]

My three year old DS keeps saying he wants to go to ‘big school’ thanks to nursery teachers and therefore classmates at nursery going on about how great it is. I have recently been introduced to the whole home education world and I love what I have found so far, and while it isn’t set in stone I think it’s really likely it’s what we will end up doing. How can I make him excited for learning at home in case we do decide to follow that path? We go to a local home ed group who go on exciting trips and have weekly meet-ups which he enjoys but I can’t really avoid his nursery friends and teachers influencing the way he sees things. I have nothing against regular school it’s just I really feel he will flourish with home ed and our local area is so lucky to have such a large and active HE community so I don’t think he will be missing out. What did you say to your kids when many of their friends headed off to school?

[Saracen]

My eldest was quite easily influenced by what other people were doing, quite a conformist, so I did anticipate this problem. I made sure we were doing plenty of home ed activities and playdates and outings in the months leading up to school start. She then didn't want to give all of that up.

How would you feel about your son trying school? I know that some parents think that in the case of very young children it is better to make the decision for them, but others let their kids try it if they want to. My older child had the choice. She tried nursery at three, loved it at first but then soon decided to stop going. That experience informed her decision about whether to try school the following year: it happened that the things she'd disliked about nursery would have been even more of an issue in Reception. She did try school five years later and then returned to home education.

However, I didn't give my younger child the option of trying nursery, or of going to school at four. In her case I was sure school would be all wrong for her and that even a short time at school would be damaging. It happened that she was so immersed in the world of home education that until she was about six, it never actually occurred to her that school was a place she herself might go. And then she was adamant that she wouldn't want to go. There were several aspects of school which were deal-breakers for her.

So I'm not saying that all young children ought to have the choice, but it is an idea you might consider.

[AtSea1979]

Why does he go to nursery if you don’t intend to put him in school? Surely the whole ethos of home ed is too not push education on children until they are ready?
Why not let him go to school?

[Saracen]

AtSea, do you home educate? Nursery isn't just preparation for school. Early years practitioners would say it is valuable in its own right. It is extremely common for children to go to nursery and not school, or the other way round, for all sorts of reasons. I don't find that home education has a single "ethos": there are many different people doing it in various ways and for different reasons.

Even within a family, it can happen that one child goes to nursery but a sibling doesn't, and similarly with school.

[Martind12]

Why not let him try school? Kids are naturally curious and it will be difficult to hide this whole notion of school where kost children his age go. If they’re is a specific reason as to why you wont to HE this will be mroe obvious to your son after he’s seen how school works.

[BillywigStings]

I didn’t know much about home ed until recently which is why he has been in nursery. I’m not going to pull him out until I have done all the research and thought it over, and maybe not even then. Thanks for all the answers - I am very much inclined towards letting him try school he still has a full year and a half before he would start so I won’t make the judgement right now anyway

[Saracen]

Good, I'm glad it helped. It can be useful to get perspectives from people who HE and those who send their children to school. With your son at nursery and going to home ed groups, you'll be getting that.

Are you in England? When you say that your son would be starting school in a year and a half, is that because you are planning to defer his start beyond the beginning of Reception? If he is feeling enthused about school, he may not want to wait. Schools usually discourage parents from deferring, with the result that very few parents do. The nursery staff are likely to assume that all the kids will start in the autumn, and probably all of your son's nursery friends will actually go then, leaving him at nursery with younger children.

I don't say it would be wrong of you to defer, I just want to point out that the issue may arise earlier than you think. All the same, next autumn is almost a year away. As long as you secure a school place by applying at the same time as everyone else this year, you can keep your options open and decide later about whether and when your son should start school.

[BillywigStings]

We are in Scotland and we get two years of nursery and he is halfway through his first. They do share a classroom though as it is a small nursery so he is in with 3-5 year olds

[BillywigStings]

I have been advised by other home ed families that it is much easier to never send them to school as local authorities often make it hard to withdraw your child later on. Even though the law says otherwise they try to impose restrictions on you and say you can’t withdraw without a good reason without inviting scrutiny and further interviews and implications of social workers being involved. I have been told it’s better to stay off the radar and try to avoid getting mixed up with all of that. Maybe it’s not the same in England but it seems to be a widespread complaint among home educating families in Scotland, particularly the highlands. I intend to investigate these issues further though as ideally it would be good to let him try school and withdraw him if it isn’t going well

[Saracen]

Ah I see, that makes sense!

[AtSea1979]

No I don’t home ed but I would if I thought my children were struggling at school and I could afford it.
I do however work with children who do flexi hours (SEN) so I understand the struggles parents have to get their children in to school and for the child to get something out of it.

[Saracen]

AtSea, oh, okay! That explains your perspective. In recent years it does seem that a larger proportion of home educated kids are being HE due to failings in the school system, especially as the result of SEN funding cuts. There has certainly been a lot of press coverage of that lately.

However, there have always been kids who are being home educated for other reasons. Some are happy enough with part-time nursery/school, but find full-time too much - and very few headteachers will agree to part-time school. Some are okay with play-based learning but not formal teaching... and on the other hand, some like structure and can't cope with free play! Some parents want to spare their children from academic pressure, while others think school doesn't push kids hard enough.

It really is a mixed bag.

[NewElthamMum13]

@BillywigStings
"I have been advised by other home ed families that it is much easier to never send them to school as local authorities often make it hard to withdraw your child later on. Even though the law says otherwise they try to impose restrictions on you and say you can’t withdraw without a good reason without inviting scrutiny and further interviews and implications of social workers being involved."

I really don't think that's the case, BillyWig, and I've been involved with home ed support for a long time. First, unless your child is at a special school, the LA simply cannot make it hard for you to withdraw. You just deregister and that's that. Honestly, I meet with many home ed parents irl and online and while some LAs are awkward, they can't just stop you deregistering. Nowadays, the LA almost always gets notified even if your child never goes to school, because there is a lot of follow-up to see where they're going after nursery. They would then make contact in the same way, and would ask for an outline of your home education provision, regardless of whether your child has been to school or not. It used to be different - I home educated my oldest from birth right throgh to 16 and the LA never got in touch, because if your child didn't go to school in the first place, you often would simply not appear on their radar. But for most of the new home educators with very young kids who I meet at groups now, the LA gets in touch regardless of whether their child has ever been to school or not.

One reason the LA will be quick off the mark to get in touch if you withdraw from school is to check whether you actually wanted to home educate your child, or if the school is off-rolling, ie persuading parents to withdraw a pupil who they see as a problem. They often also want to check that you understand you're taking on full responsibility for education, as some parents may think that they will get LA home tuition, whereas that's normally only arranged if you're still enrolled at a school.

[NewElthamMum13]

Having said all that above about deregistering, if you are drawn to home-ed then I still think it's better to just not start school. The earliest years are the ones which are easiest to miss. You can think of it as going for a Scandinavian approach - no need to start formal education until age 7 or so. That gives you a few years to explore your options. If you are already in touch with home educators face-to-face and have groups to go to, then you are starting with a great advantage. It's lovely to just have fun and really make the most of those early years. They're not doing much rocket-science at school at that stage . My oldest two are adults now and their retrospective opinion on home -ed is that it's a lot of fun for the primary years, although they think the balance of pros and cons changes during secondary depending on other factors, eg your family and your own personality and social group. But you don't have to decide ahead of time. Just carry on doing what you're doing, and I'd say just try to look one academic year ahead at a time at this stage.

How can I make him excited for learning at home in case we do decide to follow that path? We go to a local home ed group who go on exciting trips and have weekly meet-ups which he enjoys but I can’t really avoid his nursery friends and teachers influencing the way he sees things.

Sounds like you've been doing all the right things. I'd keep up with the home-ed groups, and just keep reminding him that some children study at school and some don't. Maybe look at this video together, which was made by a home - educator in my area - - watching that made me quite nostalgic as I know lots of the kids in that video and they're all grown up now, or nearly so!

[Saracen]

NewElthamMum, did you miss that the OP is in Scotland? Once her child is in school she can't just deregister as we can in England. She must obtain the LA's consent first. This is supposed to be a quick procedure which is more or less a formality, but apparently some LAs do make it difficult. I can see why some parents might prefer to avoid all that by not sending their kids to school at all.

[NewElthamMum13]

Oh no @Saracen - I did miss that. Thanks for pointing it out. Even more reason to try HE first then!

[BillywigStings]

Thanks so much for the replies! Iv got a lot of thinking and research to do to help make up my mind, and this all helps so much. The video was wonderful too !