Anyone thinking of switching to home ed after this?

[woollylizard]

Interested to know if this bout of forced homeschooling is inspiring anyone to take their kids out of school after the pandemic has passed?

I imagine for most people it's a 'HELL NO' but I was intrigued as to whether it has inspired anyone and whether the rates of home ed will increase dramatically after this?

My daughter and son both home educate. The children range in age from two to 18. The 18 year old has gained a place at Oxford. They are all the most socially adept children I have ever met. Being home educated doesn't mean you don't meet other people. They are still able to go to clubs, learn ballet, or martial arts, fly high in whatever subject they are currently interested, meet other people, go out with friends. None of that is different. They still experience the rough and tumble of being with others their own age, it's just they don't go to school to do it.

Hahaha. No.

I home ed too. It's definitely harder when we can't go out. We are normally out at meetings,clubs and ferrying them about to tutors.

blind in Scotland there is flexi schooling which is like half and half. Although it’s up to the discretion of each schools head teacher and some just flat out refuse.

Op, I home Ed as well. Like you we have quite a busy social life with groups, meet ups and then my kids extra curricular activities so it’s strange to us being home so much. Plus we love to go to parks, museums, libraries etc.

I think a lot of people will be put off as they believe this right now is what home education is. Obviously we are not usually on lockdown, get to pick what kind of things our children do, aren’t sent worksheets by a school to complete etc. But people don’t realise that. I’m often asked by people of the government send us work. Nope. 100% my responsibility.

This thread was only ever going to go one way OP .

We home ed normally. This is definitely not normal. My kids are missing their friends desperately too, and even I am - there’s a group of around 10-15 kids that are constantly in and out of my house (not necessarily all at the same time) who suddenly aren’t there anymore.

However I think the most stressful thing has to be getting your child (especially a teen) to dance to someone else’s tune. My teen is continuing with his small group classes (albeit online rather face to face with his mates) and homework, but we don’t have any strops about it as he’s chosen to do all of that stuff, and I’m not enforcing rules that someone else (the school) has set.

Good grief, no.

I’m lucky, I have one compliant 12 yr old whose school is setting a full days worth of learning every day via google classroom. She just puts the computer on and gets on with whatever has been set.

I know I wouldn’t be able to teach her the full range of subjects she’s doing now, but I feel confident that if for some reason she needed to leave physical school she’d be self motivated enough for online schooling. However I hope it never comes to that, so i suppose the answer to your question is no, I’m not considering it but it’s nice to know distance learning could be a successful alternative for us.

To be honest, i think if we permanently home educated my mental health would really suffer. I need some time alone. I can't get much done right now and the pressure of being solely responsible for my dcs education would really raise my anxiety levels.

No absolutely not! Aside from trying to fit the current woeful home schooling I am doing, all in between a full time job I've got three children at different stages and I have to say I am in awe of teachers - its given me a whole new respect for them (I already did think they did a great job).

After struggling my way through a load of year 9 fractions exercises with my 14 year old this weekend I've realised I've forgotten most of what I learned in school!

It does make me giggle though when teachers themselves want to be back teaching 30 kids in a classroom instead of being at home with their own :)

My kids also miss their friends. They're keeping in touch by video chats etc but there will be some serious hugging when they go back!

Fuck no.

After all this I'm thinking of switching my child to boarding school.

One were they don't possibly come home for about 3 years.

HELL NO

I'm absolutely no teacher. and my dc are missing school and their friends.

we all have grown some grey hair the last few weeks.

I will never home school. I will also never take nursery for granted either.

Hell no.

Not a possibility for me anyway as I'm a single parent and need to work (job cannot be done from home), I can't do both.

Also I did crap at school myself, I've no qualifications so I'm a poor substitute for a teacher. DS is Year 2 so I can manage but I'd be absolutely no use at anything secondary school related, I couldn't do the work myself if someone presented it to me.

@danni0509 that made me laugh! I'm with you there, I need a break!

No, because although staying at home facilitating my own 2 children's learning is a gazillion times easier than doing my usual job of teaching 30 other people's children at a time, sadly nobody will pay me to do it.

No. No. No. No. No. No.

It wouldn't fit my child. It wouldn't fit us.

Plus it bores the utter shit out of me.

God no! We both work so this situation is just an insane, exhausting juggling act. The children are coping fine and are reasonably easy and enjoyable to teach. It’s just everything else that needs to be done around them. And they really really miss their friends.

Homeschooling surely is only for the very few amongst us who are privileged enough not to have to work full time. If you do both homeschool and work ft then you are superhuman. Which I clearly am not.

@Bumfuzzled

I agree. It strikes me as something strictly for privileged families. From what I see, you need a sahp. You need a lovely big house and garden. You need no money worries. You also need to be in good health, both physically and mentally.

I can't see home schooling being much fun for a single mum in a council flat with depression.

@Bumfuzzled absolutely, the thought of having to work ft (or at all) and home ed is absolutely mind boggling! I take my hat off to you.

I would absolutely consider it if they ever fell behind, or got bullied. Mine are thriving under the 1-1 aspect of it, and I've gone for a 'job and knock' style of teaching (the days 'targets' are written out, and then done as and when)
However, I think school gives them a real-world to live in, home is a nice safe space but it's never going to help them function away from home.

Although, if we were homeschooling during normal times, I would be doing a lot of trips out, groups, holidays etc.

But yeah, I'm considering it pretty hard.

Christ no! Am thinking about boarding school though

@formerbabe there are lots of people we know who make it work- some times the parents both work part time and do 50/50. Lots of single parents too. Whether they find it much fun I couldn't comment, but it seems to work. Nobody we know who home eds has a massive house or anything, as you say people generally need to forgo one parents salary so there is someone at home. I think it just depends on individual circumstances and the personality of the child and parent/s. Certainly not for everyone.

I'm an ex secondary school teacher.

I'd like to home educate my youngest if I could devise the curriculum and make it project based (and do it in English). I'm having to get him through the set work following the Bavarian curriculum in German though - exactly what they'd have been going in class, unadapted with dire warnings about not letting them fall behind. This isn't fun but is an insight into his specific struggles with concentration and writing.

I could probably home school around my shift work but cannot do my own college work at the same time and have totally abandoned that for the time being.

I couldn't home educate my secondary school children alone - I'd need someone else to do maths, chemistry and physics with them especially dc1 who finds maths very hard but excels at languages, literature, history, and generally being well organised. She misses her friends and the school environment.

Dc2 needs my input to organise himself and I think would be the one I'd clash with if the work was coming from me. I think he needs external motivation and would be hard to home educate, but while the work comes from school and has to be sent off he's very easy. He socialises with his friends during his afternoon gaming time via discord and barely misses face to face. He misses football but that's an out of school club 3 times per week, it's not school sport he's bothered about so much.

I'd quite like to home ed for primary but not secondary. It wouldn't work though as we live in Germany - home ed is illegal here! Plus even if it wasn't their German language would slip and they wouldn't slot into secondary in German from home ed in English.

I can absolutely see some advantages.
I have been able to sort out loads of DC2's maths issues with ease, with daily input for a week. Plus it's nice being able to go a bit off-piste and follow their interests. I know there's an argument that I could have been more closely involved in educational stuff before, but DC2 wouldn't have engaged unless she had to, like now.

HOWEVER I am already struggling to work out what we "should" be doing (DC2's teacher is very hands-off ATM), and fitting this in around a job is trying to say the least, even though we're at home all the time. I can't see that it's compatible with much paid work if you're out and about at different classes and activities.

DS (Yr7) has ASD and it’s going to be really hard to settle him back into school - school at home is working really well for him and he gets a lot more done in one hour with me than he would in a classroom as he has my undivided attention.

However I would really struggle if DSs teachers weren’t setting work for each lesson. It’s quite exhausting too!