Home Education, before primary or after?

[ThirtyFlirtynThriving]

My nearly 4 year old starts school in September.

My initial plans were to send her to primary school, let her makes some friends, learn the social aspect and get a good feel for the discipline/regime side of going to school. Then I planned to let her choose, secondary school or home education. As I’m aware she may want to stay with her friends if they go to the same secondary.

If at any point she doesn’t enjoy school, has an issue with bullying, mental health decline I’m prepared to just pull her out and home educate.

But now I’ve started preparing for her to go to primary school I’m wondering whether she should just be home educated from the start. Is there any benefits to home education from primary age?

I suffered incredibly poor mental health in school and I’ll go the the end of the earth to help DD avoid feeling the way I did. It’s affected me into adulthood and I wish my mum had been able to home educate me.

I just don’t know when is best to start.

I understand why you might want to pull her out of school if she's unhappy like you were. However, millions of kids go to school and are very happy there. Lots of kids are unhappy being home educated. Why not just send her to school and see how it goes? Don't ruin her experience by obsessing about your bad time at school.

What are your concerns about discipline?

I home educate but it was the only solution in our situation. There's lots of positives to home education however it's a big responsibility to take on. Your experiences aren't necessarily going to be her experiences. If it doesn't work out you can always try home education but it would have to be what she wants.

Your starting point is that she will suffer some sort of MH issues as a result of being at school and that therefore you will need to HE.

This is so so wrong. You're setting her up to fail. She's not you. Her school is not your school. Her experience will not be the same as yours.

Send her to school with the biggest most excited smile on your face. Have her friends over. Be friendly with teachers and other parents. Listen to her read, sympathise when 'Lucy' doesn't want to play with her or 'Samual' pushes past her at playtime. Don't make small incidents into big ones - small ones are vital for developing resilience and empathy.

Likelihood in that she'll love it and do well.

I home educate one child. It can be difficult to find time, but she thrives. She met friends in the home education community. She hated school and failed two placements. I removed her at 8 and she enjoys learning at home. Her brother finished primary school and then did home education for secondary school. He hated it, so went back to school. It doesn't work for all children. There are loads of facebook home education groups if you want to do your research on how it all works, and how to deal with the local authority etc.

I think you're projecting and you need to respond to her actual needs not to the ones you anticipate.

And I say that as someone who is having to HE DD for years 10 and 11 due to MH and bullying issues.

We both can't wait for her to go to Sixth Form college. HE is a lonely road.

It's a huge adjustment to pull a child out of school. If you're keen to EHE, it may be better to do so from the start.

I'd advise joining several FB groups, partly to find out the legal guidelines for EHE alongside the best way to approach any contact from your local authority, and partly to learn more about what groups there are in your area.

Personally I think you're doing her a huge disservice in assuming there will be all these issues before she's even begun! A lot of kids do brilliantly in school and thrive in different ways.

I did it the other way round, starting off with home ed. The advantage to that was that by the time my DC1 did start school, they had developed the maturity, perspective, and resilience to cope with whatever school might throw at them. Having experienced life without school, they knew what their other option was, so they could make an informed choice about whether to stay.

Four year olds aren't necessarily going to find it so easy. They struggle with planning ahead so they eat enough at mealtimes and don't get crabby, sticking up for themselves, asking for help when they need it, sitting and focusing on academics, and understanding their own emotions.

My kids were able to develop their social skills well when they were little without the added pressures of school thrown into the mix. There are other places to make friends besides school.

You also mentioned the discipline/regime aspect of school. People often imagine that home ed kids would find that hard because they aren't used to it. But IME, previously home educated kids actually cope okay with that - it took my child a couple of weeks to adapt. Being that bit older, they had better impulse control, and they understood the reasons for the rules. It wasn't as hard for them as it was for those who started at the age of four. It isn't necessary to "train children up" for school from an early age; instead you can wait until they are ready. (If it was necessary to spend years getting children ready for a school environment, that would suggest that school is very poorly suited to kids' needs!)

I know that you want to make your daughter happy.
Trust me no mother wants to see her child coming home sad, but imagine how bad her character development will be if you take her out of school whenever she gets picked on a little or whenever she is tired of school.
Every kid through out secondary education is definitely going to get picked on a bit and isn't going to want to goto school, it's nothing new to, trust me.
The social skills she has learned from primary education will NOT be anywhere near as much as secondary schools give you.
When I was in secondary education we had to present stuff in-front of our class every year so we would keep it as a skill, it wasn’t nice but I’ve landed a job I’m very happy with mainly due to me being able to speak and present stuff in front of audiences.

Find good schools and be involved, pick ups etc and get to know how she is doing. There are many who are passionate about home schooling, but if it’s purely to ‘protect’ her mental health, then don’t discount school as school can also be very protective and positive for mental health

It doesn't sound like a good idea at all for her to home schooled by you if you have MH issues

Your DD needs to be able to make friends and navigate her way through life without being castrasted from the off

You’re inflicting your issues on your dd and creating problems which aren’t there. Plus it’s irresponsible based on the reasons provided.

My initial plans were to send her to primary school, let her makes some friends, learn the social aspect and get a good feel for the discipline/regime side of going to school.

I think this is a very good way to look at it. I'd be wary you might want to pull her out at the first sign of trouble, rather than help her work through minor social and school issues. That might be worth thinking about, because learning to navigate these things will be very helpful to her later on in life. It's not a bad idea to know that you have a back up and think about how it might work if need be. I'd also advise letting her find an activity out of school, maybe with none of her class who attend. DD found that invaluable when there were friendship issues in her class and helped her get through them.

You should just home educate. You have already decided to pull her out if she has a problem. There will be problems. It is a school with hundreds of children. Part of going to school is learning to get on with others and becoming more resilient. She won't do that if you over react to any issue that comes up.

How would you manage all the specialist teaching at the secondary stage? Maths, sciences, languages, etc??

She might well be happy and do well at school. Please don’t expect problems, and for heaven’s sake don’t infect her with negative ideas before she’s even started.

You'd think that would be a huge challenge, but in practice it isn't as hard as people imagine. Home educating parents don't usually follow the direct-instruction school model for all subjects, but instead facilitate their children's learning by helping them find the resources they need. Those resources might include books, videos, or tutors. Sometimes kids do it all off their own back, and sometimes they like support from parents learning alongside them.

For example, one of my kids learned maths from books and got a good mark at GCSE. (I do have a maths degree and have taught maths, but they didn't want to learn it from me! 😂) English Language is fairly straightforward for someone who reads a lot, so there wasn't much to do there other than swot up on the preferred format of essay, which again they did mostly independently with some study materials. We sent one of their mock essays off to an exam marking service so they could see whether they were on track for the grade they wanted, and where they might pick up some extra marks. That was £30 well spent.

They did sports coaching on a voluntary basis and learned music from choirs, music groups, and tutors. They learned a foreign language via Duolingo, watching films, learning pop songs, reading translations of Harry Potter in their target language, doing a stint as an au pair, and attending free lessons laid on by a local university society. Their favourite subject, art, they did independently using online tutorials. They did try an online school offering a Level 3 art qualification, but it wasn't well implemented, so they went back to independent study. That was good enough to get them into uni to do an arts-related subject.

Aside from the maths - which they didn't learn from me anyhow - their interests were in subjects I didn't know much about. That was no obstacle, because I was helping them learn rather than teaching.

Thanks all.

I am aware I’m projecting slightly, I am just very aware of my own anxiety and how I felt in school (I was never bullied so that wasn’t the issue, it was purely anxiety) and it gives me a horrible pit in my stomach to think she might ever feel that way - hence why at the first sign of real anxiety I would be prepared to take her out of school. I would never force her to go somewhere where she feels completely uncomfortable.

I get that kids go through phases of ‘not wanting’ to go to school but I’m talking about actual MH, not just the phases of ‘I don’t want to’ ‘I don’t like XYZ’. There’s a fine line between the two and that’s what I want to keep my eye out for.

I obviously want her to go to school and enjoy it, and she’s excited to start school next year, I’m excited for her and we’ve chosen (and hopefully get accepted) a small primary school that gets glowing reviews, it’s also the primary school her late grandmother went to so there some sentiment there for us.

A lot of schools are really struggling at the moment with underfunding, lots of teachers don’t like it and are voting with their feet so unsurprisingly a lot of kids aren’t settling either. Schools are very different from each other so while one school might be crap another may be ok.
Its great to always have the option to home school. Since COVID provision has exploded. If you have the time and money you can put a bespoke package of activities and learning together for your child that is less stressful and a higher level of learning than school. It takes a while to find the providers for everything you want and to timetable it and it can be expensive. Some children don’t suit school, some love it and some tolerate it. It’s also worth remembering that home school provision tends to be 121 so fewer hours are needed to cover the subjects and activities. In schools about 4.5 hours a day are taught lesson time, including pe. If homeschooling, I would aim for 10-12 per week.

Home education is not a panacea, esp as a 'solution' to anxiety, you can end up replacing one set of problems with another.

My DD is in year 11 having done this year and last in an online school due to anxiety.

She said yesterday she doesn't regret it but she also feels she isn't having a normal teenage life. She's lonely despite have a regular weekly social activity.

She said she'd take the loneliness over the anxiety but I think you're expecting some kind of blissful HE experience which you may not get.

Home education, often referred to as homeschooling, is a growing trend where parents choose to educate their children at home instead of sending them to traditional schools. One common question that arises is whether it's better to start homeschooling before primary school or to begin after a child has already started their formal education.
Home Education Before Primary School
Starting home education before primary school has several advantages:

1. Personalized Learning Pace: At this stage, parents can tailor the curriculum to the child's natural learning pace. There's no pressure to keep up with a set curriculum, allowing children to explore subjects in-depth and at their own speed.
2. Strong Foundation: Homeschooling from an early age allows parents to build a strong educational foundation. They can focus on essential skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic without the distractions often found in traditional classrooms.
3. Flexible Learning Environment: Parents can create a flexible and stress-free learning environment. Children can learn through play, exploration, and everyday experiences, which can make learning more enjoyable and less rigid.
4. Socialization Through Diverse Interactions: Contrary to popular belief, homeschooling doesn’t limit socialization. Children who are homeschooled from an early age often engage with a wider variety of age groups through community activities, homeschooling networks, and extracurricular programs.
5. Family Bonding: Homeschooling from the beginning can strengthen family bonds as parents and children spend more time together, learning and growing as a unit.

Home Education After Primary School Transitioning to homeschooling after a child has started primary school can also be beneficial, especially if the traditional school setting isn’t meeting the child’s needs:

1. Addressing Specific Needs: Some children may struggle in traditional schools due to learning differences, social challenges, or other factors. Homeschooling can offer a tailored approach to address these specific needs.
2. Correcting Negative School Experiences: If a child has had negative experiences in school, such as bullying or academic pressure, transitioning to homeschooling can provide a more nurturing and supportive environment.
3. Building on Existing Knowledge: Starting homeschooling after primary school allows parents to build on the knowledge and skills their child has already acquired, customizing the curriculum to fill gaps or accelerate learning in specific areas.
4. Fostering Independence: Older children who transition to homeschooling can take a more active role in their education, developing independence and self-directed learning skills that will benefit them in later years.
5. Flexible Schedule for Older Students: As children grow older, homeschooling offers the flexibility to focus on subjects of interest, pursue extracurricular activities, or even start vocational training earlier than they might in a traditional school setting.

Honestly, I would let her start school with a positive attitude and willing to help her weather the storms. My DD loved primary school - could not wait to get in there every day - and she had so many amazing experiences that are hard to replicate at home. She then started secondary school and hated it - it was too big and she was petrified of breaking the rules. We had 2 terms of her crying most nights due to anxiety. It would have been so easy to take her out. But school were brilliant and she slowly settled.

Now she loves it. She takes part in international debating competitions, model United Nations and public speaking. Plays in a school orchestra which wins competitions on a monthly basis, ditto with the choir. She plays for school and county in netball and hockey. I lose track of what she’s doing from one week to the next. Next year she is off to Austria and Italy with her friends, led by the fantastic and inspiring history teacher. She couldn’t have done many of those things in home school.

Give it a chance. Some schools are brilliant!

What caused your anxiety at school OP if it wasn't bullying? Do you still suffer with anxiety? How do you manage it at work? Are you sure that the anxiety wasn't just part of your personality rather than due to school and that you would have felt anxious no matter what? Anxiety is inheritable and tends to run in families so it's possible she might be anxious too.

I think you are projecting massively however. Let her go to school, you learn so much there. Instead of just pulling her out of school at the first sign of an issue show her how to deal with the issue - that will be so much better and more useful for her to learn. There are so many steps and things you can do to deal/cope with issues.

The primary school you've chosen sounds fantastic, you sound like an extremely supportive mum - what more could a child ask for OP! Show her ways to cope with and overcome her anxiety if she has it, by breaking things down into small manageable steps, talking and getting help and support from you and other people, having quiet time out to regulate and keeping healthy by exercising and eating and sleeping well. I have one with ASD so I know important it is to teach them how to cope in the world.

I’d be more worried about your view of pulling her out at the first sign of anxiety. A lot of girls have a huge amount of friendship drama at primary level that they just need to learn to work through. There have been countless times that my 8yo has ‘broke up friendships’ and been fretting only to be best buddies again by 9.30 the next morning. At primary level there is definitely something about building resilience, trying new things, being pushed out of comfort zone etc. now if things were going very badly at secondary school, I’d be more open to online schooling as an alternative as long as a proper curriculum was being followed but proper home education for teens is going to come at quite a financial cost.

in terms of benefits of school; you can still see significant damage to the social skills of the new y4s who missed nursery and reception and y5s who missed reception and y1.

if you are anxious yourself, do you think you’d be best placed to give her all the opportunities and stretch school would?

If you aren’t already passionate about the reasons why home education can be beneficial the you are doing this for all the wrong reasons.

Your daughter is not you and it will do her no good to teach her than any small problem at school should be resolved by running away and hiding at home.