Do you wish you had been home schooled for the first few years of high school?

[Higgeldypickeldy]

I'm just reflecting on what an absolutely shit time I had during my first two years at high school. Third and four year were slightly better and fifth and sixth year (I'm in scotland) were brilliant fun. I wonder how my experience would have been different if I had been home schooled. The trauma from those first two years (when now looking back I was still so very young)has stayed with me all my life. I'm probably in the minority but if my child seemed to be having a similar shit time I think I would pull them out if they agreed.

Hello no, I think home education is a very bad idea for most children.

I had almost exactly this experience but didn't actively hate it, just kept my head down. I don't think homeschooling would have worked for me as I would have concentrated on subjects I liked and not been exposed to all the stuff I didn't, some of which I did turn out to be good at. I also don't entirely regret experiencing that stress and life exposure. I would probably be more conventionally 'successful' if I'd been in a private or middle-class school from the start but I feel those experiences with people with very different life chances to me were part of the shaping of my life.

No. I hated secondary school but I don’t think sitting at home with some books while my parents worked would have been any better.

I really hate this trope that kids are “too soft” do you not want the general public to be kind and compassionate rather than fighting on the playground? Can you explain this view to me?

I absolutely wish I had been because mainstream school was just so unsuitable but homeschooling would have had to have been in a different life with parents who were more able in some respects. I guess you need to reflect why it was so miserable and if these issues are likely to repeat? I personally am strongly inclined to homeschool.

Oh yes to add to my previous post, my home life was dysfunctional and I wouldn’t have wanted to have been homeschooled with my parents! Maybe in a different life though…

Definitely not! I didn't love school but being there was much better for me than being homeschooled would have been. I do wish I'd left after fifth year though, sixth year was a complete waste of time.

No, and I say this as someone who was bullied at school, especially around the age of 13 -15. After my Inter Cert., a lot of the bullies and mean kids dropped out, leaving mainly the nicer pupils. My last two years at school were great.

My reasons are as follows:-

• My parents left school in their mid-teens, so they wouldn't have had the level of education necessary to teach me at second level.

• Although my Mam was a SAHM, she was struggling with mental health issues which became more pronounced during my teens. She wouldn't have been in any fit state to offer an education to any of us. We were left to our own devices a lot of the time, especially during the summer holidays. Luckily none of us went off the rails, but we could have. There was better supervision at school.

• I would have had few (if any) facilities at home. No piano for music. No science lab and chemicals for science. No PE Hall. I would have missed out in areas such as sports. How do you play badminton without a net, rackets and shuttlecocks? How do you play basketball if you don't have the numbers to make up two basketball teams? My parents weren't sporty people and wouldn't have bothered doing sports with us at all. And even if they were sporty, they probably would have steered us towards joining a GAA club. They couldn't teach us basketball or badminton because they'd never been exposed to those games themselves.

• I wouldn't have had any form of career guidance. My parents would have steered me towards 'a good job' which would be suitable for girls - the likes of nursing or secretarial work or a bank clerk. They didn't partake of any form of third level education and I don't think it would have occurred to them that their children could (and should) go to university.

• Boys. I had lots of crushes on boys and male teachers 💘. I didn't have any boyfriends until 6th Year, but school enabled me to enjoy a safe exposure to the opposite sex. I definitely wouldn't have experienced this if I was home schooled or by going to girl guides.

• I also think I would have missed out on the experience of being part of a much bigger community. Communicating with multiple teachers and pupils, all with their own personalities. Events such as school sports days, school discos, parties the days we broke up for the Christmas and school holidays, the school musical, fundraising events for our school trip (a few days away in Ireland - nothing extravagant) and the trip itself, where I had the opportunity to bond with the other pupils (especially the pupils in the year above me who I didn't know so well) and got to see a different side to my teachers, a fundraising event where we slept in the school overnight, our school leavers ceremony etc. I went to a state school in a working class area but our teachers went above and beyond the call of duty, and gave up a lot of their free time to enhance the lives of their pupils.

I'm not opposed to home education per se, and I totally get that it suits some children much better than the school environment. But home schooling wouldn't have worked for me or my family. If I was to wish for something different for my education, it would have been smaller classes and/or the teachers having more powers to discipline disruptive kids.

@Misthios your school experience sounds a lot like mine.

Given that my parents had both left school at 13 and in many ways weren't functionally literate, I'll take my school, despite it being dog rough and staffed by (understandably) demoralised teachers.

Absolutely not. I did a lot of growing up in year 7&8, coming from a less than one from entry primary to a 9 form entry comprehensive school. I gained a massive amount of independence as I travelled to school myself on public transport. No kids from my primary school were in my class so I made new friends for pretty much the first time in my life. Got a lot more streetwise as the cohort was a bit “rougher” than my primary school. I did hate PE though and spent hours putting concealer over my stretch marks on my thighs before gym lessons. If they’re allowed to wear joggers now that’s much better.

If I hadn’t done all that I would have emerged a pretty feeble, sheltered teenager and that wouldn’t have been a good thing at all going into those difficult years. Age 14-16 was much more challenging for me, I don’t know how I could possibly have navigated that if I’d been wrapped in cotton wool from 11-13.

No, absolutely not. I really enjoyed school, got to do so many things - trips, drama performances, music, sports and was allowed to be academic too.

My kids settled very well at secondary, both had horrible Year 9 (but year 9 is the worst year of school) and were then fine from year 10 onwards. The transition to uni wasn't too tough either.

How is year 9 the worst year of school? My DD and her friends all loved it, definitely a very happy year all round for us. It’s the final year before exam pressure mounts up so they still got to enjoy being carefree kids with the freedom of being a bit older at that point and having more independence

I loved year 7-8 then it went downhill. Fuck no would I have wanted to be home educated by my parents.

No, I was fortunate in that I went to a nice secondary school and either enjoyed it or at least had an ok time throughout.

We home educate our dc after primary school. It works well for them (all have asd). We had awful experiences with the first 3 to try and then realised that it didnt suit them (one managed a year, the other 2 just 3 months before we had to de reg). It was just too much for them with their asd and other conditions. They are now a lot healthier as the emotional stress made them physically ill, we were lucky to have the insight to be able to avoid the stress for the younger ones

No, I wish I'd either boarded or been sent to private school

No way - and I had a difficult time in S1&2 many years ago. I had a few friends but was very shy, lacking in confidence and geeky and was at the receiving end of a lot of taunting. If I’d have been homeschooled I wouldn’t have had those friendships which I still have more than 40 years later and would have struggled more in later life, I think.

More like the last few years of secondary! Hated it from year 9

Disagree! Hated picking options and having to move to different classes away from my friends. A lot of us started to struggle in y9

I would have loved being homeschooled. I'd have done Maths A-level and further maths at a young age, not worked and scraped through a few other subjects and not had to worry about anything social.

But it would have been dreadful for me. At primary I always felt a step behind everyone else socially. They'd all paired up into best friends (or so it felt - that wasn't the reality) when I wanted to make friends it felt like everyone else was in a pair. And I wouldn't have learnt how to deal with other people and work things out. I'm not confident socially still, but I now can fake it well enough. That's really what I learnt in the first couple of years at secondary.

And schooling wise, other than maths, that I enjoyed, I'd have sat back and thought I was working hard, but in reality would have been putting minimum effort in and I wouldn't have found the other subjects that actually I enjoyed and I wasn't too bad at. The push of both staying out of trouble and a little bit of competitiveness meant that I did put some work in to even the subjects I hated. I wouldn't have done more than opening the book if I'd not had that.

Ah right - could be part of it then that at DD’s school they only narrowed their options down at the beginning of GCSEs (year 10) at which point she did begin to struggle both friendship wise and academically

I would've loved to be HE.

My lovely dad would have been an absolutely brilliant teacher (mum would have been terrible!!) but he was terminally ill when I was at that age and died when I was in my early teens.

Not in the slightest. It’s naive to imagine that a child would slot seamlessly into eg y9 or y10 after two or three years of HE. Maybe in an area which still has three-tier education so the child could join with the new cohort in y9. How do you ensure that you aren’t just kicking the can down the road?

Yes secondary school was shit. It did not bring the best out in me, it was as dull as hell so the worst place to learn. Socially it was the worst thing for me as a teenager. School let me down royally and left me utterly disillusioned with learning, the school system and I was desperate to be out of it.

Unsurprisingly, I have ^^home educated my kids. They are so much happier, well rounded, social and inspired to learn than I was. Or my very 'well' educated husband was. Crucially they are very keen to continue into higher education which I was desperate to get away from and mentally they are so much more stable.

And schools are even worse now than when I was in one. The education system is a broken draconian institution and I'd as messed up as the NHS.