to consider taking my DD out of a perfectly good school to HE?

[FigsAndWine]

I am considering taking my 8 year old DD out of school and home educating. My reasons and reservations are detailed here

I've read a bit about HE and I'm feeling more and more that I want to do this. The two people whom I thought would be really negative about this (my best friend and my DM) have been very positive about it and think it would benefit DD. My DP thinks I'm a bit nuts (but then he does anyway... ) but will support my decision. My exDP (DD's dad) is also in a good postion to HE, as he is self employed and therefore flexible with his time, and is very involved with DD.

The school DD is at is a good one. It is over-subscribed, good with outstanding features according to ofsted. I just think that DD would thrive more out of a school environment. It will be a squeeze financially to afford extras (trips, classes, activities), but we could manage. I work part time and could fit HE around this.

The reason I'm posting in aibu is because I know all the reasons why I want to do this; I guess I want to hear some opposing opinions so I can feel whether they are enough to make me change my mind.

Fire away!

I would say that the Queen was a prime example of someone educated at home. There is nothing to say that the parents have to do it, anyone who employs a governess is home educating. I presume that she wasn't that keen as she didn't do it to her DCs.
When I mention on HE threads that it is a lifestyle and you need to be at home I am always told that this is not so.

There are almost as many methods of HE as parents doing it! You can't make general statements in the same way that you can't make general statements about schools-although people do-all the time.

I will be very interested to know in the future how many HEed DC will HE their own DCs.

Sorry bubbleymummy, I completely misunderstood your comment-I would agree that drama groups outside school are better-in school it is likely to be one teacher giving up their spare time.

I have a great understanding of those who HE because their DC was utterly miserable at school or because they have SN (not being met) or because geography makes it the only option. I understand those who do it because they were miserable at school and project it onto their own DCs or those who are just anti schools and very cynical about the state etc but I think them misguided. The ones that are really worrying are those who want absolute control-don't want them hearing anything other than the 'truth' as given by the parents and want to pick friends etc.

There aren't even statistics available as to how many DCs are HEed-so I doubt there are any as to what they go onto.

I know a fair few of HE students who have gone off to uni alongside the schooled students if that is what you are asking.

Equally, there will be many who do not go for further education. Some start their own business, I know of 2 computer programmers,
A friend has a DD who was HE and wanted to go to college despite having not gone down the exam route. She had an interview, brought in some of the work she had studied at home to show, spoke of her plans for her future and was offered an unconditional place. Good for her!

I am not sure where one would find actual data though, which would be interesting to see, if there was such a thing.

I'm not really thinking of the exceptional but the ordinary. Does HE prepare students for a life full of 'do it, do it now, do it quickly, do it properly' (acknowledgement to WingDad for that)? Does the HE student adapt to this or is it a greater struggle than for a mainstream educated student?

ooh good question! I have not got the answer to that one!

The only comparison I can say is that after a few years HE they slotted into school without issue. But that is just mine, so in general, I wouldn't know.

I would presume though, that as they will have grown up into adults, they will understand that we do have to 'do it, do it now, quickly etc'

"Does HE prepare students for a life full of 'do it, do it now, do it quickly, do it properly' "

Is that what mainstream is preparing people for?

In what way do you mean?
I'm not quite sure what you are talking about.
Do you mean following orders?

I wasn't quite sure either juule, but I was thinking the poster meant, those who choose child led learning on a very informal basis? Therefore there is no real structure.

Could be completely wrong though!

My friends 2 DSs who were HEed are now at university. They went to school at 6th form stage. The youngest has now gone into 6th form without a qualification to his name. They have a friend who did nothing much at home, never went to school and went to Cambridge. He was however very intelligent. I think that it is very misleading for those who HE to say that you can do it all alone, and even if you play computer games all day it doesn't matter and you can end up where ever you want. Some just haven't the ability-enen if they went to school and worked their socks off.
HE will have the same range as school-Oxbridge material down to unemployable.

I think that HEers can be unrealistic and have no idea of the toughness of the real world.
I read a blog of one woman who HEs-mainly because I know people who know her in RL and their view is very different from the rosy view she has.
Her DD is 15, HEed with music her main love. They live in a rural location. She has decided this DD will apply to a big city music college for next year. I am perplexed about this,I have one friend who went to the same place at the normal age of 18yrs and another with 2 DCs who are professional musicians. They say that she would have to be exceptional to get in early. The people who know her say that she isn't. Why would you send a 16yr old who has never been away from home to a big city with 18+yr olds? Would she be allowed? How do they get on for student loans? I will have to continue reading the blog to find out what happens. Her plans for her 2nd DD when she gets to 16yrs seem to put her in cloud cuckoo land!
I appreciate that most HEers have their feet on the ground and sound career advice. However it is easy to get out of touch with reality if you are in a rural bubble.

exotic, I'm sure there are plenty of parents with children in school who have inflated ideas of their child's abilities. Thinking that your child is amazing is part of being a parent :) I'm sure her daughter would have to audition with everyone else and if she wasn't good enough then she wouldn't get in. Some gifted children do go to college early so I'm sure it would be possible if she was good enough.

My earlier question was about fitting into the more disciplined occupations. The 'do it, do it now, do it quickly, do it properly' is more than simply following orders. It is an attitude of mind. It may apply equally to a trainee police officer, trainee nurse, trainee soldier, trainee plumber.

Certainly the school my DCs attend does prepare DCs for occupations as well as for another academic stage. The school offers a number of vocational courses which certainly emphasise the 'do it properly'. The structured day, the compulsory nature of subjects, the curriculum all emphasise the 'do it now, do it quickly'.

Of course the very structure I value may be the reasons why other choose away from mainstream education. I think that some of the growth in HE is a trend away from collective structures towards individualism.

At the end of the day 'your child, your choice', it matters not one jot what I or anyone else on MN thinks. The OP has to make her own choice and the OP and her daughter have to live with the consequences.

However in school bumbleymummy they would know what other DCs are capable of and know what other DCs actually do.
My friend with the DDs who are professional musicians knew they were good but they said that they were totally unprepared for the standard of others and that was when they were in school, already playing in orchestras and travelling 90 miles to London once a week for a lesson.
This particular DC isn't doing any of that.

She is going to apply, she won't get in (at least I could safely bet money on it) and her fond mother didn't ought to be giving her the totally unrealistic idea that she is anywhere near good enough. She needs to get A'levels, and if not that at the very least get the music up to county standard. Since her mother is very hard up-she can't do it without funding-I don't know if she is even realistic with that. I don't know if the student loans company deal with children. Also why would you want a HEed child in a Hall of Residence with 18yr old students? It all seems weird to me.

Usually parents get over the inflated idea of their DCs abilities once they get to about 8yrs.They don't inflate them for entirely unrealistic ambitions.

Unrealistic views of DCs seem at their height before 5yrs. You get regular posts in G & T with 'my 3 yr old can do x, y and z-how will school cope?' and I think they are a bright DC, school will cope just fine-they won't be alone.

IME music is something apart. I don't know why it is but parents are very often not at all relaxed about it. With time I have decided that when it comes to recitals and orchestra weekends and all the rest, I cheerily wave and smile at everyone and try not to talk about musical achievement or get into any kind of lengthy chat because I know where it will go. I don't know why it should be the case, but it often seems so tense

Not having heard this girl, I cannot comment but possibly it is her teacher who assesses her and hears/sees something perhaps not immediately apparent to other people who only experience her in public performances. My dd just changed teacher for one instrument and I remember her previous teacher had another pupil who wanted to quit. The teacher and the mother were good friends and both violinists. The mother told me repeatedly how talented her dd was and that she would not permit her to quit because she was so talented. Having heard many recitals, for the life of me , I could not pick up on any talent in this girl but that is not to say it was not there IYSWIM. Maybe it was not apparent in a way that I could pick up on or indeed perhaps it was a case of wishful thinking on the parents' part.

I would assume the teacher is guiding the mother's choice re music studies and presumably the teacher will know whether she has what it takes

I have no idea of the music teacher
I don't think that the mother has any idea of the norm.
My friend has heard the DD and doesn't think she is anywhere near the standard which would have to be very exceptional to get there 2 yrs before the normal age.

My argument is not anything to do with her music-it will stand alone, if she is talented they are not going to hold her back through lack of qualifications. My argument is that the mother is isolated and has no idea how her DD compares or what she should be doing.

Even if she were exceptionally talented, which I doubt, why would anyone want their unstreetwise DD, from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere , to go to a major city to study with 18yr olds when she is younger, physically and emotionally?

I would also assume that the music teacher is guiding the HE parent and child. We could speculate forever but presumably they know their own circumstances best and would work towards their own goals with the help of the music teacher.

I'm not all that sure there is a music teacher! However-time will tell-I will keep reading the blog.

I think it is more a case of mother 'facilitating' the learning.

I think it just is the case with music, perhaps more so than in other fields than some dc will be playing, performing, studying alongside much older learners, simply because of the speed with which they understand and master things. Partlyi t is how well a dc is taught and how well s/he practises but it isn't just that. I have seen 8 year olds playingi n an orchestra with 15 year olds and it is not abnormal and they don't seem to flounder. It is just the way it is. With music, it is not really practicable to group dc age-wise. I don't know how a 16 year old from a sheltered life in a rural backwater would cope with 18 year olds but often we just get on with it and cope if we need to, don't we ? If she is studying music with real determination at having a career in it, she will be practising for hours and hours every day, there is not going to be the kind of intensive peer group social interaction that maybe a student of another subject engages in.

Music is so tough though and the standards are so incredibly high, I would personally shy away a bit from my dc focusing on it but everyone has their own reasons for what they want their dc to do in the end. I don't really know what that particular mum is about and whether she is realistic but time will tell

In which case I would think that a music teacher is involved.

oh well if she does not even have a music teacher, she will really be at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to competing for a course.

We parents can all be quite strange

my post was to exoticfruits.

at one of these music venue things for dc recently I met a man who has brought his dc over to the country where I live for one year in order to acquire the language. They have been sent to local schools without having known a single word previously, they are secondary age. He is even speaking to them all the time in this language which he himself does not speak, he is in the process of acquiring it. They refuse to speak at all. I found it a very strange decision to make with regard to your dc's education but I observed them all and had a think about it. Who knows, maybe it will work out the way he thinks.

It is not even a particularly useful foreign language to have under your belt but he just seems to have got the idea into his head. Maybe this mother with the blog is a bit like that too.

I don't know her-it is just that her blog paints a really rosy picture that is at odds with the way outsiders see it.
As you say time will tell.

One of the big challenges as a parent is having to face the fact that on the whole our children are normal, ordinary. They will be better at some things than others. As Exotic says, this reaches a peak normally at 5 when the child joins school.

This is one of the depressing aspects of school, one's infant prodigy might be able to right his/her name in perfect copperplate but their shape sorting is non-existent (or whatever). School points out the things our children arent good at. My experience of primary is that there is a lot of this!

Once at secondary this starts to change. Once options are chosen there is greater emphasis on what the student is good at (setting etc). Also a big secondary school seems to absorb the more 'individual' students better than smaller organisations - there are normally more 'individuals' to join!

Is it possible for the OP to consider HEing her daughter with a target of reintroducing her to mainstream schooling at the secondary stage? This would allow the OP time to focus on her daughter's general development and socialisation as a priority.