To ask what is your instinctive response to hearing a child is Home Educated?

[NickiFury]

I am really interested to hear general opinions from everyone and hoping for some from professionals such as teachers etc. I really want to know what people think because in the main in RL, the response is overwhelmingly negative. I've had people threaten to call SS on me because ds isn't in school, been told it's "weird" and seen this face a lot.

Now to me home education is a totally normal thing but I suspect this is only because we are immersed in this world and know lots of other HE families (you'd be surprised how many are out there).

What has made me think about this was a friend telling me today that people in our community know of me and ds without ever having met us because we are notorious as that woman who doesn't send her kid to school .

Btw I also have a child who does go to school and is doing well but no one seems to gossip about that.

So what would YOU think if you someone told you their child is home educated?

Thanks .

I've met lots of home eders sigyn :) I was considering it at one point and tend to move in those circles.

You don't need to "have a go" at the children to answer the question about whether they are likely to meet a wide enough range of different children if they are home educated.

You just need to say whether you think that's the case and if so, why and if not, why not.

The way you describe children who live on housing estates is a bit tortuous - why on earth wouldn't they live with their parents, just like the "middle class" children and the "hippy" children do?

Still

They didn't have names like that in the schools I was working with, Sigyn. They were so 'different' I don't want to quote them in case I 'out' myself.

We started out home educating, we looked at the local schools and didn't like them and our eldest two are summer born so we just never enrolled/applied for school places. We already knew adults who were home educated and families that were home educating.

Not sure my kids have home ed names though my mil said ds1's name was posh and she doesn't like the names we gave to the madthings.

SuburbanRhonda I really don't think you're understanding what I'm saying, I'm afraid. My points were tongue in cheek, and I don't think you're picking up on that at all.

No disrespect but I don't need to say anything at all, and I don't need to answer it in any particular way, I'm afraid. Plenty of other people have answered the question. If you can't understand my answers, it they don't work for you, and that's fine, look at another answer that meets your needs better.

And of course i'm not having a go at people on housing estates. I mean, just, ffs really. .

all in all you're just another brick in the wall

Reading with interest as future new home educator.

why?

reason no 1 my lovely lea dident give me 1st preference school one my eldest attends neither did it give me my 3rd ok local infants 509metres from my house.

I have dd1 aged 8 e
ntering year 4 already moved once due school failing her so not moving her again, we love her new school.

I have dd3 3.5 in sept he needs preschool.

i would have pay afterschol care or childminder despite being sahm would cost me £150+per month.

the allocated school was distance in wrong direction from house an school 1. and bit rubbish.

I cant be 2 places at once and 3 schools logistical nightmare.

I did 2 schools distance apart when moved eldest s dd2s preschool was next to old school was hell i was shattered and late for both of them.

DD2 is 5 in sept and is very ready but sadly school des nt have place.

shes quite bright
im educated to degree level so feel sure I can manage reception/foundation as its same curriculum as preschools, childminders and nursery use and they not qualified teachers,

I plan be quite structured and wait it out for school we want.

I have done so much research and brought resources.

made links with local home ed group yes some did trike me as stero typical but met some people really liked too.

Who ever made comment about alterative toddler group agree found it odd as was hoping find other 5 year olds,

I think im am odd as have 1 in school
want a school place
not anti school but not in love with syetem after think they start too young in uk.

I do feel like im heading for the fringe where i wont fit in well with mainstream parents but be not really fitting in with home ed unschooling types either.

reactions i have had when tell people is

laugh-you joking?
selfish and reckless-no ones said that but implied it
worst was from primary teacher freinds soo anto home ed saying my child be behind.
you brave
you mad
when willyou have you time

nursery and preschool as split funding have no idea what to make of me.

have tried to assure them im no deranged hippy without a plan.

preschool think its great shame and bad for her socially.

nursery had meeting in office is it legal? am i qualified,what will i do they seemed very concerned but at end hopefully reassured them i expect they think im mad reckless hippy behind my back.

i will try the hm ed groups and give them a chance.

she already does 1 after school club and is starting rainbows

dd3 preschool 3 days which means 3 days one on one

plan teach her how to swim and how to skate first term

teach phonics
read
basic maths

arts and crafts
basic science.

lots trips to museums, libaries, farms. galleries, zoo, parks

lots time outdoors nature study, exercise.

cooking
gardening-we have an allotment
pottery=why not
horse riding

it worries me every ones so negative but plan prove many wrong

3Asabird

v similar to me. I'm HEing because of school place issues.

Its fine. I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my descriptions above but at the end of the day what you need to know about HErs is that they are generally really unjudgemental. We all rub along because we bloody have to.

People can be the poshest, hippiest hippies and they will get along fine with those that they might not otherwise speak to, say (your guys with the UKIP shirt, for example), because we just have to. And that means that the kids get on too, of course.

What's the worst that can happen?

And nice. One thing HErs really tend to be is friendly, and nice.

Maybe not when being quizzed about foreign language provision while trying to stop a kid falling off the monkey bars but generally, we are nice, we like to talk, we like to help.

Again, because we have little choice, I think. But who cares?

Blimey, sigyn, you've got a pretty short fuse there, haven't you?

For a hippy.

I used to be someone whose immediate thoughts on home educators was 'oh that's odd, they're probably all brown rice and lentil types'.

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that now, espcially considering what's gone on with dd in school over the last 4 years and our plans to home ed for a-levels and her borderline home-ed for the last term and a half of year 11.
It's rarely as simple at it may seem, and although I've got a great support network round me, I do have a negative reaction from a group of friends whose immediate thought were that my dd should be in school and socialising with et peers. Never mind that she was technically in school but barely there and definitely not socialising for the last four years; somehow it's 'wrong' when I'm taking her out to try a different approach but it would be 'right' if I had kept doing the same thing that had never worked.

P.s. Disclaimer: I like brown rice but can't stand quinoa. That makes me a middle-of-the-road hippy type.

No it doesnt SNP. It makes you a fussy brat.

When I was 10 I made friends with a girl in my village who was home educated.

Turned out later her family were escaping the authorities as her Dad had murdered someone

He's now in jail

99.6% of murderers' children go to school. (I just got that off Wikipedia.)

(I didn't. But my SIL's best friend at school when she was ten suddenly disappeared to live with relatives when her father murdered her mother.)

Cripes, Hedgehead!

First response: Jammy devils! I wish I wasn't the main breadwinner and was able to do that. Not that it would suit DD at the moment. I think DS might benefit although I don't think he'd agree. I do it at the drop of a hat if either of mine were getting bullied though - main breadwinner or not!

Is there a book on weaving lentils? We're already veggies so maybe we should give it a try.

We all have very boring mostly old-fashioned biblical names.

I'm nor sure whether to blame HE or 'mainstream' for the messy long hair phase my boys went through. The eldest, who was never HE, decided to grow his hair in senior school; his little brothers decided to copy. TG they all get regular hair cuts now. Twas just a phase ...

Something you 'naysayers' and very interested people should all know. Some days we HErs just cannot be bothered answering the same questions yet again. I am probably in the 'woolly' category much of the time when asked by strangers, but that doesn't mean I don't take my responsibilities to my DC very seriously.

My son/ds4 was suicidal when in school. He is 16 now, and he told me recently he's had a happy childhood since we took him out of school aged 6, nearly 7. He's ahead with some things, behind with others. But nothing beats being happy - and alive. As the very supportive EdPsych said when we were thinking of HE said, the LEA got off very lightly indeed.

I would like to explain my comment above that has been picked up about suggesting that abusers use HE to avoid detection. I didnt say that.

I said that some people may HE for abusive reasons, I then cited the Duggars and any parent that chooses to segregate for "religious" reasons, which to me is simply brainwashing. It is, to me, abusive because it removes the knowledge of choice, the awareness that there are other ways to live that are perfectly valid and acceptable, but are not allowed to be considered as a choice because they dont fit into the parents narrow view of what their children should be or do.

I did not at any point suggest that HE is abusive or that everyone who chooses to HE is abusive, merely that it can be used as a tool by abusive people. The isolation of the victim is often the first step in abuse and if the victim is a child HE makes that much easier. I feel that if regular (and unannounced) inspections were the norm for HE and private schooling as they are in state schools (or will be in terms of being unannounced) then abusive situations are much more likely to be uncovered. As the current situation stands, a child could be in a very bad situation and no one would know because there are no checks.

Please dont misunderstand my concerns by assuming I mean that every HE situation is bad or abusive.

Sorry Bogey! My fault that I hadn't caught up with the thread properly; there were a few other posts I should have addressed (and did later on I think) that to instead.

I'm not a fan of the Duggars.

Agnostic here, by the way (in response to something earlier).

Magic that was in response to what you said, but I realise that I did sound quite snippy, I apologise for that. I just mean that HE is an easy tool to be used and abused by those so inclined to do so. Thats why my initial response to the OP said that HE isnt my bag but I have no issue with anyone doing it as long as the child gets a good level of all round education and is not in an abusive situation (and that includes not actually teaching the child anything if they are supposed to be educated at home). Thats why I feel that inspections should be carried out, because if the education is good and the environment is healthy then surely an HE parent would have no objections to it, except of course you would need an inspection team open to the idea of HE and this thread alone has proved how unlikely that would be!

Atheist here, and love the idea of me gathering my brood around the table to teach them but I have enough self awareness to know that we would manage....a couple a days? Maybe a week before they were begging to go back to school and I was begging them to go :o

Bogeyface, I know you didn't mean that. Problem is that most HErs have heard it all before and it's quite tiresome. Because sensible people will know that if someone is going to abuse a child they will do it whether the child is in school or not.

A few years ago in Scotland there was a little girl taken out of school in Inverness. Her mother said she was moving elsewhere. She never arrived. Sad thing was it transpired she was already in a suitcase in the canal BEFORE her mother dereg'ed her. School did not save that little girl. Her parents are in prison now. BUT that was a big argument at the time - I had DC in school still - and our HT cited this as an example of why HErs needed to be watched. All the LEAs in Scotland were up in arms. Yet that family had no intentions of HE.

To be blunt, some of the arguments against HE are a load of ill-informed claptrap. This has been shown on this thread, but none of what's been said here is new stuff. I am NOT thinking of particular posts - for one my brain cannot take in all the user names, but it hardly matters anyway. Meantime, we all just have to get on and parent to the best of our abilities. TG it's the weekend.

And I also apologise for using the word "situation" far too often in my PP but one!