to ask if you would consider home education?

[SundayBea]

Have read a lot of articles recently on how the numbers in home education have 'exploded' and it's on the rise by 80% a year apparently. I know of three families I think quite highly of, two of whom are ex-teachers whose children have never been to school and their children seem to be having an exceptional upbringing and education with so many fantastic experiences and opportunities. Also know of two other families who have withdrawn their children from school because of problems with their respective schools and I'm less certain of how successful it is going to be for them. Also know of several colleagues and DH's cousin who have DC under 5 who are debating not registering them when the time comes. Is this a big thing now or is it just coincidence I know of so many families like this? I was just wondering what the general consensus was.. when I mentioned socialisation one of my ex-teacher friends showed me the Facebook group she is in for her local home education community and I was amazed at the plethora of groups, classes, meet ups and outings with hundreds of members.. just for her local county! Have been debating with DP what to do about schooling at private school is unfortunately out of the question on our current salaries.. I'm now feeling like I've discovered a whole new option I hadn't considered? Sorry if this is rambling, only getting a 5 minute lunch break today!

No, not unless there were SN or unresolved bullying.

I personally believe my kids (particularly my daughter) benefit more from seeing me doing well in my job then they would if I gave up work to home school them.

I also think it can (and I'm not by any means saying this is always the case) cause an unhealthy and co-dependent relationship to form between parent and child that have spent 90% of their time together for 18 years.

We did it on one moderate wage pickled. We just adjusted our other spending accordingly. It got more expensive as ds got older (exams mainly) but we budgeted ahead for it and cut back on other things. We managed.

Interesting thread.
I knew someone who home educated her 2 sons up till the age of 11, when they went on to the local comprehensive school. She isn't a qualified teacher, but is well educated and very capable; she said that it wasn't difficult to do and she enjoyed it. However, she felt that she had to send them to school at the age of 11 as they became harder and harder to teach, in the sense that they stopped listening to her and wanting to learn from her. (I think we all know that children change as they approach their teens, and challenging their parents authority is one of the ways in which they assert their independence).
When they started at school their levels were assessed, and they were found to be generally ahead of their peers. However, they didn't settle well into school - although they did very well academically - and the younger one in particular became involved in a lot of fights. (The older one was often in trouble with teachers).
I don't know what the reasons are for this, really; it might be that they would always have been difficult to teach no matter what. I would maybe suggest that anyone who at the moment has a small child who is eager to learn, looks well ahead to how they may manage a surly adolescent in the future.

School is only for a short period each day though, so we get plenty of time to do the extra curricula stuff and enhancement! I never thought that schools taught them to read....we've always taught them ourselves. But then they have been very keen and have picked it up very easily.

We did it on one low wage.
I was/am a sahm, Boo Many H.ed families don't spend much of their time together, let alone 90% of their time.

Hello streaky
Still flying the flag for H.ed, even though dd is at school now.
Would do it again no question if it doesn't work out, but atm she's loving it and I'm missing her terribly.

I's a huge no from me.

Move schools etc. by all means but home schooling at that age is madness.

A huge part of this is helping your child to socialise. Home schooling only serves to make this worse.

Please back that up Rose. Please share your experience that leads you to hold such a certain opinion .

I know a couple of children that have been "home schooled" and it hasn't helped them at all. It's served to make them even more unable to cope with the outside world. V sad.

So what are they doing then if not spending all day with the HE parent?

I do admit I know nothing about HE so feel free to educate me!

HE can be as expensive as you like. I'm a SAHM and we live on a moderate wage. Outings are not expensive as we often can take advantage of group bookings and school discounts. Access to the internet is essential and gives so many resources. In comparison to paying for two lots of school dinners, uniform, trips, cake sales, raffle donations etc etc it is cheaper day to day than school in my personal experience.

You can tell me to mind my own business, but what is considered a moderate wage? We may have very different ideas about what a moderate wage is!

Mine is dropped off at indoor climbing, swimming, judo and football, also two social groups a week one where I am in the building and available and he is in the grounds outside with his friends, the other where I pick him up at the end. One to two afternoons a week he goes to friends houses and hangs out with them. Then he's with his Dad or aunts at other times. He was doing French and guitar last term but I am looking for new tutors/groups this term and he will go to them. I am probably more of a chauffeur than anything else.

As for cost, a lot if HE parents work together and organise groups co-operatively so these things don't end up being prohibitively expensive.

I'm not sure your cohort of "a couple" of HE children is particularly useful in deciding that HE is completely unworkable and negative Rose. Since I know hundreds and they're mainly doing really well.

Boo My son spent a lot of time with tutors, in groups (HE and other), and as he got into his teens he was out and about doing his own thing. He has a work experience/volunteering placement one day a week too.

When he was younger, when we first started HE (10-about 12/13) we'd go to a lot of HE meets and he and the other kids would go off and do stuff while parents caught up.

It helped his social development enormously because we were able to do it in small steps. When he first came out of school he really struggled to interact for more than a few minutes at a time, but we worked on that until he was able to manage without my help. Early days it was just fifteen minutes at a time, then withdraw on a high note to prove success and have him keen to go back again. Gradually built it up and now he's very independent, and few people know he has any additional needs at all.

I think it was about £20,000 pa at the time pickled. We also had ds's DLA but obviously that went on additional resources for supporting him.

I don't know of anyone who homeschools, but where I live everyone just goes to their local school, There isn't the fight over getting kids into a particular school, So I guess most people are happy enough with what the local schools have to offer.

My husband has a take home of about £1600 a month and I get child benefit.

I know many HE families across the income spectrum. It really is what you make it. The biggest expense for us will be exams but we will cross that bridge when it comes to it. My kids are still primary age.

Queen how you describe your son is exactly how mine is and how HE helped him develop his social skills as well.

When a child is doing little more than tearing round the school grounds being chased by teachers or is actually getting out of school and making his own way home age 6 or locking himself in cupboards and covering himself with school equipment in order to manage overwhelmingly sensory input it's probably safe to say school isn't working for him

Absolutely Nicki! My ds is far more independent than a lot of the children I used to know through autism support groups, when they were all younger, and he was one of the more 'severe' cases. But because we've been able to go out during the day, at quiet times, and practise on buses and around shopping centres etc, without any post-school stress or weekend crowds, he's now able to go off on his own pretty much anywhere local. Those other children of the same age are still highly dependent on their parents or school transport because they simply don't have the resources left after the school day for learning those things - they need to spent their evenings winding down or doing homework and there's no room for practical skills. Kids like ours need the basics first and schools are so driven by academic achievement that there isn't time (apart from a few brilliant examples). I'm not blaming schools or teachers for that - it's the tick-box system that pressurises teachers to the extent that they haven't time, in a class of 30, to teach basic skills to children who haven't yet mastered them .

That's spot on. By being at home and in groups or social situations where everyone is more relaxed and less target driven they're able to develop at their own pace. It's the matter of choice as well. If DS struggles in a group or activity we have the choice to stop for a few weeks until he feels able up give it another go.

I don't think that only children with additional needs benefit from being allowed to do everything at their own pace either, with encouragement, rather than targets, but we all think differently about that.

What if your own pace is pretty lazy?
And how do you learn that to get to a great level, you often need to learn the boring bits first?

Sometimes children need to develop social skills at their own pace.

I met several home education families. The social skills of their children vary, which is not surprising. Most of the children we have met are in the middle for social skill development. (This is anecdotal as I have met 5 home ed children and hundreds of school children.)

Some children who attend school have awful social skills, but no one blames school.

Yes it is a negative from me. The taking him to clubs etc. is still you having major control and children really do need to learn how to cope in the big wide world and that is something, as parents, we cannot nor should not do.

I don't tend to think in terms of children being "lazy" to be honest, maybe scared to try, uninspired, anxiety about issues elsewhere preventing concentration etc. Ime most kids are desperate to fit in and keep up, it's usually outside influences or additional needs that prevent them.

You've only to look at the reiteration from many posters on the parenting boards that most small children are NOT just naughty but must have something else going to see that many people think that. For some reason though it can't be extended into the mainstream education system that so many hold up as the only possible way.

Pretty lazy can be ok, lots of home educators prefer to learn through experience rather than sitting down and doing an hour of maths etc. Especially at primary age even a trip to the zoo, getting there, reading the animal information boards, naming the colours, imitating the sounds, drawing what they've seen, choosing their lunch etc... It's all learning without anyone having to sit down and be told 'you're learning now'. From my experiences, most children who are home educated this way become very self reliant teens who know how to find out what they need to for whatever it is they wish to pursue and happily apply the selves to even less pleasant exercises (coursework or essays for example) because they seem to get the reason why they're doin X exam, because they want to do X degree for X job and so on. Just my experience.

Every home educated primary age child I have met has been able to hold a conversation with me in an engaging way and they're very sociable. You can get a well rounded education outside of a classroom!

Some children simply cannot though Rose and never will without support.