to think home education is looking more appealing

[Gisla]

I wish I was brave enough to take my children out of formal education. I feel I'm working my way towards it.

The system appears to be in a mess; teachers are unhappy, ridiculous confusing tests for 6 year olds and now forcing academy status on schools, talk of extending the school day and abolishing QTS.

Aibu to want to shout "will nobody think of the children?"

I'd rather homeschool if I thought teachers were all mentally labelling nonconformist children as "weirdos", v rude!

We are on quite a low income and we manage. The most expensive thing we do is send DS to a science club run by a science teacher where they can do experiments etc and even that is only £30 per 4 sessions. Other than that most of the groups are informal and usually just request a pound or two towards room hire. Work books can be picked up very cheaply and there are massive amounts of resources available for free online.

Jliving my son has additional needs and has been labeled many of those delightful words you used even when he was in mainstream school, often in the playground. It takes a real arrogance to assume that your way is the only way and that it is best for all children. Even the staunchest school supporters I've met usually concede that some children can't cope or their needs aren't always adequately met by being in school.

jiving There is an arrogance and harshness about your posts, not to mention a dodgy command of English. I feel genuinely sorry that you are shaping generations of young minds and I strongly suspect that you are not as successful a teacher as you think you are. I can't quite work out what age group you teach either- if it's secondary maths then you're talking through your hat about the cost of resourcing key stage one. Again, if it's maths, it's perhaps unsurprising that you aren't skilled at thinking with creativity and emotional intelligence about difference in your classroom. Your examples of poor social skills said more about you than about the children you were describing. Your readiness to call children weirdos is shit, frankly. And as for your 'professional' opinion (and how professionally you chose I express it!), it doesn't go further than 'home schooled kids are weird'. The contributions from teachers on the thread who now home educate (that's the term, BTW) are much more informed and thoughtful.

I suspect you don't actually know anything about educating outside the school system and are therefore utterly unqualified to judge any system of education except the one you know. Not that you are really trying to judge home education anyway; you're judging the children themselves, in much the same way that a bully would when faced with someone they neither understand nor like. The irony is, people like you are why a lot of these more unusual (and sometimes vulnerable/gifted children) are being home educated in the first place.

YANBU at all OP.

I could and would have moved to home education had my son not been allocated a place in a special school from Y8. His needs were absolutely NOT being met in mainstream school. This was not the fault of the teachers but rather the system they had to work within.

The latest announcements about acadamisation have only reassured me that I did the right thing in moving him.

We took our DCs out of school a year ago (they were 7 and 5) and haven't looked back. It wasn't for ideological reasons, it was in response to their unhappiness (both were struggling with teasing/bullying and the general overwhelm from being in a busy classroom all day - they probably both have ASD, like me).

Their mental health and their love of learning have both improved dramatically! But the more I read about all these policy changes the more I'm glad we HE. When we took them out it was a bit of a gut reaction to their distress and we initially said when we move in the next couple of years we'd put them into the schools there, but we are now definitely HEing for the whole of primary at least (unless they decide themselves that they'd like to try school again). They're happier, more enthusiastic, healthier, and have a far better social life than they ever did at school.

We are very lucky though to have a thriving HE community here, and I do think it's important to consider that as it must be a lot harder if there isn't that support network around, particularly if you have a DC who needs a lot of time to play with friends (DD does, DS isn't really fussed)

Always happy to PM about home ed if anyone wants a chat about it.

Needsasockamnesty I spent the better part of 6 months providing the Y3 teacher with evidence of a formal dx and various reports from OTs, Ed Psychs, CAMHs, SENCOs and private consultants specialising in neurology who all confirmed that DS1 was on the spectrum, had dyspraxia and also had 'absences' like fits which eventually became full-blown epilepsy. How she felt she knew more about his condition than they did was beyond me.

The very lowest day was when he came home crying and said "she makes me feel like I'm stupid, she put her nose on my nose and screamed in my face". For any child to experience those things is atrocious, for a child with ASD it was - if possible - worse. School has been somewhat of a challenge since; he believes he's stupid (he's actually exceptionally bright but has no self esteem) and I lay part of that firmly at her door. If you are a teacher who needs to scream into a child's face, you've lost the plot and should remove yourself from the room and ask another adult to step in til you're better equipped to cope.

Things like that are horridly things I hear lots, and 10 years ago was something a teacher said to me about one of my own children.

Well to be precise she said "I don't feel the need to give me any additional help. Well it's just ADHD yes I can see that but no he certainly hasn't got autism"

This about a child who is so impacted by his autism he now has a long term place at the most expensive related SN school in the UK on a 2:1/3:1 carer support who does not even have ADHD

I know some home edders and they are certainly different. But not I think in a negative way. They seem more mature than their peers, more able to lead or be part of a team, but a big thing is that they just seem really confident and happy, and really enthusiastic about learning.

The whole point of school is to mould young minds, and with a class of twenty, you do need them to sit down, shut up, and not question too much which I think is a shame, and does stifle learning. I briefly considered home edding but I don't have the confidence or the patience.

Fortunately DD is in her local awesome catchment school where they do lots of outdoor learning, lots of learning through play, lots of singing etc. She loves it! :)

DP and I try to expose her to homeschooled kids lots of different extra curricular things so that she doesn't get too moulded by her school experiences

I know quite a number of HEd children, and just as all children vary, so do they! The ones that have done the best are the ones that have highly educated, well-resourced parents, and the ones that have done the worst are those that were HEd for religious indoctrination.

That said, I would not HE my children because they absolutely love school, thankfully.

Their teachers seem happy, and work very hard, so we couldn't really ask for more.

NeedsAsock that is horrendous:(

We are home edding our children, the home school children I know are all lovely, insightful and social little things. Not 'weirdos'. quite frankly I think your post was awful and teachers like you are the reason lots if parents feel they can do a better job.

Teaching isn't just about qualifications, you are a prime example of that.

Sadly it's not an unusual occurance when you have a child with a disability or SN zoe

A friend of mine at the moment has a child on a reduced timetable he is in school for 5 hours a week and spends those 5 hours in the playground or being restrained by the teacher for saying "hello" to loudly.

She got told by the head that if she complained about the 5 hour thing they would report her to SS for EA, the SN caseworker has found him a better placement where he can go for more hours but the school are refusing to release his ECHP funding