To consider homeschooling DD from ages 5-7? School sounds horrific right now!

[Absofrigginlootly]

Yes yes I know there is a homeschooling section of MN, but I'm watching a current thread very similar to what I want to ask and it's not very active right now so thought I would try here for more traffic. So shoot me

Aaaaaaanyway, DD only 18 months old so we have a while to decide but I'm very curious to hear from parents of children currently started school/in lower primary, teachers and other home educations parents.

I keep hearing about how schools and pupils are buckling under all this SATS pressure/under funding etc, and have read quite a bit about the advantages of delaying formal schooling until aged 7.

I am a SAHM and DH earns a good wage so that's not an issue. I'm educated to postgrad level although zero experience of teaching. Have no plans to send DD to preschool, so she wouldn't be starting school until 5 years at the earliest (Autumn baby).

DH is not convinced and tbh I need to find out more before I can make a decision....but where to start? Google is not very helpful.

Any advice or suggestions most welcome :)

I'm a teacher and whilst the pressure on us is currently immense this doesn't leak through to the children especially at the age you are talking about. Tests at a young age are done in a way in which children don't know it's a big test as such apart from in year 6 when in my opinion they need to be starting to prepare for more stressful secondary school.
I think the benefits of children interacting with their class and other parts of school life are invaluable learning experience. Having said that I can see why you might be feeling the way you do. When the time comes, visit some schools and you'll see that on the whole children will be enjoying themselves :)

Go and look at the schools. I remember struggling with the thought of it and my eldest was very mummyfied, we found a very nurturing nursary attached to a first school so the transition was very easy, plus the fact that the staff were amazing. Our youngest is in reception and I think sometimes he struggles as he's one of the youngest but he really loves school and adores his teacher. It's hard letting them go but so worth it for broadening their horizons and all the social opportunities imo. Good luck!

We HE and my DC are absolutely thriving.

For us, it was about being able to offer a truely personalised academic, social and emotional experience for our children and we couldn't be happier with how everything is going for all DC.

To be fair, you did mention in your OP that you wanted a balance of opinions and a lot of the perception of HE is still fairly laughable (in particular from those with very little experience or knowledge of it) so my advice to you is to find out about how HE really is through real experience as opposed to google - connecting through the vast network of HEr's though facebook would be a good start.

In reposne to your OP, I think any decision that you make a parent is best taken based upon what is best for your child/ren and your family!

I felt a bit like you when dd1 was that age, but both children (5 and 7) went to preschool from 3-ish, and love school.

Full disclosure; we switched from state to private, and it has been great, especially for one of our children, who is quite dreamy and has really benefitted from the smaller class and extra attention. I did feel that the (small and severely overcrowded) local school wasn't a great atmosphere for her because of her tendency to drift off a bit, although our other child is more on it and would probably be fine in either environment. If our local state school was a bit less constrained in terms of space (it's a very old building accommodating nearly three times e number of children it was built for) I would probably have given it a bit longer, because the teachers there are lovely.

Home education is a fantastic option though, especially if a lot of parents around you do it - you can form great networks of motivated and engaged parents and children, and the myths of loneliness and socially maladjusted children really don't apply. There's a lot of hand-wringing on Mumsnet about home ed, but if it suits your family then it's certainly something to explore.