AIBU to ask for your opinions on home education?

[MooMooTheFirst]

For background-

I am a primary school teacher that currently teaches nursery and have felt increasingly uneasy about the school system in the UK over the past few years. I've got a 13 month old DS. I am confident I can deliver education at primary level up to year six.

The idea of home education has always seemed 'other' to me but I am slowly starting to feel like it would be right for us.

This isn't a goady post, genuinely looking for a variety of opinions.

Ummmmgogo - what's posh about working all over the world ???!!!! How absolutely bizarre! No my children haven't mixed with people on benefits because where we have lived nothing as privileged exists. Yes to refugees as I am a health worker and that is why we travel - to some of the poorest places on the planet. And they have certainly mixed with people that have been incarcerated.
Just out of interest I attended several school and never met a refugee / someone on benefits or the child of a prisoner !

Oh and fwiw I am a lone parent and my three closest HE friends are too.

and for the last time, the OP ASKED for opinions of home ed. not everyone considers it to be 100% positive so there will be a diverse range of opinions on the thread.

If you feel your child is adequately socialise you don't have to convince me, I'm happy to be wrong.

If your child got bullied or has sen I can fully see that home ed could be the best option, but I'm afraid that nothing that has been said on this thread so far has convinced me that it is the best option for your average nt child.

I have really enjoyed this debate thank you all.

working all over the world is posh! posher than being a postman cleaner, checkout operator, shelf stacked, bin man etc surely???

I was in the army and posted to Cyprus and Germany and all over the UK. I mainly typed reports, tidied up offices and made cups of tea for offices full of other soldiers. Am I posh because I did those things in another country? Who knew?!

Maybe because I am not English I am missunderstanding what you mean by posh. It just sounds so funny to be called posh.
If you could see my working environment assisting with the most disadvantaged and desperate people in the most basic and dire conditions I don't think you would lable me posh !

My schooled children go to clubs and have plenty of friends there.

But when you're at school and spend hours in the classroom with the same children but only 15 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at lunchtime (assuming the same length break times at my youngests school) then there's not much time to get to know other kids, you're more likely to gravitate to those you already know - unless you play football. And that's what I found working at the school too. The majority of children played with classmates or those from the same year group.

I have no problem with schools, for the majority of my children it's been great, but HEing is definitely right for my son, and it definitely hasn't limited his socialisation, he's so much happier and in fact far more social now.

antiope perhaps if you socialised with a more diverse range of people, you would be aware that different people consider different things posh!!! 😂😂

pilot English people are funny about class. it would depend on what your job was and house looked like whether I would consider you posh, not your working conditions. if you are a doctor, then yes you are posh lol xxx

So could you explain, Ummmgogo, why being a private in the army is posher than being a postman? Because I have to say I don't follow your reasoning at all.

Well you've no clue to my background but you've made constant assumptions throughout this thread so don't stop now

cory

I think they were saying that this is what happens at school, not outside school. It is rare to find a school that encourages children from all years to study and work together, they are grouped into years, sometimes even during breaks, free times and one off activities.
There is no denying that both groups have friends outside school, attending varying activities.

ok those two are equal.

but in general if you have a job that involves travel you are likely to be more privelidged than someone who's job involves staying in one place?

and you are more likely to get good well paying job that involves travel if you are posh already?

antiope, I haven't i have spoken about home ed very generally until you kept trying to say but what about me I'm different!

this is supposed to be a general debate, I'm not trying to talk about your background. xx

Yes, gillybeanz, but in that case why does it matter so much what happens during the hours that the child is at school, if the overall experience is a varied and diverse one?

Isn't that what the HE'ders here are talking about (and with justice): their child's overall experience, not what may be happening in this or that group or this or that part of their day?

until you kept trying to say but what about me I'm different!

I did no such thing. All the home ed people on here are saying the same thing. You're just ignoring any information that doesn't fit your ill informed and limited views.

read your posts again, then maybe you will see it.

you can't just call views you don't agree with illformed and limited I'm afraid.

it's a bit late, shall we agree to disagree?

cory

I agree, not sure why I sounded like I didn't

What i do find interesting is that generalisations don't work for either group as schools aren't all the same and parents ways of H.ed are different.
For us it was supposed to be a long term arrangement, but dd fell in love with her present school and is thriving.
I would H.ed again if this doesn't work out for her, although I can't see that happening.
There are so many reasons why a child/parent might decide to be H.ed it's not something that can be general.

Sounds like we agree about pretty well everything gillybeanz

you can't just call views you don't agree with illformed and limited I'm afraid.

I can, if they are. All part of the debate. You stated opinions that had no basis in fact for me and many others on this thread. People refuted them and tried to give you more information. You ignored or were dismissive towards most of the information you were given and carried on stating your opinions as fact. I'm happy to agree to disagree, however if you post "I am right!" about other people's lives and then ignore anything they say to correct your assumptions about them, you must expect to be challenged and not stamp your feet about people not accepting differences of opinion. Opinion is fine, statements of fact regarding MY life, not fine.

Night

I didn't realise things would get quite so heated

It's been extremely valuable to hear all your opinions, and lots of interesting points have been made. Certainly some that have made me question my motives, for example people bringing up the idea that some home edders do so to control/keep their DC close.

I think the basis of my desire to consider it is definitely that I feel education is a one size fits all thing at the moment, regardless of how hard the teacher tries (and I try very hard.) I also feel that it is heading back towards being very formal and that's not what I want for my child.

I very much see the value in formal learning and qualifications, but certainly not at primary level. I see huge value in a forest school type education when young, and experiential learning, although like I said if I were to do it there would be structure to the day and content taught.

It is something I have considered.

I wonder though if it is doable with two children of different ages, requirements, interests and needs.

I'm always baffled by people holding school up as the gold standard of socialisation for children.
Again, I'm not saying school is wrong and HE is right, like I've said before, it's down to the child. I actually don't like HEing my boys, but at the same time I can see that for the moment it's the best thing for them.
Going by my years at school (up to A level), by ds1's years (up to year 10) and ds2 (up to year 7), socialisation at school is ok if you're one of the ones whose faces fit, but at the same time, I struggle to see it as wholly positive because there's the clique aspect, the hierarchy aspect which encourages bullying, and I have yet to set foot in a school that can adequately manage this. There is the queen bee behaviour, from both boys and girls, which, unchecked carries on into secondary where, despite assurances that a school may be nurturing, it's not, and if you're not one of the "right" people, you grow up knowing that your place is at the bottom of the heap, maybe because you're a bit different, maybe because you have ginger hair, or are fat, or thick, or swotty.
School for me and ds1 was dreadful, and became about survival, there was no diversity, and actually, any diversity that there was tended to be more isolated and stuck in outlier groups, joining the ranks of those who were surviving.
For ds2, school was also about survival, but his methods were to join the gang of boys who were constantly in trouble, the ones whose life trajectory doesn't look good. Ds2 took matters into his own hands in the end by being unable to attend school due to high anxiety levels, but at that point, we were concerned about the friends he was making in school and where that might lead him.
Whatever anyone's opinion of HE, I do think it's about time we stopped making school out to be the pinnacle of social experiences, because arguably, even for those who are popular and enjoy school, it doesn't encourage healthy social roles at all.

I've got at least 5 years @moomoothefirst before I start making decisions on schools, but I share your views in formal education.

That said, I don't think home Ed would be my first choice. Quite apart from my total lack of desire and skill to teach...Nothing I've read here makes me shake my perception that you're exposed to a narrower social experience through home ed.

I sense my own experiences are probably the outlier, but I had a happy middle class upbringing. Through school I met children whose context and experience was very different to mine, and I really learnt from that. Despite our different situations we all were part of the same school group. It was a leveller. thirty years later I can still remember at primary school a girl telling me her single mum had £100 a week for their family. I thought that was so much, of course she knew better. It was important that she was another child like me, not some distant idea of poverty. I doubt that you will meet children like that in self selecting groups, because their parents often do not have the capacity/ time/ money to get them there. There is no way I would have known of her experience had I not been in school

This was important for a child like me, who lived in a fairly happy bubble but was observant enough to realise that people have different advantages. It would have been a bad idea to put me into a private school for the same reasons. I also found it really valuable to learn how to deal with people I didn't like, and how to retain my identity in the face of the great school conform project. As an adult I construct my bubble and have a nice life, but I'm also able to be not awkward and weird round people who think I'm posh and weird :D . I was posh, clever and picked on at secondary school. In my life I need to be able to co-exist with people who aren't like me and the skills I got through school are useful. I was used to being treated like an adult, so learning to deal with mindless rules was also a good life skill. Sooner or later you are going to encounter stupid rules, having the ability to not be totally enraged by them is very helpful. Every kid is different but it's something I really value.

It does mean I've no idea what option for me when it comes to education though... perhaps things will improve in 5 years...

It is always interesting to me just how many teachers home ed. Not because they have training, but because their knowledge of the school system makes them choose something different. Dh and I are both secondary trained, and definitely agree that HE is the better option for our family. If anything, he is more pro than I am, but then I am more introverted and struggle more with the lack of headspace.

Of course there are downsides, there are to everything. I was worried that I would go slowly mad without the odd burst of quiet, but actually I get a lot. They are so much calmer and happier to crack on and get into something now the worry of school and preschool has gone that I often find myself at a loose end with a cup of tea.

As for socialising, funnily enough groups don't work for us. In that sort of setting with lots of adults around both kids shrink and don't leave my side. Set up camp at the beach, park, forest, farm park type thing and within minutes they have disappeared and found some playmates and are gone for hours.

They're only 7 and 5 at the moment, so no need for formal stuff really tbh. On the subject of keeping them close I do think there is a lot to be said for their primary attachment being the home against peers for longer than is the norm at the moment. Have a read of "Hold onto your kids" by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate OP, it may put your mind to rest a little on that.

I'm not sure anyone has said that school is gold standard for socialisation. Neither are a lot of HE set ups terrific for socialisation, though.

That Hold onto your kids book scared the holy bejeezus out of me, tbh. Because like I said, I pointedly do not want to be the dominant influence on my children.