to pull my 6 year old out of school just because she wants to be home educated?

[HomeEduDilemma]

Me and DH are not in agreement over this and I am feeling really stuck about it!

Our 9 year old (autistic) came out of school last year and is now home educated. He couldn't cope in mainstream school and we are all in agreement that home ed is the best thing for him.

Our almost 6 year old absolutely thrived in Reception last year academically and socially. She's very attached to me and would love to stay with me, but also enjoys school.

However, now she knows her brother is staying at home all day, she is miserable about going back to school. She's loved meeting up with other home ed kids over the summer and is in tears about school starting again.

I feel like she is only little once and I am at home anyway, so why not home educate her too? I'm sure she would continue doing really well academically with 1:1 attention (both kids very bright/academic).

DH feels like school should be the default and there is no real reason to keep her home. Plus as siblings they often bicker and fight and DS will suffer not getting 100% of my attention.

AIBU? So unsure about what to do for the best.

You’re at work all weekend so I can see why she wants week time with you.

I know it’s a long way off but if you HE her all the way through primary and secondary, you will have to pay for her exams, find a school that would allow her to take the exams (hard to find - when I resat my maths, only a private school would accept me and it cost £50 which was 11yrs ago for 1 subject) imagine the cost for 8-9 subjects?
You may think, i’ll put her into a school for year 10 onwards- may be difficult to find your preferred school has a place. I’m an ex admissions officer and some schools are reluctant to take children for exam years if they haven’t been in school (illegal I know!)
I also think that the stress HE two children with different needs could be a real problem.
Additionally as your daughter is only 6, she will be Key stage 1 so they can only take 30 children maximum by law. Say you take your daughter out and then a few weeks later she wants to go back to school or you are struggling with home schooling 2 kids, her place may have been allocated to another children and then you have the problem of finding an alternative school which could be miles away and a worse school/ different uniform so costs/ having to make new friends.
There are many implications to this decision.
Personally, I think your husband is right in this situation.

I would never do that
the academic part of school is just one element
school is where friendships develop
where kids learn to socialise. Deal with conflict and disagreements
where they learn to respect rules

I would send her back. It's different for your son because of his autism, but generally, a large part of school is learning to socialise and work with other people, which is invaluable for later life, so your daughter will miss out on that if you home-school her. I get it - my kids would kick off if for one reason I was keeping one at home and sending the other to school and I'd definitely be accused of favouring the home schooled one - but that's absolutely not what's actually happening. Sending your daughter to school is in both her long-term and short-term best interests, although of course she's too young to understand that for herself.

This.

I'm sorry, OP, but I think your motivations are a bit confused.

She's thriving in a very good school, but you want to remove her, to homeschool her with her autistic brother who is thriving with one-one attention.

The person I can see as benefiting from this is you, not either child, as you seem to feel guilty about the amount of time you get to spend with your son as he is home schooled and you get very little equivalent time with your daughter as you work weekends.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but as someone working in education, with knowledge of children with autism, I can't see how your proposal is beneficial to either child.

I would focus on trying to find a solution to the problem of not having enough quality time with your daughter, whether that is one to one time after school or the bigger change of looking at your working pattern, which does create this inequitable situation about your time regarding each child. Could you work Fridays and Saturdays, say, with the children's dad working from home and supervising son? It must be hard for you all if you work Saturdays and Sundays, but especially for your daughter and you.

You don’t need to have a set reason to home educate. Of course many find themselves doing it due to SEN or bullying or other reasons but many of us choose to go down this route simply because we want to.

You could deregister and see how it goes, school isn’t going anywhere she can always go back at a later point.

The best way of meeting her needs is for her to go to normal school. The best way of meeting her brother's needs looks different. That might be a difficult lesson to understand at 6 but it's a valuable one. Can you put aside an hour every day after school for you and her to do special things just the two of you, or 'extra lessons'? It will be very important for her to get some time with your undivided attention.

It's a bit odd because when you post facts about both your DCs, their needs, the structure of the day, etc - it's patently obvious that pulling your DD out of school would disadvantage both your DCs. Yet it's equally obvious that you're wanting to argue for that to happen. It's as though you don't really read your own posts.

Anyway it's ridiculous to pretend that a 6-yr-old can make a decision about being home educated. She has no idea about the social benefits of school, about the qualifications and training teachers have, about the resources available, etc. Basically she doesn't want to be 'home educated', she wants to be at home. Probably because her brother is. That's completely different and has nothing to do with home educating.

Presumably by then the brother will be older as well and arts and crafts and fun trips will have shifted to a more work based system for him to.

Although, even at year 3 and 4 they're not doing more than a couple of hours hard graft a day really. So, even working 9am-12pm everyday would allow for trips out etc.

I also don't think the OP should homeschool her DD, but if she does I don't think time to fit the lessons.in.eill.be the issue.

But when she gets older, that is nowhere near enough time, whereas it sounds like your son might not be able to manage longer bursts. It sounds like he is benefiting from this but I’m concerned that you think “15-20 minutes a day” of maths and literacy is sustainable long term for a NT child.

@NuffSaidSam

Does school mimic wider society and the workplace?

Seeing the same 29 other children everyday. Grouped together based on being the same age and living in the same local area? I'm not sure there are many workplaces like that either!

Well it depends on the workplace and the school. Some industries are like that, others aren't.

But the point is school (among many other things) teaches people about dealing with life situations that are imperfect and which they wouldn't necessarily have chosen. It teaches you to try learn to do things you're not overly interested in. It teaches you to apply yourself when you don't feel like it. It teaches you to rub along with people with whom you have very little in common and whom you wouldn't have chosen as friends. It teaches you, sometimes, to suck up things you don't like. And how to find, amid a sea of confusing and boring stuff, what really floats your boat.

Home ed is usually much more "child centred". For good reason, because many if not most children who are HE have SEN or other learning or social challenges and can't make the accommodations needed to attend school without significant personal cost. These people are always going to struggle with the demands of a consensual, market-driven society and its better for them to find enrichment in a supportive environment which allows them to learn at their pace. But the output of that is a group of people who adhere to a certain ethos about schooling which bears little resemblance to the demands of most workplaces. Anecdotally, an awful lot of HE is about working within what the child wants to do, playing to the child's strengths, finding things which are "fun" and "educational" but with little emphasis on structure or formal learning.

That's entirely understandable given the limitations of many children in HE but it is simply not appropriate for the majority of children to grow up learning that the world will adapt itself to their interests and passions and that everything and everyone will always be supportive and will work at their pace.

Home ed takes a lot less time than school ed so it's not really comparable - for example a maths lesson that would take an hour in school with 30 children, we can easily cover the same lesson in 20 minutes at home. And that's for year 5/6.

I really don’t mean to sound harsh, but I just think it sounds like you have a lovely set up for your son, and two children with very different needs - and that difference may even widen as they grow - and I’m not sure how you could be sure that you’d be able to give your daughter adequate time of “proper lessons” whilst also making sure that your son has his needs met.

Is there any way you can change your working pattern so you are at home one weekend day, and can do fun stuff with your DD then?

Good Lord

In terms of formal learning, that's certainly enough for at least the primary curriculum.

OP why did you post if you are so sure you're right?

Ok, well we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one. Good luck with whatever you choose.

Lots if kids don’t want to go back, she will be fine when she’s there.

It baffles me that you can't see that your DD just doesn't want to summer holidays to end because it's been fun!

I agree with this. You're driven by guilt. There are many reasons PPs have given why your idea is not a good one, and there doesn't seem to be a strong argument in your favour but you're digging yoir heels in. I think there are other solutions to quality time with yoir DD that will also given her wider access to all the social as well as educational benefits of going to school.

Sure I'm right about what?

She’s 6, she has FOMO, I agree with your husband, school is the default. I wouldn’t even entertain a discussion with her about it

@HomeEduDilemma I wouldn’t try to explain how you home ed. it will never be good enough for many on here even though you know it is working for your child.

I'm not sure they're all good things to learn tbh! Why would we want to teach children to learn things they're not interested in day in and day out for 13 years?! Obviously, you need to learn certain things you're not interested in and I'm sure that is easily covered in homeschooling because that's life and homeschooled kids are still living in the world. I'm not sure there isn't value in teaching kids to pursue things they're interested in and to discard things they're not interested in, because actually that's what happens in adult life isn't it? You don't continue on with stuff you don't like, you pursue a career, hobbies and friendships based on your interests.