to tell teacher friends to stop with the negativity over our decision to home educate?

[teaandaflorentineplease]

We’ve made the decision to home educate our child. Fulltime school isn’t right for our family, and I genuinely believe that play based, informal learning suits early childhood far better than sitting at desks from age five. I’d have been open to flexi-schooling if our local school allowed it, but they don’t so we’ve chosen home education.

What’s surprised me is the strength of the negative reaction from our teacher friends. These are people who regularly describe the state of education as dire. Dreadful behaviour, no funding, days spent on crowd control rather than actual teaching, children falling through the cracks, classrooms falling apart, pressure to hit their academies’ targets rather than do what’s best for the kids, they can’t even afford gluesticks. This insight into education from a teacher’s perspective has also informed my decision to home ed.

However when I said I was going to home educate, suddenly schools are wonderful and I’m making a terrible mistake. It started a few weeks ago when a teacher friend mentioned our children will be in the same class and since then the comments about how awful home ed is have kept coming. I’ve been shrugging it off to avoid an argument, but I’m getting increasingly frustrated. I’ve spent years validating how broken the system is, for both teachers and children, and yet the moment I choose to opt out of it, it becomes the only way to educate a child.

For context, my husband and I are both well-educated and take our child’s learning seriously. I feel comfortable teaching the early foundations like reading, writing and maths, and we plan to build projects around history, geography, science and whatever else our child shows an interest in. Beyond that, we haven’t planned anything because our child is still one. As we go through it, we’ll learn about what works for our family, and we’ll have seen how other home ed families approach things as children get older. We haven’t ruled out school further down the line either; it might turn out to be the right fit at some stage.

I’m not looking to convince anyone or get into a debate about home ed vs school. We’ve made our decision and we’re comfortable with it. I just find the contradiction so confusing and a bit hurtful. These are people who in some cases we’ve know for years, know how seriously we take our child’s wellbeing, and have spent years telling us the system is broken. I want to say firmly we’ve made a decision and we don’t want to hear anything else about it, but I also don’t want to lose long standing friends over it.

There’s a difference between teaching a classroom full of children and teaching one child. I would never never say I could saunter up to a Year 3 class and jump in. But it’s not disrespectful to a teacher that I think I could teach my my child.

Not all schools are as you’ve described! I’m a teacher of 20 years. Most schools are great. My kids are thriving at the local state primary, learning loads, the oldest has just got into grammar school, they have tons of friends, are part of a community and do loads of fabulous clubs and trips. I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

As it’s still far off I wouldn’t worry about trying to defend it. Just either bluntly say it’s not open to debate or smile and shrug it off.
You aren’t wrong, state schools are a crazy place! I worked within them for 10 years, the last couple were dire.
We have family members still working in education (primary and secondary). Two of them send their primary aged children to state schools and 2 of them pay for private schools, due to the smaller class sizes and more nurturing environments.
You may find by the time your little one is due to start school, flexi schooling is an option. I have friends whose children attend forest schools for home ed kids 2 days a week and their parents do normal lessons the rest of the time.
You will always have to justify your choice to home educate to people, it’s not going to stop sadly, so it will become the norm for you to just ignore it.

I think it is absolutely fair enough to say you don't want to spend the next however many years debating it, and you hope that your friends can accept that and continue being friends.

Two points, though:

1. 5 year olds do not sit at desks. They sometimes sit at a table for a short while to do an activity - which your child may also do at home. Be careful that you are not rejecting something without knowing quite what it is.

2. Your child is one. I'm not sure you can be certain what is right for your family at this point. (Indeed, unless you've decided on "one and done", you probably don't even know what your family will be in three years time.) We would have been willing to consider home-ed, but by the time our child was three, it was quite clear that it would not have been best for her. Whilst she learned lots at home with us, she wanted input from others. (I remember her asking her reception class teacher a question on arrival one morning; the teacher answered and turned to me to explain her answer. I explained that I knew and had told my daughter the same thing, but my daughter wasn't accepting it coming from me!) She thrived on being at school, and hated lockdown learning in a way we never expected. She learned better with the peer group around her, despite being a child who was quite happy with her own company in general.

The only people I know who HE have been forced to do so due to their child’s SEN. They hate it and would love nothing more than for their children to be able to be at school with friends. Choosing it blows my mind. Covid gave a glimpse into that - no thanks.

Both mine are social and like to fit in with the crowd. They would have absolutely hated HE stuck with me all the time or at groups with me there looking on. It’s just not the same. Schools aren’t perfect but most primaries are pretty play centred in the early years.

I think the post about hovering around the tall slide and carrying her over stepping stones is very interesting. You say you've learned from that but you're doing the same thing all over again, trying to protect her from school because you think it'll be bad for her.

You discovered she loved stepping stones and slides. You'll probably discover she'll thrive in school.

All UK state schools follow the National Curriculum which stops being primarily play based after reception. So they aren't what OP wants for her DC and aren't in line with International school systems that do better with the primary age range.

Is it a great lifestyle for your wee one?

If more than one friend repeatedly saying this do you think there may be more to it. It’s easier for them to say they don’t agree with home education generally rather than raise specific you based concerns eg you are bad at maths, socially awkward etc. I see some pro home education posts on instagram where they can’t spell or poor grammar - should have, your/you’re, to/too etc and cringe. If a friend was talking about home education and I had concerns re their ability I’d probably opt for a safer general comment than a personal to you one.

What source are you hoping for?

Bit it is really concerning that OP has needed nursery to open her eyes to the - very obvious - things her child might like and how to enjoy them.

Without similar input from experts in school-age children, what avenues is OP never going to know about?

Most good primaries I know do a lot of continuous provision in year 1. Just saying to the OP that not all schools are awful like she suggests and that most kids get huge benefits from schools. As I’m lucky enough to be a teacher her, I also get 3 months holiday a year to be with my kids and do all the wonderful education and fun stuff she describes on top of traditional schooling.

Many international school systems have something in place for 6 year olds which most children will be for at least part of Y1.

I think also people who are determined at a certain lifestyle when their only child is 1 do often end up changing their mind. You might have a second child who has additional needs, or spontaneous triplets, or your husband could lose his job or become unwell or anything really. So probably useful not to become too invested in only one acceptable option and stay open to lots of possibilities.

Your child is one. How on earth can you know whether or not they will be more suited to homeschooling or classroom learning? What does 'not right for our family' mean, when the member of the family this concerns is still a small baby, and by the time they are at school there will maybe be other new members with different needs? I think YABU to have made this decision now and will likely look foolish in a few years when you realise your child, like the vast vast majority of children, will enjoy and thrive in a structured environment with the company of their peers.

Your child is one.

Fetches popcorn, we are in for a long thread….🍿

Do you work? If not do you think this is just an excuse to not work? Your child might thrive at school. Give it a chance and then see what happens.

I send mine to our local state primary, one is about to head off to grammar school however I wouldn’t say they have thrived because of the school, they have thrived because of their friendship choices and support from us as a family
I have had my children come home and tell me about children fighting, not doing set work, having extra break times because a child in the class is throwing furniture so it wasn’t safe to be in class etc
My child that is due to leave hasn’t really done any work in the last 2 years, he completes his work and then helps others. When I asked the teacher if they could set extra tasks/harder work they explained that in the class they had children working at a year 2/3 level, children working at expected (year 5/6)and children like mine who could be working at a year 7/8 level, that it was impossible to cater to everyone as there was no TA due to budget constraints, so there was no time to set extra work or explain it.
We’ve had to supply an equipment list the last few years to include colouring pencils, glue stick, rulers etc because the school has no extra money for supplies.
The school they attend is not particularly in a deprived area, it’s fairly close to hospitals etc so lots of professional families live near by.
Schools are not the same places since Covid, that seems to be the general consensus from the family/friends I have still working in education.

I really hope the OP is reading this thread and taking note but from the tone of her posts I doubt it.

It’s so grating when people say “oh we don’t think it’s right for our family”. Your child is one! They can’t even talk yet so how on earth could you know this? Incredibly PFB and really misguided.

Your child still takes naps and can’t talk, can barely walk at this point maybe. When you have a jabbering 4 year old with their own mind and possibly another child come back and tell us how it’s going.

I was fortunate to be able to spend six years as a stay at home mum until my youngest started reception. I learnt a lot about children’s learning when my kids attended state nursery three hours a day for the first year of the Foundation stage. Reception was a step up, but they coped and thrived. Their social life took off and so did mine.

DH and I are both well educated, but I left the children’s education to the experts, and kept a close interest in the schools - between us, DH and I covered governors and the PTA. I remain impressed that whilst waiting for my year 10 DD outside school one day, the head was on gate duty and knew most of the kids by name (and not just the naughty ones).

For me, the most important time with my children was the early years, and then being around when they got home from school. Returning to work gave me a broader outlook on life.

Through my work in higher education I came across a fair number of home educated kids, and they always stood out.

What your friends are probably finding difficult is your obduracy in deciding at this very early stage that home education is the best option, whilst simultaneously saying their decision is shit.

@teaandaflorentineplease how will you meet those needs when your child leaves nursery? They can do all that at school, but if your child isn’t at school, who will do the outdoor stuff?

I think it's entirely up to you and it sounds like you've thought about it a lot and are likely in a position to give your child a good home education. Just make sure you keep an open mind as your child may be more suited to a school environment than you think. I would just ignore your friends, or if pushed just say you're considering your options.

Personally I would have hated my DC to have missed KS1, especially reception year where it was basically playing based learning and socialising. Having said that he goes to a small school with a lot of stuff going on. I do think schools generally are embracing outdoor stuff more now with forest and beach schools. High school is where I'm considering home ed as I really don't agree with a lot of the crap that comes with high school, but we will see.

Baffling that you’d spend the formative years away from your child, when it’s proven to be beneficial for children to have 1:1 parental attachment 24/7 (non judgemental as I’m a nursery mum but just factual) to fund them being with you when it is less crucial?

Unfortunately MN is very anti home educating - despite you clearly articulating your feelings about your decision and being open minded about school in the future, you still have received a pile on from these numpties who can't comprehend that you're doing what's you feel best is for your child.

My baby isn't even born and we've decided to Home Ed - unless things drastically change, school is a last resort for us. People that say home ed is bad simply don't understand home ed and more than likely had a blast at school themselves.

@teaandaflorentineplease you would have assumed your child would get unwell if you went out in the cold and rain? And you’ve needed a nursery to tell you that’s not the case? Did you have a very restrictive upbringing OP? Because surely everyone knows that kids jump in puddles, fall in streams, play in mud, make snow angels, roll down muddy hills, climb trees, dangle from climbing frames, build dens in the rain, pick up slugs etc etc. It’s what they do, and we as parents have to stand by and let them learn. We don’t need a nursery to tell us this.