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.

How silly to be pontificating on this for a one year old. If U knew you IRL I'd think you were a bit of an eejit TBH.

I can't imagine not getting a break from my kids while they were at school TBH.

I have visions of the future kid living at home, age 30, unable to work because they have off the charts social anxiety due to stunted social interaction in their formative years TBH.

unsurprised that people are responding negatively.

Whatevs, it’s just a simplistic view and none of your business even it it is true. She can do whatever she wants in fact.

Is this a problem though? Being in a group of same age peers is something that only happens in FT education. It's not like that in work or any other environment I can think of (and when I did A levels, my class sizes were 2, 4 and 5 - state comp). Being in a mixed age group is what will be the norm for most of people's lives. I have people I consider friends who are 20+ years either side of my age.

Yes school based education is problematic. But so is home schooling. Different problems to each. So quite natural for teachers to moan about school but also see many problems with home ed.

There are plenty of kids with this problem precisely because they did go to school and shouldn’t have. Many ND kids being diagnosed and really struggling and the fact is no one knows if their child will be ND or not. It’s actually not about you getting a break from your child. It’s for their education. School aren’t babysitters.

What? Why are school staff not employable elsewhere?

It is hypocritical of them, but perhaps unsurprising. They've been taught (and probably believe) that the quality of education teachers offer is better than what a parent can offer. In some cases, they'd be correct, but not in all. Either way, it's not their choice to make.

I'd tell your teacher friends that you've given this a lot of thought and will continue to do so, but regardless of what you and your husband decide is best for your family, you hope and expect that your friends will respect you enough to stop making negative comments about HE. They've made their points. You've heard them. Now they should accept that it's up to you, and at the moment you no longer require their advice on this matter.

Do you think that parents don’t speak to their children after school? Are you thinking of boarding school?!

Most parents will read books, teach reading, writing, maths, science, art, etc., outside of school.

It’s pretty much the bulk of what parents do. We listen, read, do activities, do all the fun stuff they want to learn about, and learn it ourselves in the process. You sound very narrow minded.

Just my opinion but when COVID hit, I found home education very, very difficult. My children weren't motivated. Home is home and all that. They'll happily do homework but would never in a million years do a school day at home.

What about friendships? Yes, you can have meet ups with other HE students but it's not the same as finding your own people at school.

The early primary years of education might just about be doable but all I can say is that I struggled to teach my child during COVID (she was primary-school age at that time and the work school sent home to complete was very challenging, particularly the maths). I thought I'd make a good teacher until COVID taught me otherwise.

Don't underestimate the workload when your child reaches secondary school age. I don't see how one person is able to teach: Maths, English Language, English Literature, History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Physical Education, Religious Studies, Cookery, Sex Education, IT.....the list goes on. The GCSE exam papers for those core subjects are extremely difficult. My advice would be to download a few from the relevant exam board to see if you genuinely feel you are able to teach this content as this is what you're essentially building up to.

@Snowdropsaremyfavourite i would have found it difficult as well but i do think home ed (as opposed to homeschooling) is different.

Re GCSEs, yes and no. For one thing, the OPs child may be in school by that point, or have tutors. Which is probably more purposeful than what’s offered in some schools, especially for shortage subjects.

I also don’t really understand the insistence it’s silly to make this decision when the child is one (I don’t mean you @Snowdropsaremyfavourite just generally) - people have to decide these things early often because of finances, work etc. I doubt anyone would be challenging the OP if she’d said that she had decided to send her child to private school, for example.

I wouldn’t home educate myself and am happy (at the moment) with my sons state school experience, but I do recognise the advantages of home ed and the drawbacks of school.

I hear all the talk of state schools being in dire st

Thanks, I also don’t understand the insistence that I’ll silly to have a plan for my child’s education before it happens. Like you said if I’d decided on an independent school, or has started attending church to attend a specific faith school or bought a house in a catchment of a desirable school, people wouldn’t be saying that I was silly for thinking about schools.

Our decision to HE will mean I will leave my job and given we know that, it makes sense to change how we approaching our financial situation, including with my pension in particular.

More of a general point than to you, but I have been asked why it’s me giving up my job. I’m fortunate that in my role I can apply for a long sabbatical so don’t have to resign for the first year (possibly two or longer depending on if I can get an extension). I can try HE without officially resigning though I’ll be on zero pay. My career would also be easier to reenter than my husband’s. We did consider us both part time but his role won’t let him reduce down to lower than a four day week and my role wouldn’t let me do a one day week. If it comes to me getting to the end of sabbaticals and resigning, we’ll try to cobble together AL (paid and unpaid) and unpaid parental leave for DH so I can work for 2/3 months so I have the opportunity to gain the most recent experience I can, and at that time DH can assess PT options then to see if a split between us is possible years in the future.

….dire straits but my 3 children are thriving in our local state primary (and one has SEN). Not to say there aren’t real issues of course, but your teacher friends will naturally be letting off steam and focusing on the negatives, and you seem very black and white in your thinking about this. Given your child is still so young, maybe keep the conversation to ‘we’ll look at all options and have an open mind about it, haven’t decided yet’ rather than saying you’re definitely home educating and inviting their opinions. I’m all for home ed done well, just don’t think it’s impossible for a child to have a good education any other way, as it just isn’t true.

Sounds like a TERRIBLE idea. Your child is 1. You don’t know what sort of 4 year old your child would be. Home educating is great for extremely introverted children but it performative cruelty for outgoing children.

Sounds like you’ve decided home education is best for you, without giving the slightest thought about what’s good for your child.

If I were your teacher friends I’d think you were being a selfish idiot too.

I know some are passionate about it but I can see why you are getting the reaction you are. Maybe when they are early primary it would be ok but how on earth do you recreate the teen years at home without a deep pool of peers?

For my teens their friendship groups are the most important thing in their lives. How would it work? Mine would absolutely hate not being in school. After Covid when they were early secondary they were desperate to get back to see their friends. We were in France when the rules changed and risked 2 weeks quarantine so missing start of school return both were in tears.

If you got it wrong about playing outside, how can you be sure that you can make other choices correctly? It's sounds like you are anxious about your child and it's translated into school not being the right choice, despite them only being one and too young to actually make a decision on it.

They get so much more from school than just the academic side, and the downsides are far outweighed by the upsides for most children. Would I prefer my Y2 had more play? Yes, but they learn so much at school, academically and how to play with others and listen to their teachers. You would also struggle if you have another baby, because you can't centre everything on one child's wants and needs if you have another.

I can see how home educating can be the right choice if the children have SEN, that doesn't mean the upsides outweighs the downsides if not.

Think about the future - secondary school, exams, university if that is right for them - could you afford it on one wage? Can you actually get back into your career if you take two, five, ten years out? They get more expensive as they get bigger. Also, think about the expensive of home educating - groups, transport, day trips out, books, courses all cost money. If I wanted to take my youngest to a home ed group locally, I wouldn't get much change from £20 and that's just for a morning out.

Why on earth would I want to home educate a child against their best interests? I’ve said on several posts I’m not opposed to schools and while I haven’t mapped out 12 education plan for a one year old, we’re not opposed to schools in the future and are open to them. The part of childhood we believe in HE for is the early school years, which stop being play based after reception. We believe that play while young is essential and moving to more formal education later is better for children, as is common in countries with better education and mental health outcomes than ours.

Socialising is a huge part of HE and one I’ll take very seriously. There was a poster upthread whose name I’ve sadly forgotten who had to take her daughter out of school for two years because of the bullying and she said that her child’s social life was never better than in those two years. That’s exactly what I’ll be planning for with my child.

Aside from the fact that I place my child first in everything, what would be in it for me to home educate if I don’t believe it to be in my child’s best interests? It would be harder work, more intense, and more all consuming than my current out of the home job, and we’ll be financially worse off after losing my salary. It won’t be drifting around the park saying that I’ve done maths lesson because I let my child hand over some money, and then back home to draw pictures in the afternoon.

I wouldn’t dream of saying that people who send their children to Year 1 at the typical state school, or more academic private schools are selfish idiots who haven’t given a thought about what’s best for their child. I assume that they have, and have come up with a different answer to me.

I don't really understand why you're posting to be honest. HE your kid, don't HE your kid. You have decided to do so and you've said you aren't not posting here for opinions. What do you want people to say? Your friends are probably bored of hearing about these plans for a child still in nappies. Just stop talking about it?!

About "play based" being better from year 1 - when your child is only 1yo, it's really hard to imagine them being 5. My dd is 5... Her teacher described her as "a knowledge sponge" because she's so keen at carpet time. She actually loves sitting down listening and watching and gets really excited when she comes home to tell me about some scientific explosion she got shown, or a fact she got told, etc. Kids grow up a lot from reception to year 1 and no longer want to zoom around between mud kitchen and climbing frame all day. They still get to do that at playtimes of course. But they also enjoy sitting and writing in their exercise book, or carpet time and listening, etc. A lot of children really benefit from calm, seated, structured learning rather than what you call play based.

You can't imagine this yet as your child is only 1.

Yes sadly no one e cares really they care about their own kids. Who will be at school making friends and developing. Yes school is not perfect but going straight to HE for a NT child is throwing the baby out with the bath water imo.

I haven’t planned anything beyond the early primary years because there are too many unknowns beyond that. I’m open to schools in the future. When my child is older primary I’ll have much more of an idea of how HE is going, how it’s suiting and what other HE families in our area do and how it works for them and whether I think that would work for our family. Our local primary seems fine (if not remarkable) for upper primary, and I think I would want to have ant least a year ant primary if we decide on sending to school for secondary. Our local secondaries are terrible. That could all change though, because until the last ten years ago, the secondaries were very good. We have a couple of grammar schools, but obviously at one I don’t know if my child would suit a grammar school. We have non-selective independent schools, which would be a stretch but affordable if I returned to work. But independent education has outstripped inflation for years, and because of falling birth rates/COL/VAT there’s pressure on that sector so no way to know if they would exist or be affordable in ten years time.

That’s a lot of words to say we don’t know but will be open to anything and will choose what we think is in our child’s best interests at every stage. If we do HE a teen, it will be very different to a five year old and will probably involve some kind of online school or several tutors.

Have you done a lot of research into what school is like for 5-year-olds? I have a 5-year-old and he sits at a desk for about half an hour total out of the day. The rest of the time he’s learning through play, building things, creating art, running around with his friends and learning how to be part of society. He was very clingy, terrible at sharing and pretty anti-social with other kids before school, now he’s way more independent, very social, and kind and considerate to other children. That’s all thanks to school. I also considered home educating when he was a baby, but as he grew up I saw that he needed that social interaction with his peers. I don’t see how you can make such a drastic decision about your child when they are a baby and you have no idea what their personality and wants and needs are going to be like at 5

I was posting for advice on dealing with negativity from friends, and a bit of a vent at the frustrations I’m feeling at the reaction. I wanted to know if that was reasonable or not.

And I’m sure I’ve said upthread that I’m not boring people with the topic of HE. Other than an exchange similar to this:
Teacher friend: isn’t it cute X&Y will be in the same class at school?
Me: we’re actually planning on HEing X
I haven’t brought it up with anyone other than my husband because why would I. Maybe I could have said ‘oh yes’, but I didn’t think it would warrant anything other than a ‘oh really?’ and move on because as you say, the education plans for a one year old aren’t interesting to anyone other than the parents. My friends are welcome to stop discussing it if it bores then

It seems weird to be sure what is right for your child when they are only one.

One of my children loves learning and would have happily done classroom learning by age 3. He used to tear through workbooks at home, just for fun. Or make me set him lots of maths questions . He wanted to go to school and was excited about all the learning, if anything he was like me as a child and was frustrated by the amount of play in the early years

The other child was caught up in the lockdowns at reception age, I gave up trying to teach her as we were battling. I mainly let her play but she did work with a tutor once a week. She did fine once schools reopened so education wise maybe it was an ok route. But her mental health was clearly hugely suffering by the end due to lack of time with friends. And that was despite playing regularly with our neighbours children (we were all WFH so essentially formed a bubble). She is an extrovert who thrives on the social side of school

So I think you need to stay open minded until you have a better sense of your child and what is best for them

And if you are wealthy enough to live off one salary it's also interesting you aren't exploring private education as an alternative?

You're much, more intense than you realise I think.