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.

To be fair, that’s true of any child with friends. HE doesn’t mean only with parents, no friends, isolated.

I don’t HE but I do know a fair few people who do because I take my preschooler to a forest school and the woman who runs it HEs. They have loads of groups and meet ups, every single day.

I’m not saying there aren’t drawbacks but there are drawbacks to school too and that’s where the whole best fit thing comes in.

What I do know with my teaching hat on is that a child with parents who carefully consider what is best for them but are open to flexibility and change is a lucky child and it’s that we should focus on, not the individual rights and wrongs of a situation.

Can you not see the difference between interacting with one set of neighbours in a time when socialising beyond that was banned and the socialisation opportunities HE offers now the country is not locked down. If I’d said that I wasn’t concerned about the social aspect because we’d be having some play dates with a a friend who HEs her children then people would be fair to be concerned.

The reason why I’m not considering private from YR are for a few reasons. First is there isn’t a private school who offers a play based/ largely outdoor curriculum for the entirety of pre-prep, which would be what I’m looking for. Independent prep schools near me are either religious (hard no, I resent the fact that my local primary school is CoE and I certainly don’t want to pay thousands to teach my child in a belief system I don’t hold or value), academic or possibly both. With private fees being so expensive now, I think people want to see lots of value which more parents see in a traditional education than in play. We want another child and while we might be able to put one child through private school from Reception to Y11, two would be pushing it, especially with fees still rising higher than inflation. We could stretch to two though independent secondary if that path suits and the fees aren’t astronomical by then.

This. There are so many HE groups in our local community we could never fit them all in around the work we do!

Forest schools, soft play, ice skating, swimming, meet ups at NT centres, a HE centre ran by teachers offering a massive variety of subjects, a HE arts and craft group…it’s not the same as it was in lockdown.

Your child is 1. These are not conversations you need to be having now.

And many people will take a decision to HE as a persinal affront to their own decision to either send their child to school or to be a teacher - and that doesn't actually ever go away completely untilyour child isbpast compulsory school age.

Although, some people do seem to have a very strange misconception that in Home ed, children don't socialise or have any friends.

On the flip side, I lost count of the number of people who announced they were going to HE and then didn't. (IME, the majority of people who joined an HE group with a baby/toddler did not go on to home ed).

Both my children were happier on the days the spent with other children. It was obvious already when they were 9 months old.

One of my nephews wasn't in nursery until he turned 3 (because his mum had anxiety). He was always lovely but after he started in nursery he became a happy child.

Even if your child is very introvert it is important for her or him to spend time with other children to get social skills. So if you want to look after your child at home and later homeschool you need to ensure that she or he also spends time with other children.

Some churches and libraries have playgroups. You could also sign up for babyswimming, baby choir, or find a local group of other families who also have refrained from using nurseries and schools.

well hopefully this thread has given you some idea of what your friends may be feeling and why they aren’t super excited about your life choices. I think though that assuming something will be happening in 4 year’s time is pretty silly. Life comes at you fast and you have no idea what you or the world will be up to when the time comes. So would it be so awful to just reply ‘oh it’s lovely they’re the same age, will be fun to see if they stay friends’ and let it go? No need to keep explaining that you hope to homeschool. If your husband loses his job or you have a rough second pregnancy or a poorly baby or any number of other life experiences you might find it works out differently than you think. Great to have a plan - but like with breastfeeding or med free births or pretty much anything you have no idea what will actually happen.

I also don’t really understand why you wouldn’t move if you’re as financially secure as it sounds and you don’t like the local schools.

Oh and as your child is at nursery it’s worth knowing that from 3 they will very much be focussed on school prep and talking about it as given. So your child might be quite confused when they have to leave all their friends after nursery. Just something to keep in mind. I know a handful of homeschoolers but none of them used nursery either so nothing really changed when they hit school age.

It has actually let me know what my friends might be feeling and that’s mostly that they’re basing their views on either HE during lockdowns (when children were forced into isolation, in a scary situation with a sudden and massive change to their lives, HE by parents who never wanted to HE and weren’t prepared for it and were probably trying to fit in a full time job alongside), or stereotypes and random anecdotes of HE which don’t reflect the reality of HE for most children (like the idea that my child will be isolated, or all HE are religious, or a friend of a friend’s 17yo doesn’t have any GCSES and can’t hold a conversation). I’m not going to bother correcting how many opportunities there are for the socialisation of HE children because I don’t want to get into an argument. I’ve literally mentioned HE in passing once but people here are acting I’ve invited everyone I know over for an MLM style presentation on the value of HE in early childhood.

I know I have no idea what the future holds, but neither does anyone and that doesn’t stop them making plans. I’ve said on this thread a few times that if I were planning to move to another school’s catchment or privately educate (both of which have been suggested to me on this thread) people wouldn’t think I was dumb for planning that and saying what if we hate the new area, what if we lose our jobs and can’t afford school fees or the mortgage on the new house, what if a lightening strike takes out our chosen school. Life is unpredictable but we still make decisions based on the mostly likely outcomes. And nobody questions parents who are planning to send their children to school what they are planning on doing if their child doesn’t cope in a school environment, or gets bullied out of school, or receives no support from their school for their child’s SEN. I’ve said several times I’m open to schools. I will double check what our provision is at the application time, but unless there’s a change between then and now, HE is most likely for us in the early primary years.

And my issue isn’t the local schools which are fine at primary, but the education system. I’m on the mobile app so it’s hard to search for posts but someone above shared a brilliant link highlighting that continuous provision in Y1 is not the same as the play based EYFS. AFAIK, there are no primary schools in my area who offer a significantly play based and outdoors education in the early primary years. In that time the National curriculum has children sitting nationalised exams! Moving areas from our support system, family and friends to target a school that I don’t actually know whether it exists seems silly when I’m willing and able to HE my child. That school could also get a new head, or join or switch their academy group and revert to the education system I don’t want for my child. If I were concerned about underperforming schools, moving might make sense, but my issue is that I think formal education starts too early in England.

What nationalised exams do you mean @teaandaflorentineplease ? The phonics screening?

Can you not defer?

There's no reason why a home educated child would have to be "away from their peer group". There are plenty of home educated children of all ages they can socialise with.

The KS1 SATs. I’m sure that people will say they’re relaxed exams and more for the schools than the students, but it’s still an exam at age 6-7 which is before formal education starts in a lot of countries. I’ve just googled and apparently it’s optional now, but our local school still administers them. The academy trust which manages the two schools nearest to me, as well as other local ones is big on testing children to assess their teachers. I think I mentioned above that a teacher friend only lasted two terms at one of those schools, and the staff turnover is incredibly high at that school (less so at our local school who seem to get less pressure from the academy) because it was a bad environment for children and teachers. This is an experienced teacher who has worked at several schools.

When you say education system, you mean the move away from a play based curriculum in KS1?

The KS1 SATs are done as part of lessons. I’ve taught year 2 for over 20 years. They are nothing to base a large decision on. They’re very low key and informal.

Life comes at you fast and you have no idea what you or the world will be up to when the time comes. So would it be so awful to just reply ‘oh it’s lovely they’re the same age, will be fun to see if they stay friends’ and let it go? No need to keep explaining that you hope to homeschool.

Why can't she say she hopes to home educate when her friends talk about the plans they have for their children's education? Her friends might find that school doesn't suit their children and that they need to home educate.

(It's home educate, not home school. )

Most kids don’t even know they’re doing the KS1 SATs. Mine had no clue. And guess what, they came to no harm.

Here is a question @teaandaflorentineplease: If you do end up home educating all the way through, are you going to ensure your dc gain some qualifications? Or are you unilaterally going to remove the opportunity? These are public exams, after all. I don’t care what people say, you really do need the basics.

Not many people discuss it when their child is one or put them into a nursery to be able to work more hours to save up for it.

Again, you don't know what your child will be like in ks1. My dd is no genius but she does enjoy a "maths quiz" and when we have nothing else to do (like we're stuck in a queue or something) she likes it when I quiz her like "OK what's two lots of four?" Many kids enjoy being challenged and being mildly competitive. When they have a mini assessment she gets excited to try and get a good score and comes home and tells me about it. She did well in a reading comprehension test recently. She doesn't mind a test. She also doesn't mind if she doesn't get full marks in a quiz, she shrugs it off and forgets about it. I think that's a fantastic habit to get into and I wouldn't want to "protect" her from that experience.

I'm talking about my dd but many/most of her classmates are like this. My dd isn't a particularly unusual nearly-6yo in this.

If SATs are done well by the school, it'll just feel like any old quiz, no pressure.

Edit for typo

@teaandaflorentineplease it sounds as if the local schools to you take an old fashioned and academically focussed approach to learning, and j can see why you might want to avoid that for your child. As you’ve already said, things can change a lot in 3 years and it may be that a change of head teacher might mean a new direction for those local schools.

I do agree with other posters though that in many schools those assessments either don’t happen at all now, or are delivered in a very low key way that the children don’t even realise is an “exam”. They’re not sat in a hall in silence with exam papers.

Reported 🤣🤣🤣🤣Yes I interviewed secondary age HE children for my dissertation in the presence of their parents and the conclusion was that they felt they had missed out on Sports Days, School Trips and Residentials. Oh and several told me that their PARENTS told them they would hate school and they felt different to other children we go had been to school and they never got the chance to decide for themselves. Sorry that doesn't fit your smug narrative.

I’ve talked quite a bit on here about how I don’t have solid plans for my entire child’s education through to 18 because that will depend on my child, and the education opportunities we have at various points. It’s important for me that (as long as my child is able) they gain external qualifications so they have all the opportunities those afford. Whether that’s in a school, with an online school, with tutors, with a system that doesn’t exist yet, I don’t know because we’re not there yet.

I love that you still think your teacher friends are basing their views on HE on inaccurate information, rather than their actual professional experience and expertise, but that you know much better about the opportunities it offers for socialisation etc - because you've joined your local HE facebook group, which you seem to think represents unfiltered reality.

The other thing I’d be very careful about op is not saying stuff to your dc like “Schools are bad” or “Schools are terrible” or “My mum says I will be damaged by school”. You end up offending people who just like you, have made the best choice for their child.

Honestly your teacher friends are probably quite offended. Hearing someone say they can do your job with zero preparation/qualification is pretty insulting.

You are not a teacher and you’ve barely been a parent for 5 minutes. You’ve made an enormous decision that you really know nothing about. That’s why they’re concerned.

You say you’re comfortable teaching a child to read - I genuinely find this astonishing. Have you done a course? Observed others teaching? Do you know what the stages of phonological awareness are? How would you support your child if they seem to be struggling to recognise end sounds or recall phoneme/grapheme correspondence? Once they can read how do you build fluency and deep comprehension?

Home ed has become this thing that people just ‘do’ and because they have valid reasons we’re not allowed to question their ability to actually educate their child. It’s nuts, you’d never think it was ok for someone to just decide to be their child’s doctor.

@madnessitellyou a friend used to say she wished she lived in a different country as they started formal school later as children started too young in England and that is a bad thing, in front of her young child. So unsurprisingly he struggled in the first few years as mum told him it was a bad thing.