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.

I have! I often use the Delia Smith technique, which isn't quite as good as hand stirred, but pretty bloody brilliant for a weeknight.

Seeing diverse families is not the same as building friendships and navigating the social give and take, the cut and thrust of the local mostly white (or other ethnicity) school.

How much time was your teen able to spend socializing with peers outside of whatever school hours you kept? Did your DC manage to make solid friendships?

Peer relationships are how humans develop the skills to navigate adulthood.

I agree with alot of the pp.

Your baby is only 1.

Mine is 2 and our plans for nursery/childminding/stay at home changed so much over the past year and alot of it was determined by the child, our capacity as parents ; and health.

Im sure you mean well but you need to keep an open mind and not feel offence. Teacher probably see more of the negative consequences of home schooling, as they would have experienced of children joining the education system from HE and being very very lost.

But when your baby is older, observe them and see what they into etc

They regularly saw families from different countries, religions and backgrounds - as in, at educational and social things several times a week or fortnight. During that time, they formed friendships in the same way, anyone does.

They all had friends and best friends and the usual ups and downs of childhood friendships.
Also playdates and sleepovers and as they got older, they were able to meet their friends independently, go into town (or a different town) or whatever.
They also had friends outside of home ed.
And boyfriends/girlfriends from mid-teens.
They all had part time jobs from 16, which they got themselves.

By the time they were mid-teens, they were largely sorting out their own social lives in a pretty similar way to any other teenager. Some of those friendships have endured into adulthood and some haven't - much like anyone else.

As young adults, they're able to navigate the world, make friends, go to university and hold down professional jobs.

I’ve caught up on the thread now, and I think that the difference in opinion I have with a lot of the posters who are saying that it’s too early to decide is that I don’t believe HE is just a second option if school doesn’t work out. If that’s the viewpoint then of course it’s too early to decide for a toddler who has never set foot in a classroom. But home education is my preferred choice of education, especially for the early primary years. Or flexi-schooling would be, but having joined the FB group mentioned the nearest school to offer flexi schooling is an outstanding primary school 15 miles away so we stand zero chance of being accepted there. Maybe there will be a change in our local primary schools, but based on my knowledge of their academy management, I seriously doubt it. Without the option to flexi-school, I prefer HE over a school for full time education. HE doesn’t just suit one type of child because I’ll be able to personalise it to suit my child.

People keep saying it’s too early to decide schooling, but people have suggested multiple times that I move to a catchment of a school I prefer, as well as a few suggesting that I move closer to a Steiner or Montessori school (neither of which are anywhere near me, private or state beyond nursery education), or consider independent education. I don’t know why it’s too soon to decide on HE (which requires no commitment at this point and if it doesn’t work out I will easily be able to enrol my child in a local school) but to move away from where we live (which we love, where we’re part of the community, have lots of local friends, have some great facilities on our doorstep, walkable to one set of grandparents) spending thousands in stamp duty and removals fees move to a school which I also don’t know will suit is a sensible option. It’s been said a few times that my local primary could change head and change ethos before my child starts school, but so could the perfect forest primary (that I don’t actually exists) that I’ve uprooted my life to move to.

Agreed, especially as she's a teacher and should be better informed than most to know you don't pick a school based solely on proximity. You pick the one suited to your child.

It's interesting that generally so many people take someone's choice to make a difference decision to them as a personal attack, they require the validation. I think this situation is absolutely nothing to do with HE or the fact they are a teacher, although they might feel more justified in making the comments because of this. I think it's probably more down to the OP has decided to take a different route to her friend and it reflects the insecurities in her friend rather than the actual choices in question.
By choosing a different route for education it's not validating the friends choice for her child, which may be an absolutely brilliant choice for that particular child/family but not the best for someone else.
School choices are a very contentious issue, rejecting a school that someone else has chosen causes a lot of issues with many people. It would have been interesting to see what the friend's reaction would have been if the OP had said actually we've chosen a different primary or we're going to the independent school rather than HE.

Thanks for the response. I think if it does come up again then something along the lines of your third option is clear and respectful. I’m not sure if they’re jealous of HE, but I I know there’s been jealousy of someone in the group who sends her children to private school. Nothing nasty, but more wistful that would send their children to an independent school if they could.

OP it is your choice how to educate your child but do note that if you change your mind and want your child to join school at a later date, that your first choice school may not have any spaces and you may be allocated a less favourable alternative.

I know this is probably very difficult but please try not to take any of the negative posts to heart.

This is your child, your family, your choice and your life. No one else gets to comment when they are not privy to any information and it's not about them, especially when this wasn't even the subject you asked for advice on.

You seem to have given this a lot of thought and you know what will work for your family and make you all happy.
For clarification, I don't HE my son is at the most traditional school you can imagine. It is however brilliant FOR HIM, it wouldn't suit everyone. I do however applaud anyone who is really thinking about their child and adapting to them, moving heaven and earth to do the best they can for them whatever that looks like.

Op, it's just because they feel it somehow reflects on their own usefulness.

It's one think to realise the system is not good, another to be faced with the fact that school is actually pretty shit and home education can be better. That their education and stupid educational dad's don't add much.

Fwiw, I home educated for my kids first half of their education. The oldest until she was 16, the youngest has been in public school her whole life. I still had to teach that child to read and write and multiply because it wasn't happening in school, even though it is a small school with almost ideal conditions. She's still busy in school doing something 6 hours a day so our homework has to be done on the time she should really be doing other things.

My older kids exposure to history and literature and their music education is far beyond what the kids in school get. My friends who home educated have had kids enter with significant scholarship money for studying classics and math.

You can absolutely do better at home. Your friends deep.down know this. It's why they are upset.

I think you're fine to ask friends not to make negative comments about your parenting, and it's rude that they would.

But the other side is that you probably shouldn't be bringing up your negative views if their profession.

The whole thing is best steered clear of as a topic really.

YANBU - the same people who have had their opinions taken on board by you are now being negative towards a decision they helped influence!

To be so certain with a child at such a young age with no factors that would affect your child succeed in at school and loving it. I’m wondering if you had a rotten time at school there is nothing like the shared joy of lots of children playing together versus the close family relationships that can be a little bit oppressive and intensive.

You sound like you're scared of schools. Perhaps you had a bad experience. I'd recommend visiting some and also being guided by your child not yourself. Your teacher friends are reacting to your judgmental attitude which does show strongly in your first post and is quite misguided.

I’m not scared of schools! My first choice for educating my child would be flexi-schooling, as I said in my OP. That’s not currently allowed at my local school and while I will apply to flexi-school at the time, based on what I know about the school and the academy group it’s in, that’s vanishingly unlikely. So in a choice between full time school and full time HE, I’m choosing HE. I also said in my OP that we’re open to schools further down the line, which I wouldn’t be if I were making the choice based on a fear of schools. I’m also very open to being guided by my child which is why I’ve said that we’ll start with HE and be open to school later on if that seems more suitable.

I really don’t think I have a judgemental attitude. I’m pretty live and let live, and other than my own child I don’t have strong views about how other children are educated and I assume their parents are making the decisions they think are best for their children. If my friends find me saying that I think HE is the choice for us overly judgmental then I’m afraid that’s on them.

My experience of school was that it was fine. Not horrible, but not great. I didn’t dread going, but can’t say I particularly enjoyed it either. I faced some bullying in my time there from teachers and students. I have a couple of close friends still from school
but have drifted from most of them. My school experience isn’t one which I’m desperate to avoid for my children, but equally I’m not desperate to recreate it, and maybe that’s why I’m open to exploring other education opportunities.

I’ve also had a few people say that HE is just a way for me to quit my job, and that’s not true. One of the reasons why I’m researching HE early is I’m keen to be able to return to my job which I enjoy. My ideal HE situation would be DH and I both reducing hours but that’s not possible in the current set up, but something which we’ll keep exploring, especially if DH ends up going freelance.

I’d be careful op. Your husband going freelance, you not having a job. You’re then in a very precarious situation financially.

Apart from that even if your husband stays in work, you giving up work puts you in a dangerous situation.

Having seen this play out over and over - it’s almost impossible for women to jump back into a career. Unfair? Yes. But it’s what happens. I know so many women who ‘took a break’ from great careers which offered flexibility and good pay and are now in shitty jobs trying to make ends meet.

Also you could of course split up. Then what do you do? Home ed out the window as you scramble for a job. Uprooting your child and sending him to any old school that can take him?

For sure don’t move house. You clearly are happy there. Do not jeopardize that.

I actually admire HE parents literally giving up their jobs and lives to devote to it. I cannot imagine doing it myself Covid was bad enough. Both DDs and I were extremely relieved when that ended.

My husband would only go freelance if we decide to have me in work as well, as a way for him to reduce his working hours. It’s honestly the least likely situation and not something he wants to do now with so much chaos going on in the world.

I am aware of the risks of me leaving my job but I think it’s worth it, and having the flexibility to test out HE without having to resign will at least allow me to easily change my mind if HE doesn’t work out. And if it does, then it will be worth it for my child. I’m also aware that if we separate then my child will have to go to school because I wouldn’t be able to fund a household with no income. Fortunately our local schools aren’t oversubscribed at the moment. I obviously don’t know what they will look like in the future, but at the moment it would be fine to get my child into our local school.

https://youtube.com/shorts/C_HRrjcSepM?si=gSXEjaHz4VTmzFo4

Delia has some good techniques. I use hers for making a white sauce. Just put the flour, butter and milk in a pan and whisk, rather than making a roux.

Whatever you decide, home ed or school, you are not going to know how it turns out and whether the other option would have been better. So, as a parent you just have to make the best decision you can and make peace with that.

If you do end up home-educating, expect everyone (from the milkman, to your GP, to the shop assistant to any random person you might meet) to voice their unsolicited opinion on it. Repeatedly. Until your child is 16 or 18. This debate you're getting from your friends is really only the start of it.

Also be prepared for the fact that your child(ren) themselves may not agree with it. Again you (and they) won't know this until they are an adult and old enough to have really considered all the ramifications of having not had a "conventional" education.

While I do think 1 is too early to be discussing whether you will home-ed or not, there is somewhat of a double-standard of it being perceived as totally normal for people to move house etc for the catchment area of a particular school - before the child is even born.

And nobody would think it abnormal that you would put your child's name down for a very oversubscribed private school, for example, years in advance of them starting.

You've not met many home educators, then. I home educated both my kids and not one of the other HE parents I ever met was anything like that. It's always best not to get one's "facts" from social media or red top rags....

But the OP's friend has already decided to send their one year old to school (and just assumed the OP will as well). Why is that ok?

Need to tune in to the Archers, OP.