Would your child choose to be home-educated?

[emkana]

I read an article about home ed today and I find the idea in many ways very appealing. Dd1 started school in September and I think she would be horrified if I suggested to her to take her out of school. She is totally in love with her teacher and she likes being with her friends all day.

But if things change and she becomes unhappy I would take her out, I think.

I have two friends who home educate their kids. My DS1 once said one morning on the way to school "why can't we do school at home like X". I said "Would you prefer that?" (I have no intention - would drive me crazy!!!) he replied "Yeh". at which I replied "So, you would want to miss your school trip next week then, and not play with your friends in the playground". He thought for a moment and then said "Oh, hadn't thought of that. No way." And trotted off happily into the playground.

I remember and American wife-swap when the (mad) home-educating mother (actually derangedly controlling) took the other kids out of school and they were absolutely devastated.

Suspect my ds might like it though. We'll see how he likes school.

I'd love to think I had the qualifications or patience to home ed, but I don't. If you do, and it's an option that suits you, why not?

Dd1 has SEN, a large part of which relates to her ability to relate to her peer group. For her, it is better to be in a school environment with specialists on site where she can work on those skills without an anxious mum intervening every five minutes. But that's our particular situation and every family and child is different.

my girls said I ought to teach them - but they meant at school. I thought it was rather sweet!

Like Hulababy I am a trained teacher and I would not feel myself up to the task of teaching my own children at home on a permanent and sole basis....naturaly I do educate them at home to a degree we all do.

I do feel that they would miss out on being taught be some people who are enthusiastic about areas that would bore me to death! I'm a good science teacher, who loves her subject with a passion.....but if I tried to teach MFL, heaven help them!

Re the 'teaching doesn't have to happen in classes of kids sitting in roes of desks, quite true and that doesn't happen all day , every day in schools nowerdays either.

The one thing that worries me massivly is when parents HE to make sure that their children are not taught things. I have had children taken from school because their parenst didn't want them to learn about religions other than Christianity or read Harry Potter. This disturbs me if I am being honest.

rows, not roes! Fish paste and all that

Ah well I might like to do it but would find it financially impossible. I think my kids would thrive and be much better educated, they would also enjoy it and be less stressed. I do not pretend that I can do all the curriculum but then I dont need to I have lots of people who could give them support in other areas if they liked.

I am just watching dd who is 6 make Christmas presents off her own bat making sugar lump boxes with sweets in and a base of a snow scene. Mind you she is eating much of it! My others are either out in a show or reading why is that not educating them?

what do the teaching fraternity think about non teaching fraternity home educating their children / I would be happy to take on the responsibility of teaching my DS & DD about fitness, health etc as I am qualified as a fitness instructor, athletics and netball coach, but I wouldn't feel comfortable at having the huge responsibility of an overall education that schooling offers. Who monitors what the HE children are taught. I can only see that it's a hugh responsibility to take on and one that you can't afford to screw up (if you fail in business you might lose money, credibility and maybe your home but you have the opportunity to start again) but your childrens education and "future" is a huuuge responsibility) i have a friend who has taken her children out of school to home ed and,on balance, I think they DO miss out (she would argue differently of course). Would your objective as a hom ed.er be to ensure you're children have relevant or right qualifications to go on to College/Uni for a specific career, how would the college/uni view children who are home educated ? How would potential employees view children that are home educated ? I'd be really interested to see how home ed develops in this country ...and also think it's a pretty sorry state of affairs to think that more and more parents are becoming disillusioned with our education system. I also wonder what percentage of home educators are women compared with men.......

Dd2 has just changed schools- she's Y5. Her previous teacher was not able enough in Literacy to teach the year group imo and she was so dull and unenthusiastic. If I had not found a school we were happy with I would have taught her at home. Why should she have her education sabotaged by a weak teacher (we still have 11 plus here so dd needs to pass)?

The idea of teaching children a set range of subjects doesn't really reflect real life or the ways in which adults tend to pursue their interests. Speaking for myself, I find lots of subjects interesting, but tend to follow enthusiasms one or two at a time. Each one opens doors to others, and so it goes on. I think that's the "natural" way of learning, and I suspect it's one that children would follow if they weren't put into the school system in the first place. So as the parent of a home educated child, you don't have to be a qualified teacher, and you don't have to be an expert on all subjects, or even buy in that expertise. I think the idea is that you follow the child's interests - if they developed a passion for, say, chemistry (something I haven't much of a clue about!), you might buy in expertise in the form of a teacher, if that's what the child wanted. Just as adults, we pursue our interests through books, and, if it's something that requires the services of a teacher or other people (like learning a language), we'll sign up for evening classes or an OU course.

The difficulty being with that, that there are often no courses in the subjects available in the area. I used to teach in adult ed as well as in school. Ours was the main centre for evening cources in the county. We did offer maths GCSE and Human Biology and Physiology, but not Chemistry or Physics.....there was no demand or tutors prepared to teach it. Now you could buy in tutor, but that still wouldn't get round the practical stuff. As a science teacher I honestly feel that kids would miss out on a lot.

That isn't to say that you couldn't get round it, but it would be very difficult. There is a national shortage of physics teachers in schools, let alone trying to get them as tutors.

And once the child gets to GCSE/ AS level you realy do need someone who knows the subject well. Leartning alnongside you child is fine (and indead very possitive) but only up to a point.

I teach all sciences up to year 9 and feel comfortable doing this. I have also taught GCSE physics (see above about shortages) and I did a statsfactory to good job of it. But it was nothing like as good as I do in Biology because I really know my stuff.

Parents have every right to home ed, for some kids it can be an excellent alternative, but I must say that I feel kids can miss out on expert teaching. If you and your child have decided that formal qualifications are not for them, fine, but otherwise you can leave your child with limited choices.

Agreed mb, but that's not a fault of home ed per se, more a reflection of the fact that our society simply isn't set up in a way that fosters lifelong learning - in such a society, those facilities would be available to a much wider range of people, children and adults.

I think most home educated children go into educational institutions once they reach A Level or beyond in order to get that specialised teaching, and the point is that at A Level or FE or HE levels, you are specialising in the subjects that interest you, and furthermore at those levels education is not compulsory. You are certainly right that science particularly would be very difficult for home ed children, from a facilities point of view.

FWIW, it can also be a problem in school!

The last school I worked in almost had to teach it as a non practical subject becuase of cuts in funds!

I'd never home ed anyway as my kids never listen to a word I say

Really interesting discussion. DS1 (7) wouldn't want to stay at home, because he loves school - but he lives for playtime. He'd learn so much more at home where we could follow and broaden his interests. He said to me the other day "Mummy, school is boring because it's all about education. It's all literacy and numeracy and sit down and do your work". How true! He has to write stories at home because there's too much 'literacy' to do at school. He's told me he doesn't do his maths because there are too many other interesting things to think about.
Not sure I could homeschool DS1,though, as he is pretty resistant to being taught anything by me.
DS2 is a much more compliant child and teaching him to read etc has been a doddle.

Ive only just caught up with this thread so forgive me if this is old news.

I have to say something about my DS experience, it is along the similar lines of Jayzmummies DS.

DS is 9, he is in year 4 at the moment, every single year he has been bullied and teased to the point that this year in Feb he told us he wanted to kill himself.

We took him out of school for 2 months as it was the bullying that was doing it but HE decided he wanted to go back to school so he did.

however, since sept of this year he has been bullied again and talk of death etc reappeared.

We cannot transfer him to another school as the primary schools in the town we live are all merging into one next summer and there are no places at the other 2 schools for him.

So this time we took him out without de-registering him and said "What are you going to do about this ongoing problem".

Social Services,CAMHS,Child Psychology,GP,EWO are all involved this time and at the moment DS attends school on a part time basis in the afternoons and i teach him in the morning.

I dont understand when people say that you HAVE to go to school in order to understand, what about the 2 week holiday at xmas, 7 weeks in the summer-children arent doing lessons then but no one seems to bother about that.

Today we learnt about avalanches,St Bernard Dogs,How to housetrain a puppy, counting,subtracting,science,a cooking lesson to name a few, and this is what we do whether school has broken up or not.

Children do not NEED to socialise with other children of their exact age to learn about being social, i have many friends younger or older than myself and this is what we are teaching DS to learn to socialise with all people of different ages.

Its just an opinion but its working for us and we feel we have our boy back again.

jenk - I'm so sorry to hear about your ds' experiences at school

But it sounds like your new arrangement is working well - and shows how HE can work on a practical level - good on you!

I have a friend who's teenage daughter was bullied at three seperate schools. In the end they pulled her out and home educated. She sat her GCSE's at the local library with a group of home educated children who had either been excluded or been pulled out by parents and home educated.

Sorry not a very clear post. What i am trying to say is that if you and your child are of the right mindset and can dedicate yourselves to doing it properly then it can work very well.

the sad message coming through seems to be that some children are being taken out of the State system because there is a problem that seems unresovable to the satisfaction of the parent and/or child (bullying etc) or is it that parents are losing faith in the education system.....?

I think it's a bit of both steppy.

Certainly in our friends case they found that in the three secondary schools in their area the bullying issues were being ignored and swept under the carpet it was almost as if the schools were to affraid to do anything about the problem. And their daughter ended up having several trips to A&E before they took matters into their own hands and pulled her out of school.

that's dreadful, did they press charges ? Must have been really bad if she ended up in A & E (shock)

yes but not much was done as they are minors!

same here, DS has been backwards and forwards to child psychology CAMHS, GP etc, tells us he wants to kill himself- hes only 9 for goodness sake, school refuse to accept that there is a problem and at the last meeting asked "is Ds putting it on for your benefit? "

EWO asked us to consider part time schooling in the afternoon as there is no play time which is where the bullying is taking place and we have agreed.

Up to now everything seems to be going great, but i have no faith in DS school especially when the EWO has sorted things out and the headteacher refuses to get involved as they dont believe what we are telling them.

I must say I'm anti long-term home schooling. I'm sure it can be a least worst option and even a good option in the shorter term in certain circumstances but I just hate the idea of children spending 24/7 for years and years with their parent as the sole or main teacher and their siblings as their only/main classmates. I wouldn't have given up the chance to love the teachers I loved or hate the teachers I hated for all the world. I would have intensely disliked spending all my time with my parents- they were rather good parents in many ways but I think they would have been rubbish teachers. The two roles are, I think, different and I'm all for the separation of powers- quite protective for choildren I think. That mad American home educator is a case in point. And so is Leopold Mozart who made young Wolfie's life a bloody misery, I understand. Another intesely controlling person I fear. I bet the Wolfie one would have flourished just as well at school- and he could have learned recorder and glockenspiel as well as clavichord if he'd gone to my primary. Just because formal education is fetishised (and I so agree it is) doesn't mean home education is the answer, imo.