Wow! I've just realised ALL my kids are academically gifted!

[DadAtLarge]

I've made numerous posts over the years about DS and his aptitude for maths ...starting with my original post as a confused parent requesting assistance because he was bored in school ...and continuing to my more informed posts in the last couple of years speaking as a (now) governor and authority on the G&T programme.

We were delighted with the school's (eventual) response in getting him a secondary teacher once a week for a maths lesson (from the end of Y2) ...and all the other effort they put in to cater for him. The school couldn't have done more. But we decided that best efforts ain't good enough.

Earlier this year we took all three children out of school permanently. There are various terms for it - home schooling, home education, dossing about....

I feel that what we do is more dossing about than anything else. :)

And voila! I find that my other two are gifted as well! The only reason I can think of that this didn't show earlier is because the first one spent more individual time with DW and me while the others had to share our time. Since taking the HE decision we've been able to spend more quality time with #2 and #3 ... and we discover they're just as or even more gifted than #1.

Yikes! I'm kicking myself now that we ever sent them to school.

A common theme in my posts over the last year has been that schools fail all gifted children. My apologies. They don't just fail them. Schools fail them in a monumental way. I know, I know, not all of you subscribe to that view and you believe that a single teacher catering for 30 kids of widely differing abilities, different social backgrounds, different needs, different level of parental support etc., can do justice to your DC. Good luck to you if you do. But ...

If you have the option to HE I urge you to investigate it. It's not as difficult as you may think, you don't need to be an expert in any subject, you don't need to have any teaching experience. From what I've seen of HE children, they are better behaved, more social (yes!) and friendly and they achieve GCSE results on par with or better than their school counterparts. If you're the type who loves having the kids around - rather than the type who can't wait for summer holidays to end - you'll walk around with a big grin on your face all day long.

I do. :)

Dang, why did I have to see this title just before my pretty average DCs' bathtime? I am unashamedly marking my place :o

How nice that you and your wife can afford to stay at home and educate your children while most of us have to send ours to a "stifling environment" to be taught by "ill-equipped" teachers.

I think it sounds a fascinating experiment and I really hope you keep us updated on how it's going DAL.
Not said with any subtext of wanting to see you fail, I truly believe that you have the enthusiasm to make this work.
I hope you also have the flexibility to adapt, to your children's needs as they develop and change, and to them as individuals who may diverge from your chosen path.

"I stick to my original comment-come back and tell us how it has gone in a year from now."
I've already been doing it for years. Except that our children were attending a school as well :(

Explain the money situation please. What is your arrangement with regard to work?

It's interesting, many on MN spend a great deal of time and effort being disgruntled about teachers and schools, and yet here is a man who has felt the same way and is acting on his convictions.
Why are more not saying 'Go for it!' ?

I have missed out on all previous posts. Come back at the end of next August and tell us if it has lived up to your expectations. (they seems a bit pie in the sky to me).

I think it sounds a fascinating experiment

I agree-but I don't really want to experiment with my DCs!

Which is why I am interested in a year's time if someone is willing to experiment.

Good luck OP

Hope it continues to work well for you and your dc.

Katisha, I'm a full-time employed in my own business which I've been running for the last 15 years. I'm on call over the internet even when I'm on holiday! You worried I'm a drug dealer or something? ;)

We aren't stinking rich, but we're lucky we can afford for one partner to not work.

The government has been experimenting on your children for decades.
Changing their minds every few years, throwing out ideas before they've been understood, let alone embedded in the learning environment.
DAL wants to experiment on his own children, and as a parent, it is his right to do so. The total freedom of HE.
You might want to find the HE board to post on next time though.

I value teachers. I think a good teacher can inspire and educate and spark off all kinds of wonderful new ideas. They also get to go home at the end of the day and escape from their charges, and return fresh to the fight the next day. I would be a rubbish teacher. There is a skill involved in getting someone to understand a concept. I felt like banging my head against a brick wall when my parents charged me with teaching my struggling brother to read. Because I could do it, I couldn't work out why he couldn't. So I would be a shit teacher, because I can't present information in a way that someone coming fresh to it can understand. I assume a level of knowledge. I worshipped my DC's reception teachers. Teaching phonics looks, to me, actually painful.

"here is a man who has felt the same way and is acting on his convictions.
Why are more not saying 'Go for it!' ?"

POG, partly because of the tone of my comments, I suppose. ;)

But also there is an element of people having bought into a system feeling threatened when that system is questioned.

As a Music teacher, I'm gobsmacked! How do you teach them music skills like ensemble playing and singing, performing to an audience, or any kind of analysis and theory?

I feel really sad for kids who miss out on the practical subjects at school, with qualified, passionate teachers. I teach lots of students (secondary) who didn't enjoy Music before and love it now. I don't take no for an answer if students don't want to perform, as I suspect you would. I build their confidence. Not being smug, it's just my job. But I couldn't instil a love of say graphic design, or how to debate.

You do come across as incredibly egotistical.

DAL don't worry about your son's school experience. Put it behind you.

In the future you may find your DC want to attend schools again and next time it might be wholly positive. My friend's eldest decided to go to school for A levels and she was very worried. But she needn't. He is thriving

You do sound evangelical and righteous, that's for sure.

This is such a basic question. But how does it work for later years with things like maths? Do you use text books?

well I think he should go for it, seems to know what he is talking about wrt G & T provision in schools etc and I liked the video from Ken Robertson, I thought he talked a lot of sense (because I suppose it is what I have been thinking myself since dd started school...). I do think a dc who needs a secondary school teacher for maths in year 2 is really quite exceptional and when you have a dc like that who definitely cannot be taught well within the normal confines of our regular schools, you naturally get to thinking about how dc learn best etc.

Saw a fascinating tv report on some schools in Sweden which I absolutely loved. They had learning centres for different subjects and the dc could move about from learning centre to learning centre, choosing their own subjects/projects/interets and the teachers were tutoring or guiding them in some way. It was autonomous yet help was there to be had and the dc were in a school environment for a certain number of hours a day. Sounded fabulous to me.

Maths and English will be easy, I've just coached my DS through GCSEs
Music, elements of art, PE/dance/drama and languages are going to be tricky.
But a challenge is also an opportunity.

sorry by "learning centres", I mean you could go to a science building if you wanted to do some science subjects, choose what you wanted to learn about and there were adults there to help you get started and move on if you could stuck etc.

I think those are the schools of the future tbh but probably without the rigid school hours one day

I think the only reason american question came up is your OP sounds unbearingly smug in a way that Americans seem to manage without trying to english ears

"Teaching phonics looks, to me, actually painful."
It is! My #1 and #2 got drilled in that stuff at "institutions".

With #3 we didn't do all that rubbish. We just let her join us with reading, used to frequently get distracted with the pictures in books, often didn't even finish the story. But she associated books with fun. She's just picked up reading - like magic - and could read fluently before she started school.

A system like phonics is what you need if you're teaching a whole bunch of kids of varying abilities and interest. You can't teach a class of 30 without a "system".

Absolutely insufferable!

Marsha my friend's DC decided not to do many formal qualifications (too hard to get assessment and what have you). But they learned thigs in a very broad way via the internet and books and life.

Sure they didn't cover some of the stuff kids learn in school and they missed out on some things. But they had time for other things schooled DC don't.

But by 15 their eldest was missing the collegiate nature of learning specific subjects (particularly science and english literature). He didn't want to just ace the exams, but wanted to share the curriculum if that makes sense.