The Secondary Age Home Ed Support Thread

[musicposy]

Sorry for pinching the idea from the preschoolers, but I thought it was a really good one!

Yesterday afternoon DD2's previous year group/ comtemporaries left her old primary school. She was so little when she left there it's hard to believe. Such a weird feeling that she is now too old for primary school and one I can't quite get my head around.

Anyway, I'm needing ideas for next year, and with one daughter who will be Year 10 in September, and the other Year 7, I thought a support thread would be helpful.

DD1 is starting all the rest of her GCSEs in earnest. DD2 I'm at a bit of a loss what to do with. With the possible exceptions of science and maths, the Key Stage 3 curriculum struck me as a complete waste of time when I did it with DD1. But, though she's bright, I'm reluctant to go too far down the GCSE route for DD2 yet, because I want her life to be fun. I'm thinking we might keep doing projects more in the primary style, but I am aware that she needs it a bit more involved than for primary level.

So, ideas, worries, problems, day-to-day routines, put them all on here! I'm aware summer's a bit quieter so will bump now and then!

Actually, posy, I weas just thinking along these lines last night.
Grandson is 11 and approaching secondary age [although he won't be going].
I think it's a great idea to ha ve a support thread.
Can't thin of anything at the moment specifically, but I expect I will [in the early hours when I do most of my worrying/thinking.

no worries musicposy imitation is the highest form of flattery

My dd is not secondary age yet, but she is nearing the end of primary age, and I am starting to get comments from people (the same people who expressed their opinions about HE back when she was 4 and I did not send her to school). They all say they assume she'll be going to secondary.

TBH, I feel a little nervous about secondary age HE. I know it is just arbitary, but somehow it gives me the wobbles. Maybe because as they get older, the process of fitting into school (if they decide to go) gets harder, and I also worry about affording exams, or how to prepare her for them, and how to decide which ones she should do and how to stagger them etc. etc.

I suppose there should be no need to worry yet.

But anyway, I would be interested to hear how other people have adapted their HE style when their child reached 11.

I am quite interested in perhaps trying some of the older Sonlight material.

I'm wondering how we will adapt our HE now grandson is 11.
One of the issues is that grandson is quite good at maths but still has a low reading/literacy age.
He likes doing project/lapbook work, so I try to incorporate as much of the literacy into that as a means of bringing him on in that respect.
He likes 'reading for a purpose' if he's interested in say, the Egyptians, so will read books on that subject, and his low reading age doesn't seem to manifest itself under those circumstances.
I keep telling myself that 'he's just 11', why worry about GCSEs and stuff yet, but just lately I've been bombarded with 'I expect he'll be going to secondary school now' or 'what about his exams/GCSEs?

Seeing preschoolers thread made me remember this thread

How's it going for any of you secondary people out there? DD1 is in Y10 (just turned 15) and DD2 in Y7 (11).

I feel a bit bogged down with GCSEs at the moment and DD2 seems to just trail along on the coat tails of what DD1 is doing. I wish I had more time.....

We're standing at the cliff edge at the minute contemplating (seriously) taking our two out of school (years 7 and 8). I don't think the school itself is any worse than many others and in some areas it does have a good reputation. However ...... there is a real culture of swearing (at each other and teachers), spitting, rubbish dropping and generally being loud and offensive. Many of the classes are apparently very disruptive and my eldest especially finds the atmosphere very distracting and upsetting.

I have discussed his difficulties with the school (but obviously not our thoughts on home education), and the response I received was that this is the real world and they'll have to get used to the noise and disruption now or they'll never get used to it.

My eldest has been bullied a couple of times but this was sorted out (although one time he was pushed over a fence and cut his hand I was told that he would eventually toughen up). He was though sent home again this week as on the way to his class he was punched in the head by a pupil who just ran past him and laughed as he did it.

The problems I have which are holding me back from burning their uniforms here and now are that now they are high school age (I did home ed them in primary sch for about 2 years), worries about exams and how to go about home ed now they're much older. I don't want to make the wrong decision for them and ruin their education (although I agree it's debatable whether they're receiving an appropriate education at school).

It all does seem very much more complicated at this age, although I don't think the stress of home educating secondary shcool age can be any more stressful than them attending school.

I have read a lot of stories from home educators whose kids had gone on to do GCSEs, A Levels and onto Uni, but although it's early days, I really don't think mine will take such an academic route. Neither finds academic work easy, although my eldest loves reading and does so all the time. My younger is into computers.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Sorry - I meant to add that I have posted before on another thread and had some great advice, but I'm now thinking along the lines of people's experience of home ed'ing high school age in particular.

Sorry my previous post was so long!!

Thanks.

montymoocow, your post could have been mine 3 years ago! I took my eldest out at 12, at the start of Year 8. My DD2 was already out of school - but it was still an utterly terrifying decision! I felt a lot of things about secondary school that you do - the swearing everywhere she went, the general disruption in the lessons, the bullying and bitchiness, the having to be a certain type of person and behave in a certain way to be accepted.

I am so, so glad I did it, I can't tell you how much. There's barely a day goes by that I don't hear something or see something that makes me utterly, utterly thankful they aren't in school. I got my daughter back when we home educated her. She still has friends, is happy and sociable, has sleepovers and shopping trips - does all the normal teenage stuff. She's independent and capable. But somehow she has a different attitude to her schooled friends. It's hard to explain and something I was struck by when I first met home ed teens - before mine were anywhere near that stage.

I don't think school is the real world, actually. It's an argument I hear over and over. But in the real world you have mixed ages, often working as a team. It would be unusual to have a job where 30 same aged people are ordered around by one all-powerful one. And the prospect of losing a job tends to keep people in line somewhat, not to mention the fact that most people tend to grow out of their worst behaviours. Plus, you don't have to have a job in a huge group environment if that isn't your thing. So I think the argument is rather spurious. My adult real world is certainly nothing like my school life was!

I thought the education and exams would be the scariest bit of it, but it hasn't been hard at all when it came to. DD1 took 3 GCSEs last year at 14 and did very well. She does 4 this year. We'll do 3 or so the following year and she will have a very good handful of them with very little pressure, unlike school. But actually, in reality, we could drop most of the GCSEs tomorrow and I don't think it would hinder her future. Most colleges and employers seem to care about who you are and what other things you've done. DD1 emailed quite a lot of people asking what they wanted and most wanted nothing! A few wanted 5 GCSEs or equivalent - so we're doing them because we may as well. But so many school children come out looking identical that I think having done something different may be more of a strength than a weakness.

Sorry, very long post too!

Thanks Musicposy,

My two are still thankfully rather different from their school peers (probably because of the two years in home ed'). They both hate the swearing and bad behaviour and both absolutely HATE school and both would love to be home ed' again. My eldest says he learns nothing at school, and likes to get home so he can read, which apparently he doesn't get much time to do at school. They do watch a lot of dvds at school though!!

My youngest is totally stressed out with the constant stream of tests and the fact that not much he is "taught" makes any sense. Most of it too just doesn't interest them.

We have a maths tutor once a week anyway and they're both pretty good at English, and my youngest is into computers, and my eldest is into music as well as reading.

I'm sure we'd find a way of making it work but we also have a 2.5 year old (although they both love the baby). I just wonder how I'd manage with GCSEs (if they decided to do them), as they're quite pricy to do privately aren't they? Obviously though exams are 3 and 4 years off yet and perhaps GCSEs may be completely changed by then anyway. My gut feeling is that they'd both be more suited to open college courses of a more vocational kind.

Thanks again for your words of wisdom. Sorry again that this is pretty long (but a lot on my mind unfortunately).

Thank you!

Montymoocow, it sounds like you need to do something. At least at home, DS1 would be able to read as much as he wants.

You don't need to worry too much about exams. As MusicPosy says, you could go for the minimum five in order to be able to access college or work at 16 or 17. In some areas, FE colleges will take EHE kids at 16 (for free) without any previous qualifications to do GCSEs. A downside can be that they are with kids doing resits. You may also be able to access BTEC or other qualifications at that stage.

There is more info at www.home-education-exams.org.uk/ including instructions to join a Yahoo group for those doing exams.

Thanks Sdeuchars! We really do need to do something as my eldest has said he is frightened something really bad will happen to him at school and makes sure he never walks along quiet corridors alone - he's already been pushed over a fence, kicked in the groin by a group of girls (on purpose) and couldn't walk for two hours and then last week he was punched in the head. A lot of this happens because he has an SEN Statement (he's mildy autistic) and uses the special needs unit at school (although his lessons are all with mainstream kids unfortunately). The other kids shout obsenities into the special needs unit and trip the SEN kids up as they enter and exit. This deeply worries him (and us). I've mentioned this to the school but they seem not to be too interested.

When I read my posts back I wonder why I send them! I just worry that, as I said previously, they're not too academically inclined and the thought of exams is a worry. However, as the school atmosphere is so bad I wonder if they'd cope with exams at school anyway.

Thanks again for your post and your good advice!

re GCSEs "they're quite pricy to do privately aren't they?"

We paid £34 a GCSE. Still a cheek in my opinion when school children get them free, but not bank breaking if you tackle just a couple at a time. Plus about another £10 - £15 on top for a textbook. That was all.

Musicposy - that's not at all expensive, but as you say - still a cheek to charge at all.

I'm not sure if there's anywhere nearby which takes private candidates, but would look into that nearer the time. Probably the nearest to us would be in or around Cambridge.

Did yours study for them alone or did you have a tutor? In other words - did they manage with just a textbook? Did they need to look at any sample papers?

Many thanks!

The exams Yahoo! group has loads of people who have done exams (usually IGCSEs) in and around Cambridge.

Most people manage with a textbook and past papers (often available to download from the exam board websites, along with the syllabus).

Thanks SDeuchars. I think on the face of it IGCSEs will probably be the best road to go down as there are no assessments which would require marking. I guessed there must be places to sit exams around Cambridge which isn't too far from us.

Thanks for the link to the exams group!

We studied alone with just a textbook. I don't have the money for tutors so there was no choice. We downloaded loads of past papers free from freeexampapers.com and after she'd worked them, we went through the mark schemes together, and most importantly, the examiner's reports. These are excellent because they give you an idea of the traps people regularly fall into.

I wrote to about 60 private schools asking if they would take her as a private candidate and 3 said yes. A small percentage, but we only needed one! We went for the one who offered to do it completely for free (the words "charitable benefit" tend to encourage private schools to do this ). So all we pay is the exam fees. The school have been wonderful, sent us past papers and even invigilated her for free when no one else was taking the exam!

One of the exams she took last year was IGCSE Biology. I never did Biology at school. She got an A . I think you can teach yourself anything if you put your mind to it!

Has anyone got experience of taking a child out of mainstream and into home ed for a fixed time, eg a year? DS has done 4 months of year 7 and is already sick of the grinding routine and the constant low-level nastiness - the other day in PE a boy slapped him and called him a 'spaz' because he let a goal in, fgs.

I have said to him a number of times since he first started primary school that he can always go into home ed if he wants to. The main worry for him is being isolated from other kids.

It occurred to me tonight, as we talked about it yet again (it always seems to come up on sunday night!), that perhaps he could take a year out in H.E. and then, having benefited from that, if he was feeling a bit isolated he could go back in. But how easy would it be to go back in? I just wondered if anyone had first hand experience of this and how it worked out.

Hi goldenbirdies,

The only possible pitfalls I can see with your plan are that you wouldn't get him back into the same school if it's oversubscribed (is it usually?), and it might be awkward if he returns in the run-up to GCSEs - but that is a few years away for your son.

Isolation might not be such a problem as your son expects. He can meet up with existing friends outside of school, and make new ones by joining clubs or doing sports if he likes that sort of thing. Because my 11yo doesn't go to school, she had lots of time and energy to do all sorts of other things in the afternoons, evenings and weekends.

She finds there is less of that low-level nastiness in groups outside of school. For one thing, the kids have chosen to go and are usually happier than kids who are stuck at school when they'd prefer to be elsewhere. For another, it's easy for a coach to kick a kid out for misbehaviour. I can't imagine most football coaches in out-of-school clubs would tolerate the incident you described which happened in the PE class. A PE teacher has limited discipline options, whereas a coach can just tell a kid he must behave if he wants to keep coming to the club.

Montymoocow my decent ASD child was also told he had to get used to the violence, hostility, being a target, and accept the constant lesson disruption and inability to lean through it.
Eventually (after much 'working with them') I pointed out my child could get himself beaten up regularly anywhere and didn?t need daily intimidation as part of a supposed learning environment.

I was proudly informed that this was what he was learning by being there! It was part of inclusion! They actually tried to turn their cowardice (they are afraid of being challenged by the thugs) and lack of classroom control (including sexual degradation of teachers especially female) into this great positive thing for my son to be experiencing.
They then suggested the other children needed him to keep being there so they could learn toleration.

It?s an excuse to cover the real view, which is: ?We wont be doing anything about thuggery, we think it?s normal, and confronting thugs is dangerous for adults, and he?s a natural target so he better get used to it, but some of the better children will see that it?s bad and that?s educational for them, so actually all of this is educational, so there isn?t a problem.?

It?s Emperors New Clothes, and they ARE naked.

I remember so well standing on that cliff edge with a vicious wind blowing from behind, and imagining that surely I couldn?t step off without a parachute? Where was my plan B?

I was terrified that it might be wrong, even though I knew the education provision I?d made (school) was wrong, and his present and future where already being ruined, and it took me to realise that I just couldn?t really provide a worse education than what he was/nt getting.

You?re ?wondering why you?re sending him there?. I was terrified of pulling him out, and teetered on that cliff waiting for proof there?d be a soft landing.

I?d suggest being brutally honest with yourself. I was, and the reasons that emerged where painful to admit, but where the catalyst for change and I stepped of the cliff without my ?proof?, parachute, or plan B, that I was convinced no good parent would be without, for the sake of my child.

As all the stresses fell away we moved forward to this whole new way of life that I was so unsure I could do properly.

He?s 16 now, done his IGCSE?s and doing A/S, (and I?m still afraid I might ?ruin his education?, and I still want my parachute! :)) and he's gone from failure to success.

He still feels a chunk of his childhood was stolen, and I feel bad about that, but as he say's: "Yes but you didn't just stand there and watch and say nothing could be done, you did something, and it taught me to do something about things if they're not ok."

Good luck, whatever decision you take. :-)

Justgettingonwithit - thank you for being so honest. What he went through is a disgrace and it seems to me that without a doubt you did the right thing for him and he appears to be doing really well. You ought to be very proud.

It is really daunting, as you said - and I'm just hanging on by my toe nails at the minute. Also I have dds2 to consider as he's in year 7 and hates it. They both tell me they hate it, the behaviour is really bad and they cannot learn, and yet the staff say they're doing well (although they're both in lower sets although they're very bright and chatty and have a good understanding of life and the world around them). Whether they are doing well or not, I can't really tell although dds1's handwriting has deteriorated beyond belief from when we were in home ed' 2 years ago. They are however really unhappy and that must be addressed.

Thanks for taking the time to write. I never thought, when I was pregnant with DDS1 than our kids' education was going to prove so difficult. Does anyone have an easy ride with their kids achieving academically whilst learning in a kind and caring environment with others who treat each other with respect? Or is that just a dream?

Thanks again!

Thanks for your advice saracen. I think there might be space if he decided to go back in but I wondered whether the school themselves might refuse as a sort of tit-for-tat? Sounds a bit childish written down but I can imagine they might find some way to rationalise it.

If the school has a vacancy, they aren't allowed to turn your son away. If a place exists, they must give it to anyone who comes along and asks for it, except in a few extreme circumstances such as a child who has been excluded from two schools.

In fact I think it is now the LA which allocates all places, first checking with the school to confirm they have a vacancy.

You beat me to it, saracen! School aren't allowed to refuse - it's not their decision. If they have a space, they have to take you.

We took DD2 out initially just for Year 4. One of the things that helped me decide was that the school was way under-subscribed and I knew we could walk back in 3 weeks later if it didn't work out!

In the end, she never went back and is still HE over 3 years later, but that's another story..

If she were to go back I wouldn't forsee any problems, except that she has so much confidence now I couldn't see her putting up with some of the petty rules etc that school seem to enforce for the sake of it - which muight make her harder to handle from the school's point of view.

My eldest, btw, went into college one day a week last year at age 14 on an accelerated learning course for 14-16 year olds. All the other children but one are on day release from school. She'd been out of school 2 years and has fitted in absolutely seamlessly. So that might give you confidence!

How easy/hard is it to cope with the different ages/needs/abilities? We have already dereg. our 7 and 10 year olds but I'm terrified about doing the same for our 11 and 13 year old DS's.

Is anyone else HE over 3 key stage groups?

What resources do you use?

Also, when my boys are together we usually get a lot of arguments. DS 3 and DS4 have really started getting along a lot better since they started HE but would this still happen if all 4 were at home?

I home educated 3 children who were 13, 11 and 8 when we started.
We became totally autonomous, so used whatever resources the children were individually interested in.

Wanted to comment that life became so much less stressful when they were all HE. Seemed to me that most of the stress and learned patterns of behaviour of having a dig, and being disresepctful to each other came from school.

I am not pretending they were angels but things were so much better when we were HE.