reposted from chat - temp home education

[fernie3]

my 6 year old daughter should be starting year one in a few weeks. We moved the start of July and so she needs a school in the new area. We sent the form off to apply for the school the end of June as soon as we signed the contract on the house (we were told we couldnt do it until we had an address in the area).We have called them a few times before the end of the school year to see if they have assigned her a school yet only to be told it was being procesed, we still havent heard anything so gave them another ring today.
Now they are saying two things 1. the schools are probably full (I know this I called them myself in abotu 15 minutes which is why I dont understans how this can take so long) and 2. the school are shut and so they cant deal with the application properly until after the summer holidays they are now saying that she should be assigned a place sometime the end of September or October!.

I think I am about the have a mini breakdown, 4 children at home all under 6 including a 2 week old baby. I was really hoping to get back into a routine before october!

Also now I am worried about the amount of school she has missed, I know she is only young but she hasnt been in school since mid June and if it goes into October that is a long time out of school. I am thinking I will need to do some sort of learning at home with her but I am not ure where to start. I also have a three (nearly 4 year old) who is out of nursery as we cant put him in nursery until we know where my daughter will be at school (we dont hae a car so it has to be near otherwie I couldnt get between them).

My son had a one to one keyworker at nursery because he was difficult and he wont take part in activities etc so I am not sure how to help him - he wont do art and craft etc without major fuss and difficulty so its fairly hard on my own when I have the three others as well.

So really my life is a mess, my children are currently running wild and I have no idea what I need to do to stop them getting too far behind.

If anyone has any advice on where to start teaching them a little at home then it would be appreciated also advice on structuring the day so that I dont feel like crying at the end of it would be nice?

Phone up your local school, someone is likely to be there, School secretary may be there doing paperwork.

Bless you.xxx

I know what its like home edding with a new little one.

Theres lots on the internet. My daughter did go to school for year one, and it was mostly learning sounds, reading & writing. I wouldn't get too stressed on it as it probably won't be for long.

Hope you get sorted.xxx

Please try not to worry too much. Definitely don't worry about her falling behind. She's really, really young still, and in most countries wouldn't yet be in school.

If I were in your position (and kind of have been - my youngest (of 4) was born when my oldest was just over 5), I would focus on getting some sort of weekly pattern, but don't worry about what it is and what it includes - just make it fun. Your children will learn from whatever you do, even if it doesn't look educational to you.

So, maybe you could do some activities with the children in the mornings - plan something for each day. Playdough; playing with beans; experimenting with water; baking; have a join and have a look at the FB group 'what did you do today?' for other ideas. Lots of other websites have ideas of things to do with young children. Just make sure you plan at least one thing for each morning, so they're nice and filled up with good Mummy time, ready to go off and play on their own nicely for a bit. Then after lunch you could:

1. Visit somewhere on Monday - somewhere that welcomes young children and/or has an activity on

1. I know you're not planning to HE long term, but I think it's important you get yourselves out of the house regularly, so maybe try and find a friendly, informal HE group to go along to - for arguments sake that could be Tuesday

1. Wednesday could be a playground trip - maybe with friends?

1. Could you go to a friend's house on Thursdays (for example) or have friends over.

1. By Friday they'll be exhausted so you can have a home day - get them playing outside as much as possible though.

And then enjoy the weekend .

If you're doing things with them, then you're likely to be chatting with them, and answering questions, and talking about the things involved in what you're doing - all this will include numeracy, literacy, science amongst other things, and children learn best from conversation.

C&P'd from my post in "Chat".

For a start, the School Admissions Code (Item 3.23) states that "Applications made outside the normal admissions round must be considered without delay, and a formal decision either to offer or to refuse a place must be made and notified to the applicant, advising them of their statutory right of appeal when a place cannot be offered."

This clearly hasn't been done if you put in your application in late June. The LA has broken the law and it's possible that your daughter will be disadvantaged by the LA's lack of action. There are remedies to this, not all of which are quick or straightforward though. The main issue is to get your DD into school asap.

You can do a couple of things here but your problem is, apart from the fact that its the school hols, that you will have to PROVE that your DD WOULD have been offered a place at your chosen school had the LA acted within a reasonable timescale. The only way I can think of doing that, unless you happen across a child who has been accepted in Yr 1 recently and who applied later than you, is to put in a Freedom of Information request as to when the last, say, 5 children were admitted to the school.

You can also:

1. Wait for a place to be offered and then if it isn't suitable put in an appeal, citing the LAs tardiness amongst your other, personal reasons for appealing. I've gone down the appeals route successfully but I warn you it is very stressful, and I don't stress easily! Theres no guarantee of winning and your reasons have to be very good, far beyond, "This is the best school for DD".

1. Challenge the LA and make them aware that you KNOW the terms of the Admissions Code. This might make them pull their fingers out. Put in a formal complaint to the Director of Education and cc to your MP, visit your MPs surgery if necessary. Hopefully it won't come to this though.

1. Speak to the education law solicitors at the Children's Legal Centre here

1. Ask the LA if they are utilising the In Year Fair Access Protocol (look up your own county's online or email them for a copy, they all differ slightly but HAVE to obey the base laws). If they are not, ask them if they can do so.

The Protocol is set up to get children who are considered "vulnerable" (don't stress, its not as you might think!) into school asap. In this case "vulnerable" includes "children whose parents have been unable to find them a place after moving to the area, because of a shortage of places".

The IYFAP allows the LA to direct a school to take a pupil even if that school is over-subscribed, without the parent having to appeal. They must also take into account parental preference as much as is reasonable. If they direct to a school more than 2 safe walking miles away they will be responsible for transport.

WRT home ed, theoretically you shouldn't need to. Any action taken under the IYFAP should result in a school offer within 10 school days, so you should be looking at DD going to her new school within a fortnight or so of the start of the new term.

If you DO feel the need to HE, I'd say let DD guide you to an extent, rather than having a structured approach which might lead to a stressful, "I don't want to do sums!" meltdown. I have HE'd but its hard to advise, my situation was very different to yours, I'm a lone parent and HE'd 2 young children together and later just DD2 for a while. Have a word on the HE section here, under "Education".

But firstly, find out what your LA has and has not done, and FGS get it all in writing - I speak from bitter experience of a devious, untruthful LA. Email to state that you made the application for X school for DD on X June 2010, and that you would like to know if they are utilising the basic Admissions Code or the In Year Fair Access Protocol wrt DD. Then take it from there.

(PS if they aren't helpful at the LA I have found that cc-ing your email to your MP and/or solicitor can produce surprisingly fast results!). If you need to cc to the Director of Education, Chief Exec or somesuch, call switchboard, get the name and spelling (don't rely on online sources as they are often out of date) and then ask for the email address of a more lowly member of staff. The big bosses email addresses tend to be in the same format as the minions - thus, if you discover that the transport manager's address is [email protected] you can pretty much guarantee that the director, Peter Brown, will have an email reading [email protected]

HTH

Don't worry about her falling behind. If she struggles a bit when she goes to school, she may well have even if she'd left one school one day and started the other the next. Why? Because schools do things in different ways, and to different schedules.

Concentrate on: reading, help her love books and to practise reading as much as possible. Do a little Maths, but this can be counting things, sharing out sweets, you have 5 lego bricks I have 3 how many do we both have?

Otherwise, get her to enjoy nature, to explore her own interests, to make things, do cooking (including measuring ingredients) and see this as a chance to enrich her life.