Thinking about home education....

[Toffeefudgecake]

A bit of background: two children (DS2, 5, just started full-time school; DS1, 11, dyslexic, in Year 6 at primary school). My eldest son says he is miserable at school. School has always been a struggle for him. In his early years, he was unable to concentrate in class and used to clown about. He was labelled undisciplined and regularly sent into detention (at the age of 6!). We took him to an educational psychologist who said he was dyslexic and his behaviour was typical of a frustrated, dyslexic child.

The school responded very well to this diagnosis and gave him lots of extra help. He had a better teacher too. His reading improved, but he had a lot of problems with anxiety. Two years' ago, he went through a period of school refusal. With the help of a lot of people, I managed to get him to school for a half day every day and he had lessons in the library. Gradually, he began to join in again and he started to go full time again.

So, we have been through a lot of ups and downs. We are now in the last year of primary school. This year, he doesn't have any respect for his teacher and he is bored. He is also lonely, because he doesn't have a good friend in his class. He hates playtime because all the children play football and he tries to join in, but never feels part of the group. He has started begging me to take him out of school and home educate him for the last year before secondary (he is keen to go to secondary school, which he sees as a fresh start and a chance to make new friends).

The only lesson my DS seems to enjoy is one session a week when he has one-to-one maths teaching with a really good teacher. He says he learns in these lessons because they are fun.

On one hand, I am fed up with persuading my DS to do something which he is not enjoying. It makes me sad to wave him off every day, knowing that he is unhappy. On the other hand, I know that he is hard to teach and to discipline and I don't want to find myself in a situation where he and I are arguing over his work. Left to his own devices, my son would happily spend all day on the computer and I have to continually enforce rules about this, which can get exhausting (he never gives up asking for extra time).

Also, if I did take him out of school, I don't know what would happen about secondary school. Would he still be able to go to the 'settling-in' days at the secondary? Would he find it even harder to settle in because he had been out of the school routine for so long?

And, finally, I have money to earn. I work part time from home, but when I work it is usually pretty intensive and I am relieved that the children are out all day.

I'm not sure what I'm asking really. Just for thoughts, please.

Contact the teacher in charge of the transition to secondary at the Secondary school and ask for a confidential meeting. Talk through some of your questions with that teacher.

I think it's worth really considering as he is asking to be HEd (as opposed to you thinking it best for him)

You need to have a really good chat with him about exactly what HE means. Does he imagine it means doing whatever he wants all day? Does he know he'd have to work hard in order to keep up with his new yr7 class next year?

Maybe you could have a discussion about a theoretical timetable (assuming you wanted a structured day)?

for the working: if you work for a reasonable £££, then you could hire a 16 yr old at minimum wage to come and baby sit the little one while you are in the house working.

you wouldn't have to follow the NC at home - you could evolve the education however you wanted - you DEFINITELY do not have to teach

computers - in the end, everyone self-regulates with screen time, but many people, especially when screen time has previously been severely limited, spend a few months doing very little else. It is very worth while for a parent to watch a child on the computer and count up the skills the child is developing. And remember that in the 19th century, books (novels mostly I think) were viewed with similar distrust as computers are now, and for very similar reasons.

Thank you both for your answers. Lucinda - I know the teacher in charge of transition to secondary and she is lovely and also knows about my son's previous difficulties, so she would be a good person to talk to. That is a great idea. Freudian - that is a really good point. My son is probably thinking more about getting away from an unpleasant situation rather than imagining what HE would be like. Next time he mentions it, I will have a chat with him about what HE might be like.

Funnily enough, since posting this my son seems to have found an incentive to go to school: he told me that today he and a girl in his class have admitted that they "fancy" each other and he is proud as punch about it. His self esteem is perilous, however, and he will get a horrible shock if she suddenly goes off him, poor boy.

I did ask him about lessons today. He said they were boring, apart from his one-to-one maths. He said his other lessons deserved 4 out of 10.

I'm going to keep an eye on things for the moment and see how it goes.

Ommmward - thank you. Re: computers - my son really is obsessed with computing. I know he is building up skills, but I worry that he is also hampering other skills, such as concentration and the ability to cope with boredom. My son gets bored so easily and I worry that it is because he expects everything to be as stimulating as computers. I am forever encouraging him to read, but it is an ongoing struggle. Maybe that is because his dyslexia makes reading books tiring.