anticipating the challenges of home schooling

[griff01]

Hello there.
I have been thinking about Home Schooling. I am wondering about the challenges of working in such a context.
Would anyone say that the main barrier is
a) resources
b) curriculum or
c) getting "social input" from people outside the family / home schooling structure?

I had suspected it may be item three and I was wondering how people dealt with this aspect of home education?

Hi griff
I have found the social bit to be the main problem - if you live in a city or area with great HE networks you are sure to be a happy bunny but otherwise things can be more difficult (rural areas, areas where HE is not popular or areas where lots of HE peeps have had arguments with each other - big tick on all three in this area!)

I love researching resources and curriculum stuff

The main thing I am rubbish at is going to bed at a sensible time - because I like reading and learning about HE on the internet.

The internet is truly wonderful for HE though - but it doesnt make for early bedtimes for me! :o

How old are you children?

Griff01:
I am wondering about the challenges of working in such a context.

I am confused. Do you mean the challenges of home educating? You sound like an educational professional - I don't see a generalised "main barrier".

If a child is in school and has to be deregistered in traumatic circumstances (e.g. bullying or unmet SEN), a problem is that both parent and child might feel:

• under stress to "perform" (as the LA is usually involved)
• forced into a situation that they did not want to be in
• like failures.

All of these are serious impediments to learning and are why experienced home educators usually recommend a period of deschooling (one month per year in school is the rule of thumb but it can take longer).

If a child has never been to school, the parent "grows up" with the child and tends to use local resources. Curriculum often does not become an issue until the child is well into double figures and is starting to consider adulthood and qualifications.

Your final item, I cannot understand as one thing. Getting "social input" from people outside the family has never been an issue in my experience. My DCs have joined in all sorts of groups and clubs over the years (EHE and otherwise). It could be a problem for people in a rural area but it would not be a function of the EHE per se.

I really do not know what you had in mind when you said home schooling structure.

Hi There,

And thanks both for your replies.

Yes i come from an education background but I am thinking of making the leap into Home Ed for my own child. I am trying to anticipate and plan for all the challenges/difficulties ahead of time so I can get as organised as possible.

I will be moving to a rural area. My child is about to enter primary school. I am a single parent so I need to work part time - and work around other difficulties as well! Its easier for me to access a local primary school but not in my child's educational interest, I think, anyway.

It may sound silly, but I am even trying to work out how much home education will cost. How much do people pay for resources - online subscriptions, books etc. Money is tight for me as I am sure it is for many ppl.

In terms of social interaction, I guess I mean the chances for children to enagage in conversations away from me! That may sound odd but I know that sometimes people apart from "mum" get the most elaborate and reflective responses from my child!

im not a HEor but if we did end up HEing then I'm expecting the biggest problem to be transport - neither of us drive so it would take a long time to get anywhere. But then if we aren't confined to school holidays and weekends maybe it doesn't matter, travel will be part of the adventure :)

resources are easy as long as you have access to the internet, you can get anything and everything you need from there (i like BBC learning, TES, Topmarks and kidshealth.org)

curriculum is easy to, as with HE there isn't one! though personally i stick to NC standards for Maths and English using the CGP books from WHSmiths. everything else is covered under a "Topic", we do a different one each half term, previous topics have included Reptiles, WW2, Space, Brain, Senses.

I would suggest you go onto Yahoo Groups and search for Home Education xx area to see what the groups are like where you are thinking of moving to. They will also be able to guide you towards HE friendly childminders that would help you with your working hours cover.

HE can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. dd goes skiing with a HE group once a fortnight which is £7, the other day we did a pottery session which was £6, next week we are going on a day trip (victorian school/life) which is £9. but going on a bug hunt will cost nothing but your bus fare/petrol. we also rarely buy study books, we spend a lot of time at our local library who are always getting books transfered in from other library branches for us (our local library is quite small)

As for socialisation, again, much will depend on your area. i have found that dd has way more friends now than she ever had at school (and she was a popular child at school too), much wider and more varied people too.

look into scout/brownies/dance classes/drama groups locally too.

sorry if i've gone on, but for us, HE was the BEST decision we ever made and it is something i am quite passionate about!

Erm, none of the above!

Resources, DD1 (reception age) likes cbeebies games, the national geographic magazine, audio books, poissonrouge.com, the library, youtube, family pick up books they think we'll find interesting, we share books with friends too.

Curriculum, we're autonomous educators. At the moment DD1 is interested in dragons, films of all description, gardening, word games and number games (from books we've picked up) and video games.

Socially, HE is great because they can spend so much time with their friends. When we have friends round they can play all day, she also has a group of schooled friends in our street that she plays with in the evenings. Her close friends range in age from 3-8.

Griff01:
I am a single parent so I need to work part time - and work around other difficulties as well!

I have always worked (part-time, from home) throughout my EHEing time (although xH was physically here for the first 13 years so I did not have a problem with finding childcare). I worked evenings, weekends, early mornings and late nights.

It may sound silly, but I am even trying to work out how much home education will cost. How much do people pay for resources - online subscriptions, books etc.

Not much for a 5yo. We used libraries, charity shops, etc. Most other stuff was free or gifts (my family gave "educational" things - craft stuff, books, etc.). We also used relatively low cost clubs. Our local Saturday LA music school has a rate for the family that allows the DC to attend as many sessions as they like. Our main expense was musical instrument lessons, but we'd have had to pay for them if the DC were in school. My real expense started when we approached qualifications but we used OU so got it for free. That is a long way off for you and it will all have changed again by then.

In terms of social interaction, I guess I mean the chances for children to enagage in conversations away from me!

Again, this is not a big deal at 5 and they certainly do not need it 30 hours per week for 11 years. Clubs and EHE groups sorted this for us. Where in the country are you?

I find the social side one of the difficult parts of HE as my dd (12 yrs) doesn't like to socialize. She won't go to any HE groups and won't go to and other groups I suggest also ( guides, art class, gymnastics)
She has one friend from her primary school that she sees about once a month and will go to a church youth group once a week so for now I'm hoping that's enough. She does have 5 younger brothers and sisters too and younger cousins.

We struggle with the socialising side, there are a couple of groups in my area but all but one are closed to new members, and the open one I have been advised to steer clear of.

cost: paper, paint, pens, a lot of sellotape. A Lot. (this week, anyway)

We buy books in charity shops. A friend of mine was about to pop into the local Oxfam bookshop the other day. I said "I wouldn't bother - we cleared it out on Thursday". I'm not sure if she entirely understood that I had bought EVERY book that might be of interest to my lot... we pick up a certain number of workbooks and things in charity shops too, which sometimes are of interest (but more often not)

We have season tickets to the best local attractions so that we can go three times a week if we want without it costing at the time.

Socialising - HE is great for this, for us (big city, active HE scene) - we are able to socialise at exactly the level and intensity that is ideal for my children right now, rather than the level and intensity that comes as a package with the school set up.

Not socialising but socialization a challenge for us because there aren't a great deal older children who are being HE'd.

Resources: I too love spending time looking trawling the internet for new resources and I get to bed very late quite often. It's all self inflicted though.

Travel costs us a small fortune. Some activities are in areas that require long train and bus journeys to get to. But then I don't drive.

I've spent LOADS on books I get new ones every week and am on first name terms with the postman. My house gobbles up library books so its not worth the fines. I also have spent a fair bit on science kits and things.

My postman is confused by me I think, as we get such a lot of packages (mostly bookshaped) delivered to our door. :o

Charity shops are a marvellous resource - board games and books

Travel costs are a pain - getting to any HE group costs us almost £12 in bus fares

I think that as my kids get older socialising with other HE kids is going to get more difficult as there arent that many around (and a lot of the kids that we know now will soon be going to 2ndry school)

But for us HE rules - definitely a fantastic decision for my children :)

Laughing at Sellotape! We also use loads.
I'd recommend joining the yahoo groups - in general a very supportive collection of people.

Hi there.
I don't HE myself, but have been the lawyer for many a HE er and still offer legal advice to my local EO group (or indeed anyone who gets hold of my number )

The biggest problems seem to be.

• working. Many parents find it difficult to work and HE and this has an impact upon finances obviously.

• resources generally. The LA has no duty to provide you with anything. (personally I think there should be some aavailable but since the last governenment was quite anti HE there was no chance of any cash being made available. Perhaps Gove's move towards free schools might be piggy backed by the HE community?)

• perception of outsiders. So many people are negative or at best ignorant about HE.

• socialisation. The HE community's standard line is that this is never a problem. However, as you've seen from this thread it certainly can be.

• accessing formal exams. Many HE ers don't want to do this so no problems, but for those that do the move towards in school assessment and individual unit testing has proved an extra hurdle.

Maybe it's just my experience (as a newbie, very limited I confess) but one of the problems of socialisation I have found is that HE groups often have a certain style, which seems to lean towards a very relaxed approach to learning. 12 year olds not knowing tables as a rather dull/predictable example. There seems to be a lot of people very content to have their children stick leaves on coloured paper. I have a dc whose current ambition is to go to Cambridge, and wandering around with twigs in her hair aint gonna get her there. We started out He'dding as a temporary measure, and certainly from a socialisation angle I can't see it becoming permanent.

Some people are happy to go to relaxed groups because they provide relaxation. We did any formal learning at home. I EHEed throughout compulsory school age. My DD is just finishing her first year of Law at Exeter and my 17yo DS has 100 points from the OU. They did not get qualifications via EHE groups and did a lot of craft, etc. through their childhood.

IslaValargeone, do you know about the www.home-education-exams.org.uk/ website (which is down at the moment and the related Yahoo group?

When I socialise with my friends, I might well "choose to stick leaves on coloured paper". It does not mean that I consider it the pinnacle of my intellectual activity.

I don't care one jot how other people educate, if relaxed is what works then woohoo. However, the 'leaf stickers' have not been overly accomodating to the style I/my dc wish to follow, and I can't afford to drive 40 miles to be ignored by people because I don't follow their philosophy. It doesn't suit our style but I never judged it, unfortunately the live and let live philosophy was not a two way street, I might as well have had 3 heads. My dc would sometimes like to mix with people who she can sometimes talk to about more formal learning topics that's all.

Thanks for the links btw.

OK, thanks for the additional info, IV. Now I understand what you meant. I don't get why people need to form armed camps on these issues. We've got a decent pool of local people (adults and young people) who may be informal learners but are also into heavy and intelligent discussion.

Where do you live?

our children were teens and pre teens when they were deregistered. I thought we'd manage the education side okay but i knew from the beginning I would have to find socialisation outlets for them. We found the local home ed group, but in those days it was once a week at the local YMCA gymn and then back to a home edders house for coffee.
Soon enough that wasn't enough for my children, so we got our act together and started looking for things that would interest my children and attract others to come with them.
I've done my fair share of organising workshops and events and invited other families to join us, and latterly we managed to organise outdoor physical activities specifically to get teens to come to our neck of the woods to be with my kids.
In our area it took off and encouraged others to do the same. Eventually we developed a social scene that was very busy.
We have a monthly newsletter and a yahoo support group.
We've done lots of 'leaf sticking' or it's equivelant for as long as the children wanted to.
We also attended lots of camps and gatherings and the children made friends all over the country, as well as their friends locally.
They started to travel to stay with other autonomously home ed families, from about the age of 13, and other children came to stay with us, for days on end. I have said before that our house seemed to be full of teens...or completely empty!

I have listened to them having deeply philosophical and educational conversations, whilst doing some seemingly innane activity. Some how or other all of those autonomously home ed teens are now doing really well at Uni, work or at FE college.

Is there anyway you can take the bull by the horns and arrange something'educational that your daughter would enjoy IslaValargeone? Chances are if it interests her, then other local home edders may well be interested too.

Thank you all. i've really appreciated your input. I am based in London at the moment but circumstances mean dramatic changes for me. homeschooling and relocation are part of that. Like all parents and carers I am juggling income and parenting and education and ....the list goes on. Oh la la. That list never ends. In all of this, i am also trying to work out my work. Given I will soon begin home schooling, part of me wonders if I should try and work in this type of area as well. Maybe tutoring?? Food for thought. In many ways I see education is far less divided than it was. Many parents provide supplementary home schooling services to their children outside of school hours and many children in a homeschool setting access formalised education via the internet etc. Its all merging really but its still quite scary to take the plunge. Thank you again all. I will ponder some more and then post again.