How do you start?

[The3Bears]

Hi, I am a sahm to my 4.5 yr old ds, at the minute he attends preschool 5 mornings a week and he enjoys it however he didnt get a place at the school joined there and was offered one futher away which I do not want him to attend.
I have an appeal for the school next week but have seriously been thinking about home ed, I have no idea how to start though and what happens if I do this. Can anyone shed some light please.

tia

[julienoshoes]

Hello 3Bears.
Many families whose children never go onto full time school carry on as they have done before, learning through living life. Your child will learn to read in much the way you helped him to learn to walk and talk etc.
Others do more formal structured stuff.
There are probably as many different ways to home ed as there are families doing it.

We have a number of threads on here that are especially for newbies to home ed, on books about home ed/websites about home ed/how to find local home educators.
I'll go bump them for you.

If you decide to home ed I'd suggest writing back and declining the school place offered, saying that you do not now need it as yu have made other arrangements for your child's education.
The Local Authority may well then get in touch and if they do you can confirm you are home educating your child.
They will almost certainly ask to make a home visit. The law is very clear on this though, how you choose to give information to a LA about the education you are providing is up to you. You can have a home visit if you would like one, or you can send in written information about the education you are providing instead. It's entirely up to you.
The websites about HE will give you more detailed information about this though.
if you have any more questions, after having a look at those threads, do come back and ask!

[lilyfire]

I was in your situation 3 years ago. We decided to home ed until we got to the top of the waiting list for the school we wanted. I read a few home ed books and went to local groups. I signed my son up for a couple of 'after-school' clubs. We did carry on mostly as before, drawing, making things, reading and doing experiments and going out and about quite a lot. I signed up for education city and found some other educational websites my son liked. We got offered a school place two weeks into term and I turned it down as we were having too much fun. I put on the form we were home edding, but we haven't heard from the LA yet, and we are still home edding.

[Saracen]

You said that your son is enjoying his preschool. In the short term, you may like to speak to the preschool to ask whether there is room for him to stay on. So long as they haven't already allocated all their places for the autumn, he should be able continue there until he reaches compulsory education age in the term after his fifth birthday.