Friend of mine is home schooling for her 4 year old in September...

[Lotkinsgonecurly]

And all of my friends dd's peers my dd included) will be going to the local small village school. The main problem is that my friend is basing her objection to school on the fact that she was a teacher in the late 1980's and I along with other people have suggested that things have changed in the last 20 years.

However, I really want to be supportive to my friend and have just mentioned when asked why I am happy sending my dd to the local ( good but not outstanding) school.

Friends dd is an only child and I am overly concerned for the child's lack of socialisation with other children of a similar age.

I know its completely her choice etc but the dd has been at playgroup and the mother has loved time away from the daughter to do her own thing in the mornings. I think she'll have a bit of a shock to be honest when she starts home schooling her in September. The local school have offered to do flexi schooling if she wishes Monday - Thursday mornings which are the same days as the playgroup were.

I must just add I'm an only child and was home schooled for a couple of years during primary years and found it so isolating as I was rarely mixing with other children. When I did start school after months of me constantly asking my mother to I found it really difficult transition period.

Tarenath: you said,

"seeing 20 or 30 of the same children for 36 weeks of the year, five days a week, working together, playing together and learning together"

That's actually my idea of Hell right there. Not a "good nurturing environment" at all.
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Personally, I wouldn't go so far as "Hell", but it doesn't appeal to me either! I'm not the sort of person who likes being crowded in with lots of other people all day every day, which is part of the reason I didn't enjoy school.

Interestingly, my highly-sociable dd also disliked the school environment when she tried it at the age of nine. It was a lovely school and the kids were nice. However, she found it socially limiting to see exactly the same people day after day after day. Even in the playground, which should have offered opportunities to mix a bit more widely, there was pressure to play only with children of her own gender and exactly her own age. The girls in her class who were trying to get her to declare a "best friend" didn't accept her assertion that she didn't have one specific best friend, that her closest few friends were boys, that they weren't even her age, and they didn't attend her school!

While at school, she ended up retreating somewhat from all her favourite after-school activities, from her friends, and from her family. By the end of the day, she'd had enough of being with so many people, and just wanted some time alone in her room. Which was fine, but would have been rather sad if she'd stayed at school for long and the situation had continued indefinitely.

Saracen:

Hell may have been something of an overstatement. That's what I get for posting before 8am. At best I tolerated the other kids. At worst I didn't want to be within a 10ft radius of anyone my own age. I'm not the most sociable bunny!

My son's best friend is at school and he used to come home and sit in his room playing his ds and generally wanting nothing to do with the outside world. I suspected this may have been down to overstimulation while at school. Things have improved now and he's much more sociable after school.

Having re-read my post I can see that it comes across as I'm using my negative school experience to justify our decision to HE. I just wanted to clarify that is not the case. It was DH, who had a comparatively positive school experience, who suggested we HE. I hadn't even considered it as a viable option until then. Plus we've spent the past 4 years researching and it's not a decision we came to lightly. DS himself has said he doesn't want to go to school yet and there is plenty of research to suggest he's much better off at home accessing a more holistic education than at school which might have better facilities (I want one of those interactive smartboards!) but overall I believe to be a more limiting environment.

I hate that when DS gets together with his friends from school, they want to establish who is his "first" friend, and who is his "second" friend etc etc. He doesn't have a clue what they're talking about :(