wish I had popped in here first :)

[mamauk]

Just posted on the 'primary education' board bit and feel a bit hammered :)

Newbie to mumsnet so looking forward to asking more here. Have home educated for a decade and now have one child 'trying out' school, two more at home and another baby in the womb still.... (so very much 'safe' at home:) )

Any others with a mixed education thing going on? Some at home/some at school? How is it working out for you as a family?

thanks,

Hello sweetie! You know me very well, and (as you know), mine are all at home at the moment, so I can't advise you on the blended family bit.

Nice to see you here. Don't go in Primary Education - it's a den of wolves!

Hi! I have one at home, one at school and it's working out fine. The potential problem is when the schooled child gets jealous that the home schooled child gets to stay home. However, when this happens, my older son (the home schooled one) lays it on really thick about how hard he has to work and it soon puts the little one off!

I had one at school and one at home for a year and it was fine.

The disadvantages were that I was still tied to school hours and I found home educators often do things in the afternoon, lazy relaxed bunch that they are! So I often couldn't attend things or had to go after an hour. DD1 was secondary school at the time so I mostly avoided the weird looks and 6,000 questions about why DD2 wasn't in school! However, people get used to it after a while.

The advantages were I had time for each child separately. It was lovely spending the day with DD2 as, being the second and earlier to bed, I rarely got the one on one time with her I did with DD1. In the evenings DD2 accepted that she'd had me to herself all day and was happy for me to spend time with DD1. That aspect was very successful.

After a year, DD1 decided life wasn't so fair after all and came out of school.

Next year she goes to college, so I'll be back with one in home ed and one in outside education again. I will miss DD1 terribly, but it will be nice to have that time with DD2 again. Like you, I'll be adjusting to having a child not being home educated for the first time ever

DD2 isn't looking forward to it at all. She sobs if we mention DD1 not being here. Time with me quite clearly doesn't replace the loss of company of her sister! But I'm sure it will work out, and for you too. I think we are all more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for :)