Are there any benefits of Primary school that HE can't usually provide?

[carolinecordery]

Hello all, I haven't registered my DD for Reception, which she would be eligible to start in September.
I was just wondering if you thought there were any benefits of primary school that HE can't provide. What things are good about primary school that are only available through attending?
I'm planning to HE and am convinced of the benefits of doing so, but want a rounded picture. It's easy to think of loads of things that would be, relatively, a bit crap about primary school, but is there ANY really good reason to go? DD's non-resident dad would rather she went.
Thanks, Caroline

The OP asked what benefits school had over HE.
By posting these benefits the inference was that HE children are missing out on these ?benefits?
Exoticfruits, on the very first page of this thread you posted your list.

They learn to cope on their own-to share and have give and take. To listen to others and not always come first. To be able to fall out and make up.
To have the stimulus of other children and other ideas. To bounce ideas off each other.
To be able to do PE in a hall with apparatus. To do music and drama with others. To get used to speaking in front of an audience.
To respond to different adults and be exposed to different ideas.
To mix with children of different ages.
To get a break from siblings-if she has any.

Turn this list on it?s head and in exotic is saying HE children

Don?t learn how to share
Dont listen to others, always come first and never fall out and make up.
Dont have the stimulus of other children or ideas to bounce off each other.
Dont get to use gym equipment in a hall.
Never do music or drama with others or speak in front of an audience.
Dont get to respond to others or be exposed to different ideas.
Never mix with children of different ages
Never get a break from siblings

well, you really have a hight opinion of the HE child don't you??

Seeker
You have maintained throughout this thread that there have been no slurs made on HE children, and insist that it is only the HEers who are rude that we are defensive and not open to debate. Once again The OP asked what Primary school provides that HE children would miss out on.
You provided us with your list quite early on too. The list included spending everyday with your friends. I don?t see that as necessary or that my DD would even want to, but that's just us. As for the rest of your list, if we turn it on it'd head what you wrote/implied was

HE Children

can?t take part in team games

won?t learn how to get along with children/adults they may not necessary like

won?t know how to work in a group

won?t do stuff they might never have considered before and find out they enjoy it

wont get to applaud another child?s achievements even if eaten up with jealousy

won?t be able to share, accommodate, acknowledge and appreciate difference.

That last one is class, and frankly insulting.

That list smacks to me of all the mis-guided, ignorant mis-conceptions HE children have to endure.We have been listening to this nonsense for years and you wonder why we are defensive!
I am sure you can see why some HE-ers were a bit peed off reading that. I agree, there have been mis-conceptions on both sides but you have to admit your list was inflammatory to HE families in the least. Or maybe you can?t see it, because then you went on to write

The is an interesting debate to be had, but it can't be had if the "sides" polarise. And I do find that the HE ers get defensive- then justify the defensiveness by saying they get fed up of being judged. When nobody on the thread has judged. Really?

Seeker I see you frequent the HE boards often and go back a long way. You are aware of how HE families strive to provide their DCs with all the things you quote in your list. You knew you would provoke a negative/defensive response from some HEers and you ran with it.

Once again_The OP asked about the opportunities at school that HE children would miss out on. You (and exoticfruits) posted inaccurate, misleading and insulting ?lists? that reminded me of the ignorant views that some people have of HE children never being able to ?socialise?(locked away in the cupboard and never allowed into the real world) You can almost forgive some folk for having this view, because they simply have no idea how HE works in practice. But Seeker, you do know. Once you both posted your lovely lists, this was never going to be a debate because it had already turned into an HE-bashing thread (however veiled the insults)

I apologise to those that were upset when I said earlier that school had no benefits at all over HE. Of course, I can see that for some children it is the best route to take. I was speaking from our point of view, our experiences as an HE family. As I said, we have 3 grown up children who have all been through the system and one HE child and for us it?s a no_brainer. HE has afforded us a wonderful life with our DD. I am sorry if it upsets some of you, that just like Julienoshoes, there really are no warts to speak of and not one thing my DD could get/want from school that can?t be accessed in our wonderful community (apart from the free child-care)

Ok excuse my shorthand. I should have said that my list of is of things which happen at school, but which are more difficult to achieve in HE. I apologise if you inferred that I thought they were things impossible for a he child to achieve. I did not mean that.However, they are things which are difficult to achieve in HE and glossing over the difficulties does no one any favours.

I am resisting the urge to C and P the disparaging things people have posted about schools and therefore, by extrapolation, school educated children

And it is ridiculous to say it is a HE bashing thread. The op asked if there'd were things that school could provide that were hard to achieve in HE. You are suggesting that saying anything but "no of course not- HE is perfect in every way" is "bashing".which is absurd.

And another thing! I still don't understand why "schoolies" are fair game but HE has to remain unchallenged.

Maybe the OP posted her original comment asking home eders what they felt a school could provide, not what non-home eders who've only had experience of one side think? Most HE families have experience of bost and are the best placed to answer these questions.

So again we return to the daft notion that only those who home educate are entitled to an opinion.

Schoolies aren't fair game. HE ers just want to be left alone to discuss important HE issues, not to debate on moronic topics so schoolies feel better about themselves!

Many things that I hear HErs praising about HE are exactly the things that I see as potentially very wrong with HE. I guess that's why there's such narrow meeting ground. People looking at the same picture but seeing completely different parts of it.

I wonder if seeker will now be considered qualified to have an opinion on HE, given that she has experienced it? Or will she still be considered "ignorant" because she hasn't chosen to go down the same path.

The vitriol in sigasiga's post reminds me of the anger directed at ex-cult members by those who remain within the fold.

It is reassuring to see some more balanced posts on here though, particularly from emandlu and bochead.

I have 6 home educated nieces, nephews and young cousins too [helpful]

I just think that no method of education is perfect, there are good points and bad points in all.

emandlu, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement - it seems to me that it would be better for all of our kids if we could just be honest about this!

@ seeker - but you're still ignorant, because you won't accept that HE is inherently superior.

Seeker, none of the items on your list are difficult for my dd to experience in or out of school. The friends she has in her activities have been together for longer than her school friends. By the time she leaves junior and senior choir it will be the case here as well. You don't need a school to achieve your points. In fact I think groups and classes of children sharing the same interests far out weigh a school class where nobody shares the same interest.

Go and spend time with your kids for goodness sake when you actually have the opportunity!

seeker, the socialisation issue is clearly a major factor in your preference for the school system. I'm interested to know about your experiences of this as an HE kid - did your parents think that they had the socialisation aspect "covered", as someone on here has put it, and if so, what was your actual experience of this?

I'm interested, because all three of the ex-HE adults I know who have chosen to send their kids to school cite similar reasons, and it makes me wonder if some of the HE-ers have that aspect "covered" as well as they might like to think?

I think it was me that said I had the socialisation aspect covered. To explain myself, dd is involved in dancing 3 times a week, choir once a week. We have children in the street she plays with who attend different schools and are different school years. She will join a string group in september with new children and other groups if we decide to H.ed. She plays in the park with kids she has never met, of all ages. Has a friend at school known from pre-school who she will continue to play with. These she does irrespective of whether she is school or H.ed. It costs me £40 per week for lessons and activities which is also the same for school or H.ed

"Go and spend time with your kids for goodness sake when you actually have the opportunity!"

I'd love to. However they are both out doing stuff. School educated kids do, you know!

morethan, my dd dances 3 times a week as well, and has a range of other extra-curricular activities (Rainbows, swimming etc). She also has a couple of other close friends out of school who she sees regularly. It's very Important to me that she does develop friendships out of school, and I do what I can to nurture these, but as I see it, these relationships complement the socialisation opportunities in school, but they could in no way replace them. As seeker has said, it's about more than just having friends.

Well, I am off to spend time with my dd now - going to meet a friend who is not from her school and not the same age as her.

Collager I think you have been really quite rude! How do you know the othes on the thread don't spend time with their DC's?

Please don't lump me in with people who just resort to insults!

I personally don't see that being with people for 6 hours a day helps you learn to get along with them unless you are already quite good at that kind of thing. It made me become even more introverted and I still have problems getting to know people due to the enforced socialisation of my school years.

We all make decisions based on our own experiences and the information we have available. I don't see the socialisation gained from school to be a positive thing. You do. So we make different choices. All's good.

I'm lol at this thread now. This has been an argument for arguments sake as no one is going to agree and we're all going to continue doing what we're doing.

Jinsei, as I stated there was nothing on the list posted by Seeker that my dd hadn't experienced in a variety of situations. She does these whilst attending school and will do if H.ed. What socialisation opportunities are there that seeker has listed that my dd or your dd would not experience in our out of school activities.

I can't do anything with dd atm as she has gone back to school today, when all the other kids in the area are on half term. She has a full day of commando activities today and believe it or not a jubilee party on friday.

I can understand Collager's frustration at some of the comments , but agree she shouldn't have said what she did.

I think Seeker has been rude on this thread too. And as for putting words into the mouths of home educators, I'm still waiting for a reply on where a home educator said she wasn't qualified to have an opinion.....

I'm not wasting any more time on this ridiculous thread.

Socialisation and making/having friends are not the same things. A common misconception.

I've found this thread really interesting to read as I am currently feeling ambivalent about whether or not to continue with HE or put DD back into school in September. Some very interesting points on here. Shame about the bunfights though...

DD is 9 (Yr 4) and we took her out of school last November because she wasn't happy and we decided to see whether she would be happier HE. We said we'd give it until the end of the academic year to see how things have progressed and what we want to do. DD emphatically does not want to go back to school. I can't say it's been an easy seven months, but at the moment I'm leaning towards continuing with HE for the time being at least. So... some of the pros and cons...

Socialisation... this is a big issue for DD. She had never been very socially adept. Her brilliant nursery picked up on this and she had some small group work and lots of assessment. They concluded that she has no SEN, but is very strong willed and didn't feel the need to comply with or follow other children. I'd say that's still the case with her now. She can come across as bossy and unwilling to compromise. On the other hand, she can also be very kind and sensitive. Her interactions with others at school were causing her a lot of stress and distress. We had a melt-down almost every day after school about all the perceived injustices and wrongs meted out to her by everyone that day. She could rarely see how she'd contributed to those situations. She very often didn't want to go to school, was often ill, needed so long to decompress from school each day that she didn't have the time or energy for after-school activities, and all enthusiasm for learning had gone out of the window.

Since HE she is happier and calmer overall. She plays with children almost every day after school. We have a boy from her class round once a week and she's close to sisters who live on our road - they're in and out of each others' houses all the time. She loves socialising at the HE group once a fortnight. She has school friends round to play regularly. She didn't ever have a best friend or close friendship group at school, although there were people she played with often. I'd like her to spend more time with other children and am working on setting up more stuff for her with other HE children.

So for her, not having to rub along with classmates is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand she isn't stressed and unhappy due to her interactions with others, on the other hand she's not being forced to compromise and get on with all of these other children. I can see the value of her having to do that, certainly, but I also saw how it was affecting her and can see the value of not forcing her into that situation but letting things come more naturally as she matures. Her social skills with other children have improved now she's not so defensive and angry at school.

Something I do think she's missed out on are the opportunities for group work and cooperation that she'd have at school. Working together to produce something with other children. I'm not sure how much they did of that though.

A positive is that she gets to spend more time with her grandparents (who live far away) and have a very different set of experiences when she's there (roaming free in the countryside etc.). Similarly we are able to be much more flexible with when and for how long she sees her dad, and he's in the city so has a different set of experiences there too. Of course she still spent time with them when she was at school, but this has given us the opportunity to more of that in a more relaxed way. xDP took her to New Zealand for a month earlier in the year to spend time with relatives, something that wouldn't have been possible if she were schooled at that time. This is also due to her dad's circumstances; he's self employed and flexible so this wouldn't have been relevant if he were 9-5 like my DP is. I think it does her good to be away from me and spend time with other family members.

Ok I'll post this, make a cup of tea, and then talk about the academic side of things.