Choosing to HE when there are other goodish options out there

[sanserif]

Most people seem to come to HE as a sort of option of last resort: the regular school system failed them or their kids, so they HE. Then of course they may end up loving it, but it wasn't initially part of the plan. I'd be interested in hearing from people who felt like they had viable alternatives but went with HE anyway. Why did you choose to? How has it been?

Background to the question is that I've been driving myself crazy over the last few months visiting schools, figuring out what I think would be best for my DS (3) and I feel fairly confident that HE would be the best option in terms of the education he'd get, but it just seems so radical.

sanserif. He wasn't part of the plan for us and we haven't started yet, but our reasons are because we have seen the light, so to speak. I definitely don't want dd to go to high school and until the past few years never knew HE was an option.
On paper you would presume we are mad for taking dd out of school for the following reason.

Ofsted good/outstanding, 27 in class, excellent pastoral care. Very happy dd, confident, lovely supportive friends (of her hobbies/interests). Good teachers.
Small CofE Primary school. Nice catchment area, not snobs, not chavs.

For us its the fact that dd can learn enough in a couple of hours freeing time for her to follow her interests. Also to benefit from greater choice in the subjects she studies.
There are many reasons people choose to HE not just because the system has failed them.

Don't think I'll be much use to you but we've just made the decision not to send our dcs to school. Dd1 is 4 years old. There are some good state schools that we could have used or we could have sent them to private school but we feel that HE is the best thing for our dcs.

But dd1 isn't even old enough for school yet so we aren't really doing anything different to anyone else at the moment!

When I first home eded I did it as a means to an end. We were in the catchment for an appalling state inner city state school and prep school scholarships didn't kick in until Year3. So that was the plan - HE until scholarships and we were successful.

It literally has only been in the last month, although to HE was decided in January, that I've seen the light! My eldest has not achieved half of what he could have at home. He's doing exceptionally well by most school standards but not for him and it's been really expensive. DS2 has also always been in private schools and he has been successful in some but not in others. He's also failing to thrive to his potential and I find the whole system very prescriptive and overly conformist. I don't think this is good for the conformist personality or the child who is the other extreme i.e. my kids! I feel we've wasted years of fees, given up our lives, holidays and potential memories because our focus was on finding fees. We are still in a position to afford these good schools but I no longer want to. I genuinely don't see the benefit anymore. There are only a few schools that I think are worth the money and they are very different from the majority of schools.

And beware of good state schools. They are usually oversubscribed so bulging numbers wise and there is a reason they have good results - because they are very prescriptive.

Thanks all for your prompt replies: it's helpful to hear how other people ended up HEing. I've been agonising over this for ages. I want to provide my DCs with an education that is child-friendly (by this I mean plenty of running around, active learning, low on the 'chalk 'n talk') and RIGOROUS. I've found it easy enough to find a child-friendly school in London but most of these places are quite arts-focused (which is a very good thing, but not to the exclusion of maths and science) and very unselective. I'm not at all interested in competitiveness but I am interested in rigour and in pushing yourself as far as you can be pushed, and generally in striving for excellence. This combination just seems impossible to find, which is partly why I'm thinking of HEing.

We had this situation. My eldest son was at a nice nursery at the local primary school and was on the waiting list for reception. I thought I'd home ed temporarily until he got offered a place. We started going to groups and doing things and meeting other home edders over the summer. 2 weeks into Autumn term he got offered a place. By that stage my heart really wanted to home ed. But my partner didn't want us to and it was a really good school and everyone thought I was mad for even considering turning the place down. I had a really horrible 2 weeks trying to make up my mind what to do. It felt really lonely. I decided to carry on home edding - it really helped that I'd met older home ed children and seen how it could work. I turned the place down and nearly 4 years later am home edding all 3 of my children. My partner has pretty much come round, I think his main objection was that's it's a bit 'weird'. I'm very, very glad I decided to turn the place down. I think the last 4 years have been much more interesting and fun as a result. I've learnt a lot and the children seem to have as well. I've loved having the freedom to go away when we want and we do lots of day trips. I certainly found it a horribly hard decision, especially because it was doing something so different to what the friends I'd made at ante-natal/nursery etc were doing. Really the hardest bit was making the decision, although I still have moments when I think I'm mad to turn down free state childcare, but having made it felt like such a big relief and everything has seemed fairly straightforward since.

Hi
We HE our twin 7 yr olds and 8 yr old daughters. Their infant and junior school was 'ok', nothing more or less really. They were getting an education of sorts there and didn't seem desperately unhappy...BUT they are all quiet, conscientious girls who were lost in a class of 30...they did get stressed by the noise and hubbub and DD1 was endlssly bored as she is bright and absorbs info very quickly. I'd been researching HE for several years after a friend told me she wasn't sending her twins to school, read loads of books and knew in my heart it was the best option for all of us. They left school a few months ago. So, so glad we did it. They are so much happier and more relaxed, learning loads, never stop reading and we have fab days out (tomorrow it's the Tate Modern, Millenium bridge, Globe Theatre and lots of history)...and no school run in the pouring rain .

Good luck with your decision.

ps Have your heard of the book The well trained mind bn Susan Bauer?

Thanks lilyfire and catnipkitty for your stories. lilyfire, I hadn't heard of the book until I ran across the associated website and forums. Will check it out when I have a moment. There seem to be a lot of schools of thought around it all -- unschooling, Charlotte Mason, etc.. Hadn't realised there were all these approaches though on reflection, why wouldn't there be. I'd definitely need some kind of philosophy to use as a grounding otherwise I worry I might flounder.

This is, I'm sure, the first question you always get asked but how does the whole social side of it work? If you live in London, is it easy enough to find HE groups that meet somewhat frequently? Do people band together to hire specialists for certain subjects? Do museums, etc. do anything catering to HE groups?

Hi
Socially for us in S London there are several largish groups we can access. My girls and I all function better and are alot happier in smaller groups so we have a few friends who we share outtings with or get togethers in someone's house. the girls also see quite a bit of their school friends.

Hi sanserif, we've been HE since the beginning (oldest is 6 1/2 now), no one has been to nursery or school. We're in a pretty rubbish catchment area but the main reason was because we knew lots of people who did it and it looked brilliant! Haven't looked back (not that every day is easy, but nothing has made me consider school just yet). We're in NE London.

Dd (now 7) has been home ed from the start. I knew it was my preferred option before she was even born. The schools in the area are mostly fine, it wasn't a reaction to only having bad choices or a lack of choice.

I suppose that I saw it as everyone home educates from birth, and at different points different families need outside input. That might be sending children to a skill based or educational class, needing childcare or any combination of things including school. If we ever reach the point that going to school would be of more benefit to dd than picking and choosing what resources we access then we'll look at schools. But nothing so far has indicated that might be the case any time soon.

DD1 (about to turn 6) has also never been to school, there are some good schools in our area (and some rubbish ones too!).

She would have been 4 years and about 6 weeks starting school and honestly, she was still a baby. There is no way she would have coped with being away from me for so long, it is just her personality and we believe that forcing her into situations she is uncomfortable with would do her harm.

Since we decided, we have encountered lots of other reasons to HE, so the other 2 DDs won't be going either even though I'm sure DD2 would be fine.

We decided to HE when dd1 was just 4 and told me she wanted to learn things by herself, not be taught them by someone else. I didn't look at primary schools after that because i was quite sure that HE was going to be the right thing for her, and I didn't want it to be seen as a reaction against schools.

We sort of "fell into" HE. First we couldn't get a place for ds. When a new school opened in our town we were offered a place and we found we couldn't afford the fees (we are overseas and public schools are for locals only -plus we don't speak the country's language). So we started to HE. At first I was incredibly stressed. Now I'm pretty much sold out. DS is such a character -I am sure he would hate a very prescriptive school. At the same time he is very driven and keen on science and math and becomes bored and distracted if the lesson is not challenging. So... (blimey, I sound like a convert, don't I?)