Home Ed Wannabes

[TimeWasting]

DS currently at nursery, has a place in the oversubscribed Reception.

I never wanted him to go and now he's there it seems harder to get him out.
DH finally come round, if not as enthusiastic about Home Ed but he would be supportive.

But everyone sends their kids, everyone is expecting him to go.

He regularly tells me he doesn't want to go and I know he'd do well with me, for so many reasons he should not go. I don't need the childcare, I disagree with mass 'compulsory' schooling, for every positive he's got from school, there's been plenty of negatives too.

But everyone round here is very normal. We're moderate freaks as it is without going quite so non mainstream.
DH family in particular will go ballistic. We had enough grief about BLW.

I think he'll hate Reception. He has to be moving and talking all the time, asks questions, questions, questions and is quite behind in pencil control, nowhere near approaching writing, or even stick figures. He's aware that he's behind too, so does less of it. Much less likely to pick up a crayon than he was a year ago. Boredom, frustration, embarrassment and it's only going to get worse.

I need to do it, for my boy, but I'm not feeling very brave, when I know from everything I've read that there'll be some people who won't talk to us anymore, that we'll get interrogated regularly and every little difficulty will be met with school as the solution.

Any other wannabes? Advice from those who faced the decision and came out the other side?

I gave into the pressure to send dd to school, and kept her there until mid way through year 2. I wish I had been brave and done the right thing, as soon as it became apparent she was not thriving in a school environment.

Im not saying it will be easy, and as you can tell, there will be plenty of judgement and interrogation all around, however you will soon make homeschooling friends, and the fact your son is happy and thriving will make it all worthwhile.

One to one, you will be able to get pencil control sorted in no time, and after a depressurization period where you can just let him be, to get school and its stresses out of his system, Im sure you will know exactly how to reignite his interest in learning. It will be ok. You know him best, and you know what he needs. Im sure there will be others along with better advice than me, but if you can get dh onboard, then go for it!

Fwiw, my dh was not happy about it either, but now sees how well our children are doing and how happy they are, and couldnt be more supportive!

Good luck!

Hi timewasting, we are in a similar-ish situation. My dd is due to start reception in September in, what seems to be, a lovely and small oversubscribed village school.

We are new to the village and the area and we barely know anyone. I worry by keeping her out of school everyone in the village will think we are weirdos and we, but more importantly, she, won't make any friends. I swing between thinking the school is great and it will be alright and we should just start her, to wanting to kep her home for a while longer as she is too young, to thinking that HE is the best thing ever and I want to be able to be brave enought to do that. I know she would be able to "cope" with school but I just think 4 and a bit is too young to be in school full time. I feel a bit like she will be starting the process of being institutionalised. The difference is my DH is putting pressure on me to HE.

My family are a family of teachers and will all be horrified if we keep her out!

So, I will be watching this thread with interest. Currently we are thinking we will defer her start date until after next easter, so putting off our HE decsison until then. This makes me feel guilty about affecting the schools funding. We have a meeting with the head next week to discuss this and I know there will be quite a bit of opposition.

I am also a home education wannabe. However, DS is 3.9 and has just started two afternoons a week of pre-school which he seems to really enjoy (most of the time). He is booked to do 5 mornings of pre-school from next September and now seems to be well on the road to starting reception in September 2013.

The school is lovely, with not many children and a great ethos. I do trust the pre-school staff, who are kind and patient people and seem very committed and experienced. DS begged to go to pre-school like his friends and I know he enjoys playing with other children. He is an outgoing, sociable little boy and seems to be averagely bright, so I am not worried about him going to an environment where he might struggle. However, I would rather home-educate him...

In our case, the main complicating factor is that DS has very severe multiple food allergies, and it has beenextremely hard for me to trust anybody else to keep him safe (for example, he reacts on skin contact to traces of dairy and is also highly allergic to eggs, nuts, peas, lentils, sesame, banana etc.). He has spent his entire life with a parent within calling distance, and he clearly needs to spread his wings. The pre-school have been great at helping with this, and at making sure they keep him emotionally and physically safe.

I don't want to prevent DS from spending time away from me with other adults and children, when he so clearly wants to do this. I also worry that I am too lazy and slack a mother to be a successful home-educator. But all the same, I have loads of concerns about formal education. If DS ever expresses the least dissatisfaction with school, I will take him out like a shot!

Hi, You said ,Youre not feeling very brave,.......its a normal reaction but you will know very soon it is the right decision.....i know it seems scary the negative reaction ....but you wont care after a while as your sons happiness will convince you its the right thing to do.....

I'm a H.E, soon to be. Our dd is a bit older (8). I think if you are convinced that this is the best way for your dc you should go for it 100%. Maybe some people may surprise you with their reaction. my mil completely shocked me with her response of "I think its the best idea you have ever had". Honestly I thought she would flip. As a family we have considered this since April, as it wasn't so cut and dried with us. I mean there was no obvious reason to take her out of school. I feel brave now but both Dh and I have had spells of the wobbles and questioned if we would be doing the right thing. Its a big decision and understandably you will have times like this. A wise one on here told me under these circumstances remind yourself of the reasons you decided to consider it and keep these at the front of your mind. Wise words indeed. If you can remember who you were, thank you.

Mummyinthemiddle. Hello, I think I have posted to you before. FWIW I think your belief of not institutionalising your dc is strong and will give you the conviction you need to go ahead. It doesn't matter what others say, and I am receiving lots of positive comments from people atm. However, I'm sure I'll get some negatives too. There are two things that do concern me though the first is your newness in your village and friends for your dcs. Have you checked out the local HE groups and are you able to travel to major towns or cities if you are in the country. Would it be possible for dcs to eventually join the local sunday school/ if you are not against religion as this would give access to local children and friends for play.
I think you need to look at support from your dh in terms of his contribution especially if you want to use /go by a curriculum. If you have done all the leg work up till now, is he aware of what is involved? It helped me to get dh to devils advocate and for us both to communicate and make plans, even though I know most will change when we start. I know your dh thinks you can do it from your previous posts and this is why he pressurises you, but you need to establish clear roles if you think you need him on board.

Hi all I took my girls out of school finally 3 weeks ago it's been the best decision we have ever made my girls are 7 and 5 I got a lot of help off others in the uk and I even manage to post a daily diary on a site I made to help other parents to teach at home with links to free sites and resources and maybe give an insight of what i do with my girls. We're a family of jehovahs witnesses so we do quite an in depth r,e lesson. Each to their own so please no negative comments i'm just here about education. Hope this helps someone.
homeedinthetruth.weebly.com

Have you actually looked at what they do in reception? He will be learning through play, asking questions, moving and not using a pencil. ( unless it is a private school?)

Thanks for all the viewpoints, good food for thought.

exoticfruits, as far as I can tell Reception will be like Nursery, but with more formal learning added.
They already spend a lot of time sitting down.

If it is the same school as the nursery then you can assume they do. If it is different then you can't assume anything.

It is the same school.

I think you have to be brave. Your son only has you to fight his corner; he's too young to do it himself.

When I took DD2 out of school I was a school governor at her school. You can imagine how that looked and the reactions I got. It was an extremely uncomfortable decision for a while, with the school (I was still up there doing the school run every day), the parents, relatives - and friends who thought I had positively lost it! Like you, I've always been the free thinker, the slight oddball amongst a group of very mainstream people.

It gets more comfortable over time. We met lots of other home educators and that helped a lot. But for a while I was in this weird limbo where I felt very mainstream with my home ed group yet a bit way out for my other friends who, frankly, thought I'd lost a few marbles.

Nowadays, I'm so used to and comfortable with my lovely home ed friends I don't think about it any more. Other friends have seen what a success it has been for our girls and accept it as something which has actually worked for us, a part of my slightly off the wall nature. Family cannot sing the praises of what we have done enough - and yet some of them were very anti at the start.

In the end home ed remains by far the best thing I've ever done for my children - and that's worth having stood up for.

You don't feel quite comfortable with what people will think if you home educate. Do you think you might feel a bit more comfortable with what they will think if you are "not sending him to school this year because he doesn't seem ready yet"?

An awful lot of otherwise mainstream people have deep reservations about school for four year olds. I expect that a few would think you are making a bit of a mistake by delaying school start and will tell you so, but others will tell you that they wish their own child hadn't gone to school so young, or that their own child was fine but they knew other four year olds who weren't.

This would give people the opportunity to get used to what you are doing gradually. Those who know your son well may observe that he is actually doing quite well without school, contrary to their expectations.

After a few years it may dawn on a few people that at this rate it seems like your son might NEVER go to school. But even then, you don't have to make an official proclamation that you'd be perfectly happy to HE him forever, that you have ideological objections to schooling anyway, and that half of your new pals knit their own socks and you are thinking of having a go yourself. You could just say well, he seems to be happy and his learning is coming on by leaps and bounds, and he can go to school later if he wants, so we don't see any reason to change and we'll carry on as we are for the moment.

Saracen, I think that's the best way to explain it. FIL was gobsmacked that DS and his cousin were starting school nursery last year.

Hi, OP, we are in the same position, ds has place in reception for sept, very oversubscribed school, everyone thinks we are so lucky to have the place. I think school will be a disaster for ds (and us!) and have almost completely decided to keep him out. I have started to tell people and have been pleasantly surprised as to their responses, mostly I have talked about just delaying things and not my real plan which is HE all the way up. Most people react well to 'he's not ready for school' and it is true.

Exotic fruits, I thought the same as you about reception but when we went to the introductory meeting last week I discovered that they have a daily phonics group, reading twice a week, writing and maths groups, all set by ability. This is on top of circle time and story time. Free play is in the gaps. They spend a surprising amount of time sitting down. The school explained that this is partly due to the end of reception assessment which all schools do. We have been told that over the summer we must teach them to write their names and recognise a list of key words. This doesn't seem like learning through play to me.

They all differ-unfortunately some can't find one that uses play first. There is a lot to be said for delaying formal learning until later.

Being over subscribed doesn't make it a good school!

Exotic fruits I agree about delaying formal learning. Sadly it seems that the end of reception assessment is making many schools focus on phonics etc during reception. Our local school is widely regarded as good, it has a lovely atmosphere and most parents I know are happy with it. I agree that being oversubscribed doesn't make it good, but it does make it less likely a child could get a place later on if you choose to delay starting for a year or two.

True.

I'm a home Ed goingtobe. DD is 11 in the Autumn and I'm pulling her out if the best girls' school money can buy locally. I know it's the right decision. She's already relaxed a lot and is excited about learning with me.

Some of the best support has been from the teachers at DS's (state) school where I'm chair of governors. Really supportive, offering resources etc. Two teachers from my church have also offered resources.

Friends are less convinced as I'm winding down two businesses to do this. I've met some home Ed parents - I think my mainstreamness might be freaking them out a bit!

DD has dyspraxia, dyslexia and dysgraphia as well as an eye problem which gives her double vision. Academically she's ahead of her peers so I'm going to push eye exercises, independence training and writing and spelling this year.

We're applying for high schools and she'll sit entrance exams for independents in the Autumn to give her options.

But we'll take each day as it comes. I think it's going to be fine.