A lot of questions about whether to HE - very long!

[gulpfiction]

To give a bit of history - dd has never liked school all that much but she's just finished Y4 and it's been getting steadily worse. She's fine academically, they've always been very pleased with her academic skills but over the last 3-4 years there have been more and more problems with the social, emotional and physical sides of her being at school. She's never had that many friends and this has progressed into low level bullying (exclusion from groups and refusing to play with her rather than physical attacks but has still hurt dd a lot).

This is partly because of 'her' (not blaming her but separating out the issues) - 'spacing out' and not paying attention because she gets bored by the work and finds the classroom environment overwhelming, which the school don't seem bothered about working on, either pushing her more or helping me work out how to 'train' her to cope with the classroom.

It's also partly because of 'me' - for the first couple of years I was working long hours and nursery always dropped off/picked up which meant I didn't 'bond' with the other mums which I didn't think would be an issue but it's turned out to be a VERY cliquey environment where the parents make friends and so the kids are 'forced' to be friends too, which I and dd are completely out of. She has friends outside school but none from school so think she's very isolated at school because of it and hasn't finely developed her social skills (as friends outside have always been very 'easy').

Lastly there's been issues around her 'physical' side which haven't helped - her hearing was terrible for a couple of years until we got that sorted, she had a skin condition which looked 'bad' and took almost two years to shift and she has co-ordination problems so all this has set her apart even more and seems to have led to the other kids acting as though she's 'dirty' (because of the skin condition, even though it's long gone) and babyish because of her co-ordination.

Sorry for the long post already but thought the background was needed. The actual issue is that her last two end of year reports have been terrible, not the academic side, but about her not engaging in class, not having friends, getting distracted in class etc. After the first bad one I spoke to her teacher who assured me there was nothing I could do to help at home and to see if she 'matured' in this year. The teacher raised no issues through the year with me (was having a very busy time at work so haven't been massively involved with the school but have usually been around at drop off/pick up if issues needed to be raised) yet there was again a really 'bad' report this year on her social/attention/physical capabilities sides.

I'm angry the teacher never brought up with me how 'badly' dd was doing even though I raised my concerns at the start of the year and feel like dd is 'doomed' in that class because of how the kids already see her, even if she was to become uber-confident and focused overnight. Logically I feel like I should raise the matter with the school and keep her there, try and work through the problems at least for a little while, maybe with a view to moving schools but my gut instinct says that's just wasting time and nothing much would improve. My instinct is to take her out without even discussing the problems with the school, home ed until secondary age comes around and review the situation then. I feel that way she'd gain more academically (as I'd be able to stretch her and give her 1-1), could work on her physical issues and social skills and be a lot happier. I could just about make it work financially although it would be very hard but it would mean kissing goodbye to a decent career I'm right on the verge of for at least 2 years and settling for 'coping', but I'd be prepared to do that happily if it was the right thing for dd.

My only wobble is am I being too hasty - should I give the school a chance to help dd improve things (and me a chance at a good job) /move schools or go with my heart and pull her out without discussion?

(thankyou if you even read this far!)

Sorry I said a lot of questions in the title and realised by the time I got to the end I'd summed it up into one, sorry, I'm sure other questions will come out soon but that's my main one at the moment and it's kind of eclipsing anything else.

You have lots of issues going on there. First, I think you need to be really sure about stepping away from a good career. Will it damage your career if you take a couple of years out? How much will you miss it? Or are you actually quite enthusiastic about taking time out to do something different? Can you manage financially?

If you really don't want to leave your career, then I think you should be finding out more about your DD's issues (well, you need to do that anyway) and how to support her with those, as well as looking into changing schools (as it really doesn't sound as if either of you are very happy there and you already have a 'gut instinct' against it). I'm not sure how much the cliquey element of the school will have affected your DD. There are plenty of working mums whose children make friends perfectly well without their mums mixing with other parents. I don't think you should consider your lack of opportunity to bond with other parents as too much of an issue.

Reading about the school makes me feel quite cross on your and your DD's behalf. If the school is noticing social/attention/physical problems, they should have notified you and worked out a way to support your DD with those. If I were you, I would consider asking the GP for a referral to CAMHS to find out more about DD's problems and ways to help her.

If you do decide to HE your DD and you are happy with the decision, then I think it's a fantastic thing to do (said as someone who has dipped her toe into HE before and has now gone the whole hog and deregistered my oldest son). DS1 was in a similar situation to your DD at primary school in that he suffered bullying and could not cope in the classroom environment. He became very depressed at the beginning of Year 6 and I took him out. I don't believe it would have been helpful to him to try and get him accepted back into the social group at school and he had lost trust in all of them anyway. He tried secondary school, but it was even harder for him and we are now planning to HE him till he's 16, unless he decides to go back to take GCSEs at school. Taking him out of school was absolutely the right thing to do for him and he is gaining in confidence and happiness every day.

HEd would give your DD time to rebuild her confidence away from an environment that sounds damaging to her. It's great that she has friends outside school that she can see and I'm sure she would also make many friends through the HE networks. I put out a short introductory email on my local home ed board about my son wanting to meet like-minded souls and now have four meetings with other HE boys and their mums lined up for September!

Re: your final question - are you being too hasty? Well, julienoshoes found out about HE on a Friday and deregistered all her three children on the Monday and has had a whale of a time, so I shouldn't worry about that. I'm the cautious type, so it has taken me 15 months to make my mind up, with lots of to-ing and fro-ing on the way. What really matters is that you feel you are making the right decision, not how quickly you make it.

Good luck - and let us know what happens.

I agree with ToffeeWhirl. After all this time, things aren't going to improve at your daughter's school. She needs a fresh start through home ed or a different school.

If you had no career issue I would be urging you to home ed straightaway, but your situation is a little complicated. Perhaps it's worth trying another school. If that doesn't work then in the end it may come down to a question of whose unhappiness would be greater: your daughter's if she has to go to school, or yours (and perhaps the rest of the family) if you have to give up your career for a few years or permanently.

Have you thought about the option of taking your daughter out of school and having someone else look after her while you continue to work? A childminder could be part of the picture, maybe one who is home educating her own children and needs some income. You could delegate the educational side of things to her, or just ask her to provide childcare while you do the education when you're not at work. The benefit of one-to-one attention is so great that you would be able to do this in far fewer hours than your dd spends at school. (Children who are too ill to attend school and have a tutor sent out by the Local Authority usually get five hours of instruction a week, and the tutors report that it is generally enough to keep them caught up.)

Thanks for the reply - stepping away from my career wouldn't hurt it any more than being out of a job for a set time affects you anyway so not too much risk there, and there's a possibility I could 'keep my hand in' in a small way by doing part-time work. It's more my selfishness of having spent the last few years doing a mix of part-time, self employment and training 'bits' and finally having the chance to go full-time and 'enjoy' the fruits of my labour but this coming at the same time. Kind of a head vs heart thing. My head says go for the money and the reward of having a fulfilling job and talking to adults every day but my heart says even though that would be 'fun' I'd really regret it later if dd kept losing out and, although the prospect of HE'ing terrifies me tbh I'm also REALLY excited about the idea and it'd probably be more fulfilling than a ft job for me (only less helpful to the bank account).

Still have to talk to dd about it, if she veto'ed the idea completely I wouldn't make her leave school but I think she'll jump at it and I think it would be the best thing for all of us.

Thanks for the tip about the GP, will make an appt I think, am so cross that the school have been so blase about it all then dare to list a load of dd's 'faults' in the end of year report. And I don't think I've seen julienoshoes (although have been digesting the HE board so may have forgotten!) around but love that story, thought I was being completely unreasonable to do it with no notice but it seems pointless to send her back for a little bit just to whip her out.

Thanks saracen - I've seriously thought about a new school but there isn't one round here that I completely love so the choice of which one would be hard and it'd be risky as to whether it would be a good move for her or not. I'm hoping I could manage to work part time around HE'ing, perhaps get the best of both worlds - I might be able to get family to help one day a week and maybe a childminder for 1-2 days a week and if I was very lucky I could do some work from home so it could work better than I'm anticipating financially. It's funny - when I think about 'losing' my career by myself it feels like a bad thing, when someone else talks about it I feel quite defensive of the idea to HE, which probably backs up what my gut instinct to do is .

I'd assumed it wouldn't take nearly as much time to HE as school takes in a week but 5 hours is even less than I was expecting! Looks like I won't be running to cram everything in then, which was one of my worries about balancing HE'ing with working.

Think whatever logical objections I keep bringing up my heart keeps saying do it!

My ds never thrived at school socially, though was in 1st/2nd stream in his subjects, and slipped into doing the bullying himself after years of being a victim. He's got some thing like dyslexia but has never shown up on the yearly screenings. I pushed and pushed to get him formally tested but school says there was no point testing as they wouldn't do anything other than they were already doing!!!? He also has flat feet. Sounds laughable but it means he is slow, clumsy and suddenly falls over = a prime bullying target.

We recently deregistered and WOW the change has been almost instantaneous. He suddenly became amenable to writing. He instantly calmed and there have not been any tantrums. The whole house is now so stress free. My other ds is still at school as he thrives there. I'm a childminder so can continue my career whilst home schooling.

Perhaps you could look at alternative careers which mean you can work from home. Is there an elderly relative you could call upon for some day care? Not sure if you claim childcare element of tax credits? Remember home education can be at any time of day and any day.

Ah, that's good that you'd be able to pick up your career where you left off at some later date and that you may be able to do part-time in the meantime; I had thought you were saying this was a critical make-or-break moment in your career. You sound like you are leaning so far toward HE that you are going to topple in any minute now

"I'd assumed it wouldn't take nearly as much time to HE as school takes in a week but 5 hours is even less than I was expecting! Looks like I won't be running to cram everything in then, which was one of my worries about balancing HE'ing with working."

There are so many different ways of doing home education that the question of how long it takes isn't one which anyone else can answer for you. Still, I like to throw out that factlet about children who are educated by the LA because it may reassure you that if you wanted to do school-style learning at home you could cover most school subjects in that amount of time. However, there are families who are very academically ambitious and work six or eight hours a day with the aim of far surpassing a school education in breadth and depth. There are families like mine where all learning is done in an informal way and there is virtually no sit-down work done whatsoever.

If I were to calculate how much time home ed takes for me personally, I'd have to add up the hours spent finding interesting books to sprinkle in front of my children in case they may be interested, the fortnightly parents' night out at the pub where we talk about all sorts of trivia but also swap info about home education, the time in the car ferrying kids to friends' houses and home ed activities, time researching my daughter's special needs, and the long conversations with the kids about everything under the sun. With my laid-back style of home education, it can absorb as much or as little time as I want it to. I suppose if I worked a great many hours then there would come a point where I might feel I wasn't devoting enough time to home education. Where that point would come, I don't know.

It's like parenting in general, I guess: how many hours a week does that take? It's hard to even figure out what counts as parenting, because often we are multi-tasking anyway. The answer is different for everybody but I think we all sense when we aren't getting the balance right and need to spend more time (or less time!) with our children. You'll have to try it and see what feels right.

Oh maggi, that is fantastic news that your son is so much less stressed now!! I am delighted for you, and for him.

"You sound like you are leaning so far toward HE that you are going to topple in any minute now" - Exactly this!

I think it feels like such a big decision because it's something so different to what we're used to and will be a massive change but I think deep down I've made up my mind.

Yep, not really a 'make or break' for work but in a couple of months I was going to be able to go full-time after a few years of training and 'getting by' which I was really looking forward to so it feels like a big thing to put that on hold but I can definitely go back to it with relatively little risk, so it's just postponing it rather than giving it up. Unless we HE for secondary as well but I'll think about that later!

So glad it's worked out so well for you and your ds maggi, that's just what I hope would happen for us - I think dd was thriving for the first half of reception but I think it's been downhill from there. DD's teacher in Y3 said they could do some sort of SEN assessment/provision (can't remember if that meant statementing or something else) but she'd written the issues down and didn't see the point of 'taking it that far' - wish I'd argued that at the time now because they've done bugger all. Seems if a child's not causing mass 'trouble' they don't bother about them.

I think my plan would be to be fairly laid back about HE'ing, have a rough plan of what to do each day/week but not make it very formal so I'd probably have no idea how long I was actually HE'ing either but it's a relief to know that if it was formal then it wouldn't take that long so I'll probably be doing 'enough'.

Think however much I protest I've made the decision really, can't wait to talk to dd about it.

I caught my name....

Yes I found out about HE one Friday evening -our eldest and youngest were suicidal in school and the middle child was headed for trouble.
Literally as a Home Ed website came up on my search engine, I shouted to my DH "I've found the answer!!"
We discussed it that evening between ourselves and then asked the children what they thought, they of course were delighted with the idea.
I did say to Dh "should we wait until half term?" and he replied "why on earth would we do that, when we know just how unhappy they are?"
So the dereg letter went in on the following Monday.
I didn't have a plan, didn't know any home educators etc, but I just knew that what ever we did, it would better than school was for our children.

I did have a successful career plan-which I put on hold to HE, and for other reasons.....and I actually never returned to it.
We managed (and still do) on a very limited budget, as I have a much lower paid job now. However home education gave my children hope and happiness and no amount of money earned could buy that for my children.

We've talked about our life choices regularly and we the children (all young adults now) agree that we did the right thing and HE saved them.

and as we were totally autonomous home educators and did NO formal work at all-until the children took themselves off to FE college/did an OU course, and they are all in Uni level education now, I know how much more efficient home based education is-however you do it- than school could ever be!

Wow julie, sounds like the best thing for all of you then - am really hoping I'll be able to say that in months/years to come. Finding it fascinating how many HE'ers have little/no formal structure and it still works, got me completely rethinking how we'd go about it - I wasn't planning to emulate school but I did have it in my head there'd have to be a 'structure' but obviously not necessarily, love the idea of being much freer about it.

Talked to dd about the idea yesterday and she first of all thought it was a 'weird' idea then burst into tears at the idea of leaving her schoolfriends so not a resounding success to start! She was excited about the idea of being able to arrange teaching around her needs rather than the class/school's though and loves that side of it, but is worried about leaving her friends. Don't want to dismiss her concerns but I think it's more the thought of friends that's bothering her, from what she's said week by week her 'friends' at school aren't all that friendly. We've said she's got until September to decide though so no huge pressure but I think she's pretty much sold on HE (we did a list of pros/cons for each that she came up with herself - there were 15 pros for HE and 2 for school!)

So I think it looks like we're HE'ing Thanks for all the help so far - looks like I'll be around this board a LOT more!

Congratulations, gulpfiction . I'm setting up a thread in a month or so for all of us who are new to home educating - I hope you'll join us there.

Definitely, thanks