Home educating for a few weeks a year when we go "home" - would that be flexi-schooling?

[gaelicsheep]

I've trawled the net and haven't found any reference to this specific type of situation. All I've found is stuff about home educating for part of each week, or stuff applicable to travellers which we're not (although we feel like it sometimes!). Has anyone done this? Pros and cons?

I also read about dual registration, but in our case one school would be in England/Wales and the other in Scotland and DC would be jumping between years, so I think perhaps not the best idea!

[ommmward]

In your situation I would completely HE full-time. Gives your dh a focus (it's quite hard to maintain depression with a child saying 'come on dad, time to go fishing/to HE multisports/ whatever). Means you can all be together, in whichever place is convenient. Gives your dh a social focus with the other HE parents he comes across. Your child can maintain his current friendships.

It all sounds like win win to me...

[IWipeArses]

Sounds like a tough situation.

Agree with ommm.

[ommmward]

Loving your nickname iwipe. short and to the point :-)

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

I suspect there are solutions out there but LEA aren't going to be terribly keen to help. LEA do work around certain groups where they move from place to place such a traveller communities but you may struggle to argue that you are a special case.

Part of the issue is that you have such a strong psychological connection to your "home" that you are seeing the job as a temporary measure but a temporary measure with no time limit. Could you accept that you will do this job for a fixed period of time and all the family can buy into that.

Otherwise, if you think your DH and DS would enjoy it maybe give HE a try.

[gaelicsheep]

Thanks for everyone's input. We have a lot of thinking to do, that's clear. TBH one of the main arguments against HE for DS (who is just 6 btw) has always been his character and the strong likelihood of him clashing with DH all the time and just refusing to work. I also worry it would be isolating for them - DS AND DH in a work area where it is already very hard to meet people. We haven't even come across a single other SAHD in the time we've been there!

[julienoshoes]

I would look into Autonomous Education, gaelicsheep-it's a very efficient way of home educating, without the need to have a formally parent imposed structure-and therefore no worry of 'refusing to do work'

Alan Thomas' books might help
"In his "Educating Children at Home", Alan Thomas found that many home educating families chose or gravitated towards an informal style of education, radically different from that found in schools. Such learning, also described as unschooling, natural or autonomous, takes place without most of the features considered essential for learning in school. At home there is no curriculum or sequential teaching, nor are there any lessons, textbooks, requirements for written work, practice exercises, marking or testing. But how can children who learn in this way actually achieve an education on a par with what schools offer? In this new research, Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison seek to explain the efficacy of this alternative pedagogy through the experiences of families who have chosen to educate their children informally.Based on interviews and extended examples of learning at home the authors explore: the scope for informal learning within children's everyday lives; the informal acquisition of literacy and numeracy; the role of parents and others in informal learning; and, how children proactively develop their own learning agendas. Their investigation provides not only an insight into the powerful and effective nature of informal learning but also presents some fundamental challenges to many of the assumptions underpinning educational theory. This book will be of interest to education practitioners, researchers and all parents, whether their children are in or out of school, offering as it does fascinating insights into the nature of children's learning."

and I'd try and see if there are any home educating groups near to where you are based....SAHD are not so unknown in the HE communities IMO

and if you are on Facebook, maybe come and join the mumsnet HE page, where you'll get more pro home ed people answering. (do send a message to the admins though, so we know who you are)

[bebanjo]

Hi, how about leaving the kids with DH at home home and you commute to work, as you are. DH gets to stay at home, kids get full time school/ home ed(whichever you decide) you save money on travel and accommodation.
there will never be a perfect answer to this just the best you can all live with.

[Roseformeplease]

I am not sure where in Scotland you live but, if, as I do, you are in a remote area, would the local primary there not be the place to register your child? They, if a small friendly school, might be very happy to help supervise your child's education on a part time basis, in the way a larger school might not cope with. That way you could be more flexible about your plans. You would be registered in your home. The only issue is, with Curriculum for Excellence, the learning is very much more dynamic and involves working with others, making it very different from "here's the textbook" kind of work. However, your son could be reading, going on trips, playing sports etc that he might not be able to do in all the remote corners of Scotland. So, he would be getting a really good education. Also, as schools in Scotland have to take you if you live in their catchment area, they couldn't turn you away even if they took you off the register while you we're in England.

Also, OP, I applaud your determination to work hard and get a job a long way from home. Really, you are facing some very tough choices by putting your family first. Well done. Many would not do this.

[gaelicsheep]

Hi again. I'm so touched so many people are trying to help me here, after I was on the verge of signing off here again at the start of this thread.

Bebanjo - in many ways I would like to do as you suggest, but honestly the sheer cost of the commute and staying away is totally prohibitive unless I only do it once or twice a month for just a few days. We're talking well over a thousand pounds a month, maybe more when everything is factored in and we just can't stretch to that. I also really really don't think I could cope with being away from my kids like that, they're 6 and nearly 2

Roseformeplease - as it happens both schools are small rural primaries, the one at "home home" being smaller than the other. DS was in fact registered there until a couple of terms ago so I'm familiar with the different style of teaching with the CfE, which I did have my doubts about but now I'm not so sure. So I suppose what you're saying is that we could kind of reverse our plans and be at home home for most of term time and be down in work place in holidays. The only thing is that I think that would probably drive DH demented having two kids to entertain in a place that's really too small and with zero money due to cost of maintaining two places to live.

Honestly folks I think it's looking at the moment like we'll have to try to manage with taking the maximum 10 days allowed out for "holidays" through gritted teeth and really hoping the school understands that that is not really what we're doing. That way we can get up to 12 weeks at home home - assuming work remains happy with that. Then I think I just need to keep working on my employers to let us move back here full time and me spend 12 weeks a year down there instead, eg one trip a month. That really would be the best solution if only I can succeed with persuading them.

When we're away south I get really fed up of having no money at all and start thinking about selling up and buying down there, not that we can at the moment for reasons I can't go into or I really would out myself. But as soon as we set foot in the door back home I look around me at the glorious place we live and realise we can never ever live anywhere else. Wish me luck!

[gaelicsheep]

Incidentally I do have good reasons for believing it might be possible to work remotely, I haven't just taken a job and now trying to shift the goalposts. I also feel like I've cheated DH by making him believe it was more likely than it turned out to be. I think that's the only reason he agreed to move, and actually if I didn't believe it was possible I wouldn't have made the move either. We started this with the idea of a two/maximum three year plan and I haven't given up yet!

[IWipeArses]

Have you read 4 Hour Work Week? He talks a lot about working remotely in there and how to negotiate it.

Hope DH depression improves too.

[discrete]

What about having him at school back home and going over to your place of employment during school holidays?

You could then if necessary come over for a few weeks here and there without your family, but most of the year would be spent at home and you could just spend the 16-20 weeks a year you were talking about at your place of employment?

Alternately, I second the getting in touch with some home ed groups in both areas. Parents in home ed groups are usually very knowledgeable about what is workable with the schools in the area and what isn't, and are generally very willing to talk to people who are thinking about making the move.

[gaelicsheep]

I haven't IWA but I'll have a look, thanks.

Discrete - what you describe is pretty much the scenario we planned originally and what I'd like to end up with. We'll see how we get on. :-)

[chocolatecrispies]

When I was a child we lived abroad and the summer holidays from school were very long - 3+ months. We came back to the UK and attended our old school for 6 weeks of it - I have no idea how come the school allowed us to! However we didn't have to take time out of our school abroad so that was not an issue.

[sashh]

Could you contact your local traveller education group? I know you are not a 'traveller' as such, but what you are wanting is what traveller education attempts to provide.

[safflower]

How about you commute weeky, they move back home. You try to get more work from home.
Wales
DH not happy
DS not happy
you not happy because they are not happy

Scotland
DH happy
DS happy
You happier but not with commute.

Or you look for a job back in scotland. Commuting weekly is an arse. DH does it from thousands of miles away each weekend. We like you have no option.

[safflower]

Whichever way you do it, there is going to be compromise, and you need to it be with the least amount of stress for all of you.

The only other option is to de-reg each time you want to leave wales and between you and dh you could HE him whilst in scotland. It doesnt have to be during the hours of 9 to 3, could be evenings, weekends whenever. The problem being, every time you go back to ales you have to hope to god the placve is still there at the school he went to before.

[claraschu]

We did this because we travel for work. The school agreed ahead of time. They called it partially HEd, and I think they called us travellers (we're classical musicians). I think they agreed and it worked because our sons were flexible and easygoing and academically quite far ahead.

It was great. No drawbacks, and the best of both worlds.

[exoticfruits]

I think that you will find it dreadfully difficult to find a school to agree. It is also going to be very hard on the DC, particularly when they get older- it is one of the reasons that people use boarding schools. I would go for HE full time and have more stability for your DC.

[CanIHaveAPetGiraffePlease]

It all sounds very confusing for your son. If your son lives most of the year down south, and goes to school there, makes friends there etc then that is his home. Disrupting where he lives and chopping and changing will disrupt his education and friendship and ideally should be avoided out of school holidays.

We've moved away from 'real home' for my husbands job which I hated and returned to'real home' at least once a month. Several people did point out that that wasn't helping us to adjust to our new life where work was. After 2 years we changed again to live at real home but husband is away Mon-Fri most weeks now as I want my children to have a settled life. There is no way I could make them chop and change like that.

I understand your attachment to home as I have it and was miserable elsewhere. But when people talk about 'home' in there contexts they mean the place you reside for most of the year. A kind of shorthand. I remember many confusing conversations where I told toddler group mums I was 'going home' meaning far away, not down the road!

I guess if its only for a few years, having come out the otherside myself,I guess I'd be tempted to throw myself into the 'new home' during term time and return back to real home at holidays (and yes to many people that will be seen as a holiday,just a 'holiday back home'. It will almost certainly be the case for your son.)

You may just see it as working while you're away, but its where your son will be living -going to school, forming friendships etc so it really makes sense to just embrace it for the 2 years or whatever time you put on it. If after that time there is no hope of not reversing the situation so you live at home home in term time you could then look to reconsider jobs etc. Our move away was open ended and we suffered for not entering into forming new friendships and exploring the area in the first year. Our children weren't school age at the time. So in retrospect I'd put a time limit of 2or 3 years on it, go home home for the (school) holidays and try and embrace life away for the sake of your son -encourage friends around for tea, after school activities etc but having an exciting family home to go to in (his) the holidays.

[CanIHaveAPetGiraffePlease]

I would have no problem with he if other parent was embracing it as something he wanted to do but depressed and somewhere he doesn't want to live to then be told to he might not help.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Op I have read the thread and it sounds like a really difficult situation.

With the 10 days absence you are currently getting authorised, are you sure you will be able to continue that? In England that is at the head's discretion and some refuse it and then local authorities may fine parents for unauthorised absence.

[safflower]

I think there will be a problem with funding for each of the schools. They will get funding for the whole year for one or other school. Not both. Neither school will be able to hold his place for him if he is attending another school. He cannot be fully funded for both schools.

[gaelicsheep]

OK, there is more to this that I really cannot and won't go into on a public forum - very good reasons why we have to return home as often as we possibly can at least for the medium time. I don't doubt it's confusing for DS but there really is no choice just now. Thanks for everyone's input. I think the inflexible attitude to education in this country is very unhelpful, but I'll do what I can to work with the school on this. Full time home ed is not going to be an option I don't think, but I'm sure we'll find a way to work this out somehow. Thanks again.

[CanIHaveAPetGiraffePlease]

Good luck. It sounds very unsettling for you all. I'm glad we're out the other side of it. Hope you work something out. X