Impressed with Home Ed

[Bemused33]

We have just been through the extremely tough process of picking secondary schools. It has bought up a whole load of horrible memories of Secondary and how the very stuffing was knocked out of me by lots of children. I was bullied I suppose but never saw it as such.

DD is the first of mine to go to Secondary. She had a bad end of 4th year leading into 5th year when she was bullied but it was sorted and she is now a confident and very quirky 10 year old.

I came across this board and schools like interhigh and if it were my choice and my choice alone I would be home edding her. I hate the way that school totally dominates our lives. I am worried for secondary. I think I came on here to say well done to those brave enough to do it. It sounds like an amazing thing to do.

But I don't see how an 'ordinary' person could possibly have the range of knowledge and skills, never mind equipment and resources, to cover all the subjects normally taught in secondary school.

And what about the clubs, societies, sports, music, drama, dance, field trips, overseas trips etc that school can provide, that would either be impossible or very, very expensive to provide in a domestic setting.

I never really liked school as a child, but that was possibly more a personality shortcoming in me than anything wrong with the schools.

I hope you have managed to find a school that will be suitable for you all, and I'm sure with your careful support DD will go on to be very successful. I was a Teaching Assistant for twenty years, mostly in primary but I did have a few years in secondary. I had two years in a tough comprehensive, rather like in the TV series "Educating Yorkshire"; our children were similar, but unfortunately the management and most teachers were nothing like as good.

Good Luck for the future.

I agree with Ferguson. It is a mistake to project your experiences of school onto her, it is a different time, different place and she isn't you.
The positives are that she is confident, she overcame bullying and schools are full of the 'quirky' (I don't know why it is ever seen as a bad thing to be 'quirky')

Youth group in town youth centre, leisure centre membership, ski club, local town rugby club, home ed group, kids residential activity weeks eg PGL, private music tuition, local kids environmental action group, helping on neighbour's allotment.
Field trips all the time and often for overnight city breaks, always have visitor attractions and museums to ourselves and are invariably shocked by the noise and behaviours of school groups when we collide with them, not to mention the obvious shouty stress levels of the supervising teachers.
Many overseas family holidays and camping trips which are much cheaper in term time.
Language swaps with other European home ed families learning the language and culture through first hand experiences.
The Internet has opened up a world of learning possibilities. Every interest can be researched immediately, no need to stick to a rigid curriculum. If we want to study the science behind sparklers for example, or the care requirement of tropical fish, or how sweets get packaged (all recent examples) there is no stopping us.
Yes it costs money, our choice, but so do school visits and field trips/ language trips, uniforms, sports equipment, daily commuting costs, school dinners.
Worth every single penny.

Bemused, I don't see home ed as brave at all. I think it is brave to send kids to school! It's such a huge commitment to give over control of so many aspects of your child's life to a set of people you might not have chosen to care for her. You mention school dominating your life; that isn't something I could easily enter into.

If you are leaning somewhat toward home education but are unsure whether you would feel brave enough or whether your daughter or partner would agree (is that what you meant about it not being your decision alone?), why not hang out on home ed forums and maybe go along to meet some home educating families near you? That might give you more information as well as courage that this could be a workable option.

Then, if secondary school doesn't work out as well as you hope, you and your daughter (and your partner if you have one) will be in a much better position to make an informed decision about whether she'd be better off leaving school. Many people who end up home educating say that their main regret is that they waited so long.

Feeling that you genuinely do have realistic options would make secondary school far easier to face, for both you and your daughter. Having home educated my older dd for five years, I had no serious worries about her starting school in Year 5. The reason I was so relaxed about it was because I knew she could just come out again if it wasn't right for her. Likewise, whenever things weren't going well at school, she never felt truly trapped because she knew that being there was ultimately her choice. Having a choice to leave is very empowering, even if you don't exercise that choice.

Thank you

She is very into music so does three ensembles and a drama group. One of these will stop next year but she can continue the rest so she is well covered. I have never mentioned the tough times I had. In fact three of my closest friends are from school and I met her dad there and we are still together so I think I have projected it very positively.

That being said after the video she was sent by a classmate today I have categorically said she will not go to our closest catchment school (sixth on the list). Its a video of a boy getting beaten up by another (both from the school - easily identifiable uniform) There must be a mob of 20 children jeering and laughing. I have spoken to the schools headmistress tonight who sadly seemed more interested in having it taken off the web than the actual content :/

Bit of a shocker and makes me ponder even more.

I think the scariest thing about home ed is constantly waiting for people who are fully invested in the schooling system to assert with tremendous authority and confidence that it is an educationally and socially inferior option, not in the best interests of the child, that you could not possibly have the skills to succeed unless you yourself have years of classroom teaching experience. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways of gaining confidence that that is all nonsense (look at the thread about websites ad books about home ed). Also, luckily, most of us encounter that attitude much more online than in face to face encounters, at least once we've been home eding for a bit. Much harder to tell someone that their children are being deprived of a wonderful school experience when the children are quite clearly thriving out of school, educationally, socially, developmentally.

The typos are a result of my typing on a tablet rather than a result of me bring illiterate. Just sayin'.

I agree with Saracen on viewing school as the brave choice, Bemused, and we have similar videos floating around in our area. It's gotten down into primary, a recent case of an 8 year old requiring surgery (and losing a testicle) because of a violent assault by a classmate - on his birthday no less, poor lad. And this was at one of the best local primaries that feeds into the top 'everyone wants to get into it' secondary (both part of the same academy group).

You don't need to do everything yourself, there are many programmes - many of them free - that can carry a lot of the load, particularly once you get to secondary level. InterHigh is one of them (though a pricer option, though quite good I hear for the issues around home ed kids getting their GCSEs).

*But I don't see how an 'ordinary' person could possibly have the range of knowledge and skills, never mind equipment and resources, to cover all the subjects normally taught in secondary school.

And what about the clubs, societies, sports, music, drama, dance, field trips, overseas trips etc that school can provide, that would either be impossible or very, very expensive to provide in a domestic setting.*

Ferguson, the reality is that many, many home educated youngsters have in fact passed their IGCSEs, AS levels and A levels, despite their parents lacking specialist knowledge and skills, labs, etc. It can be, and is, done very successfully. I can't pretend to know the ins and outs of the more formal qualifications (as we're not quite there yet - my DC are younger) but it most certainly is done. These children go on to further education colleges and universities and successful careers. I've seen this with older home educated youngsters first hand in our community (which is not in the UK) but of course this is also true of the UK.

Second, regarding the clubs, societies, sports, etc: you need to understand that home educated children are usually part of a community and a very supportive one at that! My own home educated children belong to a wide range of clubs where they meet up with their home educated peers many times a week to do woodwork/design, ice skating, dancing, cricket, a wide range of other sports (football, rounders, volleyball, you name it), choir and crafts. We have a regular nature club, bookclubs and loads of outings organised through our local facebook page and informally in our own closer networks. Then there are the birthday parties, sleepovers and ad hoc playdates - it is busy, stimulating and very sociable!

People who are outside the home ed community really do seem to believe our home educated DC are isolated when nothing could be further from the truth.

People who are outside the home ed community really do seem to believe our home educated DC are isolated when nothing could be further from the truth

I've also noticed a tendency to expect home educators to distance themselves from social and leisure opportunities available to the wider community.

Most of the families I know have children who go to group activities at leisure centres (lots of sports etc), drama, scouts/brownies etc etc. Some after-school clubs even accept children who don't attend during the day. My son does very little nowadays with the HE network as most of what he does is open to everyone.

YY to group activities on offer to everyone streakybacon. A strategy that has worked for our home ed community is to find a coach/teacher already offering an activity in a way that fits with home ed. For example we found a dance teacher who was really inclusive, nurturing, fun, a great role model, etc, and a group of our DC then joined her studio so they get to do the activity and see each other another day a week, which is nice in terms of building close friendships. The same thing happened with our local drama studio - a whole group of our home educated children joined and the end of year play was a bit like home ed central!

I am HE-curious and also a swimming teacher. One thing I've noticed is that when I teach the home educated children in their "school" swimming slot, they are all very individual. It does actually make them a bit of a PITA to teach in a group. Usually in a class of 30 school children there will be one or two kids who are "conversing" with the teacher rather than simply doing as they are told. With the HE kids, it's all of them.

It's not a brilliant thing for a teacher, but it's probably pretty good for kids.

Does "socialised" mean "downtrodden"??

It isn't good for the children if they are not concentrating on the swimming lesson-I would call it a waste of money!

I agree, special, I have noticed that too. My 7yo is still trying to chat with the librarian during story time, as did her sister before her. It makes me cringe a bit and I do shush her.

It isn't a permanent condition, however. They do get the hang of a formal group learning environment eventually. Most HE kids will do a certain amount of swimming lessons or dance or whatever. It eventually dawns on them that the teacher needs to teach and is unable to have individual conversations during the lesson.

By the time they are a bit older, HE kids tend to behave as you would want them to during an actual lesson, but afterward a few of them hang about for ages chatting about it. You may have to remind them that you have another lesson coming up or a home to go to.

That is a relief! I was thinking it was a complete waste of effort, time and money if they couldn't tell the difference between a swim session and a lesson. Most children are keen to chat before and afterwards, it is what children do. Perhaps you need to be firmer, specialmagiclady and make them see that you change behaviour depending on what is appropriate for the situation.

I am always interested to see what group teachers from museums and such make of a group of HE kids :D

The thing is, they're not institutionalised. It's not that they don't know how to behave in a group, it's that they don't know what is expected of school children their age. They are used to asking questions and getting answers. They're used to learning through conversation and exploration. They're not used to standing in lines and all doing the same thing as the other children.

Having said that, whenever my completely unschooled kids have wanted to join in mainstream groups, they've fitted in really well and usually (always, actually, I think) get masses of compliments on what lovely additions to the group they are

Some HE parents, just like some schooling parents, don't teach their kids things to help them manage in our culture. THe thing is that schooled kids get it drilled into them by school, but they don't really learn it, they memorise it. They memorise saying please and thank you and standing in lines and putting their hands up, but they don't do it in order to make life easier for the person running the group. They don't necessarily do it out of compassion and empathy and understanding - it's just rote.

Many H.ed dc have also attended school at some time and have been brought up being able to relate to teachers. Even if they haven't and they are in a group situation it shouldn't really take long before they understand a teacher/pupil relationship, most children are pretty adaptable.

If I were to HE it would be because my child was miserable at school or because there were disruptive pupils who didn't allow them to learn. I would have thought that the joy of HE is that DCs only went to a lesson if they wanted to learn, therefore I would find it highly irritating to find that they were not taking it seriously and were disrupting things by not listening and talking in the wrong time.
Parents need to teach the child how to behave in different situations or it seems to me to be the 'survival of the fittest' and a shy child like me would be unable to say 'for goodness sake shut up and let us get on!' The teacher needs to be strict to protect those who want to learn.
Asking questions is desirable, but only if you stick to the relevant and listen and keep the irrelevant until the end for a chat.

Satin

Would you not H.ed because you thought it better for your child then? Or if they asked if they could?
I think that there are H.ed and parents of schooled dc who don't teach their dc how to behave properly and equally just as many from each group do.

I wouldn't think it better for my child unless they were unhappy or they were having to put up with disruptive pupils who didn't want to learn.
Children ask questions, all the time, however they are educated- it makes no difference. I go into schools for a charity and we end with questions, we always have to leave before they run out of questions- I think they could go on for hours! The difference is that they have to listen to others and they have to stick to the point. Schools make them behave appropriately when perhaps parents don't. It stands them in good stead for adult life, there is nothing worse than adults who don't listen and hog the conversation!
I certainly wouldn't pay for my children to have things like swimming lessons if the teacher wasn't going to ensure that they concentrate and did as they were told. I had lessons as an adult to improve my strokes, we were there to learn and so it was no problem. As an adult I could have asked any time waster to concentrate,but as a child you can't.
I would have thought that the huge advantage of HE is only going to lessons that you actually want to go to.

Satin

I do think in group situations it is important to listen to others. However, not having to do this is a huge bonus in terms of learning. It is good to get away from the confines of having to stick to a point that has been determined by somebody else, for e.g the n.c.
Whilst we are raising dd to be considerate she questions all the time and regularly wanders from the point, which enables her to learn so much more about a topic.

Fine on a 'one to one' but not in a group where the loudest and pushiest gets their way to the detriment of the quiet and thoughtful child. A good teacher makes it fair for all. I certainly would not pay out for a swimming class where the bulk of the children were not concentrating on the lesson. If I want them just to have a fun session where they chat and do their own thing then we can just go to a family session at the pool, which is a lot cheaper.
My son went to Tae Kwan Do and I know that many of the children were quite a 'handful' but their teacher had their utter respect and they were 100% concentration the entire time. He did not have to raise his voice, he didn't have to reprimand anyone, he expected total concentration and that is what he got. He was quite amenable to chat before and after the lesson - and that is how it should be.
Specialmagiclady started this by finding them 'a PITA' to teach- which is hardly surprising and I would take my child away. I only commented because I was surprised, having thought the main point of HE was that they only went to classes if they actually wanted to learn and that you didn't have to put up with low level disruption that often blights schools.

So sorry, I didn't mean to chuck in a grenade and wander off!

I didn't mean to imply that the HE children were unmanageable at all, just that they expect more individual attention and will engage in conversation and don't just "do it" because their peers are doing it. I have only taught this particular group on occasions. And it is not that they are "not concentrating on the lessons", it is that they are listening and responding with further questions and comments. Compare this to a class of 30 school children of similar age and you'll find that probably 10 of them tune out if there's something they didn't understand, 10 of them give it a go all wrong, 5 of them could already do it, 1 of them shouts out that they didn't get it and 4 of them have forgotten their swimming costume.

The worst group I teach in terms of "doing what they are told" is my adult beginners. They each turn up with a separate objective, they simply aren't prepared to do a group activity which might involve revising something they already know, to support others who are further behind and they are not socialised into "being in a group". They often downright refuse to do things because they are scared or don't think they need to learn it. They will ask endless questions about hand position or feet or whatever, they do bugger all swimming.

All makes me think, really, that the HE-ers are maybe getting a better preparation for the real world....

My adult class certainly were not like that, we were there to swim and learn. I think we would all have complained if we were not getting our money's worth! I would have wanted to stop going and a refund.
'Listening and responding with further questions and comments' is fine as long as they realise it is not just about them, they need to let others speak, and listen, and make sure that it doesn't hold up the swimming.

In group learning situations I think there is a time & place for questions/conversations and a time to be quiet and listen! My children are both HE, but they are respectful in a group situation because that is what I teach them. We have been to many organised HE groups and the ones run by teachers etc are fine usually, but it can be the one's run by HE parents that some of the children are not very respectful. I can't bear those kind of groups and if they are not well run, we don't carry on going. It's just about manners. Having said that, there are plenty of disrespectful school going children too & I know first hand:)