An apology and a request for encouragement...

[NumptyNameChange]

I have stated with utter conviction at least a few times on mumsnet, and most recently on the ongoing thread about fines for term time holidays, that homeschooling is not an option for me as a single parent. I was convinced of that as entirely as I would be of the difference between black and white.

It has suddenly occurred to me that actually yes, there possibly ARE ways I could do it that may not be obvious or without complications but are not unattainable necessarily.

So this is partly an apology and partly a big ask for help and encouragement.

It is such a HUGE idea to actually say NO, I won't let you have my son and put him through this whole machine that every instinct in me rejects despite being a teacher myself, and actually maybe i COULD give him something better that didn't leave him screwed or me screwed or us living in the gutter. But there is so much convention and opinion and resistance that it would be easy to lose sight of this or not garner the confidence and conviction to go through with it.

Any encouragement or wisdom would be massively appreciated.

For a little background my son is nearly seven, in year 2 at a village primary and has no SEN or relevant issues. I am a secondary school teacher of Religious Studies and I work three days a week in term time (so obviously some issues to work out there in terms of childcare, affordability etc but suddenly I'm open to the idea that those ideas are potentially not insurmountable and given some of the things i've read on the thread i mentioned before may well be worth surmounting even if it means sacrifice and challenge and massive going against the tide).

Welcome to the dark side

Are there any local HE groups near you? Might be worth contacting them or even going along to a group meeting so you can get a feel for it. Most groups are welcoming to parents who are considering HE and are willing to tell you all about the practicalities (you do get a few oddball tinfoil hat types but not many). Facebook is brilliant for meeting local HE families.

Childcare is definitely something to consider. I'm sure there is a poster on here who HE and is also a childminder, I bet she would have some good ideas. I can't remember who it is but I'll have a look through some old threads and see.

Have you talked to your DS about it? What does he think of school?

Where will you go on your cheap term-time holiday?

This is a recent-ish thread about working part time and HE.

i'm teaching now so term time holidays are mostly out but between that whole debacle and some teacher telling me they have the legal right to force my child to sit sats even if i have put in writing my absolute refusal to have him do them i am about ready for the tin hats myself!

will look at that thread. ds goes to a childminder now before and after school for the three days a week when i work and i suspect she would happily have him for three solid days and would probably work with me in terms of planning his activities in those times but obviously it's not a cheap option.

oh sorry posted too soon - ds frequently says to me, 'why can't you teach me? why do i have to go to school? etc' not sure how reliable such whinging is but i think he would respond happily to this.

Don't know why I didn't think of this before, but there's some information here on flexischooling. I don't know much about it though, we enquired about it at our local school a couple of years ago and were told no way, but I know one person who does it.

i looked into it and thought it incredibly unlikely that the school would agree. they got their knickers in massive knots when i said that i would set ds's homework tailored to his learning needs and targets rather than do the generic, undifferentiated learning logs the school set. i also think if i'm going to do it i really want to do it you know?

i'm wondering if you can claim childcare elements of working tax credit if your child isn't in school?

Now you really are asking the wrong person for that But you'll probably find the answer on that site that I linked to, it's got all kinds of legal info and that sort of thing.

having looked up the local council's guidelines it seems ds would have to be a persistent school refuser, at risk of permanent exclusion or have massive behavioural issues to be considered worthy of flexi schooling. seems a bit counter intuitive to me. they also start their advice with the blanket statement that low school attendance equals lowered life chances (without any reference to or exception for those who are actually being educated) so the impression is not good imo?

Interesting!

I want to he dd(2) as a single parent it's going to rely on me going self employed in a way that means she can come with me until ages old enough to be left.

Quite a risk but so show I intend to make it work

I don't think LAs are a reliable source of info really, they just want all children in school. Some are better than others. We've just got a new HE bloke who apparently doesn't approve of HE He must have applied for the job by mistake.

or totally understood what the real agenda of the job was eaurouge!

i have tried to 'subtly, neutrally' question ds about school and what if i taught him and he is making it very difficult because he is friggin' leaping at the idea and saying everything i think but at his level iyswim. that just makes me paranoid that i'm leading him in some way

so i requestion with an obvious bias towards school, being with other kids every day etc and STILL he does the HE propaganda responses

i also questioned him about if it was up to him what would he want to learn about. there was a two prong response, one ideal went with wanting to learn about what is inside people, how people work and basically a 6yos version of the definition of biology. the other, not so ideal and more expected, was wanting to know ALL about guns but the thing is being interested in guns is a fab way in to history imo. i could turn an interest in weapons into a walk through history and conflict and ethics without any great leaps of imagination.

this IS actually doable isn't it?

Oh yes, it's totally doable. I think loads more people would do it if they realised how easy it can be. There are learning opportunities everywhere, exactly like you say- gun obsessions are an in route to learning about history.

DD1 is only 5 so she chooses some interesting topics. We spent about a month just learning about cats. She even wrote her own little book on how to look after them called 'The Cat Book of Cat Safety'- it's a fascinating read

lovely!

ds has been peering over my shoulder on facebook looking at, amongst other things, the chainsaw art that an old friend of mine in the west country makes a living from. another realisation that actually a trip to see him would be worth a hundred woodwork lessons and massively inspiring and that i have resources i don't even consider. random thought but think you'll get it.

Hello OP

We took our dd out of school at the end of y3 and she would be y5 now.
There were no problems with the school, but likewise the restrictions and policies/procedures are just no more.
The sheer freedom it affords us is amazing and up until now it seems to be going well.
There are times you doubt yourself or the suitability of the education you have chosen but I think its good to reflect.

To answer your last question it is completely doable, sometimes takes a bit of shuffling things about but nowhere near as much as school does.

I would also like to welcome you to the dark side

Oh, we have tax credit/ WTC but not the childcare element but only as we don't have childcare. You are also able to claim cb as your child is in full time education as a H.ed child.

I read lots of these threads and went on the websites that people suggested and as a family just like you are doing we talked it over. I think I too was worried about dd wanting to do it because of us, so we asked her to ask questions and told her about what we thought it would be like. I started researching just before Easter hols and she decided at the end of July.

Said goodbye to friends at school, 2 weeks before end of term and just left. We still keep in touch with her old friends and she has gained many more too.

Our holiday in term time is to Rome.

thank you.

i am trying to think that i'll hold off till summer but if i do i'm basically offering my child up as sat fodder for some teacher who thinks the purpose of education is to get her good results on her assessments.

i was genuinely shocked to hear primary school teachers tell me i have no legal right to prevent my child from taking the sats i just... don't get it? when did they decide they had more rights over my child than me or him?

Numpty, it is bizarre isn't it, especially when you begin to look at the control that is taken away from you.
The friends of dd from her old school seem to be doing mostly SAT preparation atm, they are only y5. One of the parents told me she is hoping this means that y6 won't be taken up with prep, but she's not holding her breathe.
It is so good to not have that permanent assessment looming over your dc. You don't need all this to know if they are learning or improving the skills they already have. You can find fun ways to assess if this is what you want.

agreed. personally i had so much going on in my life in adolescence that the only a level i got to complete was the one taught by the rebel teacher who dared to enter me on the basis of my ability rather than my attendance and arranged for me to study independently on the condition i got my coursework in on time.

so one a level completed and i got an a but technically i was screwed as you need 3 to get into uni.

then i got into university by phoning and talking to a head of faculty about why i wanted to study in his department. i then got firsts all year and transferred to a top 8 uni where i did very well.

if i stop and trust my own experience and beliefs i know full well and first hand that there are other ways to do things and those other ways can have far more value. i also know, as a teacher, how many issues secondary schools are faced with that students who actually want to learn are forced to endure and sit through uncomplainingly (especially if they don't want to get bullied by people whose limits are way left field from the values their parents raised them personally with) and over which they have zero control.

i also know i'm perfectly capable of teaching to exam standards and syllabus' if i wanted ds to have conventional qualifications.

it still feels like a huge leap though

apologies if i sound arrogant.

Numpty,

No you don't sound arrogant and you do what's best for your child. There are a lot of people on Mnet who are blessed with good schools or are happy to follow the flock and there are those in life who aren't.

FWIW your points on the other thread I totally agree with and there is no way we would consider sending dd to a local secondary school when the time comes.
We have come so far in a short space of time and now there is only one school in the whole of England we would be prepared to consider and that isn't a definite yet.

It is hard to go against convention and of course the natural default for children's education is school.
I really think if you do some reading and research it will help you to decide. It certainly did for us, perhaps look at the different ways people H.ed their dc, we all do it differently.

Our dd seems to practice music all the time or goes away a bit for concerts, competitions, tv filming etc. Other times she has spells of more formal subjects like history, science.
If she is at home she does fit some maths and English into the day but this can be practical or from work books.

Keep reading these threads, maybe visit a H.ed group if there are any in your area, do a few internet searches and follow links for websites on here. You will reach a decision in time.

Hi Numpty, no apologies necessary! A remarkably large number of people now home educating have previously been wholly opposed to home education or at least had ruled it out categorically for their own children.

"i'm wondering if you can claim childcare elements of working tax credit if your child isn't in school?" You absolutely can. Aside from the fact that whoever drafted the WTC rules probably never considered HE, the reason for this is that the government does not really acknowledge the childcare role which school actually plays for working parents. The party line is that school exists purely to provide an education. And since it is up to parents to decide how they educate their children, parents cannot be required to make use of a particular form of education (i.e. school) in order to access childcare subsidies or other benefits.

You are sounding more determined to make this work with every passing minute, so I am sure you will sort something out. And your son seems exceptionally keen!!

my son is keen but he is also 6 so i can't really know how much he understands about it but yes, very keen to get out of school and do things differently.

he is a really social child and i have no feeling that he needs school in order to be 'socialised'. he plays out and has various friends on the street that he spends time with and there is a beavers group on mondays he wants to start going to. he's also the kind who would LOVE PGL type holidays which are another opportunity for intense socialising and feet finding in a group. that side of things is really not a concern for me.

the childcare i've worked out would come to £100pw which is a lot but also not forever obviously and not year round. i am relieved to hear i'd still be entitled to working tax credits and some help towards childcare costs through that. even if it only covered half it makes it a far more affordable sum.

when i really stop and think about what matters it seems to me that all that really, really matters is a high reading and comprehension skill and a passion for, and skills to, learn. numeracy too yes but not necessarily all the aspects of maths dredged through by schools and it could be done in a much more practical and applied way at this age and then do the higher level more abstract stuff later when they are older and if they are interested. ICT is obviously important but most of it is highly intuitive now and can be learned through using it for other work rather than a teacher trying to set up 20 slow, old laptops to do an ict lesson and tick a box on her scheme of work.

science can be done through so many avenues - i used to be a scuba diving instructor in the red sea and it was in training and working for that that i learned more about human biology and physics than i ever did at school. would be so cool to do it that way with him - like a long project in the build up to summer holidays then go and teach him to dive and see the practical application of the science in his dive planning. ooh and some marine biology! that would be some years off obviously!

sorry waffling and getting carried away but i can't tell you how liberating the idea of being free of the state in my family life feels.

Good for you for having the guts to change your mind, and to apologise!

The enthusiasm in you for home ed is palpable, and it sounds as though your son would love it too. Do it!

Depending on income you can claim up to 70% of your childcare up to certain limits as a lone parent:

"If you pay childcare for:
one child, the maximum childcare cost you can claim is £175 a week
two or more children, the maximum cost you can claim is £300 a week

This means that the maximum help you can get for your childcare is:
£122.50 a week for one child"

my childcare would likely only be £100 pw. i was worrying that claiming during school hours would not be allowed but have thought it through and there is no law that you have to work in school hours so presumably you could work 3-9 shifts and claim childcare for that time despite the fact the child is in school itms.

so i can't see that they could discriminate against me needing 24hrs childcare despite being part time. as someone else said school isn't seen as childcare so they can't i suppose say oh well you should put your child in school for those hours.

not sure i've explained that at all clearly.

i'm not sure what to do. i'm currently absolutely exhausted due to going back to teaching (after a very calm job in a college for a year or so) where i'm dealing with really challenging classes. on the one hand this makes me think will i have the energy on the other hand it makes me think would i want ds to end up in a secondary school like this experiencing behaviour and disruption on that scale and having it called an education? the added concern being that i doubt the right to take your child out of education will even exist at that point and then it will be out of my hands.

i get the feeling they will try and shut down the right to home ed in the not too distant future and only those who are already homeschooling will be able to continue. i've worked in 3 secondary schools in this county and i wouldn't want my son in any of them tbh.

i know this sounds like high drama but you know how they say criminals come out of prison more criminal and having been trained for more crime? well school is getting that way. i got scoffed at on the other thread for mentioning that comprehensive means everyone - as in diagnosed psychopaths, future wife beaters, prison inmates, drug addicts etc etc. people leapt on the psychopath bit and mocked that i was apparently making out school was full of psychos but it was just an example and one i used because it's one i'm aware of. at one school there was a kid who just tortured anyone he could and seemed to take absolute glee from hurting or disturbing people. when i went to discuss my concern with the safeguarding and child protection officer i was told oh yes, he's a diagnosed psychopath, don't worry it's on his records.

all that was important was to make sure this boy was included (likewise for violent and consistently aggressive and disruptive students). there was no concern really for the kids who actually wanted to learn or not to have to be in a vile atmosphere. all that is understandable BUT do i want it for my child? is that where i want my son spending his formative years? some of the units i teach in school an hour at a time over a term i could teach my son in an hours in depth discussion and viewing of resources and then get him researching and doing in depth writing and reflection on. school comes to feel like a time wasting exercise in socialising the masses to be bored and not kick off in the face of pointlessness, overcrowding and shitty treatment.

I have a kid with ASD who mimics to learn new social skills. A key factor in my choice to remove him was when he was threatened by another child wielding a knife in the playground aged only 8. No way did I want copying THAT behavior! It brought me up short about the exact nature of the social skills I want him to learn! Inner city teen "Yoof dem" culture & behavior won't get him a decent job when the time comes! However getting out an mixing with as wide a range of ages, creeds, cultures etc in the general community will iyswim.

There is an ugly side to school socialisation, especially in the teen years which the system refuses to acknowledge, apart from when the occasional suicide makes the papers. Frankly I've been impressed with the home edded kids I've met as a general rule. Kind, fun loving, independent thinkers just about sums them up if I want to stereotype.

I also resented how much my parenting was constantly undermined by the modern school system (this is not a criticism of school staff btw- I'm sure they have better things to do than police lunch boxes!). It's all so much more efficient at home, as I honestly think that primary education over the last couple of decades has lost it's way a bit.

As far as time goes the NT kids I've met seem to fit ALL they need to learn in terms of the 3R's and science into just 2- 3 hours a day at primary level. So much time in school is wasted with lining up, assemblies and other stuff that has nothing to do with the core function of acquiring knowledge. You can use that extra time to have fun & explore rock pools together. I also love the fact that at last his work is properly differentiated to his ability levels. If he does some GCSE's a couple of years early and a couple a year late I won't worry at all. the state system currently sees 42% of kids leaving without those core 5 GCSE's you need for a decent start in life.

You'll have 4 clear days a week, which can easily accommodate the academic stuff to a high level. Once out of school you realise that weekends are just an extension of the learning day, as it's all far less pressured. I'm fairly sure any competent childminder can incorporate a bit of reading practice into their day too.