Regretting taking kids out of school.

[apocketfulofposy]

Posting here for traffic,sorry.

I have 5 children ranging from aged 6 to 10 weeks old.

We always planned to home educate after reading a book about it when ds1 and 2 were toddlers,then when ds1 was about 4 and a half,and i was pregnant with baby number 4,i decided to give our local primary a go,partly because it was just that time where he would of been going and partly because i was finding it hard with them all at home (no family on either side for 3 hours,husband who works away monday to friday,rural ish area,i cant even drive!).

Anyway reception was ok,he liked it,made plenty of friends,dc2 and 3 went to the pre school and liked it,except dc2 had lots of issues with hitting other children and just general destructive behaviour.

When ds1 started yr1 last year he hated it from the word go,he still liked seeing his friends but he really noticed the change between mostly play to mostly lessons,plus his teacher left after a term and the new one was very strict and spoke to the children like she was some kind of prison officer.

Ds2 started reception and seemed to enjoy it but after a few weeks i was called in a few times about his hitting and destroying things,they said he just physically wasnt ready to be at schoolt hat much so put him down to half days,which was a bit of a faff for me as i was in and out all day but it was fine.It didnt seem to help though and he was behaving worse and worse at school,especially at lunchtime,but strangely his behaviour at home was getting better.

Add to this the fact i was finding it hard carting them all around everywhere and i felt crap because i kept forgetting to reply to things and i kept hearing all this micheal gove stuff,i just decided to pull them out,id been thinking about it on and off for a while and just thought do it,and id id it almost on a bit of a whim.

The first few weeks were great and we all loved the novelty of not rushing around in mornings and the kids have been playing all day,and actually one good point is that they have been getting on so much better.

But apart from that i am starting to regret taking them out,i miss the routine,i miss being able to take the babies to their groups and talking to my "mummy friends"(cringe) i miss being able to go to the shop quickly with just the double buggy,i also just dont know what to do with them,and the house is just such a mess!

I know these are'nt huge things but its starting to feel chaotic and i can feel it going back to the way it used to be,before school,and it hink i underestimated how much it did for all of us.I just dont know what to do!

Help and advice please!xxxxx

I live in an area of high concentration of HErs and what seems to happen is an exchange of expertise. So as Mum who speaks fluent Italian regularly gives 'classes'.

A Dad who was a bio chemist, covers science.

There are also lots and lots of group trips, taking full advanatge of freebies and term time .

A family we're very close to home eds their 6 children. They do a superb job. And with no GCSEs their eldest obtained a place at sixth form and aced his A levels.

That said, through my work I've come across HErs who, IMVHO, are doing a dire job. HE is just an excuse to let DC do what they want, when they want. New interests are not introduced or pursued. DC spend inordinate amounts of time watching telly.

HE can be a fabulous thing, but, like school, it has to be done to the highest standards. And before anyone says that schools often don't do that, yes, you're right, but it's not an excuse for HErs to do the bloody same thing!!!!

streaky so the tutors teach what you tell them?

What if your child has an interest in kinetics but doesn't want to learn about quadratic equations? He will not know in advance that some aspects of mathematics say are essential at some point during his studies. many topics are interlinked- mathematics and physics for instance don't lend themselves well to a pic n mix approach.

It's not quite that simple. He's always had a strong interest in certain subjects so he's encouraged to pursue them to exams, otherwise (IMO) there's little point - if he's got an ability I want him to develop it into something recognisable in the wider world. He accepts that there will be areas within a subject that he's not comfortable with but that he has to suck up his dislike and get on with it, if he wants to pass the exams.

For tutors, I do the research into the subjects my son wants to do, find the course specification that suits him and that's what the tutor will work to. We will discuss progress and work strategies as they go along - I might introduce something I've come across that could benefit, and so might they. It's worked very well so far .

So, in answer to some of the outrage about autonomous HE. I He 4 of my 5 kids (well now it's just 3 out of 5). I have never done lessons, structured learning or anything like that.

I currently have 1 son, with Asperger's, who was autonomously educated, at St. Andrews University, on and MSci(Hons). He took himself off to college, with support, when HE felt ready and did an access course. He is the only person that SWAP(West) has ever had go to St. Andrews for a science degree. (SWAP is the Scotland Wider Access Programme.)

I have another DS who will be going to college in August to do the same. He has dyslexia and dysgraphia and had been completely written off by school by the age of 9.

DD is at least on a par with her schooled friends, far ahead in some areas which are of particular interest to her. In a couple of years she will be looking at college to gain the relevant qualifications.

DS4 has ASD and, at the moment, it is far more important to help him learn to manage with that than it is to force the issue with "schoolwork", but he has learned to read, write and count to an acceptable level for an eleven year old, without any formal lessons, reading schemes or whatever.

A lot of people are talking about things that they don't understand. When, like DS2 (the one at uni), the things that they want to learn are too advanced for me, my job becomes one of facilitating and finding out. None of the rest of them have reached anything like that stage, yet, even the one who is going to college next session.

You do need to keep up to date, especially if you are isolated at home and recognise that not everyone keeps web sites up to date. The Scout Promise, which applies to Beavers, changed last year, as titchy says, it was well documented in the news at the time.

I thought some individual branches refused to change their promises? Or is that only in the Guides?

So you are actually not doing any education. You are just letting your children run wild at home, because 1) they were not allowed to do that at school, and 2) because it was a faff getting them off to school and you had to respond to letters. Are you all feral?

I also find it odd that part of the reason for not liking schools is not treating them as individuals and yet the autonomous learning assumes that they don't need a teacher. At least at school mine were able to do tests to ascertain exactly what sort of learner they were.
HEers say, airily, they can do OU. I would love to do it, 3 times in my life I have thought seriously about it and sent for all the literature. Each time I have had to abandon the idea because I know that I am not suited to private study. I need other people doing the same thing at the same time to discuss ideas and motivate me and I need a teacher who is physically there to ask questions. I fully accept that many HEed children don't need this but there must be some like me. You are very lucky if you have children who all have the same way of learning.
An excellent post wordfactory. I take my hat off to those who do it well because 'felicitating' learning is one of the hardest things you can do- however it is extremely easy to do badly and call it autonomous and then justify doing nothing much by finding something educational in it!

I think it is one particular guide group who have fought it. My guess is that pocket's group have changed or they would make a big thing on the website saying they haven't.

Grennie. A survey/study (in last few years) showed home educators are more likely to be come from middle class, more affluent backgrounds.

stressedHEMum - I note that even you say that your role (when you don't already know it yourself) becomes that of a facilitator - and you help your children to find out what they want to / need to know to do what they want to do. I can understand how this can work well. But did you just leave them to it, take them for the odd excursion and have playdates? And read books (but people that send their children to school also can read with them too...)

DS challenges me (although he goes to school) and I have had to look up things with him - such as did you know that koala bears can swim?

There is a tendency on this thread to generalise about home educators. In practice I don't know any two families who HE the same way - every child is different, every family has different dynamics, and they all respond in ways appropriate to individual need.

This thread has shown a wide range of HE approaches, from fully autonomous, child led learning to highly structured, school-at-home education. It's clear we all do it differently and have unique outlooks on how best to meet our children's needs. Please can we avoid generalised assumptions that we're all the same.

Thanks

Elsie - That makes sense actually. I grew up in a very poor area and my parents would have struggled with the school free meals, never mind textbooks. And there certainly wasn't children with fathers who were biochemists living locally. We would have had to travel a long way to meet middle class HE families.

Upon reading this thread, I am realizing that I am double educating my children, as they get to do what they want outside school hours, so in this respect I am "facilitating their learning " , and in addition we take them on educational trips, excursions and visits....

Streaky - I hope I haven't been generalising - I'm really interested but would run out of patience very quickly. I don't think I'm organised enough either. However, I do think that there is some generalising about people that send their children to school too... Some of us do take time (albeit less time, I freely admit that) to follow our children's interests and encourage them to find out about things outside school (I am absolutely sure it drives my son's teacher mad because he is like a sponge and will come out with all sorts of facts that he's mopped up that are relevant to the topic being taught....).

op, if you didnt start the thread, you wouldnt be having to "educate" people.
Once a thread is started, it goes whereever it will.

wordfactory. Good post. I agree with your points.

Pretty much, mistle. Except for the playdates part. There are no other He'ers anywhere near here, so my children make their own friends, all of whom go to school. Their friends either live in our immediate neighbourhood or are ones they have made through groups like Boys' Brigade.

Yes, I helped them look up things on the computer when they were little. They don't need me to do that for them any more, though, and direct their own learning - except for the 11y/o, who has more input from me, just because of his ASD.

When I say that I was/am a facilitator, especially for the older ones that mostly means buying them the books etc. that they want/need to learn whatever it is they are interested in at the time. For instance, DS2 (the one at uni) wanted to learn about Buddhism, so he asked for a DVD course from the Great Courses site. When he wanted to learn about the water crisis and its effects on world politics and economics, I had to buy him some books. DS3 is learning to play electric guitar, so I have to support and pay for that. I don't actually teach them anything or force them to learn what I think that they should know. It's an approach that has served us well up till now.

Just one question: How is the learning of maths/numeracy happening naturally from just "being"? If you dont do any lessons and planning, how do intend for your children to learn statistics? Geometry? Algebra? Or, French?

mistlethrush I agree, there is some generalisation on both sides. I think people do tend to generalise and expect everyone else's experiences to be similar to their own. Those parents who have removed their children from school to HE will have had some experience and knowledge about how schools operate so perhaps they will have understanding of both options. But most people who have never home educated will have less understanding of the range of approaches in HE and that's what I'm aiming at. Schools are more rigid in their ways of education, though I appreciate that there is still variation between schools. Even so, there is a far broader spectrum in HE than in schools.

IME the best home educators are highly motivated to ensure their DC have the best educational experience. And they are very alive to skill sets that thier DC masy be missing.

They may not do this in any formal way. OIndeed, they may not even recognise that they're doing it. But they are!

stressed - what age did you start HE them? I'm really interested in the moving from play to actually wanting to find out about things - at the moment DS (8) would be very happy playing minecraft 100% of the time when outside school - but we do insist that he does other things as well (like go for a walk with the dog with the family, or towards bedtime, read a book). We do get interesting questions that we follow up too. But its moving from this sort of situation to one where the seeking out of learning and information is more interesting - what sort of age does that happen or is it something that you were facilitating on a daily basis?

Kids generally get to an age when they realise that, if they want to become a doctor/plumber/hairdresser/engineer or whatever, there are things that they have to learn. My experience is that, with this realisation, comes a kind of concentration of will and the children take it upon themselves to learn what they have to to get the job done.

Why is it necessary for a child to learn French. This is something that I have never understood. I was very good at languages at school, and, indeed, did a few at degree level. I also enjoyed it. BUT, there were very many kids at school with me who hated French and German, who weren't good at them and really struggled to learn. They completely resented being in these classes and would have been far better off learning something that they were interested in and for which they had an aptitude. Those kids forgot any French that they had been forced to learn as soon as the course was over - what was the point?

stressed - I hated learning French. I have been surprised the amount of French that has come back to me when I am on holiday and I wish I had learned more languages when young.

Now the Latin I learned I have forgotten. And I chose to do that as an extra curricular activity.

Stressed - I can appreciate re French - and choices are a difficult area. What age did yours focus - and were you HEing them earlier than that and how did you go about doing it - just leave them to themselves to do whatever they wanted or something a bit more proactive?

Mistle I have HE'ed the kids from -

DS2 - 11
DS3 - 8
DD - 6
DS4 - has never been to school at all.

They are all different. DS2 has always loved to learn - although mostly about things that he is interested in. DS3 and DD have moved from just chatting and asking questions to having things that they are interested in over time. DS4 isn't really interested in anything except Nintendo and Minecraft, but as I say, at the moment, he can read, write and count and knows stuff, so the focus will come when he is ready.

I try not to worry very much about it. I really think that it comes to them in their own time that they actually do need to learn "stuff" to get on.