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

"However anyone relying on just school for education is wrong. They will never get beyond average"

I disagree. School can be a lifeline for some children. providing oportunties they may not have otherwise had. I grew up in a very underpriviledged area and many parent did not have the resources or inclination to even support their children's learning at school.
We all saw school as a gateway out of poverty.

He feels very middle class to me. A luxury that few could afford.

As the children get older, they begin to realise the need for compromise and that, when you live as a family, everyone has to pay attention to each other's needs and wants. In the scenario you mention, I would just tell the children that we were going, and that would be the end of it

It depends on personality-in an ideal world they would. Some get far worse. I wouldn't just tell them they were going-I don't think it fair as they get older. There is nothing worse than taking a child to a museum if they don't want to go.

but there comes a point where forcing children to try to learn things that they have no interest in/have no aptitude for, that it ceases to be a productive activity and just puts them off learning.

Again I disagree-often when you get over the initial boredom something just clicks and it can change, you can suddenly get an aptitude-many times in life I have been pleasantly surprised myself.

It is also at complete odds with telling a child they have to go somewhere with a sibling when they have told you they have no interest!

Nothing has changed, either, because my DS, again top of the year in all his subjects, still had to contend daily with kids who just didn't want to be in French, Physics of Maths and whose main aim was to disrupt the class to the extent where teaching and learning was impossible

I think this is the fault of the school and you were unlucky. On the odd occasion that it happened to me I phoned up and they got it sorted. My children are in school to learn and the fact it was a state comprehensive makes no difference-they have just as much right.

Sorry-happened to my children-not me.

Intheround and mantora, I think a lot of people supplement school with outside stuff. I know that I did with DS1. But, I live in an area of very high social deprivation, where kids don't just go to the [ark or museums or what have you, where a trip to the Science Centre in Glasgow is completely outwith most people's reach, especially when you add in train fares and the like. Very many of the kids I know don't even have books in the house - they don't read, neither do their parents.

Schools here fail most of their pupils. Both our local secondaries attain less than 1/2 the national average of Standard Grade or Higher passes. Very few kids at schools here get a good education. Most of them are just there because they have to be. In fact, at food bank last wek, I had 2 teenage clients, one had not been to school since she was 13 and the other since she was 10. That's not uncommon round about here.

Oh and I know plenty folk that couldn't get a C in French. I don't know about GCSE, because I don't know what's required, but when I was a school there was a special class called European Studies for the kids that the staff felt would never be able to pass an MFL O Grade and when DS! was at school they had the Foundation classes for those who wouldn't be able to handle the actual language work. Take my friend who had to resit English and Arithmetic so many times. She tried 2ce with French, but couldn't even get a mention on the exam either time. (A No Mention was when you did so badly, that the subject wasn't even recorded on your SQA certificate.) It's not just about enduring the dull, boring stuff to get to the more interesting stuff, although that's a very valuable life lesson that we all have to learn. it's also about realising that some people will never be capable of certain things and that we all have different strengths and gifts.

I think that it very unfair to say that someone doesn't have a good education just because they haven't learned French or read Pride and Prejudice or whatever. Perhaps they had no interest in that or perhaps they weren't capable of it. A good education means different things to different people. My DS1, for instance, thinks that my education is pointless because it is full of things like Latin, Greek, Ancient History, Theology and obscure things like Classical Etymology. I, on the other hand, think that I have a good education especially if you take into account the 4 sciences and 3 MFLs that I did at school and the time I spent learning Hebrew, Gaelic and History of Music.

As for dealing with kids with no motivation. it's hard, I know. DS3 has very little internal motivation. He had it crushed out of him at school, where he was branded as stupid and lazy. He had the resources provided for him by the OT to help with his reading and writing taken away and given to another child because the school said it was a waste of time and money to give then to him.

Now that he is older, it is slowly coming back because he realises that if he wants to get anything out of life, he has to put something in. That's why he's going to college next session. Faced with that kind of thing, you just have to keep going, keep offering ideas and opportunities and try to avoid making the situation worse by becoming a harridan.

Truffle, my DS2 was unschooled and is now at St. Andrews uni doing an MSci(Hons) where he is currently top of his year. Is that not a success, then?

Atthestroke - I also grew up in poverty. School was school. The only reason I gained top marks was because I self studied myself on top of school. I hired library books of my own back, enrolled in ou courses etc. My parents had no clue and never made any of us go to school/ do homework/ and def never helped us. So yes school was a good form of education. However my siblings all attended the same school, none of them ever did any work on top. All struggled and bad grades/ work later.

The main difference between her adn the OP is that she treats it like a job and approaches it in a very orderly & organised fashion to ensure that she educates each age group appropriately

It can be done but it does require enormous organisation from the parent. Autonomous learning doesn't mean that you just let them play on the computer all day and then make excuses and persuade yourself that it is educational.
One day a week I volunteer in a place where we do get HEed families visiting. I don't know for sure with most because I never like to ask-some are so touchy that are scared to ask a simple question in case they think you are being judgemental! I know in 3 cases because they volunteered the information. One was a girl of 10, she was delightful and we had a very long, relevant and interesting conversation. Another was a family of 6 from about 12yrs down to a baby in a sling. Again they were a very nice family and the parents engaged with them the whole time. The third were the difficult type-children had no interest, wouldn't listen and the parents didn't even exert a modicum of control.
To do it well is not an easy option.

Tamer, we live in a family and have to accommodate each other. We can't always do exactly as we want, that would just be anarchy and I don't run an anarchic house. The children are encouraged to follow their own interests, but they still have to do things that they don't particularly want to, anything from making their bed to going to a museum. Although, luckily, my kids are grateful for any day out that they get.

As for school. I'm glad that it was different for you, but all my experiences with school for my kids were awful. TBH, my own experience was dreadful as well. We spent so long trying to deal with school and the whole thing was so stressful that it made my husband ill. Nothing was ever dealt with and often our involvement actually made things worse.

I am being a bit unfair stressedHEMum-with schools like that I think I would HE.

I could tell you stuff that would curl your hair Tamer. Like the LA Head of Learning Support that told me that "all these syndromes" (Asperger's, dyslexia, ADHD etc.) didn't exist, that they were a product of a combination of poor parenting and social deprivation.

Or the Local Authority Head of Service for Education who told me that if I wanted support for my As child to transfer from Primary to Secondary, that I would have to take the council to an ASN tribunal because they would not be spending the money on him.

Or the primary school that refused to put any of DS3's work on display because his writing was too bad to be seen.

Or the nursery that used to leave DS4 sitting in wet trousers all afternoon because he wouldn't speak to them to tell them he needed the toilet.

Or the bullying that DS3 suffered that was so bad the GP signed him off sick for 6 weeks but that the head teacher refused to acknowledge existed because "we don't have any bullying in this school."

I could go on and on. HE was never a lifestyle choice for us. But after all the horror of school, I could never go back, nor could I honestly recommend school to anyone.

I also think there is a huge difference between HEing if your schools are dreadful, your children don't suit it for various reasons- and thinking you will all live a lovely unstructured life in the country without having the stress of getting up and out at a certain time and the children will miraculously pick up what they need, without you making much effort, and and have all doors open to them in terms of options as they reach adulthood.

But after all the horror of school, I could never go back, nor could I honestly recommend school to anyone.

I can quite see that and that you wouldn't recommend a school in your area to anyone. Mine would go over my dead body! However it isn't all schools. In the same way that some HEers are excellent-it doesn't mean they all are!

"An education limited to our tastes, is not a good education."

Gosh, how I love that! I think I shall pin it to the fridge!

I think all us "anti" HEers are all of the same opinion, really. HE can work, and in fact I considered it and would have done in where we used to live (dump) with some other parents to share skills.

But the OP gives HE a bad name as it's just an excuse not to get out of bed in the morning and trail backwards and forwards with five dcs. Admittedly I think if I had five dcs including ten-week-old baby I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning either!

Very few people are anti HEers- whatever the HEers think. But the immediate bristling defensiveness certainly brings out the sceptic in me. As does the cheerful brushing aside of any potential problems- particularly by the parents of very young children. It is a decision which needs to be taken with great thought and mindfulness- the implications can be huge.

I'm a huge supporter of HE and have represented a lot of HEing families and children to protect their right to do it.

I also told Ed Balls exactly what I thought of his plans to curb it!!!!

But that's not a defence of bad practice.

In the same way, I am a huge supporter of schools, but can get very annoyed by how crap some of them are!

I know that all schools can't be as bad as the ones that I have experienced. Clearly many of them do a great job, or we would be a nation of illiterate, innumerate adults. I'm just now very afraid of the education system.

By the same token, all He'ers can't be good, but then I haven't ever met any, so I don't know. I have to say, though, that one of the best things is not having to drag us all out in the dark, cold and wet of a winter morning I think that theOP is at the very early stages and her children are very, very young. In many countries, none of the would have started school at all yet.

They all need to find their feet and find an approach that suits them all, but there is plenty of time for that. I think folk are being very unfair to her. She and her wee ones have plenty of time.

I am not against it at all.
I think it is a shame they are all so defensive to the point where I don't feel that I can ask a simple question of whether they HE, because it won't be seen as a simple question-at best I would be nosy and at worst judgemental-rather than simply wanting to know, so that they can get the best out of a visit.
In OP case she actually asked us! And it wasn't on HE board to start with. The problem is she doesn't like some of the answers. I hold by my original opinion which is that it isn't working, she has many things against it -the only thing that I have changed is that they are so young it really doesn't matter at the moment if they don't start formal education.

I think that people are probably worried that the OP has not realised how much parental intervention there may be, even if it is entirely based upon an 'unschooling' - and its not just a case of letting them get on with it and reading some of the time and going out to the odd visit, play dates and swimming lessons when they are at the age they are.

Are there any home educators of only children who are NT?

I am getting the impression from this thread that most families who home educate have either/or a) Large families b) Children with extra needs that aren't being met at school c) Dreadful schools in their area d) Children who have been bullied at school.

Is there anyone on here who home educates just because they want to?

I am sure that many do through philosophy of parenting or because they want control or because they don't have to stick to timetables and can get to tourist places at quiet times or because they didn't like school themselves.

I know a few that would fit that description Bunbaker.

Yes I can see for the OP it doesn't matter at the moment if the children aren't learning much. Many countries do start formal schooling later, and the children do just fine.

Although it is far easier for children to learn languages before the age of 7. Not that most state schools take advantage of this.

Lots in my family, bunbaker.

Sorry,misread. No NT only children being HEed in my family. But certainly small families.

I HE a NT only. Well, he's not school aged yet -- would be due to start in September but not going to school. I know a couple NT singletons who are HE or, like mine, not old enough yet but won't be going to school. Also know several two child families who HE.

I home ed three NT boys. My eldest is 12 and about to start working towards his IGCSEs. He