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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To ask what you think when you hear a child is home educated

684 replies

turquoiseamethyst · 15/03/2015 23:19

I suppose I am trying to gauge a range of opinions.

I am seriously - possibly definitely (definitely maybe?) going to be home schooling my 8 year old for a period of time.

I don't know why I'm worried; perhaps because it's so beyond the norm of what we have experienced before. I don't know anyone who home educates; I wasn't educated at home myself and I think I have known rather a lot of people who are very much of the view that school is all important. I've never particularly subscribed to that view but I've always wanted my children to have a 'normal' upbringing and going to school seems very much a part of that?

Does anyone have any views? As I'm going to possibly be de registering him tomorrow?

OP posts:
turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 17:03

At the moment, off sick. Why?

OP posts:
Christinayang1 · 17/03/2015 17:13

How are things today?

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 17:15

Absolutely fine thank you :)

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Fairenuff · 17/03/2015 17:48

I asked because it's a long time for him to be off sick and the school may want you to provide some sort of doctor's note. They may not but best to be prepared for the possibility.

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 17:49

Well he has only been off four days so far!

I will be looking at de registering him soon.

OP posts:
Charley50 · 17/03/2015 17:50

I was genuinely interested but I won't comment again cuz I obviously wind you up sorry. I was actually trying to be helpful yesterday.

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 17:57

Of course you were Hmm that's why you've been all over my threads like a fly at a picnic telling me I'm wrong ...

OP posts:
Fairenuff · 17/03/2015 18:07

Four days is a long time in terms of sickness, unless he has a major health problem and this obviously is going to be a much longer period of sickness.

It's just that you said you wanted to avoid a fine, so it might be a good idea to check whether you need to speak with the gp to confirm a long term sickness.

SuburbanRhonda · 17/03/2015 18:19

OP, you said you were concerned about, amongst other things, a referral to education welfare.

I hope I can reassure you that most EWOs, including ours, with whom I work very closely to manage attendance at our school, genuinely want to help to resolve the situation for children who have high levels of absence. They will probably come up with an attendance agreement whereby your DS gets rewards for improved attendance. They will close the case if there's consistent improvement.

They will also work with the school and, as I mentioned upthread and in our area, Access to Education, who can provide tutoring at home for children who are not attending. I did mention this organisation upthread, but you didn't say whether that would be something you'd be prepared to try.

What worries me about this thread is that, while it is completely understandable that you don't want to upset your DS, having this as a guiding principle when he is 8 years old will neither resolve his anxiety nor help him build resilience for coping with difficulties that we all come across in life. He may come to believe that he can simply give up when things are difficult and that you will encourage him in that because you can't face the long haul that could be involved with resolving his refusal to go to school.

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 18:21

Normally, I would agree with you Suburban but his distress at going to school was so extreme it would to be frank be cruel to force him.

Given that he'd be leaving soon anyway - if not I might be more inclined to try to persuade him but as it is ...

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SuburbanRhonda · 17/03/2015 18:29

Of course his distress is extreme. He's very upset.

But you're his mum - you need to be able to manage his distress. If he sees you giving up, what message does that send him?

I genuinely hope that you find home schooling is right for him, and that come September he is settled enough to go back to school so you can focus on your two little ones. I worry how difficult things will be if he's still refusing in September.

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 18:32

I'm not giving up; I'm finding a temporary alternative. I notice you still haven't told me how to get DS into school in the first place surburban - 'because I won't engage.'

Yes, maybe I am a shit parent and person but I'm also the only parent.

I am doubting myself and wondering again if i should have sent dH away; DS would have gone to school then I can tell you.

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SuburbanRhonda · 17/03/2015 18:39

It wasn't because you "wouldn't engage". I'm not working with you!

It was because anyone who worked with you would need to know you're committed to changing the situation. You just asked me for "hypothetical" solutions and that's just not possible without knowing you.

I don't think anyone on here has said you're a shit parent. You're clearly not.

But you already made your mind up before you posted.

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 18:46

I am but do you know what - who cares. Just leave it. DS can go back next week.

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JanineStHubbins · 17/03/2015 19:03

You're being rather petulant, OP. Suburban has been trying to help you, but it doesn't seem that you're interested in engaging with anyone whose views don't exactly coincide with your own.

Christinayang1 · 17/03/2015 19:09

Did he mention school today or was he just relieved not to be going?

Do you feel any better about things? You have a lot going on

NickiFury · 17/03/2015 20:23

I don't think you're being petulant at all OP. I do think you should stop posting on this thread though. There's a lot of determination to get you to answer questions you don't want to and get you and ds "back on track". You seem quite confident of your course of action and I think you should try to trust yourself. HE may not work out for you but it's unlikely to be the disaster predicted by some on here either. Your circumstances may well change or your ds may even wish to return to school.

I think as always when HE is discussed there's a lot of catastrophizing on this thread. At best it will all work out amazingly well and you'll all thrive, at worst it won't work at all and you'll put him back in school . My own education was patchy to say the least, I was a forces child and went to fourteen different schools. I have now almost completed a degree and intend to do a masters afterwards. Traditional school years are not the only time a person can achieve.

morethanpotatoprints · 17/03/2015 20:55

Totally agree with Nicki

OP, if you need any practical support, tips or encouragement the parents on H.ed board are great, its not as busy as it used to be but somebody will pick up your thread.
good luck.

teacherwith2kids · 17/03/2015 20:57

I am sorry, I have read some chunks of this thread but not all. Some aspects of the OP's situation match mine with DS when he was 6, and I just wanted to post from a 'with hindisght' perspective.

DS, in Year 1 at a small village school, became extremely anxious. The root cause of this was around chaos in his classroom, a teacher not really in control, a lack of peer group and quite a bit of serruptitious bullying (hindsight - not aware of all those things at the time). He developed many traits that are associated with autistic spectrum disorders, to the extent that he was assessed by the Ed Psych - and tbh throughout that period and for years after, I would say that DS had ASD traits or was on the ASD spectrum. He also became a school-induced selective mute, only speaking within the family unit and then with hesitation and a number of peculiarities in the way he spoke.

Like the OP, we reached an 'end of the line' moment, and deregistered him. The headteacher felt that he would never be able to return to mainstream education. I come from a deeply conventional family, many employed in education, and there was quite a lot of indrawn breath.

However, unlike the OP, I did have a clear 'exit strategy', and that is what i think she needs to think about now. DH was moving jobs, and although it wasn't far, we decided to move. My intention was to select an appropriate school for DS, and to 'mend' him in order to re-start school there after the move. Even if that hadn't worked, my long term aim was always for him to be school for secondary (specialist subject teaching is important to me), so that set a) an absolute maximum timeframe and b) an educational approach - we were structured, NC-based HEdders, though this left LOTS of time for other stuff too.

Actually, we loved it. It was a golden period - DD's last year before starting school, DS's mending. It is why I teach today, as a matter of fact.

However, I was always clear with DS that 'school at home' was 'until we move'. He came with me to see all the possible schools (he filled in questionnaires and wrote reviews of them for English tasks). He first spoke outside the family to the head of one of the schools, who was prepared to wait as long as it took (5 minutes +) for the answer, and was capable of making himself so unthreatening for that purpose that DS did manage to speak to him. We selected that school.

DS went for a visit before we moved, and started school again on the day we moved, a few weeks before the end of Y1 so he only had to manage a few weeks. The first day I was a total bag of nerves - had he come out without speech again, i would simply have turned tail and run back to HE. But he not only spoke, he shouted and laughed and thrived.

He's a teenager now, at secondary. No long term scars either of HE or of the horrible period before it, though the traces were there in his speech until at least Y5 so it was a long healing.

I suppose what I'm saying is that this may seem dramatic now, but may not seem so in the longer term. However, the OP does need to have at least a vague exit strategy - long term HE? School for secondary? Return to this school once mended? Return to another school if mended? - before setting out. Oherwise it is just a reaction, not a plan.

teacherwith2kids · 17/03/2015 21:00

By 'exit strategy', btw, I don't necessarily mean 'an exit for HE'. Mine was 2 step - try a new primary, if not HE till secondary. For others it may be a long-term wholehearted commitment to HE for the whole of their child's education. But some long term view, rather than just 'not school at the moment' can be very helpful, in guiding how you approach HE, how you talk to your child, and what other asupport you might enlist.

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 21:07

This is where reading the whole thread is helpful teacher but really it doesn't matter. I can't cope; I can't do it - end of.

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teacherwith2kids · 17/03/2015 21:22

Do you mean you can't do HE Or you can't do school? The law says that you MUST educate your child, whether you choose to do that at school or otherwise. But you can't just decide 'not school' and leave a limbo. Even autonomous HE, which is the closest to limbo from an external perspective, requires something from you.

teacherwith2kids · 17/03/2015 21:29

(Als, on a really practical point, how popular is your current school? If you deregister and it doesn't work out, will your place have been filled? There is a real squeeze on school places in many areas, and no opportunity to keep places open. Certainly locally, an 8 year old deregistering today from one of my local schools would have no place to return to in any school within quite some radius, and the school place that would be available would be uin a very, very non-MN school)

Fairenuff · 17/03/2015 21:36

OP is planning on moving house and starting her ds at a new school in September.

That was another thing I asked, OP, has he been offered a place for September? If not, do you have a Plan B if he doesn't get in?

turquoiseamethyst · 17/03/2015 21:39

Please will you all just stop pecking at me?

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