To not send dc back to school after holidays

[fernTaylo]

Basically the school is too far, I don’t drive, public transport is stressful, busy and takes far far too long
No places at any schools nearer
The dc are tired , im terribly stressed and feel that home education would be better all round as we wouldn’t be travelling for a large part of the day, less stress etc
Socialising can be done at other activities they go to
I’m 99% decision made already as am just so tired

Does the children's father agree to this proposal?

Home education isnt some lower class form of education. Home educated children are not more stupid or less prepared than children that have gone through school. Home education doesnt mean you cannot get your exams if you want them.
People go into home ed for all sorts of different reasons and with all sorts of different methods. Sometimes its unsuccessful, but then sometimes so is school.

How will you replicate the classroom experience

You absolutely do not need to for a good education and many home edders actively avoid doing just that!

OP, I would look at all options and weigh them up. Using a childminder (if you can find one where you are) could be a good short term solution.

I was going to ask whether a childminder could do drop off. I really would just push for a closer school.

I was also going to mention that we have found that home ed seems easy going at primary level, and there are a fair few kids around. Once you get to the teenage years it is very different, and many do wound up feeling isolated. A lot of their home ed peers have gone to school, they're too old for many of the groups that are around etc. And unless you are going down a more unschooling route, which wasn't our bag, the varied subject matter can be harder to deliver.

That's not to say it can't be done, not in the slightest, but it is harder. Primary school aged kids are happy with a walk in the woods/bug hunt/bit of painting/a few letters & numbers but older kids need more.

Home education isnt some lower class form of education.
It can be done brilliantly.
It can also be done poorly (and as home ed sits outside of regulatory frameworks the variability and lack of accountability is an issue).

Home education can be a great option for some children with engaged parents who are well aware of what they are signing up to and why. It can work well if the parents have an idea of where the education is heading.

I don't think home education is a positive choice when it is more about convenience for the parent than providing education for children.

This thread doesn't need to be a debate on the merits of home ed. It's about whether an adult with their own unresolved issues should be pulling their children out of school for their convenience when they openly say they get overwhelmed with their kids and their DP has to take them out.

"I don't think home education is a positive choice when it is more about convenience for the parent than providing education for children."

This is so true.
An acquaintance of mine decided to "home educate" her children because she couldn't get up early enough to get her children to school (which was a few minutes walk down the road).

She missed that three of them had dyslexia. It was discovered when she decided that "home educating" wasn't working and she sent them to school.

I’ve asked for this to be moved to the home education board

...

I think it might be a better place, I hadn’t realised there was one

I think Mental Health might be a good place for strategies to manage crippling anxiety, including medical help,available

I agree with MH.
OP sometimes rock bottom has to happen for us to seek help. I think this is yours x

This doesn’t belong on the Home Education board because it has nothing to do with home education and all to do with your mental health. That’s what needs addressing.

Why has it been moves to Home Ed?
It's not a home education issue, it's a 'adult is finding life tough and needs support with mental health' issue.
The only reason for the OP to request it goes to HE boards is (I assume) the hope that they'll get new posters validating their idea to home educate.

op please look at the sheer number of posters who can see you are struggling but are pointing out the very real issues of home education when (by your own admission) you need your DP at the weekend because you get overwhelmed with the kids and get overwhelmed using public transport.

There is a massive elephant in the room - what sort of education will your children receive when you are too overwhelmed to educate them?

We home educated for a few years. I don't regret it, it served specific purposes, but we ended up going back to school and I'm happy with that choice.

Home education - done properly, seeing to the educational needs and requirements of each child - is more than a full time job. You are parent and facilitator and teacher all rolled into one, 100% of the time. You need to be "switched on" more than you'd think, and you need to attack their education with the tenacity of a pit-bull because there is no fall-back option. You can't let someone else pick up the slack, because there is nobody else.

My eldest was home educated the longest, now in her last year of high school. She had some amazing opportunities that wouldn't have come her way in mainstream school, which has been great, but DH and I have had to completely support and facilitate that, fund it, research it, etc etc. It's very intense.

I suppose that's the point I want to make here - you say you are stressed and overwhelmed, and I get it. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a young teenager, and I struggle with day to day responsibilities and activities sometimes, too. (I also get obsessive which worked well when we were in the swing of HE-ing) But Home Ed is probably not your panacea. It will bring its own stresses, you will have difficult days - weeks - months. It isn't a holiday every day, and you will be completely responsible for their futures.

If you are happy, confident, excited and committed at the thought of that responsibility, then you might be in the right place to make this decision. If you are making the decision from the place of fear, avoidance, and fantasy, then I would strongly suggest that this decision to HE is not appropriate for you or your children at all.

I think there are other solutions to your situation, OP. I think you should find other options here. All the best.

OP think about this logically for a second okay. You can’t organise yourself and your kids for a 30min bus ride. How will you organise, prepare and plan their lessons for 6-7 hours a day 5 days a week? I’m sorry but you aren’t being realistic. Doing home education properly takes a lot of effort even for a qualified teacher, and done poorly it could end up ruining your children’s lives. Do you have MH issues? Are they being treated?

OP, I have anxiety, and I HATE the school run (which is 30 minutes each way). However I would never home educate my kid, despite loving them to bits, because I'm not a teacher and don't proclaim to be one.

Missing the point there and misunderstanding HE at the same time FruitCider (sorry). HE can be fantastic but takes a huge amount of effort and does not require you to be a teacher. Read the whole thread you'll see the reasons for OP wanting to HE are entirely personal and based on her needs, not her children's. She's been given loads of very good advice even before she moved the thread to the HE section from both HE and non-HE's. However, ALL have noted that the reasons she's come up with are not valid, she assumes it will be easier (it won't), she assumes it will alleviate her stress (it won't) and everyone has encouraged her to look at her own MH/anxiety as a starting point along with a whole range of other very helpful suggestions from people, including myself, who have anxiety and have found ways to cope with its crippling effects as difficult as that is, and this is what OP needs to focus on, not continue the stubborn intention to use HE to alleviate taking her children to school because it stresses her out, which she has further aimed to obtain support for this idea by having it moved to the HE board. However, it's clear to see that the anxiety is the overriding issue and HE is in effect a red herring.

I’m not quite sure if you realise how significantly damaging your mental has got for you be considering pulling your children out school because of it- realistically that’s what this is coming down to. It’s not normal and it shouldn’t be the conclusion.

How far away is your ex? Can he do the school run? Or have your children in the week? You need to better focus on tackling you4 mental health issues for yours, and your children’s sakes.

Hi OP, glad you've made it to the home ed board!

Taking your posts at face value, it sounds like you cope fine with life and your kids in general and it is literally ONLY public transport (especially at busy times) and the related rushing which you find overwhelming. If that is the case, there is no reason to suppose that you'd find home education particularly stressful. You say that you enjoy activities and doing educational things with your children. Sure, HE has its ups and downs, but it doesn't look like it would be harder or less pleasant for your family than for other families who are doing it.

I do think that most of the strong criticism you've been getting is actually an anti-HE prejudice. Imagine the opposite situation: a parent who has always home educated, who finds some aspect of HE overwhelming and is thinking of putting their children into school to get a break for herself, because she feels she simply cannot carry on home educating. In such a situation, everyone would urge her to put her needs first, because the kids would almost certainly be okay at school even if it isn't ideal for them. It's true that HE parents would likely suggest that she consider whether there is some other solution which would allow her to carry on HEing if that is what she wants to do, but nobody would accuse her of selfishness for putting her children into school if she cannot cope with home ed. You, on the other hand, are getting criticism for thinking of moving your kids from one reasonably good educational setting (school) to another reasonably good educational setting (home education) because you cannot cope with getting them to school. It's a double standard.

If one accepts that school and home ed are equally valid educational choices, then it is silly to demand that someone choose one over the other for the "right reasons". We do not criticise parents who choose school over home education because they want free childcare, or because they feel they cannot cope with spending so many hours with their kids, or because they feel unconfident of their own abilities. We do not criticise parents who choose a closer school rather than a more distant school because it makes for an easier school run. Unless your decision to home educate your children is likely to be disastrous for them, I don't see why your reasons should come under scrutiny.

I do agree that you will face challenges in home education. To an outsider (and possibly even to you) I don't think it's at all easy to predict whether home education will pan out well for your family. The transport challenge is an issue, no doubt about it, but will it ruin your children's happiness? That depends on so many things: how sociable your children are, what the population density is like in your area, whether you get on well with the other HE families who live nearby and go to the local home ed groups, whether you can manage the bus sometimes in order to go to the places your kids really want to go. So I would urge you to consider all this.

However, I don't see why you have to leave your kids at school while you figure that out. Why not take them out of school for a while, try home education and see how it goes? It is notoriously difficult to make sensible decisions while under immense stress. You will be in a better place to think it through when you aren't facing four buses a day at busy times. You will also be able to see how the social side of things works out for your children when they're not at school. This doesn't have to be a permanent decision. If home education doesn't suit, your children can go back to school. In fact, by the time they reach secondary age they can VERY easily go back to school, as they will be able to take themselves there. In that sense, it's worth remembering that this challenge is a temporary one. Whether or not you carry on with school now, in a few years your children will be in a position to make their own decision and you will be free of school-run stress.

I have been home educating 13 years. I love it, my children have not lacked social or educational opportunities. We haven't replicated school and it is only now that we are in the GCSE years that we are bound to external curriculums and a more schooly feel.
That aside it is bloody hard work and mentally tough and can be exhausting and lonely.
We have a philosophy of education is best when you see and experience so we are bouncing around the country visiting places, lectures, workshops etc I don't drive so the hours on public transport seriously add up.
I am not saying home education isn't right for you as I don't know what effect the travelling is having on your family. However the only right reason to home educate to me is a belief that you can provide the children with a better educational experience out of school.
I would pause for a term to do more research (join local groups, ask people to meet for coffee to share their stories, read home ed blogs, research educational approaches and resources). At the same time look at getting more practical and MH support to explore whether you can improve current situation.

I will add the caveat that besides being hard work, draining and lonely, home ed is also immensely rewarding, huge fun and very sociable for adults as well as children, I have many hugely supportive home ed friends.

Like Saracen I think that home ed and school need to be seen as equally valid choices and I believe the only right reason to send a child to school is because it offers something you feel you can't (I had one choose to go to school for 6 years as he wanted the social side/shared experience - started late primary, HE again as realised that education wise school failed).

I also very much agree home ed is not a one way street, decision can be reversed at any point. In reality the more people plan and the stronger idea they have of how HE will work the harder they seem to find the transition and embracing the opportunities home ed gives.

I am contradicting myself there I know. I would still give it until Easter I think (Jan/Feb can be quite bleak in home ed socialising circles as the lurgy can do bad things). Work on trying to find solutions to help with school transport but also getting a feel for the local home ed community. Come March you will hopefully be in a better position to make a positive decision.

As a home educator/former, I agree that school shouldn't be seen as the default just because it is the norm. The only reason I am suggesting caution here is because school is where the kids are now and so you need to be sure.

Saracen as someone who has gone educated I would say that you can't put school and home ed as both valid choices.

Because it's depends on each child.

Raving about how great home educating is completely missing the point, just to try and prove home ed is the best choice.

The op doesn't like public transport. Not just when she is in a rush. Her husband is the one that takes the kids out at weekends. Not the op.

This is a situation where the OP will likely avoid travel and only go to a home educating group that a walk away. What happens when the group decide to do something away from that setting?

There is a very real chance, based on what the OP has said that her and her kids will become isolated.

I can not agree, that education choices should be made based on a parents mental health. That's not ok. It's should be based on what's best for the kids.

This is a perfect storm for a home educating situation where it won't work. The pp should be seeking help for her issues. Then if she feels home ed is still beat for her kids, then give it a go.

I would also caution that home edding in the winter is way harder, especially if you don't drive.

The whole situation is a disaster waiting to happen.

OP - we home educate our children. It wasn't an easy decision, and not one taken lightly. Neither of us had ever planned to do so, but we are doing it because they both have SEN which weren't being met by the school. They were failing in school, falling further and further behind, whilst the school repeatedly denied that there was an issue. You can't win against a school that refuses to acknowledge your child's SEN.

So, OP, I would say to you that you need to be very sure that your children want or need to be home educated. If they're doing well in school and learning and are happy then don't remove them to home educate.

Taking your posts at face value, it sounds like you cope fine with life and your kids in general and it is literally ONLY public transport (especially at busy times) and the related rushing which you find overwhelming
She said herself early on that she has to get DP to take the children on a weekend because she finds it overwhelming.

Pointing out home educating when by your own admission you feel overwhelmed having the kids around on a weekend and your DP takes them out isnt a good option is not people having anti-home ed prejudice.
The move to HE is all about what suits the OP, not what is best for the children.

Notacluethisxmas hit the nail on the head. What happens when the OP is with the children day in day out and finds it overwhelming? What happens when she's too overwhelmed to take them to groups? What happens when there's educational trips and she is overwhelmed at the stress of getting there?
If the weekend with children is overwhelming and DP has to take the children then home education is probably not the right route for her, at least not until she has sorted her other issues out.

If you don't drive, public transport is a reality. Especially when you home educate. Expecting a working partner to take days off every time a group/visit whatever is out of walking distance just isn't viable long term. 🤷 And I say that as someone who is totally pro home ed.