Thinking about HE

[birthdaycake]

I am thinking about HE my dc mainly because I am worried that sending them into school will lead to them losing a lot of their individuality and confidence and also because the school they are likely to get a place at does not have a good reputation. The eldest one (age 3) is due to start nursery in Sept and I am thinking about keeping him at home for starters. I was wondering why other parents had decided to HE right from the start and also they had got on with it.

We've decided to HE DS from the start, because of the freedom to learn what he wants, when he wants in whatever detail or to whatever level he wants; the freedom it gives us as a family not to be tied to school times/terms etc; the one-2-one attention he can have and because I want to be there and enjoy learning with him rather than delegate my responsibility to others.

As for how we have got on with it....come back in a couple of years - he turns 3 this month so technically we don't have do anything yet.....although we will be HEing autonomously so probably won't be doing anything different than now anyway!

This is a very personal and, dare I say it- controversial area.

As a teacher and a qualified parent coach (I write for a major women's mag as their parenting expert) I feel that there are pros and cons.

The problems can arise when your children are older, unless you can afford an army of tutors at £30 an hour, to help them through their GCSEs etc. Some parents aren't bothered about formal qualifications, whereas others are. I'd suggest you write a long list of pros and cons- being honest! - and think about whether your negative "cons" are really insummountable in a school situation.

On a personal level, I have tutored HE children- and i have to say that the majority were not academic and were managing ok with 3-5 GCSEs. This is not enough if your child is bright and wants to go to university.

I know this will seem ages off when your child in only 3, but it is something to consider.

Gig - I know plenty of HE families both online & IRL whose children have gone on to colleges or universities without any qualifications at all...most do just fine with an interview & a portfolio of their work. GCSEs along with lots of the other qualifications schools & colleges offer are definitely not necessary for going further in education/life......

I doubt many non-HE parents start thinking about GCSEs, A Levels & further ahead when their children are toddlers....so don't see the point in HE families having to do so. A lot can change in 10+ years. I very much doubt GCSEs will even exist by the time my DS is 16

terramum I did say it was controversial, didn't I?!

I would be interested in knowing for my own benefit and to pass on to other parents, which universities (in the top 20 or so) accept students with portfolios etc. Have you the info please?

Maybe parents with toddlers don't think as far as GCSEs etc, but that's not to say they shouldn't. I ams ure GCSEs won't exist in 10 years' time- but some other exams will.

The problem with taking your child out of the system is that it may not be what the child would choose, but they don't know any differently.

It is intersting that you say that you want your child to learn what he wants, when he wants and in how much detail -but at age 3 I can't really see how he knows what's best for his future -can you? If you follow that argument through he might choose to spend his entire life not learning maths, 'cos he doesn't "like it". What would you do then?

I haven't got a list of uni's or colleges, no....might be one out there I suppose....haven't looked. But from my immediate memory, UCL & Ox-bridge are both very receptive to HEers & I know of people who are/have attended all 3. Don't forget there are many ways of getting into further & higher ed - access courses, OU etc...TBH I would recommend just speaking to the admissions people at any uni or college a student is considering.

I think our education system has become too much about a piece of paper than actually learning/experience.....take my husband for instance - went the furthest in education than all his friends & is now unemployed & has been told numerous times that his degree is irrelevant & his job experience is what counts...he might as well have not done it

"The problem with taking your child out of the system is that it may not be what the child would choose, but they don't know any differently."

I could say exactly the same thing about going to school, going to church, learning the piano, what food they eat...hell anything a parent chooses for their child.....the point about HE for me (& a lot of other parents) is that the child can make that choice....If DS turned round at age 10, 11 etc & said "I'd like to go to school mum"...then I'd let him, arming him with the knowledge that if he didn't like it he could be HE again. Most school children ( & most adults even!) don't even know that HE is even legal so how are they making a "choice" to go to school? No - they don't know any differently either!

Re the maths example...I'm not sure you could go through life not studying maths....even my mum who is a self-confessed math-phobe due to her terrible education managed very well as a nurse & then a tutor in the army. Pretty sure that needs some kind of maths skill?

I'm not saying he knows what's best for his future right now...I'm saying he can learn at his own pace & learn the things that interest him along the way. So long as he can function as an adult, be happy and be useful to society then I will be happy. If he hasn't done all the NC subjects I doubt he will suffer for it . TBH I don't think of DS's education in "subjects" as per the NC....I just see it as us living & him learning how to live. For instance, simple things like shopping involve writing, maths, growing on our allotment involves biology, maths, weather etc. He is learning every day even now. He asks me "what's that" (usually a plant or bug!) & so instead of saying "bug" or "tree" I look it up with him & we chat about it.

Sorry birthdaycake....have hogged your post a bit...shall shut up now

Terramum, i love the theories behind HE, and your description of not just saying its a bug - but going and looking it up and discussing it - but this isn'tindividual to HE children. This is something i and millions other parents whose children are in school do with their children. So could the debate go that children in school have the best of both worlds?

Birthdaycake, i don't know an awful lot about HE but what i do know gives me great concern for a child's social skills and experiences. The lack of team working with peers of the same age, and a lack of working under authority i believe is detrimental to a child's ability to get along in today's society unless they plan to live in a commune or similar.

Hattie - Not all children have the best of both worlds being at school, no. Some parents don't take any interest whatsoever in their childrens' education and leave it all up to the school - and some schools are downright crap, where the children are learning very little as it is.

You also mention lack of team working with peers of the same age - why is this important to you? My HE dd works and plays as part of a team of HE kids on a frequent basis who range in age from toddlers to 18 year olds. Why should she only be teamworking with kids her own age? Surely she is getting much better social skills by mixing with ALL ages? She also has lots of other activities outside the home where she is mixing with schooled kids of various ages. She has much better social skills now than when she was at school being forced to mix with children her own age.

Your last sentence about lack of working under authority being detrimental unless they plan on living in a commune is laughable. But as you said, you don't know much about home education. You have every right to post your opinions on the HE forum, but it would help if you knew what you were talking about.

Hattie,
With all due respect you obviously know very little about home education. I find your comments quite insulting.(angry)

Birthdaycake,
We have 3 grown up children who all attended nursey and school. School changed them so much. They did lose their individuality and enthusiasm, particularly my eldest daughter. Their experiences and "education" and lots of research have led us to the decision to home-educate our youngest child who is 3 and a half.(the half is most important according to her.lol!) She has never been to nursery and will never go to school. We base our decision on the knowledge and experience we have gained from our three older "schooled" children. Hind-sight is a wonderful thing.

Our youngest is articulate, clever, confident, sociable and forever thirsty for knowledge.Typical 3year old. She knows perfectly well how to "learn" She doesnt need to be with a class of thirty kids the same age as her to "learn"... We want her to stay this way, so she will not be going to school. The world is her oyster! We have a very busy social life and she has friends of all ages and from all walks of life. At this point in her young life she has decided she wants to be a vet, but hey, she may change her mind. If she decides to live in a commune then who cares, as long as she is happy.(wink)

My youngest so reminds me of her older sister at 3 and a half. She too, was confident and full of enthusiasm ..then we sent her to school.She is 21 now, and she has never re-gained that confidence and love of learning she once had.
We didn't know Home Ed was a legal right back then....Wish we had.

As a mature student (i.e. 21+) you can apply to do degree courses without any academic qualifications, although it would be helpful to do A Levels - and it is possible to bypass GCSEs and go on to do A Levels instead (or any equivalent).

You do, however, need to demonstrate that you are capable of studying at a higher level.

There is also the OU route.

As a mature student (i.e. when you hit 21) you can also go the Access course route.

My own experience is that I was accepted onto a degree course without any further academic qualification than GCSEs (oh and no English folks, due to it being coursework-based - I didn't do any coursework and was never entered, it's not ever been a handicap, I spent much of the time I should've been in school either in the library or in the pub reading .

I didn't go on to do it though, due to 'family circumstances' - although I am now studying again.

With regard to 'socialisation'. Both of my elder children were home-educated and then chose to go to school. At the first parents evening for the younger one the comment was, "You'd never guess he'd been home-educated, he's fitted in so well." LOL - I think people believe that home-educated children are sequestered away.

Of course there will always be a few families who lock themselves away, but this is not true for all of the HE-ers I know. My boys went through Beavers and Cubs, went to guitar lessons, swimming lessons and guess what - they also PLAYED with the other local kids (the ones that went to school).

I went to a meeting recently with the DfES and one of the local HE-ed teens was also present. When she mentioned her 'schooled friends' this was met with some surprise by the DfES rep (who was lovely btw) - but why shouldn't she have friends that go to school?

Children are children and friends are friends, regardless of whether they are HE-ed or not.

Gig - my G&T 14 year old is seriously considering coming out of school in order to avoid GCSEs and move straight on to A level/degree level work. She would only need GCSEs in Maths, English and a MFL for Oxbridge, the other 10 or so she'd be doing woudl be irrelevant.

you can't spend your life not KNOWING about maths.

how then would you take enough money with you to go shopping, lay the table, or work out how many days til your birthday?

that is the extent that even someone like dp, with a phd in maths, uses maths day to day.

I have NEVER once been called upon to calculate an angle of a triangle involving a right angle nor find the area under a curve in my day to day life, although I certainly COULD, in an emergency situation.

bc-don't worry, your dc is very little. Take it year by year. you can always send them for secondary (you will prob know plenty of he'd kids by then)

but also, do find a local group if you can

aaargh sorry I meant to say that EVERYONE has these maths skills, you do just pick them up.

if you are really worried, give them pocket money

birthday cake - I think you have a very biased and negative view of education within the traditional school system, and wonder what it is founded on? I fully agree that not all schools are providing what every child needs 100% of the time, but neither are all parents who HE.

The idea of a child-centred education has been around for a very long time- don't know if you have heard of the school Summerhill, established by A S Neil? I studied it and its philosophy when training as a teacher 35 years ago. The results show that children do not learn best when allowed tochoose their own curriculum.

I am fully aware of all the opportunities available to mature students- having taught in further ed for 10 years and been a teacher for distance learning cources with the NEC.

Fundementally, I think that socialisation at school is important for children. We have to live in a society with others, and working at home with a parent is a very narrow and possibly claustrophobic situation - and yes, I know they will have friends and do things with them, but it's not the same.

shrinkingviolet - you'd be wise to speak to the admissions' tutors of unis before you make any decisions. What is said in the prospectuses about grades and subjects required often bears little resemblance to what happens in reality. Again, I am fully aware of this - having spent 30+ years in education in all fields and have children who have gone through the system.

I agree very much with Hattie when she says that parents do all these things with their school-educated children anyway- and it could be seen as insulting to parents who don't HE to imply that just because their children are at school, they have no input into their education. Nothing could be more untrue of most parents. And if you find out more about schools you would see that they are supposed to differentiate so that children learn at their own pace.

No system is perfect, and beleive me, I amnot blind tot he faults of the system, or to bad schools, but on balance, the education system IMO opinion offers slightly more than one parent ever can.

Gig, yes we have checked thanks, and the majority of admissions tutors we've spoken to would rather a proven dedication in the subject, plus something interesting to talk about at interview, as opposed to a string of GCSEs. This is for Maths though, it's probably different for other subjects.

Thank you for all of your messages, apologies but I couldn't get back until this morning.

I think my experiences of school have shaped my view. I didn't do very well at school and went on to higher education much later where I shone. My performance at university really bears no relation to that at school in fact, I went on to do several degrees. Having said that, I still have times when I doubt my abilities and at times feel like a fraud who is going to be found out one day.

Although I'm thinking about HE from the start, it would not necessarily follow that they would stay at home until age 18. For instance, if they asked to go to school or we reached the point at which I felt my dh and I could not meet their educational needs then we would look at them going to school. I think that it is likely that this may happen post age 11 but by then my dc's personalities and sense of self would be far more established than at age 3 or 5 and they would be far less receptive to the negative views of other people around them regarding education or themselves. The idea of HE would be to give them opportunities rather than to close doors and so I would want them to be able to take exams if that is what they needed to do to go forward with their lives in the direction of their choice.

I am not sure that I want them to go to school in order to learn to submit to authority. As John Holt says, he taught school rather than educated children which is not want I really want.

I have to say that I believe that there are many other opportunities for children to learn to get along and later work as a team. It is not essential for them to go to school in order to do this but it may require a bit of thought and planning which I am happy to do.

FWIW, it's early days but I seem to have one average child and one really bright one but it's early days and who knows how things will work out in the longrun.

Gig - I think you are posting without really knowing how home education works.

Some sites which people might find interesting and give some insight to different ways of home-educating.
John Holt
sandradodd.com/unschooling
www.education-otherwise.org/Legal/faq.htm#Socialisation.
www.education-otherwise.org/
www.home-education.org.uk/menu1.htm
www.johntaylorgatto.com/

Hattie,

In response to your question re children in school having the best of both worlds, I'm not sure I believe they do. When I look at the advantages of HE over school I really can't see the point in school at all. But that's just my personal opinion

RE the maths question brought up earlier... I've just remembered that I had to use Pythagoras last year when trying to work out a planting layout for my allotment. Had to look it up on the net mind you - couldn't remember it from school at all. It seems my A grade GCSE didn't do me much good then!

Gig, you're making a lot of assumptions about HE yourself. It's not a homogenous thing that you can make accurate sweeping statements about. There is no 'National Homeschooling Curriculum' about which one can say 'homeschoolers are...'

Some let their children guide the learning process, others do not. The very idea that my children do not know how to work under authority is ridiculous. I'm their authority.

And the S word - the school environment is one which is never replicated in the rest of human existence and has only been a common human childhood experience for the last couple of hundred years. It never ceases to amaze me that some people think it's difficult to be a normal, well-rounded human being without spending 6 hours a day in the exclusive company of a narrow band of age-peers.

AS a BTW you might like to listen aain to Radio 4 The World at One, today, where there was a discussion about schools and "emotional intelligence" for want of a better word.

Janet Daley made some interesting points about the role of schools- they are there to socialise children, in her words.

I wasn't aware that I made sweeping statments about HE- and I do know that it isn't the same for everyone.

juuule
One of my voluntary roles some years ago was as a counsellor for the Foundation for Gifted Children- helping parents by phone. I used to refer them to Education Otherwise amongst other things, as many wanted to HE their children. Please don't assume that I don't know about HE- after being in education in very many different roles over 30+ years I have come across most of what is around.

Perhaps it's the medium of email that is at fault then because the way your posts come across is that you don't really understand how HE works and you do appear to be generalising about some things.
Remarks such as:

"The problems can arise when your children are older, unless you can afford an army of tutors at £30 an hour,"

About GCSEs:
"This is not enough if your child is bright and wants to go to university."

"and working at home with a parent is a very narrow and possibly claustrophobic situation -"

These comments just don't fit with my understanding and experience of Home-ed or with what I've seen and heard from other home-educators.
Also, in what way do you believe that schools socialise children?

Want to add a comment to Gig about the whole socialisation issue.My dp and I were both school educated and both believe that instead of causing us to feel that we were included in a social group in many ways we both feel that we were excluded by both other pupils and by teachers who felt that we should never have an opinion.As a result of this and issues other than this we decided after trying nursery with our ds that school was not for him and then for his sister.Both our dc's are articulate and intelligent but have probs with some subjects.We have therefore tailored what we teach to their needs which most def could not be done in the school enviroment.They have to do the subjects they dislike as well as the ones they do like,although we do sneak in a little of one with the other.
My ds is now 12 almost 13 and still HE.He has some friends and emails others.He is polite,well mannered and can comunicate whatever the age of the person he is speaking to.This is not so of his school going peers, who have often bad manners,no respect for anyone and bad comunication and articulation skills.
A lot of He children both decide to go into further education and are often very succesful.I have not myself heard of someone who was HE'd saying I wish my parents had put me in school.
Also you said/inferred that at 11+ most education is to difficult for parents to teach and that tutors are best route.Wrong again.It is very possible to teach an 11+ child without the use of tutors.
Your assumption that this is so is actually offensive to the intelligence of HE parents everywhere.

juuule - I didn't say that I believed that schools socialised children- I was quoting Jantet Daley who was on the programme I referred to- I mentioned it as a topical interview in the light of this thread.

I know that not everyone agrees with what Ihave said, but each to their own, as they say!

I can only say what I honestly think and have seen by working in education in many different roles. I simply don't accept that a parent can teach their child at the level required up to GCSE and beyond, in a full range of subjects. Whether they need af full range of subjects is debatable of course, but as long as we have system that demands lots of exam grades for Higher Ed, then parents could disadvantage their child.

I accept that parents can use other media and distance learning courses- heck, I used to work as a teacher for such a college! - but ultimately i do believe that parents have to be very sure of themselves and their reasons for HE before they take their child out of the conventional system - it's not to say that there are no workable alternatives, but they demand more in time and money than most people can give- which is why they send them to school!

We are never going to agree on this, so best to accept we have differnt opinions.

Again Gig do research you will find that most HE dc's are very capable of GCSE's and above.My son has a friend who he met on an HE trip who had a GCSE at the age of 11.This would have not happened had he been in school.