Pros and Cons of HE.

[mamacool]

Your opinions please ladies

Pros:

• No school uniforms
• Cheaper to eat lunch as a family than have to pay extra for school meals/packed lunches
• Can take holidays at anytime during the year when it's quieter & cheaper
• No school runs
• Unlimited subjects/qualifications
• Child centred learning
• Parents can see learning first hand

Cons:

• Might have to pay to take qualifications such as GCSEs

pro's:
All thatterramum says plus
I know what my dc's are learning(have discovered that there was much false info fed to us in school recently)
I actually know my dc's well
Dc's are excellent in social situations for the most part(ds may have asperbgers spelt wrong I'm sure)
My dc's are happy
Cons:
The rudeness and high horsedness of some people who believe they know it all without really researching with an open mind.

would you mind also answering my other thread about how to go about HE and still working please? I did get a couple of great tips but I need to be fully armed when I next discuss it with dp, thanks.

mamacool would love to help but I don't work at the moment as have one dc at what would be ks1 and one who would be ks3/4 and am to busy with that although am starting to get more time to self now to start writing again in the hope of one day being published.There are many on here that should be able to help.Also have you checked out education otherwise as they have allsorts of info on their website.Hope someone helps

If you are going to rely of night school to get GCSEs done (rather than use a tutor) you may well limit choices, particularly in science.

Where we live there are no GCSE science courses taught, you are limited to only doing Biology and Human Biology. There are no Physics and Chemistry GCSEs offered.

You can get round this by having tutors, and entering them as external candidates, but this has cost implications.

martian whats that about GCSE's?Is that for me or mamacool?

It was really for mamacool, who asked about the pros and cons of home ed.

Granted people can opt not to do GCSE etc, some go direct into AS etc. But if parents do want formal qualifications at GCSE level, they may well be restricted if they are planning to go via the night school route. Cutbacks in night school funding means that many courses have been cut. Coupled with the national shortage of physocs teacher, this makes Physics GCSE at night school an endangered species!

Also with changes in the scinecs curriculum, with inreaseing amounts of continual assessment, it would be very difficult for a parent to effectivly 'Home Titur' persnally, since I don't think they would be allowed to assess their own child's work. Around 30% of the marks for the New scinece GCSE are assessed by the teachers.

These are not insurmountable problems, but may be worth taking into account when deciding to home ed

tutor not titor! LOL

martian we have told our ds that if he wants to do GCSE then he can either go to college or we can have him entered at a test centre as an outside candidate and do the course at home ,either himself and find someone to mark work or through distance learning.He's not sure and is considering going to college to do A-levels straight off in some subjects or applying straight to uni when ready

As I say, not insurmountable.

I just worry when people make the (not unreasonable) assumption that they children will be able to do the whole range of GCSE subjects via night school if they choose to home ed (I've seen this posted on MN , for example).

In actual fact it would be a near impossibility to do the 'Double Science' GCSE at night school because of lack of tutors.

I really don't know how external canidates now get round the 'assessed activities' aspect of the new science GCSE. We have to assess a wide range of practical skills and also they do written papers that the school staff assess. All togerther I think this amounts to around 50% of the course (I've not taught the new curriculum yet)

and some of the GNVQ, BTec courses are 100% teacher assessed.

Forgot the nicest pro.....being able to spend lots of time with them

i think its VERY common for HErs to skip gcses, esp in science/maths

i wouldn't send my kid through 10 years of school just to do double science gcse. really not. there are much better routes in.

the ou level 1 general science course is, imo, a good sub for a gcse (though apparently it goes up to a level and allegedly beyond ). its possible to take it under 18, subject to jumping through hoops, i believe.

it includes compulsory experiments.

incredibly few adults seem to understand science or maths after 10 years of it in school. this is a BIG reason for me HEing.

But then they would miss out on me!

oh mb if you lived in cardiff , of course my kids would be at school...

(if i am honest that is rather true. Knowlege of science is the big one that we won't leave to chance, and both dp, in a private boys school, not to mention me in a girls grammar, had APPALLING and utterly uninspirational science teaching. I have NO desire to criticise teachers but tbh I am not risking this one. Fortunately, most of my family are either science teachers, or at the very least science/engineering/maths graduates)

The way science is taught is the one thing that might make me consider HE. And I am a science teacher...

used to live near Cardiff as a kid (Valley girl me ), but I'm too far away to do the round trip commute

i am actually a bit pissed off , as an adult, having thought "oh come on lets see what all the fuss is about" and signed myself up for an ou science course.

its bloody FASCINATING

I would have liked a career in it. But its a bit hard to change track when don't even expect to return to the workforce or even really have time to do a proper degree til you are in your 40s.

I am actually about the science teaching in my school. They had a responsibility to teach us science. Instead we memorised the periodic table while our teacher ate murray mints.

I repeat this was at a GRAMMAR SCHOOL where there were about 14 (already self selecting) applicants to a place.

I was home educated until I was 12. I had a wonderful time in many ways, but I would not home educate my children. I'm happy to expand on this later if it would help anyone!

I had that 'style' of science teaching when I was in school. Thankfully I had one captivatingly fantastic Biology teacher.

Because I knew I'd need chemistry and physics to allow me to study Biology at Uni, I plugged along and basically taught myself (esp in chemistry).

Thank God for Miss Poole. God bless her.

I can't for the life of me understand how anyone doesn't enjoy science. I can't see the world without seeing the science behind so much of it. I have been banned by dh and dd from enthusing about Sand dunes when we go to the seaside

but most people DON'T mb

little kids DO, bascially

most HE'd kids I know, esp the autonomous ones, DO. HESFES, the big he'r junket, usually has a bunch of science stuff-(proper, physics style) astronomy, electronics, etc)

they are packed out with all the
cool gothy teens

Same as you Fillyjonk re science at school. I have a grade E O level biology science qualification to my name . I just didn't get it. Had to do chemistry, biology and physics at one point and they all went over my head I seem to remember we had a decent chemistry teacher but the biology woman was utterly bonkers.

Now if you'd been my teacher martianbishop...

'packed with cool gothy teens'

This is my sixth form!

Bless them. All 44 of them! My babies.

i actually did pretty well - 3 x A*s in science.

I just didn't LIKE it and went on to do dead languages instead, then law. 2 more years of mrs murraymint? nah.

(if I'd known what I know now-how interesting it actually IS-I'd have plugged through it. )

and that makes me so bloody

becuase it isn't hard as such. In that all the ideas in science are pretty accessible. A lot of them require a deal of chewing over-am not saying its EASY. But most science ideas CAN be made accesible to people. A massive premium is placed on clear communication in science-far more so than arts (stepehn jay gould is interesting and spot on on this)

oh i have another gripe re not teaching science in any sort of social context. I did this as part of psychology (did 4 years of it at uni as an extra subject), along with statistics, and I have been shocked at how it wasn't taught as part of the OU course. You ARE bascially taught that science is a bit infallible and of course its NOT and its obviously not. So we have people not knowing what to believe, because they don't understand, for example, the value of different experimental techniques or the concept of having a reasonable level of confidence that results aren't produced by chance.

i part home ed my boys, i have an agreement to flexi school with a local primary.

initially the boys were totally home ed, but at the moment school 2 days a week and home the rest of the time is working out well.

in their latest school report ds1's teacher said "theo's love of learning, immense depth and breadth of knowledge and amazing reading ability is a credit to his home education and parenting" so its going well!!

our home ed is basically child led, and not sturctured at the moment, the school age ones are 7 (nearly 8 and just 5) they are obsessed with lego, drawing and reading, any kind of model building and have a thirst for general knowledge of any kind!

we are a member of EO, and have friends who home ed too, there is lots of support out there if you need it, i think it is brilliant!

Pros:

• NO BULLYING, but lots of social interaction. We meet people we like, and people we don't, and learn how to get along with both camps!
• being able to adapt a child's learning to cater for their exact requirements.
• encouraging a child to become an independent and effective learner, who knows how to source, collate and use information in a proactive way.
• watching them socialise with people of all ages, and without any peer pressure.
• watching their love of learning grow, rather than diminish, as they get older.
• spending lots of time as a family.
• visiting museums, cinemas, historic buildings etc when they are less busy, and when entrance fees are cheaper.
• no frantic rush every morning in order to get to school on time.
• if they want to spend six hours building a robot, or lying on the sofa reading, they can. HE learning doesn't come in 45 minute slots.
• the way my children have gained confidence in their own abilities, and the fact that this confidence is used appropriately. They are not showy, loud or over-bearing, but they do know how to put their opinion across in a coherent and persuasive way.
• we get time to work on other aspects apart from the National Curriculum ie: exercises to help with DS's dyspraxia.

Cons:

• I have had to take a career break. Although I much prefer to do this than be in the situation I was in previously - when I spent all day at work worrying about what dreadful thing would happen to my children next.