What are the downsides of HE?

[Bubble99]

We are seriously considering HE for our two oldest boys (7 and 10) - We have read so many positive experiences from here and EO but would also like to hear any negative views from those who have HE.

Just want to have a balanced view before we take the plunge. And it does feel like a huge, but much needed, decision to make.

TIA

Luckily museums are not the only places one can encounter invertebrates. Who was it having an educational compost heap conversation the other day?

Of course seeing the real thing brings something to life. That's why it's such fun and so educational to be out there in the world observing things in their natural habitats. I admire the way good teachers manage to compensate for that, either by bringing things into the classroom, or by taking the children outside, although of course the logistics of that are always trickier than when there are just a few children with a parent digging in a mudhole.

Oops, I just turned that one into an advantage of HE

The extraterrestrial church dignitary is right. Resources aren't as obviously there in a cupboard laid out for educational purposes as they are in schools. I do not personally own a van der graf generator, to my chagrin.

And she's right about specialist equipment not being available in every home without planning. That's kind of what HE groups are for - pooling such resources or lending them around, or sharing tips of where good stuff can be borrowed or used locally. There are certainly OU physics courses where they lend you a special experiments kit as part of the course materials. I expect it's the same for other OU science courses.

I have a dream, that one day, every home in the country will have a ticker tape timer... (are ticker tape timers still the bed rock of GCSE physics or am I showing my age?)

You are quite right.

The preceeding lesson we had a rabbit skeleton, a snake skeleton and a frog skeleton, as well as out full size plastic human skeleton.

You can use worms from a compost heap. we do. We also use woodlice for choice chambers. But the range of things that we can use, far exceeds even the most enterprising of homes.

Few homes for example have alpha, beta and gamma sources, few have chlirine gass or bromine, few have the reactive metals

chlorine!

We tend to use light gates,linked to computers for the timing, but we do have the odd ticker tape timer.

Van der Grafff generator is great fun, and I still use it to light a bunsen burner with my finger!!!

ooo, bunsen burners. Far more fun that the gas coocker at home

See, MB, you're right. Access to equipment is a challenge for HEers. Of course it is. In schools you have economies of scale, not only with 30 children at a time, but maybe 5 or 6 lots of 30 in a year group, and another year group coming along next September. These pieces of equipment probably get used by hundreds and hundreds of children.

It's really science equipment isn't it, which you are talking about?

It's a challenge HEers have to, and do meet.

But there's no way it's a deal breaker!

As for "educational trips", yes of course you do them. Probably not as often as HE families though, hmm? And certainly not with the same flexibility as HE families (zoo trip planend but children decide that morning that they'd rather go to the harbour instead? No problem! Now do that with a school trip where 3 children would rather go elsewhere when it comes to it). And certainly with greater time constraints (because there is a coach waiting for the school trip. Because if Jimmy is interested in a particular thing, the chances are that Maurice is scuffing his shoes waiting to be allowed to move on to the next thing - even in those smaller trip-out groups, there are just SO MANY children per adult, and they seem to go absolutely bananas on those trips out, really over excited, I wonder why) I think the ease of maknig educational trips would have to go in the "advantages of HE" column rather than the "advantages of school" column.

Cross posted.

Yes MB. Science equipment is a challenge.

I never said it was a deal breaker. I simply listed it as a downside.

because it is a down side.

The thread is asking for down sides.

The kids I teach get to see, and use some good kit most lessons that I have with them.

We may well not take them on educational trips as often as HE, but they get an amazing range of stimulation within the school.

School isn't perfect, but neither is HE

I'm not sure why one method of educating has to go head to head with another.

There are advantages and disadvantages of both.

At school, my DSs did some fantastic work with visiting writers, they had fun doing the Nativities, got to see lots of friends every day. But there was no support for their dyslexia, and their self-esteem was at rock bottom.

Being HE, their lives are very different. We have periods of time where we are flat out joining other HE families for trips and activities. We also have weeks where we'll only see one or two other families.

I have to say that I think HE is perfect for my DS2, who will take a long time to recover from the damage that school did to him.

But DS1 was less affected - he's just a more laid-back kind of chap, and gets less stressed about things. I still think that HE is better for him if I was to add up points for the pros and cons, but if he wanted to go back to school, I think he'd be fine there too.

So on balance, I'm doing what I genuinely feel is best for my children at this point in their lives. And surely that's all any parent can do?

Ah, I started my post before MB's last one, but was playing Scrabulous at the same time, so it took me ages!

Agree with you HC. If I'd been in your shoes, I might well have made the same decision.

Thankfully ds is in a school where his SN are catered for very well. But I know this isn't always the case.

Good post, HC. I totally agree.

The glasgow museum has lenses, I'm sure an optician would too. But do the kids who go to the museum get to use them? Get to take measurements?

I don't want to labour the point here. I realise that you can get round aspects of this, but the bottom line is it is a down side. However much you don't want HE to have any down sides other than less money and a messy house

A dad isn't going to take his kids into work to use the fume cupboards on a bi weekly basis, week in week out. I've got them in the lab! I've also got 3 techs who help maintain and set up all this stuff for me. It massively enriches the learning experience for the kids.

My dd has some great electric kits, which she uses at home. I know that what I have in school is better.

And science isn't the only think. In the school I work in, which is a slightly above average comp we have the following. playing fields and a gym, with a full size climbing wall, the ability for basket ball courts, badminton, and a full size trampoline,.

We have fully equipped metal work and wood work rooms, a brand new cookery and needlework block that does all sorts of interesting stuff.

An art department, with a fully kitted out darkroom (we offer photography GCSE). We have drama workshops and a stage. (school across the road also a comp has a real professional theater and a swimming pool, much to the envy of our kids)

We have a music department with the usual instruments and practice rooms, but we also have (and I shit you not) a real recording studio, with a full small mixing desk.

We also have all the language lab facilities.

The kids have access to some amazing things.

You can do these things via HE, but you'd probably be going some to do them all.

A downside for me. All the driving around to HE groups/meetings/classes.
Another downside. Not being able to get to the groups/meetings/classes because of having no car and the expense of public transport.

The added expense of educational courses/tutors/accessing exams if you wished to do those things pre-16.

But martianbishop
This is supposed to be a downside of HE -presumably by those experienced in it, for a potential newbie??

If you are trying to turn it into an advantages of schools discussion, I could turn round and start quoting the advantages of home ed that schoolies don't get and then we will quickly go back to the them vs scenario!

It's funny how all the home ed families are saying the same things over and over-and some one who doesn't do it tells us something else is a disadvantage.

You would really think that all these home ed teenagers who have come out of school would be desperate to get back in there knowing such 'amazing things' are on offer wouldn't you?

sorry
that was menat to read

" we will quickly go back to the them vs us scenario!"

oh, and I have just remembered, they also have, in the Art dept, a real potters wheel and a kiln.

and a 'computer driven' baby that the kids get to take home overnight....it even has its own changing bag and push chair!

and a small contruction room, where they can learn brick laying (through we do bus them to the local FE collage for most of the practical stuff, we do have a fully trained teacher for construction)

And all the track and field kit, I don't think we have the facilities for pole vault, but we have all the rest.

I would love my two boys to have a computer-driven baby for a day or two!

No, I'm not making it an advantages of school thread, and I agree that we have too much us and them, as it is.

However, the OP aked for potential down sides.

I listed this as a down side.

You then said that you can take them on trips, which is, of course, true. and I don't argue with your point. But my point is that we have all this kit, just about all the time.

And that does help their leraning, which does make its absence a down side. Not a deal breaker, but it is real.

Or can you only post on this thread if you HE? and choose to say that there are no real down sides to the learning in the HE scenario?

Because as a teacher I will admit that schooling isn't perfect, but somehow people who HE are not always so open to accepting its down sides.

But I digress, have taken the thread off topic, so will leave.

And what point are you making, MB?

HC, the 'baby' is fab. the kids come in looking 'OMG, that was just so, so, exhausting'

They do enjoy it. The teachers get a print out of how long it was left to cry etc. Great for the Child development classes.

That I was about to leave, other than to respond to HCs post.

Sorry if you don't like an 'outsider' posting on the HE part of the board.

I'll stop.

Oh see you've made your point.
Personally, I don't see the absence of all that stuff as a downside.

Fair enough, each to his/her own.

Oh now don't have a strop because we're not all over-awed by your school 'kit'. How can you be an 'outsider'? You have an opinion like everyone else. I have children in school and out of school. There are some things in school that I would like my HE ones to have access to but I don't consider it essential.