How did you know.

Menwithvenn · 2022-09-07T19:51:11+00:00

That home education was the best thing for your family? Have most home educated children trialled mainstream school first?

Lifelessordinary1 · 09/09/2022 13:01

I had home educated my own children for a few years - so i guess home ed was always in the mix for my grandchildren. But due to various circumstances at the time my daughter decided to send her son to school

It was awful almost from day 1 he developed a stammer and did not want to go. We had to prise his fingers of the door frame and car door to get him there. Crunch came when at his year 1 parents evening he had not moved one point up the schools numeracy and literacy scale since the day he started reception.

So we removed him - his stammer disappeared within a week.

We discovered that with the advent of the internet EHE was a completely different thing to what it had been when my children were 4 or 5 and it really was and remains a wonderful way to raise children and live your lives. So school is simply not an option for any of the other children.

Original poster

Menwithvenn · 09/09/2022 18:12

Lifelessordinary1 · 09/09/2022 13:01

I had home educated my own children for a few years - so i guess home ed was always in the mix for my grandchildren. But due to various circumstances at the time my daughter decided to send her son to school

It was awful almost from day 1 he developed a stammer and did not want to go. We had to prise his fingers of the door frame and car door to get him there. Crunch came when at his year 1 parents evening he had not moved one point up the schools numeracy and literacy scale since the day he started reception.

So we removed him - his stammer disappeared within a week.

We discovered that with the advent of the internet EHE was a completely different thing to what it had been when my children were 4 or 5 and it really was and remains a wonderful way to raise children and live your lives. So school is simply not an option for any of the other children.

Thanks for your response, really helpful!

OP posts:

unlimiteddilutingjuice · 11/09/2022 00:07

He was already having problems at school. Then the lockdown happened and ge did much better. So we didn't send him back

Saracen · 13/09/2022 16:29

My older child was really sociable and loved to play. I am a big believer in learning through play, by which I mean actual free play rather than the restrictive so-called "play-based learning". I thought school would interfere with their opportunities to play with other kids as much as they wanted. Initially I thought I'd just delay school until they were seven or so and seemed to need it. But that day never came. I could see how well they were learning without school, and I could see how well home ed was working for the older children we met at home ed groups.

DC1 would have been quite okay at school (at least until they got Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at 15, at which point the long school hours and homework demands would have ruined their health), but home education was much more enjoyable. They did try school in Y5 but decided to come back out again. I asked them whether they felt they'd learned more at school or at home. "About the same," they said, "but at school it takes ALL DAY. Don't they understand I have a life?" 😂

I never seriously considered school for my second child, who was seven years younger. For one thing, having home educated for a few years already, I'd discovered even more benefits to home ed than I'd anticipated. For another, she had a learning disability which I knew school couldn't cater for as well as I could. She's 16 now and I am really glad home ed was available to her. It has been the making of her. She is happy and well-adjusted, and has never believed that her low academic attainment defined her as a person.