Be honest, I want everyone's views......what do you think of home ed???

[3Ddonut]

I suspect this may get nasty, but please try to keep it nice ladies (and gents) I really like the idea of home ed, I would dearly love to home ed my dc but there are some problems, firstly I work 3 nights a week and my dh works 2 full days,my eldest dd is 5 and she really loves school, but some of things that she says about school unsettle me, I always said that it is their choice if they want to go to school or not, which is why she is there and my ds is in nursery but I wish she'd want to stay home and the longer that she's there, the more I feel that we're wasting time...

I've read a lot of the other threads and see that you can do some home-ed stuff alongside school but I don't think that it's enough for me, I want them to remain interested and not be moved on from one thing too quickly or forced to spend time on things they dislike.

We're already a close family because of mine and dh's shifts there is nearly always someone in the house and we get to spend a lot of time with the kids. I suppose I'd just like it to be more of the same.

My main concerns are that the dc would resent us for it in the future (although I would not take a happy child out of school) I also worry about the effect of home ed-ing the children would have on future employers and university places, I do worry about the socialisation aspect although the kids are in a few groups and are very social, they interact well with adults as well as other children, I'm concerned about how much time I'd have to work with them with working full time myself (no opportunity to cut hours)

I'm going round in circles at the min, I think my ds would be more open to the idea and I'm considering not sending dd2 to nursery at all.

The other biggie is that the school they attend is out of area and it's a really good one, they wouldn't get back in there if we deregistered, I've considered flexi-schooling but I feel that would bring more problems than solutions....

OK, Open fire!!!

I don't say that you can't learn these things at home but school helps enormously.My DS simply wouldn't have got a deadline without school. I would also assume that if your DC didn't want to do Maths on a particular day you wouldn't force them, whereas at school there would be no way out. I hadn't added homework but I also hadn't added holidays.

I'm really sorry I used the term "invisible" - it wasn't meant to be about how I felt as a home ed'd person - it was about my feeling that my posts on this thread are being ignored. I felt anything but invisible as a home ed'd young person - if anything, I probably felt the opposite -I was quite opinionated and over-confident!

I do think that there are valid points on both sides - but it does seem that home edders are a bit reluctant to accept that there might be anything negative about their children's experience. As the parent of school children, I think it's very important that I keep a watchful eye on anything potentially harmful in their experience - surely home edders should do the same? It's not a perfect solution, surely?

And I really don't think you can equate having to do the washing up when you don't want to
to revising for A'level physics which you hate, but where you have to get an A because you want to be a doctor.

Sorry seeker-I couldn't find your comment when I was looking for it, my mother doesn't exactly feel invisible but she keeps very quiet about her education because she doesn't like explaining it. She also feels that it narrowed her opportunities.
My point has always been that schools range from the wonderful and inspiring, to the damaging and dire and HE has the same range.
School suits some children and HE suits some some children, luckily we are all different. I just hate the inference that school is damaging for all children.
I loved it. All my DSs have said that they would have hated HE (the subject has come up because we know people who HE).
If they had hated it, I would certainly have considered HE.

I remember checking one on line application for my daughter - it took ages just to open each page and read. In my day you either had a paper application to form to fill in or just sent a CV and covering letter. I made 110 applications fro my first job and she made I think about 3 or 4 and we had idential AAB a A levels 24 years apart.

I really think it's very important that parents have the right to bring up children as they choose whether that's picking the worst comprehensive in the land for political reasons, a fundamentalist christian or muslim schools whic believes women are there to serve men and should marry at 16 or no school at all but I do think (because of my own bias and prejudice) that in the UK in 2008 that my sending my children to very good fee paying day schools gives them the best chance to take any choices they might want to take even if that is opting out, a life of prayer, work in a call centre or even a well paid interesting job in the City of London.

When you look at where people who are my age (40s) have ended up in career terms many have done very well (financially) despite having no qualifications but in general that is harder.

Interesting question whether a parent who doesn't think money and financial success is anything to go on about (as many relgious and non religious people do think) is right to impose that on their child and conversely whether it is fair for me to impose on my children my own capitalist values and I suppose elitism by sending them to the schools I have and having the ethos at home that we have. Both are indoctrination in a sense although I hope I have always said to them - here are some tools to succeed at music, sport, arts, religion, work - some of the best tools I can give you for that and tools to handle emotions and life - now go and use them as you choose. But even that' a bit fake because people tend to go the way they were led within their family - whether that's marriage at 16 and the girl never works in a ultra orthodox Jewish family or good exams, proper university, good profession.

but if you want to be a doctor, then you have ot accept that A level Physics is a necessary evil and get on with it. If not, then you don't want to be a doctor enough, adn you shoudl be looking at a different career path, surely?
FWIW I "make" DD1 and DD2 do their music practice - the initial agreement was that I would pay for the instruments and lessons, and they had to commit to daily (or every-other-day) practice. If they choose not to practice, I remind them of the agreement, and the practcie gets done. It's the same with everythign else (including school for DD1) - if you make the deal, you have to stick to your side of it. DD1 feels a lot of the rules and systems at school are silly, btu she's agreed to go, and therefore has to abide by the restrictions.

Seeker. I guess it depends on the career chosen.

My ex-neighbour's HE daughter is now working as a junior doctor. She took As at a tutorial college and interestingly, her mother is now working as a secondary English teacher after doing a PGCE.

Medicine requires the necessary exam results, but it also helps to have done a lot of voluntary/community work, which this girl had done from a fairly young age. I'm not suggesting that schooled children can't do voluntary/community work, BTW. I know our local schools do the Duke of Edinburgh awards. Just trying to illustrate that in some cases an 'unusual' CV can be a positive thing.

But if you've been completely 'child-led educated" you may not know at 12 that you want to be a doctor and therefore need to get on with the physics now (cf my neice several pages ago!)

And if you're like me, they you will find it very hard to knuckle down to something boring when it becomes necessary because you've had no practice at it.

seeker just like me and I was at school for 13 years

can i ask a question to those who do he?how would it work with 3 children different ages and stages?dd is 7,ds is 6 and ds2 is 2.id love to do it but fear im not clever enough .dd loves school,ds1 isnt quite so into it.but i fear hed want to watch telly or play allday if at home!

Hers was more a 'school at home' method of HE, seeker. Seemed to work for them.

And now I must go and do some cleaning.

the physics that you cover in school at age 12 isn't nearly as indepth as you need for A level physics - and you can pick that up at any age, you don't need to have followed a two-lessons a week for two years GSCE approach. Obviously you do need to cover all teh actual preparatory work, but it doesn't need to be spread over a number of years.
So yes, you could realise at age 16 you really really want to be a doctor, adn do the physics required then. Doesn't matter that if at age 12 you wanted to be a bus driver.

I think the little things like washing up are important in there own way. My DS has to get up at 7am in order to catch a school bus.He is dreadful in the mornings and if he was HE he would just be able to say that he needed an extra half hour; but he doesn't have that luxury. I think it is all good training for RL.
My unusual CV works in my favour but only if it isn't sifted out before it is seen by a human eye.

Sorry-their

"I know it's not always a good idea to argue from the particular to the general - but I would like to talk about my neice. Her parents were great advocates of autonomous learning. When she was 27 she decided that she wanted to be a barrister. She had no qualifications, so she had to start from scratch. She is now 35 and she's getting there but my God it's been a struggle. She has had to compete against a whole aremy of younger applicants for every course, every pupillage - everything. She sees people her own age settled into careers. And she said to me at the weekend thst she has realized that she will probably never be in a position to have children.

If she had jumped through the necessary hoops at the "right" time instead of making decisions for herself based on how she felt when she was 15 and thought she was going to be a world class fashion designer she would be a much happier woman now."
I have copied and pasted my post from ages ago because, although it is only one person it is a real experience, not a "you could always x if y happened" hypothetical suggestion. I am not saying that her case is a reason not to HE, but it does show that ther can be practical downsides, and it isn't any good pretending that there aren't.

Depends how clever you are and how much you are learning at home. Children who do not do very well at primary school sometimes are so behind they never catch up at 11+ when they move to secondary school - by then it's too late. But if you're taught well at home, your tables, spellings, how to write then I don't think it matters where you're taught.

Remember our Queen was home educated as were most girls of that class at one time so they were not sullied by the rough and tumble of education with others. At one stage this country had hundreds of thousands of governesses, distressed gentlefolk who took the only work available to them - to teach children at home under the control of the parents who could control the subjects the children studied.

but you have the same probelms at school, of the options you've chosen at 14 don't allow you direct access to the career you decide you want at 27.

But Seeker, your neice
decided at 27 so still would have been a lot older than the other people she is competing with now.

But I do get your point I think. May have made her life easier now if she had gone through A levels etc when she was 18.

Personally I don't think it's a good enough reason to put everyone through the same experience of education, but I can see that my DS's future could be adversely affected by my decisions for him (whether schooled or HEd).

What route did she follow btw to get to where she is now ?

I know that it's just my experience, but I spent 5.5 years at school being invisible. Not so much socially (although I never enjoyed any of that either) but invisible to the teachers.

I wasn't one of the intelligent ones (although I am managing A level equiv stuff with ease now) and I wasn't one of the naughty ones, so I wasn't bothered with.

Now that certainly has something to with personality, but it was still a total waste of time and a thoroughly negative experience throughout.

If I had been HEd at secondary level, I might have learned a wide range of stuff, I might not. I might have got some great qualifications and gone on to great things aged 18/20, I might not (but a 'broad' education at school didn't help me here either).

I would have been happy tho and therefore had better prospects at 18/20.

Hi, moljam - I suggest you wander across to the HE support thread and ask there - I'd be delighted to talk there

Are you allowed to ask questions on the HE support thread, or is it only for people who are 100% signed up to HE?

I think it's intended to be a practical support thread, rather than a debating-type thread - depends what questions you want to ask

It's "A positive thread for parents who are home educating, those considering home education, and all others who want to contribute to the discussion.

But taking as a starting point the fact that Home Education is an equally valid choice, taken by parents for a variety of reasons, and is not illegal, immoral or fattening.... "