No time for school?

[emmaagain]

Here's a rough guesstimate. Disclaimer: it's very rough.

5 year old child (for argument's sake) in every 24 hours might spend:

11 hours sleeping
1 hour eating supper, having bath, getting undressed and ready for bed
45 minutes getting up, dressed, eating breakfast, getting school bag ready etc.
6.5 hours at school
1 hour travelling to or from school
15 minutes doing homework

which leaves an estimate of 3.5 hours free at home on a weekday.

This assumes that the parental work schedule fits around taking them to school at school starting time, and bringing them home as soon as the school day ends - no after-school clubs in this scenario.

This also assumes that the child engages in no activities outside school and never has a friend round for tea.

My timings haven't allowed for time while Mum Makes Supper (half an hour preparation time?) which means that the free playtime with the potential of playing with Mum is down to 3 hours a day.

And if this hypothetical 5 year old is a 12-hours-a-night sleeper, then we are down to 2 hours a day of free playtime with possible parental involvement.

No need to quibble with the figures, which of course are not accurate for any family, but it's an illustration of why some HEing families just can't understand how mainstream families have time to do the whole school lifestyle thing.

agree with Colditz definitely

Thankyou MB, I don't remember that I ever did adjust, and I hate to think of Ds going through the same. But he may have adjusted already.
I am just not ready to let go of him at 4.
I can't do it, it's breaking my heart!

I like them out of the way so I don't have them around and under my feet actually. When they complain about how long school is I say it gives me a break and it's not just there to educate them but to give parents a break, a chance to work, a chance to be adults even. So that's one good use of school. Not sure all HE people would agree with it.

Also we live 2 minutes from the school so the daily commute is about 6 minutes not an hour. They at that age were home at 3 and went to bed around 7 but more likely 8 before light was off. - that's 5 hours, much more time than I like to spend with children per day hence having a nanny (and I work anyway which is huge fun)

When DS was in reception almost the whole of the school day was spent in play type activities.

The teacher worked with a small group of 4-5 children at a time on roughly I piece of writing work and 1 piece of numeracy (of around 20 mins each) and every child read with the teacher each day for about 5 minutes. There was probably another 30mins of whole class learning (inc register time). Whilst the teacher worked with the small groups on more formal activities, the TA supervised the rest of the children on play based learning in the playground (the children played there unless the weather was truely horrific). There were loads of different activities set up each morning and hte children were free to use whichever ones they chose (there were balls and tricylcles, sandpit,hula hoops etc for those that just wanted to let off steam).

So in total the children were actually only doing formal learning for around 1.5 hours per day.

I think the notion of reception children chained to desks labouring with academic work, is really outdated. In fact I suspect it is as far from the life of a young school child, as formal teaching at the kitchen table is for the HE's child

I know he's not labouring Soapy...I just miss him as he is such a grump when he is with me. Probably the life and soul all day

Yes, ds1 has sandpits, hula hoops, tricycles at his school too.

I'm sure people who Home Educate their children ar efar more patient than me, because if I had to listen to over-excited ramblings about poo and Power Rangers for 14 hours a day, 7 days a weel, 52 weeks a year, with NO BREAK - I would be a nervous wreck. He does that at school.

I know it is upsetting for you - but does DS have fun?

FP, he won't always be so tired, he will get used to it. I do think they start full time a bit too young here. 9 - 2pm would be better fore reception and ks1.

I would like to thank all the HE parents on Mumsnet for giving me the information I needed to let me know about home educating and for helping me through my first months after dereging.
But I have found these 'help' topics are no longer helpful anymore they are not following the MUMSNET umbrella concept of giving helpful advice where needed.
They are full of negetivity and school teachers who keep on putting down HE'ers and the valuable work they do.
I am de registering from Mumsnet as quite honstly the bickering on here is too much like a school playground.

discoverlife - I can't see any negative comments re HE on this thread; just people responding to something the OP has asked.

all the posts on here have been helpful to the OP as far as I can see
I thought you were quite rude to MB to be honest

Off you go then.

PS

I'm not a teacher.

Actually, I didn't ask anything. I was explaining, as a follow-on to other HE-forum conversations, how it is that I feel we don't have time for school in my family, looking at our situation holistically.

The person I wrote this for has already commented. I'm glad it was helpful for her.

I often lurk on the HE threads, as it was something DH was wondering about. Also, Humphreycushion has been very helpful in giving me info

as it stands, we are happy with DS being in school, but i would be very upset if i though my views would not be welcome on a home ed thread becasue i disagree

surely the point is, we learn, we debate, we don;t have to agree !

'They are full of negetivity and school teachers who keep on putting down HE'ers and the valuable work they do.'

Goodness me, what on earth did I say that was negative about HE?

answer nothing

Lulumama, totally agree with your last point

and the first two, for that matter

I've jurt posted on a thread about having breakfast in bed. OP and first poster didn't like breakfast in bed, I posted that I did, is that wrong? OP didn't ask for comments.

Am I being negative about people who like eating round the table? No I'm not.

I thought that was how a message board worked. You posted something, people discuss it. Some agree, some disagree.

How incredibly rude

Quite frankly Discoverlife with such rudeness the place will be better off without you.

And OP - I suggest if you want to have a limited response/coversation or are writing it for the benefit of one poster then you use the CAT function or one of the yahoo groups.

I am very pro HE and the right to do it. A lot of the types of parents who do it in some ways have a similar ethos to me in terms of how they deal with children. I don't find this thread particularly negative of HE. I mentioned the time I think my boys had at that age after school and put the point that some parents like me find it a bit of a relief they're out of the way at school but that was not a criticism of parents who like their children around them 24/7. It's just showing how parents differ.

I think it's very important that the HE threads can be for support around home education. It is one of the most scary decisions I have ever made. My heart is pounding just writing this. Please read what we write by all means, but "debate" really would be better in a "free and frank debate thread".

Please respect our honesty and need for each other. It is so exposing to reveal what we think here. If others hadn't been writing so bravely I would not have made this decision at this time. Perhaps my son's unhappiness would have got even worse before I had acted.

Goodness, I am sorry this turned into a thread where people were upset.
Discoverlife - I think you overreacted to a fair and reasonable post back there.
I think the problem is with your perception on this occasion.
I am grateful to Emma for making this thread with my other thread/questions in mind, but I don't think either she or I object to a bit of rational debate taking place, of course that is why it was posted publicly - and there's no reason why it shouldn't have been, in that light.
Sorry it got all angsty.
Colditz - I know - I could have posted that myself last week re Power Rangers etc etc! But having been without him for a week, I take it back
Power rangers seems thrilling to me now.
Something is wrong somewhere...

Milou, I have respect for people who make the decision to HE, however you are asking that do comment on HE can be made unless the poster sks for a free and frank debate?

So you are saying that anything can b posted on a HE thread 'against' school education or educators and that can never be challenged? I'm sorry but that it just unreasonable.

The OP wasn't posting about an aspect of HE directly, she was being critical of the amount of time school educators spend with their children. Granted in a 'I could never stand to spend so littl time with my children' way. And we are supped to just stand back and say nothing?

And no critical commenst were made by schoolers about HE in this thread, and still that isn't being tactfull enough?

Sorry, but with all due respect, bollocks to that!

Yet again, the person who was insulted in this thread wasn't a HEdder, it was me, again! And if my shoulders are broad enough, maybe DL's should be as well.

Hang on, I wasn't being critical of anyone! I was just saying that 3.5 hours or less per school day of free play within or stemming from the home environment doesn't seem to me to be enough for my children.

If the numbers are different for your children and they have time and energy for more hours of free play within or... (blah blah) then likely you and your children don't think that going to school sets too much of a constraint on what else they can do day to day.

And if you don't think that children need more than a couple of hours of unpressured free play on a school day, then ditto, you and your children are likely delighted with your current arrangement.

Bravo to you, and all power. My circumstances are different.

Do I really have to put all these sorts of caveats about how of course people who send their children to school have different circumstances to me, and their values and priorities are just as defensible and yada yada yada EVERY SINGLE TIME I POST? It always comes back to the breastfeeding parallel for me. You surely wouldn't expect one of the breastfeeding mothers here, who is always turned to for advice on successful breastfeeding, to preface every single piece of advice with "well, of course, breastfeeding is just a choice, and there's nothing wrong with turning to formula, but I'm coming from a breastfeeding support point for view and so in this particular case I offer advice X, Y and Z..."? If I was posting in "Primary" or "Education", then I'd expect and deserve the mumsnet-lanche, but I'm posting in the HE forum.

Makes me wonder where mumsnet non-HEers can talk with mumsnet HEers about how HE works and what sorts of motivations the HEers have without there being this sort of aggro. Should we just put "Support thread" at the beginning of any such thread? Would that do the trick? Happy to oblige, if that's the case.

uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/homeeducatingmumsnetters/

I think it is unreasonable to expect noone to point out that your own experience of school life is as far from the norm as you could get.

People who are considering whether to HE, should know the whole picture should they not?

And the whole picture is that for reception children there is only a very small part of the day spent in anything approaching a formal learning setting. The vast majority of the day is spent in a free play environment.

Why should a prospective HEdder be denied the information they need to make an informed decision?

Perhaps the difference in viewpoints is that I think there is a big difference in the child's experience between "free play" in a room of 20+ other children, and "free play" in the home environment. And that's fine, we can agree to differ on that. Maybe I'm wrong

The prospective HEdder shouldn't be denied information, you're absolutely right. It's for them to weigh up whether the amount of time and the quality of time they are getting at home is sufficient.

andthat, of course depends on the child and th family circs and prolly 15 other things