Home educating from the get go?

[Homeeducatingquestions]

Hi all.

My DD is 3 and I’m seriously considering home education. The reasons are:

• I believe that she will learn better one-on-one rather than in a classroom with 29 other children. I would use quite a traditional method of home educating (with a dedicated ‘classroom’ at home, with a few hours per day spent doing academic work). We would also spend time on hobbies (swimming classes, music lessons etc) and occasionally other life skills such as cooking and baking.
• I think children grow up too quickly these days - I’d like to keep her away from things like social media, makeup, celebrities etc. for as long as possible.
• I don’t agree with some of the topics that children are likely to be taught.

However, my biggest concerns are:

• I personally really enjoyed school, especially the social aspect. I worry that I will be depriving her of this experience. I know there are negative aspects too (eg. Kids falling out, being excluded from friendship groups, peer pressure etc.) but perhaps kids need to experience these things to learn from them? I don’t see anything in my DD to indicate that she would be unhappy at school. She is social and confident.
• I am confident in my ability to teach at primary school level, but how do primary school children typically do academically? Rightly or wrongly, I do believe academic success to be important and will be raising my children to strive for this. I know that lots of HE families prefer to focus on “child-led learning”, but I would definitely aim to follow an academic curriculum, similar to school.
• Not fitting in with other HE families (we aren’t the stereotypical ‘hippy’ family, nor are we part of the ‘anti-vaxxer anti-government’ crowd, and I wouldn’t be home educating due to neurodiversity either). I worry that we would find it difficult to meet likeminded people for DD to make friends.

If anybody has any advice or experience that address any of this, it would be hugely appreciated!

My DC have never been to school and both are academically ahead of their schooled peers. I've no intention of sending them to school and absolutely nothing I have heard from parents of children who attend school has ever convinced me they'd be better off there.

I'm not a teacher. You don't have to be a teacher to educate your own children at home despite the many people insisting that you do. TBH it's the former teachers I've met in the home education community who tend to be the most vociferous unschoolers, so make of that what you will.

How do you know they are ahead of their schooled peers?

Because I've had friends who are teachers tell me they are. **

I don't think this really counts as clear evidence of the success of home ed which is the point I am making. In order to say that it is equally or more successful then there would need to be some data gathered about exam results and measurable outcomes. A teacher friend saying your kids are doing great is hardly that.

I know that my kids are "ahead" of their schooled peers in some things and "behind" in others. For me that's one of the beauties of home ed, that we can work to their pace and not be dictated to by the speed of other children. The pressure's not there to meet targets.

For example: DD2 took ages to click with times tables, so for quite a long time would have been considered behind. However, once it clicked she raced through them and is now at the level the curriculum thinks she should be at. DD3, who is two years younger, has already completed all of her times tables, while her school friends are just beginning them. But her school friends are probably more comfortable with telling the time than she is.

My kids aren't old enough to take exams yet. I was talking about on an individual level. But there are people determined to think that if you're not a teacher you can't possibly hope to educate your child well at home. I was merely pointing out that I do despite not being a teacher.

I'm happy to share my experiences OP.

1. The social aspect: Tbh I did find this difficult. Some HE meet ups can be a bit large and overwhelming for my DS. And it can be hard to build a consistent peer group if your relying on once a week meet ups with different kids each time.

You have to do a lot of leg work to maintain relationships with other HE families, organise playdates etc. It will probably feel par for the course for you as your child is young and you'd be doing that anyway. But it's considerably more hassle than dropping them at school with the same group of kids each day and letting friendships naturally form.

1. How do home educated kids do academically? It's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" question.

A lot of kids are home ed because they have special needs. Others are home ed because they are gifted. (Of course, you can be both!). There's a huge range of abilities. The plus side is that home ed kids have lots of focused one to one attention. Which would help any kid learn faster, all other things being equal. The downside is that home ed kids are being taught by enthusiastic amateurs, not specialist pedagogs. You really have to weigh up how important these factors will be for your child. For us, it was an easy choice because the classroom environment was so bad for my DS that simply being out of there was enough to balance out all my failings as a teacher.

1. Will you fit in with other Mums? Probably, if you make the effort. I find people are really at pains to get along with each other, to the extent that they avoid talking about differences of approach all together. Which is a tiny bit lonely in itself, tbh as I'd love to talk freely about what I'm up to and compare notes.

Also don't forget that home educated children can attend groups with schooled kids, it's not like the only socialising hey can do is with other children who are home educated. My DC do scouts, sports clubs, drama clubs etc with schooled kids.

It is possible of course to do a good job but there is so little regulation that talking about home ed as being as good as school is very misleading. You could take your child out of school and leave them to their own devices every day and call this home education. Many parents on the home ed threads are thoughtful people who do absolutely educate their kids but they are not necessarily representative of all parents who remove their kids from schools.

I never said anything of the sort so I assume you are getting me mixed up with some other poster.

Please help. I want to home educate my daughters who really struggle with school.
Only issue their dad who I'm divorced from will not be in favour of it.
Can I take the girls out with out his say so. The youngest does not see him any more and hasn't for about 4 months the eldest has now stopped seeing him as well.
I'm beyond stressed with schools threatening me. The ex husband being an absolute twat, trying to juggle work stress as well. Feel like the wright of the world is on me.
Both daughters are refusing school.

@Char3940 start a new thread, you need advice on the parental responsibility rather than HE itself I think, because either parent can enrol or remove their child into or from a school. If it goes to court school is likely to be the outcome I think, as many people worry about HE. But I could be wrong there and the status quo is also v influential, so if the children were already shown to be thriving HE, perhaps a court would rule for continuation. I do know a mum who went through this and won. But it was costly.

I home educated both DS from the start to GCSEs.

DS17 got a place at a selective state Maths 6th form, which required an entrance exam and interview for the small number of highly sought-after places. He has done really well academically in his first year and is predicted A stars for all of his 4 A levels. Socially, it's going really well, despite this being his first time going to school. He is currently on a trip to Kenya with them volunteering in a primary school, is doing D of E, and joins in with all of the other voluntary activities they organise.

DS20 is at Durham uni, having got the top grades at the local state 6th form for his 4 A levels. He made good friends at 6th form who he is seeing regularly now he is home for the summer. He also made good friends in his college flat to share a house with for his 2nd year at uni. He's had a great time socially at uni, for his 1st year exams he got a First. Incidentally, he is dyslexic and didn't learn to read fluently until he was 11.

I was a single parent for 5 years and always worked part-time alongside home education. I didn't ban screens, gaming or social media, they just didn't really get into these things like children at school tend to. I gave them a lot of flexibility in terms of what they did, but always encouraged them to be constructive. So if they wanted to use computers, for example, they learnt to code.

Some subjects I helped with, others were self-taught. For GCSEs, aside English, Maths and some Science, I encouraged them to choose subjects that interested them. For a few subjects, I enrolled them in classes or got tutors in the run-up to GCSEs. We attended regular local home ed groups for social and academic activities throughout their home Ed years and net up with other families. They also attended local after school sports activities.

I wouldn't say the transition to 6th form was easy, it was a big change for them having to get up early and get a bus every morning, but they managed. It also took them time to get to know people, more for DS1 as most of his peers had friends from school there, whereas for DS2 the small group of students have come from a wide range of schools.

One thing I noticed was their enthusiasm when they went to 6th form, they both gave it everything, having not been worn down like others from years of going to school. They both worked really hard and tried to get everything out of the experience that they could both socially and academically.

They also seemed to find it much easier than many of their peers to study and revise for exams independently. On reflection, I think the process of home education helped them to understand how to learn. That in itself was more important than the content of their learning.

Overall, was it a good decision? I think the hardest thing was that I sacrificed my career and as a single parent this was big sacrifice. However, I also managed to do a part-time Masters degree while also home educating and working part-time as a single parent. This helped my part-time freelance work I was doing. After a refresher course, I recently got a full-time job in my field. Obviously, I didn't climb the career ladder and am now 54. But I also remarried a couple of years ago and I'm happy where I am. I'm also very proud of my DS.