Social side of HE

[lalalonglegs]

My daughter has not been allocated a place at any local primary school and, for various reasons, we do not want to send her too far away to school so are considering HE when she is due to start reception in September. I am not that worried about the education side of it - I think it will be fairly temporary as we are quite high up the waiting lists at the two nearest schools - but she is very social and friendly and I do dread depriving her of a peer group. How do you get round this? All activities aimed at her age group take place out of school hours so what do we do to give her a social life from 9-3? (She is not five until February so, theoretically, we can hold out until next Easter without sending her to school. We live in London.) Any advice more than welcome.

Personally, I wouldn't be too bothered about trying to replicated school-type peer group socialisation at home - I don't think it's all it's cracked up to be. I also don't think there is any danger of her missing out on anything - from my experience, home education very rarely means being at home all day.

During school hours you could take her out to different places where she will meet other people - museums, play areas, shops, parks and so on. You could also contact your local home education group, try www.educationotherwise.org.uk for details on where to find one. There will most likely be one near you, and many of them meet at least weekly. Good luck!

lalalonglegs,

Whereabouts in London are you?
There are lots of He groups.
I am SE.

I was just going to suggest local Home Ed groups too. I am in central london and run one in Nottinghill and there are others in various areas of London.

There is a google group for central london home educators where you can find peope local to you. It is CLHE if you search google groups.

I think i'd welcome this as a chance to do just the right amount of socialising! At school my ds has 30 in his class and it's really, really hectic.

If I could afford to stay home we'd home educate I think and I think I'd enjoy the chance to enrol him on some out of school clubs - drama, skating, whatever, where he'd mix with his peers but in smaller groups. During the day I think there's enough socialisation to be had from going out and about in the world - as someone said, museums, shops, parks, and the other day I saw a home educated sibling group of 3 at the swimming pool..so you'll find others I am sure

I tihnk it sounds a very healthy way to go about things and I hope you both enjoy it!

Thanks for your comments - feeling more relaxed. We're in Clapham, SW London, BTW.

There is also a SLHE (south london home ed) list.

I am in a similar position. My son is 5 in October and has not been allocated a place at primary school. I knew this was a possibility and started looking at HE. The more I looked into it the more I liked the sound of it, to the extent that I'm sort of hoping that we won't get to the top of the waiting list before September, so I have a chance to see how we get on with HE. We're near you as we're near Earlsfield and my little boy is very social as well. There do seem to be quite a lot of things going on, I'm on the southwestlondon and surrey borders HE yahoo group and that sends a list of things out, although there seems to be quite a lot of stuff in SE London. Also if we're still in the same position in September and you fancy meeting up that would be good.

teenytiny - do you he?

Lilyfire - so you are at the mercy of Wandsworth's magnificently efficient admissions policy as well? I'm approaching HE with very mixed feelings - it's better than sending dd to a school miles away but really I would prefer her to be able to go to a conventional local primary. Maybe we will get to the top of the list at the two nearest by Christmas [hopeful emoticon]. Would love to meet up.

We live in Wandsworth, but my son goes to a nursery which is attached to our nearest school which is in Merton, so that's where we applied. We're only about .5km away, but still too far, even though it's 2 form entry. I looked at the other local schools and we visited, but the ones we liked would have been too far away to get into and the ones we would've got into, didn't really like. Other people in same position in previous years have gone to schools quite long way away, but, like you, really don't want to do that. Think should know in a few weeks where we are on waiting list, but I'd quite like not to be offered a place until at least Christmas, so can see how HE goes. My son usually gets on well with girls - we've met a local 5 yo girl, who's being HE and they've made friends - so am sure he'd like to meet up with your daughter. I'm researching things to do, in case we do HE, not only for his sake, but also for mine as am slightly worried about our collective sanity if he is without a nursery/school place.