Ages between 7-14, considering HE.

[wildlingtribe]

I'm a solo mum of four between 7-14.

I am not a fan of the mainstream schooling, for many many reasons. Im also doing care for a family member, and trying to start a business to enable myself a job that doesn't fit the "norm" , plus also we need to eat! So money.

Am I being daft to think I could make it work?

Also their extremely difficult father and family would probably disagree.

And also two of the children would probably say they don't want to leave (out of fear of the unknown, and their friends).

How do you make it work, for each child's needs/interests/ while also a solo parent/ while also working?

I'm so angry at myself that I didn't just stick to my guns when my eldest started school all those years ago. I asked for flexibility schooling, they said no. And I kind of saw that it was doing okay, but as time is going on, the more I learn about mainstream schooling, agendas... and also how different children are, the way they learn - I now understand why I found it so hard. I've found out a few years back I am adhd combined and I do see signs in 2 of my children. So mainstream schooling just isn't sitting right. They learn by interest not force.

Is HE for your children or for you? And also two of the children would probably say they don't want to leave (out of fear of the unknown, and their friends).
Why would you make them HE if they don't want to?
It sounds more like you're doing it for you and to piss off their dad. How much would you rely on the older dc to supervise the younger while you work?

You'd take your 14 year old out of school just before their GCSE years? How would you teach the full range of GCSEs and enable them to take them?

How about getting support for the ADHD you think they have.

I home educated my son from age 6-13 and I found it extremely difficult. It's very easy to go from wanting them to pursue what interests them and not having a rigid curriculum to just neglect.

The ones who wouldn't want to leave, don't make them. Discuss things they're learning and your opinions and listen to their opinions as well, you don't need them with you 24/7 to guide them.

Personally I think caring for someone and starting a business is enough to be getting on with! Depending on where you are will have a big impact as well, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire leave you alone (but you risk your children struggling at exam time) Norfolk is awful for home education and they don't follow the law and guidelines for home education and will likely go to court for an education order. So will you be able to produce lots of work, follow a curriculum, teach your children things you struggle with yourself, will you be able to keep on top of paperwork, would you want the local authority involved or not. How will you cope if they're just not interested and say they want to just watch TV.

Like it or not most people need qualifications and it is extremely difficult to prepare a child for that if you're not a teacher following the national curriculum.

Personally I think caring for someone and starting a business is enough to be getting on with!

I agree I don’t see how you can do both of those and also home educate 4 kids of different ages/stages?

I understand why you’re drawn towards the idea but practically I don’t know how you would adjust to four individuals suddenly being dependent on you for the best education possible, plus everything else going on in life.

Honestly, if the main reason for home education is your own philosophical beliefs and your children are reasonably happy and settled, I wouldn’t bother. However, I would try to share my beliefs and outlook with my children if I think it would benefit them.
I know quite a few people who home educate, and if you ask me, “How do you/they make it work?” my answer would be they really don’t. A lot of the kids I know spend most of their time online, mostly unsupervised, and the majority have huge gaps in their knowledge of the world. They may have struggled with socializing in school, but to be honest, many still struggle outside of school and lack exposure.
In my honest opinion, if you want to make home education really work, you need a heck of a lot of time, patience, money, and flexibility.

I didnt have a choice but to home educate when no schools would take my son and honestly its ruined his life and to a lesser extent my own. He's going into his gcse year so far behind, he hasn't got a friendship group for support, he struggles with the routine and demands of school. Luckily he's in a specialist provision where he can stay for longer but it would be nice if he went to school to see his friends and was equipped to do gcses and go to college etc
I had to leave work and have missed out on opportunities and friendships and my own life.

We had great fun, loved the freedom, learned so much (but not the actual national curriculum) I can't do maths and in my attempts to catch him up a bit we are both struggling with year 7 maths.

Are you willing to follow a curriculum so they can get their gcses? Are you willing to drive them to home education groups and clubs to be with other children? Are you willing to pay for their exams and organise them taking them? Are you willing to spend money on their interests as well as educational resources? How would you feel if your 14 year old gets no qualifications, has no friends and no future because of your decision? What about if your youngest wants to go to college and struggles because lots of the people went to school together and already have those friendship groups?

I love the idea of home education and I know some people are amazing home educators but they literally dedicate their life to their children's education and as awful as it is to admit, I couldn't do that. It sounds like with your business and caring duties you couldn't either.

I home ed my dc who are in the same age range as yours and I love it but I absolutely would not be able to do it successfully on top of caring and starting a viable business. Even more difficult when you add in that two of your dc wouldn’t even want to be home ed and on top of that your ex could potentially take you to court regarding education. You are looking at putting a huge amount of pressure on to your shoulders and likely will burn out very quickly.

Your kids are the right age to have been caught in the lockdowns. It wasn't even real HE then, but that was already a full time job! We all struggle to manage while working full time.

Starting your own business is even more demanding. Where will you find the time? It would be very difficult even if you could HE full time and do nothing else.

They learn by interest not force. that is a bit simplistic. They need to at least get the options.

They learn by interest not force.

Unfortunately nobody is interested in all aspects of the curriculum and some people need to be pushed. If your child is interested in art and will tolerate English but has no interest in maths and science, they still need to learn maths and science. What if you have a child obsessed with football but hates academic learning, will you just say go and play footy at the park (on your own because your mates are at school) and don't worry about learning anything you're not interested in?

I don't think any of the individual challenges you are facing would be deal-breakers. There are solutions to most of those problems. But taken all together, really it would be hugely difficult.

If any of the three younger children are miserable at school then it could be worth a try anyway, though I would present it to them as having a break from school and an opportunity to do some different things for a while. Realistically there is a significant chance they would have to return to school eventually, what with one thing and another. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it for a while.

It's rare for parents to remove unwilling older children from school. Home ed goes against the grain anyway, so if your children aren't even on board with it, it will be an uphill struggle and they will resent you.

It is also tricky timing with the 14yo. Returning to school after a few years out is not the big deal most people make it out to be... at most ages. Unfortunately, the school system is incredibly inflexible during the GCSE years and cannot accommodate new arrivals much after the start of Y10. Even changing schools then is problematic. So I wouldn't take a child out at this age unless either their mental health is in tatters so there's no alternative, or you are pretty sure you can see home ed through till they have their GCSEs.

Long term HE here - now watching my Grandchildren be HE. The advantage with HE is that it is so flexible that it can be easy to fit caring responsibilities and self employment around HE and i know many people who have done this.

However, starting a business or starting HE especially for more than 1 child is pretty much all consuming for the first year or so or it is likely to fail. Trying both at the same time is going to be extremely tough.

I would recommend starting the business and when that is running smoothly try HE or the other way round start HE now and when you have the hang of what it looks like for your family start your business.

Whatever you think HE will look like it will be very different in a year or so time i can guarantee that. Having children of very different ages can make it more complicated as they will have different needs and wants and the groups and activities available that all of them want to attend at the same time will be few and far between. However it does mean the older ones can help the younger ones at times as well. You would probably need to spend a lot of time finding resources to meet each stage or pay for a curriculum to cover English and Maths. We do semi formal ed for English and Maths using a USA curriculum and are child led in everything else.

I would not even consider taking 12/13 or over children out of school unless they really want it. HE teens have normally got long established friendship groups and like any other group of teens they are not always looking for or welcoming to anyone new - HE kids are not desperate for new friends they will already have strong friendships at all ages. Many children coming out of school at this age end up very isolated and with 4 children you will not have the time to prioritize the teens making friends. You may have to accept you have missed the boat on this one. Having some children in school and some in HE is often the worst of both worlds but people do make it work

Qualifications are a bit of a red herring as there are lots of ways around this that people who have never HE'd do not realise. None of my children took any GCSE's but all qualified for Uni - only 1 chose to go and none have ever needed their qualifications tbh never mind missed not having as many as their schooled peers. Whilst times have changed a bit most HE children go onto further ed at 16 and can catch up and get qualifications then. It all depends upon what your child wants to do in the long-term which approach you take. But it will be difficult to get unwilling teens or difficult family to grasp this at this key stage.

Personally i would decide which was most important to me - a new business or HE and focus on that first, you could take a couple of the younger children out for a while to see how it goes without any real ramifications.

You are a solo parent, a carer, you have started a business and you want to homeschool 4 children of different ages? And the other parent is likely to disagree.
Frankly OP this sounds like a recipe for disaster. I can’t see any good reasons for HE and you didn’t mention any apart from you don’t like mainstream schooling. But how will it affect your children especially the teenagers?

How did they get into uni with no qualifications if you don't mind me asking?

My eldest got in to an arts-based course with portfolio, personal statement, strong recommendations, and relevant paid and voluntary experience. They had a handful of good offers. One admissions tutor described them as the most impressive candidate he had ever come across. They're now in final year and top of their class.

I don't think they would have been able to acquire those skills and experience if they had spent much of their teens slogging through a lot of GCSEs and A levels. That isn't to say they didn't learn a range of other subjects, only that they didn't invest a lot of time drilling for exams which subject specialists often regard as uninspired drudgery (GCSEs I mean; I guess A levels aren't so bad).

They did belatedly sit maths and English GCSE shortly before starting uni, having seen that there could be some delay and inconvenience trying to access certain opportunities without those.

As I say, this was an arts subject. I'm sure they wouldn't have been accepted to do a course like veterinary science without the usual qualifications.

Open University welcomes candidates from a range of backgrounds, some without formal qualifications. That can be a good route in. Some people use it as a stepping stone to a bricks-and-mortar uni. One of my younger child's friends is doing that now, having found it difficult to get onto the college course he wanted due to age-related funding problems. Most unis won't take him without enough of the right L3 qualifications, and there's no suitable Access course within commuting distance.

They went to further education collage and all got B-tec qualifications equal to 3-4 A levels.

Many people do not realise but Arts awards and Dance and Music exams at a certain level carry UCAS points I think its Grade 6-8 but don't quote me on that. So my daughter who did not learn to read until she was 10 had the equivalent of 5 Grade A levels without taking a single one.

The typical UCAS route is for children leaving the school sector in the UK. Foreign students, mature students and students from other forms of education have different routes and requirements. I have a masters and did not get any O-levels/GCSE's or A Levels as i went when i was older.