Would you recommend HE?

[daisydancer]

My 4.1 year old has been offered a place at a good primary school, our second choice, but it doesn't reflect our community at all. Our first choice of school is rather less good academically but is much gentler and is a true reflection of our community.
DS1 attends a great Montessori nursery at the moment which he loves.

He is confident, enjoys other children and seems to be doing well in terms of his development. He has no special needs and I'm sure he would cope with the school where he has been allocated a place. The problem is that I feel very strongly that this school doesn't embrace our vision of what childhood should be and I resent the LEA for forcing us into a school that isn't right.

DH and I are both well qualified and experienced secondary school English teachers. We aren't intimidated by silly demands regarding HE made by the LEA.

Could anyone talk to me about thier experiences of the benefits of HE with confident, happy go lucky children who would probably be happy at school and are quite academically able but not profoundly gifted?

My 5.4 son is like this. He's been at nursery since he was tiny and was doing 5 mornings a week until July. His teachers said he was doing really well socially and academically and he mostly enjoyed it, although he didn't want to go every day as he had other stuff he wanted to do.
It made the HE decision harder as I felt he'd be fine at school and would probably have enjoyed a lot of it. The school we got a place in is a really good school.
I decided to HE and he didn't start reception in September.
The benefits of HE have been -a more relaxed lifestyle - we're not shouting and stressed in the morning. We can get up when we want to and have a think about what we feel like doing with the day. We have quite a few HE groups we can go to if we want to, which help to give the week some structure and mean that he gets to socialise regularly with the same children and build friendships. We go to museums, parks, city farms, exhibitions etc. We can visit my mum on the south coast in the middle of the week when we want to. We can follow what he's interested in at any particular time. We have time (although still seems like not enough) to do more lego, games, painting, storybooks etc than we did when he was at nursery. We can talk lots about lots of stuff. He has energy to do swimming, drama and French 'after school clubs'.He gets to hang out with his brothers more. He can socialise with children he wants to, of different ages, not just those born in his 'year'. He has lots of 'running around' time. I can see he is progressing with learning, even though we do very little 'formal' stuff.
I'm sure there's more, but typing one-handed as breastfeeding.
I found making the decision horrible, but it's been fun once we got over that

Did any of you choose to withdraw etc...

Hello daisydancer,
I have just posted to countrypumpkin on the above thread. It is very relevant to your question also if you want to read ?

Dd started reception when she was just 5, she loved school, loved her teacher, never had any problem in wanting to go to school, I had wanted to home ed but had decided to give it a go as alot of the friends she had made at preschool would be in the same class and it seemed a natural progression - despite my reservations about the "system"

However after a term we ended up moving to a new area and with everything going tone we enroled her into the local village school (3 classes 5-11) she went from being a confident, outgoing little girl to being withdrawn, not wanting to go, stressed ect. So I made the decision and de-reged,

All was going well, we home ed' for 9 months and all of a sudden dd said I need more friends I want to go back to school, this was just before xmas so we went to visit the main town school - thinking that as it was a similar size and ethos to her orihianl school that may suit her better, must admit her attitude at home was getting difficult and she was refusing to pay any attention to home lessons,

So she started school again at the begining of this year,and it just hasnt worked, so as of today we are home eders again lol! and this is it, dd has realised how lucky she had it being at home, she didnt mix at all with the children, despite the teachers trying to reassure me that she goes out to play ok - never mund that when she was out no one would play with her!

I must admit that our LEA visitor is a lovely lady, I have heard all sorts of horror stories but we have had no problems, our main issues against the system are that they do not have the time for the individual child, dd was saying she was struggling and was recieving no extra help, the teachers didnt tell me she was struggling and yet she was stresses about not being able to keep up.

In my opinion this should have been dealt with straight away, rather than letting her get further behind until it becomes an impossible task and she is in a group of children who genuinly have needs - the last thing my dd is is slow! stubborn yes but she is not stupid and I am not prepared to allow her to get left behind.

I also feel that she can learn what she is interested in and that the other stuff will follow when she is interested in, as long as we keep up with reading and writing and maths,

So my job today is back to the weekly planner, sorry seemed to have waffled a bit - good luck with your decision

Lisa x

Thank you so much for all your replies. I feel quite enthusiastic about the idea of HE. It would certainly mean a much nicer lifestyle and we would be able to follow DS's very many interests!

We are continuing to explore all the options. We have now decided that he definitely won't be attending the primary school we have been allocated. That leaves us the possibility of getting into our first choice primary on the continued interest list, HE or there is the vaguest chance we might look at the independent sector which is, of course fraught with its own issues!

Thanks again, I really admire your confidence to go with what you know to be the right thing.