ds start school in september, getting worried

[ruty]

Ds turns 5 in September, so he'll be one of the oldest in his class. Thing is, they've scrapped the half day only for a term that they have done until this year, and ds has never really been to nursery. he did go for a little bit, but I had dd and he wanted to stay with us and i let him. The other thing is that he is quite old for his age in terms of vocabulary and interaction, but has very high emotions and sometimes finds them hard to cope with. I'm trying to get him some playschool/nursery places for this term, though everything is absurdly booked round here, but getting increasingly worried that he won't be able to cope with a nine till three day, it will be a big shock to his system. Is there anything I can do? I'd really like to part HE him for a year though I'm not sure any school will allow that. Would the school allow him only to do half days for a term? Not sure they would make a special exception. Is there anyway of part HE ing and part schooling?

Legally your child doesn't have to go to school until January (ie the term after he turns 5.) Therefore they cannot stop you from saying I will be collecting DS at lunchtime. They will try to tell you that you can't but you can.

thanks nappyaddict.

And thanks lilyfire, that is really interesting. May have to persevere, but wasn't a great first time experience for either of us. He is very verbal for his age, and I feel pretty sure that is because of so much one on one time with me, though he could definitely do with more group stuff too.

I wonder if the folks in the group are shy of new people themselves.
I know that not everyone in our HE group are as confident as I am of meeting new people, but I always try to make the effort to speak to anyone new in the group I ran and to introduce them to folks from their local area (families come from a very wide area for this meeting) or families with children of a similar age/interest etc.
Once the ice is broken, they are usually well on their way.

I remember thinking that folks were very aloof when I first started to take DS to playgroup-they all seemed to know each other and I felt very excluded for a long while.
Eventually i found out that this wasn't the case-they were just busy chatting and catching up, and I did eventually get to join in and make friends-and then of course was accused of being part of a clique later by some other new mothers-that is where I learned to make the effort to go and talk to new parents.

Also for many home ed parents this is their time to catch up with their friends and socialise too-the parents in your groups may not have seen each other for a while and need to make up for that too.......

I think it may be worth persevering with the group, pluck up the courage to find the person who has organised the meeting (even if they are totally autonomous, someone will have booked the room etc) and chat and explain you feel like fish out of the water.

Are there any other groups anywhere near to you?

i live in a city so there is one big group as far as i know, but I will see if there are any other events we can try.

ruty, ds sometimes goes a whole week without watching tv/a dvd, sometimes watches it for an hour. But when he's really into something it can be hours at a time. But then I'm not one to tell him he has to sit and watch it, so he often ends up just listening to it and playing with his toys.

As for home ed groups, sometimes they can be not organised by their very nature and people can dip in and out. So sometimes people don't know if you know someone else, or there's no-one is a position of responsibility to new people because it's just a collective. Most of our new people come through the yahoo group so we know to look out for them. Although back when I started the group was a bit different and it was tough because I'm shy at first.