Please can I have some advice re Home Ed?

[whispywhisp]

I'm new to all this Home Education idea....I have two girls - one is desperately unhappy at school and very VERY bored (she is in Year 6 - aged 11) and the other is very happy at school and is in Year 1 and doing very well.

My worries are with DD1 (Yr 6) - we moved her schooling earlier this year because she was being heavily bullied at her old school - she had the bruises to prove this.

She has been quite happy at the newer school (we had to move DD2 too) and settled in very well - however the girls she mixes with are, to be honest, very bitchy and catty and she is struggling to cope with this. I know girls of this age are very up and down with their emotions but it is getting to the stage where she is just very unhappy. She is a quiet(ish) child and due to the bullying at her old school it doesn't take much for her confidence to hit rock bottom.

Her teacher is only 21yrs old. She doesn't appear to cope very well with a largish class (about 28 kids) and has very little control. She shouts at the children and if DD1 asks for help she is shouted down. The lessons are boring, DD1 is (I feel) beginning to slide because she simply isn't interested and I don't feel the lessons are up-beat enough to help DD1 be more enthusiastic. She has certainly lost the will to learn which is what I'm worried about.

I have thought about Home Ed a lot over the last year or so, especially just before I moved their schooling. I work from home myself and can work my work around the kids. I'm so unsure about doing this and just don't know enough about it. I'm worried I'll get hounded by the LEA for not getting them into a school. I feel I am academically able myself to teach them at home but what are the pro's and con's? I worry they will miss out socially, especially DD2 and this will go against them. If I were to HE DD1 I would want to HE DD2 too. Do you have to follow a curriculum? I just want my kids to be happy and having the tears with DD1 most evenings atm I know this isn't the case and simply don't know what to do. I have spoken to the Head about DD1 and how she feels and yes she has been talking to her and reassuring her that 'girls are girls' and things will settle down but I know DD1 isn't happy and is HE the answer?

HELP!

Sorry to hear about your DD's experience Whispywhisp. How dreadful. It must be awful watching your DD's confidence and interest in learning being ebbed away like this.

I've never dealt with bullying really, so I'm sure someone will be along who can share their experience with you.

But I have met a lot of children whose parents removed them from school for reasons similar to yours and without a shadow of a doubt they have all thrived, and regained their inner confidence and their desire to learn because they have been removed from an environment that undermined their confidence and sense of self-worth, and moved into an environment that better supports the growth of their self-esteem and natural creativity.

At home learning doesn't have to be boring/difficult because 1. they have more control over it. 2. They do not have the other barriers that situations like your daughter's cause, fear of going into school, fear to ask for help/seeming too clever in class, fear of the bitchiness, fear of being themselves because they won't fit in, and all the emotional sorting out that must first take place before any concentration on formal learning can happen. 3. They have more opportunity to develop more diverse interests or work on their own skills. 4. they aren't forced into social situations which they may find overwhelming before they are ready for it.

I can tell you from personal experience that it is quite normal to feel overwhelmed by the idea of HE. Even though I knew that HE was absolutely the best decision for my 2 DS's I procrastinated for a while and found it nerve racking to hand in the dereg letter. I worried a lot about my ability to teach them, what they were learning, socialisation etc; It took time for us to find our groove and now I wonder why I was so stressed.

Because of your DD's age you may find that you want to use formal curriculum or none at all, it's up to you and your DD, HE is about the child and each family takes the approach that works best for them. But I would say she will need some time where she does nothing for a least a few months. This will give her sometime to find her self-motivation in learning again. She can take GCSE's or IGCSE's A levels from home if that's what you decide.

If you haven't already looked at the Education otherwise charity they're a good place too start. They have a helpline which I found very helpful when I was starting out.

Hope this helps a bit.

Bump!

and another bump!

Hello whispywhisp.

Your DD1's experience of year 6 sounds very similar to my DS1's.

He's now using an internet school from home for year 7 and he seems to be happy and learning. He's studying eight subjects in small groups with interested and interesting teachers. HE felt like such a huge step for us and DH and I wanted to have something structured. That said, DS is free from midday most days to do other stuff and we've had a lot of fun.

Although it felt strange to begin with, we're all really happy with the decision. DS1 likes the fact that he is still 'at school' and I'm happy that we've given him the freedom to be himself again.

It would be a really good idea to get yourself to a local home ed group meeting, where you can talk to a number of real, live home edders and discuss some of your worries with them and get a feel for what is going on socially in your area. In many areas there is so much going on that the major worry is how to balance 'home time' and 'out socialising time'. There are also often lots of trips to museums, talks, study groups or shared learning experiences available. Whereabouts are you? Have a look at the How to Find Other Home Educators thread on here. You could search yahoo or google groups, as local areas often have email groups.
If your DD1's current social experience at school is reducing her to tears most evenings, then it shouldn't be too hard to improve on that.
Also remember that if she's not at school she may have more energy to do after school clubs and activities.
There are tonnes of free learning resources on the internet, whether or not you decide to use a curriculum. Also do try and get hold of some books on home education and how children learn out of school. I home ed my 6 yo who has never been to school, but I went to school and it's still a revelation for me that he doesn't actually learn very well by doing workbooks and there are lots of other ways to understand things.

Have you thought about just moving her for the next two terms and leaving DD2, it seems a shame to remove her if she is happy. It would aslo be difficult to suit both DDs with the wide age gap.
If you just had DD1 you could really get her confidence back by concentrating on her and getting her socialised with other HEed DCs her age without a younger one tagging along. If DD2 loves school then I expect that she would be quite happy with the arrangement (I would have hated to have been removed just because a sibling was). You could use the time to really research secondary schools. I have a friend whose son has been unhappy all through primary school, mainly because he hates football and didn't fit in. He started secondary school in Sept and is a different DC, for the first time ever he loves school.
I don't know how lucky you are with secondary schools-if you haven't a good one you would have to think more long term at home. If it was one DD for 2 terms it would give a breathing space and you could use it as an experiment to see how it went for both of you.

Hi and thank you everyone for your comments.

I don't want to move DD2 - she is now in Year 1 and loves it at school. I had to move her half way through Year R (she was very happy at her old school) because I had to move them both due to DD1's unhappiness and very severe bullying she was going through at their old school.

I spent a long time talking to DD1 last night. She is extremely unhappy at school. She cries a lot and is constantly hanging off me - hugging me and telling me she loves me. I've not told her about my thoughts about HE because I know she'd love it but I do worry about the social side - I'd worry she would become lonely being with me at home and whilst I have no problems her being at home I'd worry that she'd be missing out on 'life' at school and with other kids.

I made the conscious decision to no longer allow her on to these internet websites where her and her mates can chat after school...'MSN'...I do monitor most of the conversations that go on and I don't like what I see with 'some' of it, not all. I don't think its healthy that they spend all day together at school and talk during the evenings via the internet.

Instead I suggested we cover an area in history that she missed out on (due to changing schools) which is the Victorians...with that she got out all her history books and we sat for a good hour looking at how the Victorians lived etc...I love history too and DH is a real historian so its nice that DD1 is showing a great interest in the subject plus she is keen to learn....

I do sense that she isn't being pushed enough at school. She tells me she is very bored. She puts her hand up in class and is never picked. She gets physically pushed out of a group of girls by another, so called, friend. I've told her to push herself back in and don't let one child get one over on her...within reason of course.

I have put a note into school today to ask to see her class work tomorrow after school - I want to see what standard she is at at school and see actually how much work she is doing. She is a bright child - top groups for all subjects - but I do feel she is sliding a little mainly due to friendship problems within school.

If I did HE her I would keep DD2 at the school - it would be wrong to move her. It has taken months to get her re-settled and I know if I were in her shoes I would resent my elder sister for disrupting my school life a second time.

I am also, in the meantime, going to concentrate on doing more with DD1 - we're going up to London next weekend to the Nat Hist Museum and this weekend DH is going out on a bike-ride with her and I'm taking her to the cinema whilst DD2 is at a party...this way, I'm hoping, we can make school less of a 'big thing' in her life and if I keep her busier in her life outside of school she will not sit and dwell on her problems there?!!

I'm the first to say I'm still learning about being a parent and yes I'm finding this age really hard atm.

I think that you are very wise to keep DD2 where she is happy, perhaps I misunderstood but I thought that you were saying they would both have to move. I would certainly be resentful if I had to leave because my sister was unhappy. I'm sure that you are taking the right line-perhaps if she could join something outside school and make friends with different DCs it would help.
She hasn't got long left at Primary school, if you put it down to weeks it will seem less daunting. The secondary school is a whole new start-I would make sure that you research it thoroughly. The DS that I mentioned with problems at primary school went to the secondary school with nearly all his class but he is now in top sets for everything and is with like minded DCs, his mother is thrilled because he is so happy. At primary level he had a hobby that he was really keen on and he spent his spare time concentrating on it and made friends through it-none were from school.
I would look up places like Education Otherwise and see if there are local groups, if you seriously think of going down that route.