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Home ed

Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

OK, 75% decided on home ed...

3 replies

ButterPie · 10/03/2010 23:37

But what do we need to consider as part of our decision making process? Would you recommend us writing down some kind of list of aims? How do we explain ourselves without offending people? DD1 is three today, so we have a while until she would be starting school, should we be saving up for anything? (I know we could do it with no equipment at all, but what is useful?)

She has her name down for a school, do we need to tell them, or just decline the place if we get offered one?

OP posts:
SDeuchars · 11/03/2010 08:58

You can decline any place offered. However, you may prefer to write to the LA or school and ask to be removed from their list - it'll save them having to do admin work only for you to turn down the place. If it is an LA school, you need only say that you are making alternative (or private or independent) arrangements for her education. There are questions about the current enrollment process - the guidance seems to say that schools should enrol any person offered a place on the first day they should have turned up. This could involve your DD in being enrolled and needing deregistered even if you have decided on EHE. Personally, I wouldn't chance having to get involved in al that and I'd remove her from the system PDQ.

I would make a resolution not to spend money until you really need to or really want to. Many people (inc me) start off by buying loads of resources that then sit and gather dust. Particularly "schooly" resources. It makes you feel better, as if you are "doing something", but does not necessarily improve your educational experience.

We had a subscription to a BBC early learning mag from grandparents (NC-based, but littlies don't care) until the DC got too old and then we had a sub to Aquila for two to three years. We were members of the RSPB for a while and got their magazine. Otherwise, we have paid for musical instrument lessons and the local youth music group, dancing, LA after-school sports groups or lessons (various over the years: swimming, skating, trampolining, gymnastics), youth organisations (Girls' and Boys' Brigades, St John Ambulance), trips to theatres, museums and other places of interest and a variety of EHE groups and workshops.

It sounds a lot, but we haven't done all of them at once and not both children doing everything - that list covers 16 years for two children, LOL.

I just told people from the beginning that we were going to home educate. (If they are offended, that's their problem.) I didn't make out like it was me being superior, more that it was a wierd quirk of ours and I quite understood if it wasn't for them. After about ten years of talking about it, I realised that something had flipped in my head - I now genuinely consider sending DC to school at 4 to be a bizarre idea and wonder why anyone would do it. I'd also suggest you start attending EHE groups, if you can - it'll make you feel less wierd and your DD will see that not all other children go to school. Don't worry about it being "too early" - EHEers often have children of a variety of ages so you may find the groups have children from 0-14+.

You don't need a list of aims. You may want to write down your ideas if that works for you. My overall aim was (is) very simple - to raise adults able to live independently and earn a living and with whom I would still have a relationship. So far, it seems to be working - they haven't achieved the earning yet, LOL, but the other bits are coming on fine and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (good job, after 18 years!).

musicposy · 11/03/2010 10:52

I'd second everything SDeuchars says. I'd particularly recommend going along to HE groups now. Our home ed groups have loads of preschoolers in them and there are lots of activities going on for that age range. Many of these children will be friends their whole childhoods, so it's great to get them to know others young. It's only really our weird school system that makes this huge distinction at 5 between school and not school. There's nbo rationale behind it, so you'll find for many home educators it's just a way of life, an ongoing process that devleops as the child does.

I wouldn't buy anything until you feel you definitely need it. We definitely overspent on workbooks and stuff at the start. I underestimated how quickly children pick concepts up on a one-to-one, so we found we had far too much at the same level and I ended up passing a lot on to friends and family.

Explaining yourself may well be the hardest part. Sometimes people say it's easier once they reach school age and it's a done deal. A bit like naming a baby - people feel far more open to criticising your choice when there's time to change your mind. I wouldn't make a huge thing of it yet, just be very matter of fact. I tend to say that it suits us all at this moment in time. Even so, there will be people who take it as an affront to their decision to send their children to school, however you handle it. Just keep in mind that this is your child and therefore it is your decision, no one elses.

MrsWobbleTheWaitress · 11/03/2010 11:28

What they said!

Just read, read, read and meet up with other HEors to get a good support network (that doesn't mean don't meet up with schooling parents, just that support may well prove to be invaluable, particularly when you get wobbles!). Oh, and enjoy it! Enjoy the freedom

Buy stuff only as you need it, or you'll a) run out of space and b) could waste money.

How exciting!

Re. explaining yourself - the more you read, the better prepared you'll be for questions. Just say 'oh, we're going to home educate'. Then you just need to work a few stock phrases for the inevitable questions!

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