I'm not sure wether HE would suit my daughter ?

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I have a 5 year old daughter in the reception class of a private school. She has a very good relationship with her teacher and has a lot of friends. She's an only child, who is very much a people person. She also has a developmental delay of approx 1.5-2 years.
I know we won't be able to afford to send her to this school forever, so I've been thinking about HE for a while. I spoke to my husband about it yesterday and he really supprised me by saying he thought it was a fantastic idea and how we'd then have enough money for her to do some hobbies like Stagecoach and a music lesson. (she is a real drama queen and loves music)
I'm just not sure if it'll be right for her though.
When ever she's home from school, she's constantly role playing, being the teacher and I have to be the children, or vice versa. She seems to love the structure of a school day.
She seems to be comming along very well recently in her writing and word formation. I don't know if she'd try as hard for me as she does for her teacher?
I think I'll keep her at the school for as long as I can, to give her chance to learn the basics.
Do you think it would suit her? and what do you think the pro's and cons would be?

I think HE can suit almost any child, but it's a question of whether HE would suit her better overall than being at school does. It sounds as if she is coming on well at school, both in terms of education and socially, despite her developmental delay.

Do you feel you'd be able to give her the same level of help as a school can? Presumably she is getting one-to-one help with a person who has a lot of training and experience in dealing with children with developmental delays.

Are the only options HE or the private school? I had thought you'd previously mentioned a good state school nearby, where she'd get plenty of one-to-one help?

I don't want to sound negative about HE, as I think it can be great, but if she is enjoying school and doing well there, then you have to think about whether you are going to do better for her than is available in school.

I think that home education could well suit your daughter and you. I am sure that all children want to learn given a situation that makes education enjoyable and not a chore and where they are interested and engaged.
Home education does not have to look like school-but it does for many families.
My own family with three children with SEN thrived much better in a HE environement and once we started to follow their interests we have thrived!

Our youngest had very severe SEN and like your daughter music/drama/dance and we went to the theatre so many times at educational prices, with local and national home ed groups-and so very many educational experiences and interests came about from subjects dealt with in musicals-West Side Story/Romeo and Juliet-Mary Poppins/the Suffragettes-to name but two.
And not being in school meant she had so much more energy to do 'after school' activities, that she could hardly manage when she was in school as she was so very tired.
Our daughter was a very late reader as her SEN was so severe. she began to finally 'get it' aged around 13, but that didn't mean she wasn't getting an education, we did such a lot of talking/watching DVDs/museum visits etc and she successfully did her first OU course aged just 15.
She is at college now doing music and with very little help, is keeping up with her peers, doing BTEC National Diploma-something we couldn't imagine her managing even just this time last year, let alone the idea that she will be going off to Uni next year, which her tutors are saying is easily achievable for her.
Her friends find it difficult to believe that she has any SEN now and her boyfriend's dad apparently flatly refuses to believe it!

I'd strongly suggest that you join the HE SEN email support list and talk to the wonderful experts their-the people who are actually home educating children with SEN, I'm sure they will answer your questions.

I'd strongly suggest that

Thank you both.

I definatly think that at the moment, she's better off at the school she's in because it has a wonderful, warm family feel to it. She feels confident and well supported there. Her all round development is improving too. There are only 9 in her class and she gets 20 mins a day, 10 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon of one to one help.
I wish I could afford to keep her there forever, but I must have a back up plan. I've heard so much about HE and it does seem to be fantastic, I'd get to give her one to one attention and spend lots of time out and about. We live in the country, so there is a huge classroom on our doorstep.
I do worry that she'd go down hill though withought the structure and a teacher who knows what she's doing. I'm not sure wether I'd be up to it realy.
When the time comes that she has to leave the school, I might put her name down on a good schools waiting list and HE until a place becomes availabe, that way, if HE didn't work out, she could go to a good school. In the mean time, I'll keep playing the lottery.

She sounds like she's thriving where she is and I would leave her there as long as you can. Is there any chance that any of her grandparents could help you out with the fees? Would you be eligible for any kind of bursary - ask the school, some schools have lots of funds and awards available.

My child (aged 4) has ASD and he is in a private school - he is also thriving - (what is the reason for your DD's developmental delay, if any?) - IME a supportive school environment works wonders for children like my DS - he absolutely adores school and the other children are like role models for him. Their speech is better etc and he learns from them as well as learning from the teacher. Could this be similar for your DD? My DS's also learns a lot of social skills from the other children - dress up days and the like really excite him. My DS is slightly "differernt" from a "normal" child so being immersed in this environment really helps him fit in. He has lots of friends.

"We live in the country, so there is a huge classroom on our doorstep."

That's such a lovely way of describing it

SOunds like you need to read lots of stuff about informal/autonomous/natural learning - you may find she does completely the opposite to going downhill without structure!

My children learn far more when they're following their own interests at the time it's right for them, than on the odd occassion I sit them down at try and 'teach' them something!

Thanks Yes she is thriving at the moment and has lots of friends.
There is know known cause of her developmental delay. She was a bit slow in her development as a baby, but within normal limmits eg 8 months to sit up, 15 months to walk etc. She had so much attention as a baby and toddler, I'd read to her, sing to her all the time and play music with her etc. I did have severe hyperemisis during my pregnancy and was taken to hospital because I was being sick every 20 mins day and night. I couldn't even keep water down. I wonder wether that would have an effect on her. She was breast fed for a long time too, which is ment to help.

I will definatly read a lot about it, before I decide. I'll also try to find familys in our area who do it and if possible try to meet up with them.
I'm not sure if I'd be up to it really. Last night I was reading to Lucy and she asked what wild ment as in "the wind blew wild" and I couldn't think how to explain it to her. I just said "it meand the wind blew strongly". That didn't explain the word wild at all. I do worry that I'm just not bright enough.

worth having a read of How Children Learn at Home by Alan Thomas and Harriet Patterson, I would think.

Product Description:
In his "Educating Children at Home", Alan Thomas found that many home educating families chose or gravitated towards an informal style of education, radically different from that found in schools. Such learning, also described as unschooling, natural or autonomous, takes place without most of the features considered essential for learning in school. At home there is no curriculum or sequential teaching, nor are there any lessons, textbooks, requirements for written work, practice exercises, marking or testing. But how can children who learn in this way actually achieve an education on a par with what schools offer? In this new research, Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison seek to explain the efficacy of this alternative pedagogy through the experiences of families who have chosen to educate their children informally.Based on interviews and extended examples of learning at home the authors explore: the scope for informal learning within children's everyday lives; the informal acquisition of literacy and numeracy; the role of parents and others in informal learning; and, how children proactively develop their own learning agendas. Their investigation provides not only an insight into the powerful and effective nature of informal learning but also presents some fundamental challenges to many of the assumptions underpinning educational theory. This book will be of interest to education practitioners, researchers and all parents, whether their children are in or out of school, offering as it does fascinating insights into the nature of children's learning.

Please excuse my spelling BTW, I'm just re-reading what I've written and I'm at myself.

Thank you, I'll look out for that book. It sounds good.

mummyloveslucy, please don't worry about not being 'bright' enough, or not knowing how to teach.

from what I've read of HEors on here, when you HE you often learn together. there's some subjects DH and I know lots about, but we're looking forward to learning about other subjects as a family.

You seriously don't need to be bright, or to know loads, to home educate. We are in the business of teaching our children how to learn...which doesn't really require any teaching as they already are hungry for knowledge. We are signposters, we autonomous home educators. We show children how to google, how to use libraries, how to use other adults with more information, how to look up helpful dvds to watch. How do you find things out when you are interested in them?

If you don't know how to describe 'wild' then say 'gosh, I don't know how to explain that - let's look in a dictionary'.

Thanks everyone, that's great.

I was wondering wether she would be entitled to Speech therapy, or an Ed Psych if I home educated. I guess not, as they refuse to see her wile she's in a private school.