Is this OK?

[Marjoriew]

Grandson and I have discussed his future in education. He doesn't want to go to Secondary school and that's fine with me. We've talked about how he wants to change his day. He likes having a routine and knowing what happens next in the day, so we've decided to have a day where he does half hour maths, usually on the laptop, because he likes the games, but he's happy to do a workbook now and again.
He loves history, and is currently working on WW2, ancient history, Egyptians, etc.
Fascinated with the human body and plays with his models of ear, heart, eye, etc. Love his bird table he got for Christmas.
He ha a low reading age, but we're working on that and are doing just reading for a purpose at the moment for his projects.
He has a concentration span of about 20 minutes on the core subjects, literacy, numeracy, but will spend hours cooking, baking, and making stuff.
Now he's 11, I'd like some thoughts/advice on whether you lovely folk thinks this is enough for a child approaching secondary school age.
Sorry it's so long - gotta get the OU stuff and the ironing done before he gets up.
Althogh we all do stuff differently on here, I love reading all your posts and I've been able to get lots of advice from here.
Sometimes I get the 'wobblies' but I just want to be sure I'm doing stuff right.

I don't see any reason why you should not continue like this Marjorie. He is still quite young and has a lot of maturing to do. IMO, if you push now on the basis of the rather arbitrary "start of secondary school" age, you risk undoing the pleasure he now gets from what he is doing.

Boys tend to mature later than girls (sorry, don't mean to teach you to suck eggs) and school would not be looking at gaining recognisable qualifications for 3 years. In your place, I'd chill, continue as you are and review it again as he gets to 14.

In case anecdote helps: my DS (now almost 16) still has no idea what he wants to do. He started on OU short science courses (following interests) at 13.5yo and has done five of those plus MU120. We have done a little bit of Russian since 2002 (because we have Russian-speaking contacts) and we have just started with a teacher, with a view to taking an exam next year. He is now concerned to get useful qualifications but keep his options open until he has some idea what to do next.

The thing with education is it's meant to be suitable to the aptitudes and abilities of the child. It sounds as though what you are doing is just that.

The trouble with school is they would be looking at your grandson as being of a certain age and teaching him according to that age. This probably wouldn't be right for him. Whereas you are looking at him as being at a certain stage and he is learning according to that. I think that is much better. You are tailoring his learning to him.

I'm much more confident with DD2 than I was when DD1 came out of secondary a few years ago, and I've vowed not to be pushed (even by pressure I feel myself!) into making her education look exactly like secondary education next year because she is 11. Some of it will look like secondary education, because that's where she's at in those subjects, and some of it won't. Like your son, she loves cooking, making stuff, drawing -and I'm not going to change any of those things. I think it's important not to take all the fun out of it. I look at what I did with DD1 (followed the national curriculum out of panic that she would "get behind" her peers) and although she undoubtedly learnt stuff, I'm much more relaxed now and wouldn't do the same with DD2.

We all get wobbles sometimes - I know I do - but it honestly sounds as though you are doing just the right thing for your grandson for now.

I think that sounds fine - when you think about what schools cover with his age group, you've got something in pretty much all the "categories".

Literacy - even if you don't do it as a separate subject, so long as he's reading things then he will be developing in this area

Numeracy

How things work (sciences) - human biology, bird table

How the world works (social sciences) - history

Practical skills and problem-solving - cooking and making things

With a range of topics like that, he should have plenty of chances to investigate things and develop his understanding, which is what education is about after all. About the only thing he'd be covering in school which you don't mention is a foreign language, but it sounds like he wouldn't be getting any benefit from that, in school or HE, if his English isn't that great, so I don't think he's missing out by you not doing it.

And an attention span of 20 minutes isn't unusual at 11 - it's long enough to get something done, whatever the subject!

It sounds like you're both doing fine, so don't fret if it's not the same as he'd get in school - to an extent all the different subjects they do are just to let every child have a taster of things which might or might not interest them, so that they can pick out things to carry on with for exams later.

Sorry to butt in but I just wanted to say hello and thank you to Marjorie. I recall you from Parentscentre (and your Grandson being into "all things sword and sandal"!) and will always remember the kind, wise advice you gave me when I was struggling with a less than helpful north-eastern LA.

I hope that you and your Grandson are both keeping well and wish him all the best as he grows up.