What are your views on home-schooling?

[Littleraysofsunshine]

Just out if interest

I dont think you can answer that as whats right for one child isnt for another etc.

I think it depends very much on The parent wanting to home school, the local schools being right/wrong etc, the child as whats right for one child isn't for another etc.

Im neither for or against the approach. I think some mothers do an excellent job at it and its absolutely the right choice while others I find quite disturbing.

It just depends.

I have to tell you, I don't really find myself surrounded by 'badly behaved' adults. Probably because I choose not to spend time with them. I don't know any burglars, or people who have been to prison for violent crime.

If my collegues and friends were badly behaved as children, they've managed to grow out of it. If they hadn't, I suspect our paths might not have crossed anyway.

I know plenty of slightly unpleasant people through my work, but I can walk away from them at the end of each day, and I wouldn't choose to make them my friends.

Similarly my children can recognise and choose not to spend time with unpleasant children or adults. It is not something school has taught them, but normal, everyday interaction with the people they meet. Family, friends teachers, neighbours, children in the park. Unpleasant people are everywhere, you do not have to tolerate their behaviour, that is something I want my children to understand.

And possibly on the other side of the coin, there are parents who pay through the nose to send their children to tiny private schools, where any 'difficult' children are simply sent away. They spent their days with highly motivated children who know what they need to do to coform. They have about as much chance of becoming 'streetwise' as I have of walking naked through Morrisons this evening.

Mollycoddling is not the preserve of HE parents.

littleray I speak as an E.Y.s teacher who has H.E. our DCS at varying times in their school careers.

As has been said each DC is different as is each parent, teacher and school.

BUT I have also done a lot of supply work recently and will say that there seems to be a general lack of sensitivity and or understanding of how a child's brain develops.

IMO and E 'normal' e.g. boisterous behaviour in 4 -5 yr olds is stigmatised thus putting off a lot of DCs before they've even started. Making it much more likely that the parents would need or want to H.E. and I wouldn't blame them at all.

Growlithe.

I don't see it being an important part of childrens development to mix with children who don't attend clubs. Maybe these dc will grow up isolated and not meet people, it does show that some parents of schooled children aren't bothered about their childrens socialisation needs.
I've had 3 dc in many different schools though and can't ever remember them saying they knew of this type. The poorest had access to clubs and facilities just the same as anyone else. Many are free and run on school premises so I don't think it is a common problem thank goodness.

Morethan- how long have you been home educating?

I'm not saying its important to mix with people who don't attend clubs, I'm saying you really need to mix with a whole variety of different people from an early age, not just those of your own socio-economic group. In the end you do end up working, living near or even marrying them so its no good being isolated from them as children.

As for not mixing with 'badly behaved' adults, in adulthood we may not mix with people who will give us grief. We will hopefully avoid it. It could happen by chance though, in a pub or club, whilst shopping, in hospital, on a train or bus, anywhere where you get the general public. Situations arise in a split second, and the 'streetwise' amongst us will hopefully be equipped to deal with and diffuse such situations.

Personally, I don't think you'd get that kind of experience by meeting and avoiding a bad lad in the park, by experiencing brats at cubs and by mixing with friends, neighbours and family. Its by mixing with children the parents want to avoid, for one reason or another, and in doing so becoming a strong, assertive, but also rounded person.

Most arguments by he'ors that look like they're 'against school' are, in fact, simply illustrating that many of the arguments against HE could be levelled quite easily against school.

I have misconceptions about school. I Know many parents who send their children to school, and know them ver well indeed. My children have lots of schooled friends, and I have lots of friends and family who are teachers, some of whom home educate and some of whom don't. Thank you very much for your concern, seeker, but my opinions about the risks of school is very well-informed.

As a responsible parent, my opinions about the risks of home ed are also very well-informed, hence my efforts to ensure all that people worry about is unfounded. My children have the input of a great many adults in their lives. I would never dream of censoring exposure to different beliefs and knowledge than my husband and I have.

As with school, a home successful education is mostly to do with a child's parents and family life. What most people worry about with regard to HE is easily alleviated by not being a shit parent.

Grow lithe, how do people manage when they visit vastly different cultures to ours without exposure throughout childhood with people from those cultures? It is not true that we must experience everything in childhood in order to be able to cope within as an adult.

Seeker.

I have been H.edding this last half term, and also did pre - school with 2 of our dc.

I am intrigues by it but know I wouldn't have the patience to be with my children as much as I would need to if I home educated them. However, I would be more interested in some sort of sharing of education with other parents, I would love to be able to have more say in their education and be able to support them in their talents beyond what the state school system is able to do (nothing to do with the teaching more about the numbers of children they have to deal with, including disruptive children etc). I also like the idea of education being more flexible and not feeling like I can't ever take them out during the term time in case I somehow totally disrupt their education. Travelling, taking them on trips, all these things should be incorporated into their education.

Haha, seriously, how many posts have you seen on here from parents wanting to move their children to a nicer school, even paying for the privilege, to avoid them having to spend years dealing with the sort of children you describe Growlithe?

A wish to avoid trouble-making children is pretty much universal. I don't want my childrens school day to be spent dealing with unruly children.

Most of the adults I know went to school, a great many of them wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do if they encountered a pub brawl. In fact, one, when confronted by a mugger demanding his wallet was so bemused, he responded with a baffled 'excuse me?!' before realising what was afoot.

But that isn't really the point of HE. HE children really don't exist in some kind of cossetted middle class bubble. Or at least not any more so than some schooled children.

Stranded

I at your comment of patience as this was one of my main concerns. I have worked as a teacher and TA in the past and been commended for my patience, but with my own dc I was terrible. At one time dh used to stop me from helping them with homework or if they were struggling with something, because I'd expect too much from them. I was so impatient and used to get really frustrated. Now I am a lot calmer, I'm not sure what made me change but I feel far more confident in my ability and am more laid back now. I still expect good results but am more realistic about dds strengths and weaknesses.

I thought I remembered you hadn't been doing it for long morethan. Great to be an expert in 5 weeks!

As for not mixing with 'badly behaved' adults, in adulthood we may not mix with people who will give us grief. We will hopefully avoid it. It could happen by chance though, in a pub or club, whilst shopping, in hospital, on a train or bus, anywhere where you get the general public. Situations arise in a split second, and the 'streetwise' amongst us will hopefully be equipped to deal with and diffuse such situations.

You meet those situations in real life - out and about - and HE kids are exposed to that as well. And they learn how to cope from the people around them - either parents, other adults or other children (much as schooled kids do).

And there is nothing to say difficult don't go to clubs. My boys often comment about x, y or z who goes their club and is renowned as being difficult. They have to learn to cope.

HE kids do not live in a secluded bubble (unless their parents try really hard to do so - as someone testified further down the thread) - they live in the real world and learn to cope with it in their own way, like anyone else.

Seeker,

I am not an expert, only speak from my own experience and research as I believe I regularly state. I read these threads to gain more knowledge from people like yourself. I know you have your own experience of H.ed from childhood.

It's not funny trying to teach a class of 30 DCs when 3 or 4 of them don't give a shxx. This was in a C of E suburban school.The other DCs would look at me beseechingly with their hands over their ears

The problem with these debates is that people comment out of personal experience and it is interpreted as being a general comment.

Really, if school works for you then great. If home ed works for you then great.
If the method of education your child receives doesn't work for your child then there are other options out there.

Home ed works for us at the moment. I think ds will probably go to secondary school when he gets to that age as I think that will be best for him. Dd is of secondary school age but home ed is best for her. No decision is a permanent one. Education is fluid. Works well in school sometimes, works well at home sometimes.

I never try to convince anyone to one home educate. Much the same as I never try to convince anyone to send their kids to school. It's none of my business what happens in other families. If someone wants to know about what we do as home educators then I will happily tell them, but I'm not going to get all evangelical about it.

I think the thing is - everyone experiences things differently. I enjoyed school and succeeded. I went to a very good school. Looking back though I can see lots of ways it could have been better for me.

My kids didn't appear to be getting all that much from school. They seem to be getting lots (at the moment) from HE and are not keen to return to school. As long as we can facilitate that and they want it that way, we will do so.

That does not mean for evey person HE is the best option, any more than it means school is the best for everyone. And patently from the number of threads about it on here, no one school is right for every one either - lots of people move between schools. Some move to (or from) HE - as suits their circumstances at the time.

The thing to take from that is that there is no right way - there are lots of ways. Just as there is no right way to learn to read (or any other skill or subject you want to quote). HE is just about doing it a different way from the state option (and usually different from other HEers as well).

It's something that has never appealed to me in fact I fought to get ds into an independent specialist school. But it's looking likely that I will home school dd from y7 as even with a statement already in place there isn't a placement that would meet her needs and I'm not confident of winning (and therefore losing around £15,000) if I went to Tribunal again. So the plan is to homeschool and use the £15,000 to buy in tutors for subjects that I don't feel confident of teaching.

For me HE is something you resort to when all else has failed

Likewise.

Clearly it works for some, but I do wonder what some (emphasis on the some) parents' motives are, and it concerns me that children could fall off the radar.

I would love to have home schooled but unfortunately finances mean I have to work full-time. I've met various home-schooled children, ranging from amazingly well-read, intelligent, highly educated teenagers, through to one incredibly damaged child whose parents thought letting him play computer games 10 hours a day would somehow educate him.

HE takes commitment from the parents, and I guess it helps if the parents are educated to a level themselves, whereby they can feel comfortable teaching most subjects to GCSE level or above.

I'm very pro-homeschooling. I've home educated my children from the start, because I worked in a school before I had them and I just felt that one-to-one tuition would be so much more effective when they are just 4-5. We joined a co-op and met families with kids of all ages and stages of education. Some having left school due to problems / giftings in certain areas requiring heavy time commitments / never attended school - literally every reason you could think of for being home ed. With the support of this group, I'm confident we'll be in this for the long haul (they can sit GCSEs with tutoring and exam centres provided), but it is a fairly unique set up from what I've heard. We have access to tutors funded by the LEA, twilight sessions in school labs for sciences, organised PE sessions weekly at an athletics stadium with fantastic coaches. I feel so lucky to have found it! However, when friends in other districts ask me about home ed and how to go about it, I can't really comment. I'm walking in the footsteps of families who have put in the ground work to create an amazing experience for our DCs. I know I could not have replicated this on my own. But I have to say, even without the benefits of this I would probably still have done the early years at home. The co-op has given me the confidence to plan for a longer time (probably up to 6th form - although we'll play it by ear).

To encourage anyone who thinks they are not able to teach certain subjects to certain levels all you have to do is ENABLE the DCs to become autodidacts. I'm still learning about all sorts of subjects; the books and computers etc. are there to help\teach you to levels that many teachers haven't the time or inclination to reach.

DS was a 'gifted' child who was failed by his 1st school and we tried others to no avail. He dropped out totally at 14 but was HE (he researched most of these himself BTW) in the subjects he loves ie. geography, world history, astronomy, astrology, advanced music guitar; piano and drums, advanced mathematics (with a tutor to start him off) botany, french, world religions, art, sciences, cookery, basketball, Judo; all to very high levels. He refused to take exams and is now teaching yoga and music and performing guitar and drums. he is happy; we know if he'd been forced he would have had a breakdown so we gave him his head and we're pleased we let him choose his own way.

ppeatfruit

Some dcs are more suited to H.ed than school as some are suited to school and not H.ed.
It has worked extremely well for your ds, I hope it will be as good for us. My dd was on g&t register for music at school and is far better served now than she ever could be at school. I like the fact as you have stated that they can do whatever suits them in terms of subject. My dd is learning Italian and so far 3 topics she has chosen for history are not part of the nc.

morethan It takes quite a bit of courage for the parents to ignore the "oh dear what will he do without GCSE's" comments and while most parents think forcing their DCs to take the academic exam way is correct. It's certainly not for everyone (he got into teaching by doing work experience BTW).

IMO The N.C. is quite limiting. So many teachers haven't the time or can't be bothered to expand the horizons of the D.C.s who need it.