Home schooling

[summer rain]

^The family were looking into home educating him; there was no evidence that he wouldn't be getting an education either but the family were intimidated into putting him back into school before starting to home educate. xx

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

Your missing my point. My point is that we have a perfectly accessible school system, definitely not the worst in the world and people should use it. Thats what I mean. I didn't mean other peoples choices annoy me, I didnt mean it like that I just cant understand why if a child is capable then why should they need to stay at home.

I dont want to take my child out of school. I dont think it would benefit him or I. Sometimes in life we have to make choices and learn independence. I dont think it would be good for either of us if he was home schooled. It really would be a LAST resort and I mean Last.

The fact my children are perfectly capable is one of the reasons I do home educate-I do know from close family etc that in state schools there is little opportunity for children to excel and shoot far ahead in work in comparison to their classmates because the teacher has to have all the class at a similar level, my eldest has always been at least 1-2 years ahead in Maths in comparison to the aims set by the national curriculum for his age group, in reading he finished the entire reading scheme by the age of 5, but in a mainstream school they wouldn't allow him to have read 5 reading books in a day and would have dragged out learning to read for him which would have made him bored. He has been reading books designed for 10+ year olds for a while. My second eldest though is shy and needs teaching in a different way, and needs a lot more patience and one-to-one to help him to progress, so I worry he would fall behind in a mainstream school. xx

Schools dont just work by levels, nether of my children are average kids and I know each pupil in the school works as an individual and is treated like an individual. Year groups are only sorted by age and then the rest of the work is sorted by the individual child. I thought all schools did this?
My son was reading books for 5/6 year olds when he was 2 (he has hyperlexia) and school have always catered for this and made sure he does not get bored. I have never ever heard of reading books being limited. In fact, it is encouraged to have as many as possible!
My daughter is very anxious and sometimes shy, she obviously has a stressful time at home sometimes because of M's extra needs. School give her (and some others) something called ELSA which means she has extra emotional learning support.
I feel like for my DD school is extra important as its her time out from autism kind of thing.

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

https://www.elsanetwork.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2

That lady was actually who we see termly, shes very good.

 

[summer rain]

In our experience in the area where we live, while there are differing levels within a class the amount that a child can go ahead of others is much more limited than when educating at home, with a large class there are only so many differing levels that can be catered for-any teacher can only do so much multitasking. You simply don't get kids doing workbooks for 2-3 years older than them in a mainstream state school xx

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

They go into different groups here, I thought all schools did that? We always did and I went to school in a different area that was not as privileged as where my children go.

They are always off out in the minibus somewhere too lol. Wish I could go back to school!

 

[cosmicgirlxxx]

What patronising about asking a question? I was asking of people should visit schools before forming an opinion, is that not the sensible thing to do???? In my opinion you can't form an opinion about a school from reading a report about it, is that not what all parents would think? I wouldn't make a massive decision based on reading one report, I would go there, look around, meet the teachers etc etc, sorry of you find that patronising but I assumed everyone would agree on that.

 

[cosmicgirlxxx]

Sorry that was in reference to the person who found my earlier question patronising.

 

[cosmicgirlxxx]

And I don't think reading about it should be enough to form a decision either. Every school is so so different and you can't possibly know if it is good or bad without taking your child there/going there yourself could you?
Also, are home schooled children going to nursery or is that a no no too?

A bit patronising! No my children have never been to school; however OH and I both have nieces, nephews and younger cousins in mainstream school some of whom we have been responsible for taking to and from school, speaking to the teachers on their behalf and so on-and yes this does include the schools nearest to us. So no I didn't make the decision to home educate based on 'reading stuff', secondhand reports, or my own experiences in school. Another reason we home educate is due to religious reasons; it really isn't so easy now to take your children out of certain classes in school as it used to be, nor would we want our children to feel 'excluded' or 'different' because they are missing certain classes in school, nor would we want the school staff or children to feel awkward about it either. As for nursery there is an expectation that your children will go on to attend that primary school and once put into nursery, it can mean having to 'officially' withdraw your child from the school system so this is why we didnt put our kids in nursery-but some home educating families I know do put their kids in the nursery class then withdraw them once that ends xx

This.

 

[cosmicgirlxxx]

Anyway, if I may ask another question as Im genuinely interested (hopefully you won't feel patronised)
If you could take your lo to nursery (I know some said they wouldn't as they as they then couldn't home ed without problem) and your lo loved it, would that change your choice to home school at all?

 

[sophxx]

For us he will go to a Steiner kindergarden they offer kindergarden till 7 he'll only go once a week if he likes it fab he can stay for a morning if he doesnt then we ll try a morning at the forest school. I wouldn't put him into a local authority nursery as they aren't any attached to schools here so even if ge did go and did like it he wouldn't go to school with the same children so until he got older and asked to go to school only then would we talk about it. I'm pretty confident that he won't want to though x

 

[summer rain]

It may do; we did think about putting our kids in school but decided against it; if they started nursery and liked it I may have considered it. I did find it patronising that you assume if a parent has visited the local schools; they will fall in love with them and decide against home educating accordingly and those that have decided to home educate musn't have visited any local schools. Maybe they have and didn't like what they saw, or decided that it simply wasn't for them? Each to their own.

However my boys all their friends and relatives do go to school (either mainstream or private) and we regularly ask them if they want to go to school and the answer is always no. Meanwhile my OHs younger relatives all say they wish they were home educated and my OHs family who used to be really against home education are now incredibly supportive and they say they wish they had the time to home educate their children because they think it is better than the schools in this area. xx

 

[cosmicgirlxxx]

I did not assume anything of the sort. I asked if you would look around before making a decision. There was a ? at the end of the sentence, I was asking a question, apologies though if you felt that way.

 

[summer rain]

They go into different groups here, I thought all schools did that? We always did and I went to school in a different area that was not as privileged as where my children go.

They are always off out in the minibus somewhere too lol. Wish I could go back to school!

Yes different groups but not working on books or work with years difference in between; it just doesn't happen IMHE. Also home-ed is completely flexible in that if my boys only want to do maths on a wednesday or even for a few days on the trot, they can, in a mainstream school or even most private schools this wouldn't be allowed. I don't think that is unrealistic or not preparing them for life either as when they are older and going into further and higher education that will be the case then too-that they will be doing one or two subjects at a time xx

 

[marley2580]

Anyway, if I may ask another question as Im genuinely interested (hopefully you won't feel patronised)
If you could take your lo to nursery (I know some said they wouldn't as they as they then couldn't home ed without problem) and your lo loved it, would that change your choice to home school at all?

No, because nursery is different to school. There's more emphasis on play than on learning and there is none of the seemingly constant testing that children get in school. Tbh, even if it wouldn't cause me any problems in my decision to home ed I still wouldn't send my kids to nursery as I don't feel that they need it.

 

[summer rain]

I did not assume anything of the sort. I asked if you would look around before making a decision. There was a ? at the end of the sentence, I was asking a question, apologies though if you felt that way.

No worries; sorry I was maybe a bit defensive. Its just I get asked this type of thing all the time xx

 

[cosmicgirlxxx]

No probs hun, I am just genuinely interested x

 

[indy and lara]

They go into different groups here, I thought all schools did that? We always did and I went to school in a different area that was not as privileged as where my children go.

They are always off out in the minibus somewhere too lol. Wish I could go back to school!

Yes different groups but not working on books or work with years difference in between; it just doesn't happen IMHE.

We set in Maths across the age groups rather than across the class. This means the children work purely in ability groups and there will be 7 year olds doing work designed for 11 year olds because that is where their ability is. That happens across our whole LA. There are no restraints in language work or rigidly sticking to a reading scheme either. Just good practice really.

 

[summer rain]

The Scottish curriculum is quite different to the English one then, in some of the local primary schools here they are working a year or so behind as a class so they don't make the less able children feel flustered, my friend is from Finland and her kids attend that school-she used to home educate in Finland but is unable to here xx

 

[feeble]

See I would be totally happy and comfortable to send my child to nursery,I think it's a great thing for them but it's a road that once you start on, you cannot stop...

Which is such a shame actually.

 

[vaniilla]

See I would be totally happy and comfortable to send my child to nursery,I think it's a great thing for them but it's a road that once you start on, you cannot stop...

Which is such a shame actually.

this is one of the reasons why we chose a childminders, he gets to do a lot there, he goes to the farm once a week, a play group once a week and a child minding group once a week too, the child minder has done forest school training and they build dens and such there so he's getting lots of socialization and that's one way of avoiding that problem