Greenparent

Am I being selfish considering home education?

2012-02-02T13:54:31Z

Hi,
I am after some thoughts/ views on whether I am considering this for the right reasons or if I’m just being a bit selfish. Over the last few weeks my dh and I have been considering homeschooling our girls for the early years. My oldest dd is in nursery class and although some days she wants to go to school, since she started in september she has never come out of school excited or happy, like may of the other children there, she is always more shell shocked, and when I ask her what she has done at school the answer is often that she wanted to do painting/drawing but either one of her friends or the teacher wouldn’t let her (she loves painting and drawing and anything crafty).
She does have some friends there, but it seems they always pick what to do, not my dd. She is very shy and quite quiet, and there are 27 children in her class so I think she finds it all a bit overwhelming and quite hard to express her wishes to the teacher/teaching assistants.And although she does have friends there is no one she has playdates with and she’s only been invite to one birthday party (the whole class and some were invited and dd clung to me for the whole thing as she found it too noisy and overwhelming).She has also spent about the same number of days off sick as in school as since she started she has just caught everything, when previously she would catch a couple of colds pretty much no bugs and recover within a few days.
When I was pregnant with her I had lots of ideas about less mainstream education and maybe homeschooling, but I seemed to get caught up in just doing what everyone else was, and it seemed easier to me at the time as I had dd3 in june and it took me a while to get back into the swing of things a bit and if I’m honest I used school as childcare.
She has been off poorly yet again for the last week and a half and it is lovely to actually get to spend some time with her when she is not grumpy from being over tired from school even though she is poorly. I have found that since she started school we rarely have time for all the activities we used to do, such as proper art projects, baking, etc since there’s no point trying these with tired children, and tbh after the rush to get to school on time with 3 little pixies and then almost straight back to collect them I lose my motivation to do lots too.
However, I’m not sure if I would be making the wrong choice homeschooling? I know I would enjoy it and so would dds but if I intend for them to go to school at some point in the primary period am I just doing it for me to spend time with them, and will it be easier on dd1 to just keep going and try to find her feet, although I feel uneasy about that? I have dd2’s nursery place application form now, and that is what has got me thinking about if we need school yet and if it would be right to take dd1 out for a bit.
Should I be considering finding a smaller school instead of home schooling?
I’m not sure if I’ve expressed this quite right, I’m still sorting out all my thoughts on it, but any outside perspectives would be great. Does it sound like I might be considering it for me rather than the girls? And is that selfish or would that still benefit them?
Thanks for taking the time to read this,
Sally

The perils of Facebook groups ..

2012-01-23T15:01:00Z

Ok so lesson learnt , I started a support group for HE on Facebook a little over a year ago and it’s been a wonderfully supportive group , I have met many new friends and learnt lots from them , but it has now become such a massive burden , 378 members and boy do they fall out , the are 5 admins to the group all who work like billy o to keep it running smoothly , I have been up till two in the morning sorting out disagreements and it’s taking over my life to the detriment of my family .. I should pull the plug on it really and leave but there are so many people that depend on the group as they get lonely ... Silly me x

“Children are safest in school”

2012-01-22T12:38:02Z

Kentish Home Educators are facing a fight with county council after we became aware of their proposed changes to their Home Ed policies, which far, far exceed their remit…. one parent wrote to one of the men on the committee, and received this incredible letter back…...

And as a whole I think the community needs to be vigilient of what govt has planned too….the only way Secretary of State for Education can do this, is I assume, to change the law in which eduction is our responsibility…. this would be a very back door way of effectively eradicating home education, I believe.

And I have highlighted his “many children are safest in school” comment….

I don’t think any specific statute has been identified as yet, but Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education has made it clear that he intends to introduce a requirement whereby home educated children will be linked to a school and their academic achievement will contribute to the schools results. Rightly or wrongly I believe that will mean an assessment based on exam results.

I do agree with you that children’s needs can and should be met in different ways. But it is also important that appropriate measures are in place to ensure proper safeguarding. Sadly nobody actually knows the full extent of home education, but we do know that many more than the 823 children of which we are aware, are educated outside of traditional settings. Clearly there are many very sincere families that make considered decisions in the best interests of their children and that is to be welcomed. However, I am concerned that all children are given opportunity through education. Kent County Council will have to adhere to policy as laid down by Government but I can assure you that we fundamentally believe in a mixed economy of education provision of which home education is a contributor. The issue though has to be ensuring that an individual child’s needs are appropriately met and the child is adequately safeguarded. May I remind you that for many children from not just in Kent, that they are safest when they are at school.

The emphasis on educational attainment being measured through exam success does not in my opinion properly reflect the skills and abilities of all our children. Kent has had a policy of encouraging a vocational curriculum for those where such skills are more appropriate and we will continue with that.

I am not and nor is KCC anti home education, we are increasing three fold the resources that we commit to supporting home educated children, but a major part of that is that we do need to know where all these children are and then ensure that they receive an appropriate education that meets their needs and helps to prepare them for adulthood.

I am quite sure that any visit to yourself would demonstrate clearly the benefits of home education. It is the one to two thousand children who are outside of traditional settings and unknown to the authorities that concern me.

home edders - how do you plan?

2012-01-09T18:26:00Z

I promised that once DH was back at work (today) I would move us gently towards waldorf style home edding….now the day is upon us, all I managed to do was plan something on a scrap of paper last night, and it will be the same tonight.

So I’m interested to hear how you plan - inspire me!

Is it week by week/two weeks/monthly? Do you keep it for reference/inspection? We will have our rhythm and to begin with there wont be that much planning…I think

Have you tried this game with your LO’s?

2011-12-22T10:03:28Z

Just wondered what you and your little ones thought/ think of it

http://www.learningherbs.com/wildcraft.html

Noticed they do lots of freebies for grown ups too xxxx

waldorf/steiner yahoo (or similar) HE group?

2010-10-24T22:26:40Z

Does anyone know if there is a steiner/waldorf based yahoo group for UK home educators or something similar? I’m joined to a few but they are all based in America.

If not would anyone be interested in one?

Thanks,
Kes

thinking of home schooling.

2011-10-02T13:45:56Z

Hi to all who home school,
Well to begin with I have 4 wonderful children aged 8,7,5 and 2, the 3 older ones attend there local primary school and my little boy will be joining them next September.They are completely different from there piers as they still act like children where as there friends are all mini teenagers. Mobile phones as young as 7 and asking for the latest gadget’s and fashion, My girls like frilly dresses playing with dolls and playing house where as there friends want to play older games.
My eldest brought a doll to school an when she came home she said none of her friends wanted to play dolly’s and made fun of her, My youngest girl hates going to school and says she’s poorly or it’s too noisy at school.
They constantly ask me every week on a Sunday “is it school tomorrow” and “do we have to go “ ,I think my husband would let me go ahead with it but would I be making the right decision? I’m lucky that I don’t have to work as my husband has a good job so I have the time to do it, how many times can you clean your house lol, I just feel like I’m missing out on there childhood. What to do ? xx

inspection on the 12th December!

2011-11-30T16:33:49Z

Hello
just had a call from the inspecter and the want to come over on the 12th December! Both my children have been to school so it’s not a huge suprise, and the man who is coming over (Ken, if anyone has heard of him) is really supportive of HE, but there is always that panic that everything will go “wrong” and he’ll write a really rubbish report on us. I’m pretty good on collecting evidence of what we have been up to and keeping a diary of activities but I think it is the not knowing what they are looking for which makes me worry. Don’t really know why I am writing this but I’m sure if any of you have been inspected recently you understand,
Gill
x

Big decisions…

2011-11-04T13:25:09Z

So, after a wonderful forest school experience this week, I finally worked up the nerve to say to dh, ‘I really think ds shouldn’t go to school next year when he’s ‘supposed’ to start, I just don’t think he’s ready, I think he’d be seen as ‘naughty’, I think he is extremely bright and would be bored, he doesn’t like being away from the family and we do loads of fun things he could carry on doing’ and braced myself for his arguments (he’s a teacher and was very unsure when I first mentioned it last year). He said ‘ok, that sounds good to me’

So I thought, just in case he’s playing for time, I’d add ‘so I don’t think there’s any point in applying for a place anyway just in case we change our minds because I don’t want to change my mind - I know my heart wouldn’t be in it, I’d be waiting for any excuse to pull him out and then he’d feel like he’d failed or was missing out’ and he said ‘I agree’.

So now I’m a bit nervous!! But very excited to be able to plan for that arrangement and just see how it all goes. I still think he’ll go into school at some point - and our local school, the one we moved dd1 to, is brilliant and the secondaries nearby are great - but it won’t be until he’s ready, perhaps another year or two, maybe more. But I can’t tell anyone in real life until we see our HE-ing friends next week because our local friends think I’m insane and dh’s family will probably disown us…my mum is very supportive but still thinks we should apply ‘just in case’. Did anyone regret not applying ‘just in case’? You can defer, apparently, but I’m not keen to get into the whole cycle before we need to…

writing an ed phil for HE

2011-11-11T10:25:52Z

Can anyone share any links which might help me with this?

I know roughly what I want to write, but need ideas on layout, and content incase Im missing something important out. Atm its just for my own purposes but DD turns 6 next year and am probably going to resigter and be all above board here in Ireland.

Cheers all