I very much hope the 2 HEing families whose experiences/options drive this post/thought process won’t mind me airing my thoughts. I won’t link to them, but they and doubtless plenty others, will know who i mean; i”m sure they’ll understand my meandering are not in the least critical of their choices/possible choices and purely a open-air chewing over of what might be a crunch year for us here.
For a long time, i’ve aligned myself most closely with 2 people who HE, who i love dearly and whose children are some of my childrens favourite people. As a loosely threaded set of people, it has bonuses all the way through, mutually i think, for children, husbands and women in varying combinations. They are people who, as HEers and parents, i largely look up to and try to model myself on and i feel i’ve learned a lot from them both.
One set of children returned to school last year, another child looks like beginning imminently. And so it strikes me that perhaps the 9-10 year is something of a crunch year for HE, one which is seeing children go to school who i really didn’t think would, or parents turning to school who i didn’t expect to.
It’s got me thinking. We enter that crunch year, if it is that what it is, this year as Fran turns 9 in 5 months and if she wants to try school, it seems like Year 5 and 6 are the optimum time to do it. We live near a variety of village schools, it could be done without breaking my heart totally and in terms of her surgery agenda, it might be a good time.
I don’t want her, or any of them, to go to school, but my needs are only 1 in 6. I don’t think Max does either, though local friendships worry him at times, and as far as i know Fran is dead set against it. Neither set of news about friends has wavered her openly, though we’ve had a few talks of trying it at 14 in the past. Maddy used to say she’d go at 8 but doesn’t now, though she wants more friends, Amelie plays schools lots but her opinion of nursery was so poor that i can’t imagine school would be an improvement. And Josie is tiny, though she could (and might) go to playgroup and there is a Montessori nursery in the business park opposite.
So now i am thinking about what might begin to change over the next year that might make her want to give school a try and whether there is anything i can do to minimise any deficiencies in life that might make her think the grass is greener elsewhere. I can see the friends thing, but honestly i don’t know what you do about that; endless casual contacts don’t make close friends and a few good friends are worth the weight of a classroom of people you barely know and don’t get to know. Well, i think so, but then i’m biased because i thought the social aspect of school to be fairly pants and i can’t imagine going into Year 5 in a village, with a definite speech difference still current, is the best way of being absorbed into a friendship circle with ease. Chalet Schools do not exist.
Educationally we could have provided more over the last year, responded better. I know Fran would like to do more science hands on but i’ve got that in hand with a sub to Young Scientist Club and in reality i doubt the days of freely experimenting scientifically at school still exist. She does plenty of sport generally and a variety of clubs, music is underway, IT exists in plenty, art and craft in plenty, stories and reading time in plenty. Fran still relishes her playing time above all else and i imagine that missing her sisters and playing less would be a crucial factor in any choices she made.
Fran has had nearly 3 years now of having a certain amount of routine to our HE, something i don’t remotely regret. It doesn’t entirely come naturally to her or me but i do think it has given us a basis to work from, things that are done, levels of concentration that can be achieved. Almost without fail it normally improves our day to start it with a bit of concentration on something and the last 3 months have missed it badly. If she went into school now, with the exception of writing which she’d still struggle with, she’d be well up to speed, in as much as anyone as flighty and dizzy as she can be ever is 😉 I doubt she’d find herself needing much extra attention to keep up academically.
So i’m wondering… i’ve still not got as far as providing the “education i think my children should have;” even if i think we do okay. I’d love to do the full on classical thing, i think Fran would love it too actually. Our HE seems to be perfectly “as good as” the NC in terms of what is achieved in far less time, but actually i’d like it to be so much more, more value added, more fascinating, more connected and consistent so that if the lure of school does become greater for whatever reason, she feels some sort of regret about leaving behind something more meaty than she encounters at school. I’d *hate* the NC to be more interesting than home.
Of course, only time will tell. I’m not going to say “i’ll never send my children to school” as anything i say “never” to seems to happen within 6-12 months without fail, but i do feel like perhaps i need to be prepared for it to rear its head as an option sometime in the next year. I think it’s a measure of how my confidence has fallen that i can’t help wondering if we are next on the list. 😕 I know i’m a bit burned out, with 4 kids, HE and work, i know i could just think “argh, go on then, i can have a break then” and i know i’d just hate myself for it. Fran is just getting interesting, i’d hate her to leave me at home all day!
I’d be curious to know from a wider audience who have children now happily in school; if you look back, can you see any places where any dis-satisfaction, curiosity about school took root? And by the way, it isn’t that i want to stifle curiosity, it’s just if my children decide to go, i’d like it to be for positive reasons as opposed to because they want to plug a gap in their life. If you follow me.
And if you happen to be the 2 people who made me think all this over, could you go and reread my first paragraphs and not get mad at me 😉
Hi Merry, you may not remember me but I was on MudPud about 2 years ago(Lisa with Katy and Daisy now 8 and 4). Katy is not what I would call happy at school and she is determined I will HE her again.
My main point is how dry and boring the NC is. I read your blog everyday and it forms a huge part of my everyday thinking about things/life in general. What you provide at home far outweighs the academic provision in school and you more than compensate for the extra-curricular stuff with Brownies, dance, swimming etc. If Fran wants more hands-on science she won’t find it in school.
6 hours of Katy’s day is spent responding to dry questions on paper with the occasional interactive/group session on something. Friendships are hard to make in a small school and her best friends are those she knows outside school. I suppose I want to scream ‘keep Fran at home’ you are doing such a fabulous job BUT it is her natural curiosity which you may have to respond to. In which case let her try it when the time comes as no amount of trying to make everything rosy at home will keep that curiosity at bay. All you will do is waste time overanalysing everything you are doing and trying to do it better. The pressure you’ll put on yourself will be huge and there’s always the possibility if she chooses school you will feel you have failed.
I really admire everything that you stand for and all that you do for your family. I shall watch with interest as Fran’s curiosity evolves and hope that you find support from those closest to you so that you can enjoy her ‘experiment with school’ rather than see it as an all or nothing ‘I have failed’ scenario.
You are fab Merry – Happy New Year, with love and best wishes and oodles of envy of the lifestyle you have created! Lisa xxx
I don’t think it’s age-related at all. Children develop at different rates in different areas, in different ways.
Personally one of the things I want my children to have (more than most things) is a curiosity of the unknown and the environment around them. I want *them* to think about *their* needs as much as anyone else does. I want them to have the confidence to make their own choices based on their own feelings, not ours.
Having never experienced school themselves I would be disappointed if (at whatever point) they weren’t curious about school. I don’t want them to make decisions and do things on the basis of what other people say. They mix with a lot of people for whom school is the norm and I would think it odd if this didn’t at some point raise their curiosity.
I am immensely proud of Violet and what she is doing. She is curious about school, she wants to find out for herself what it is like and make her mind up. None of this has come from us, it is all from her and we will let her decide for herself what she wants to do long term. What she is doing makes me feel that everything that we have done with her to date was spot on and she is someone, we like, we love, are proud of, and respect.
I really think it is pointless extrapolating from the experience of other families to your own. Our lives are different, our children are different, our priorities are different. I see no reason to worry about what the future holds for Fran on the basis of what it holds for others.
Stop overanalysing things (!!!!!) and get on with enjoying your life and your family, m’dear.
I know it hasn’t come from you! That is what is terrifying me, lol, that this child who seemed a year ago to think school was a mental idea is now curious enough to try it 🙂
That means Fran might change totally too and that means i’m not in control and… argh!!!!!!!!
As for this bit “what she is doing makes me feel that everything that we have done with her to date was spot on and she is someone, we like, we love, are proud of, and respect” – yes absolutely and as her friend (and yours)so do i. If Fran suddenly makes this choice, i’ll support her too but.. but… but…
Like i say, this is nothing to do with other people in terms of criticism except that it got me thinking, more to do with me realising i don’t have little girls anymore, i’ve got ones growing up as fast as the others that i can suddenly see doing very different, self-motivated things.
I have an “E-book” (PDF) which is all kitchen science stuff if you are interested Merry? It’s a bit big for e-mailing but I could probably burn it to disk adn bring it to Melrose. Mail me (cos I’m hopeless at looking back at commetns) if you would like it adn I’ll do it before I forget!
Well, she’s been curious for a long time, but for most of the time it wasn’t enough to make her actually want to go and find out. Gwenny has never expressed any interest or wondered what school’s like, but if she gets through the next 8 years like that I’d be surprised.
You say it though like curiosity and self-motivation are bad things!
T-bird, lol, thank you but.. resources of that sort i have, it’s the gathering of equipment and actual doing i struggle with 🙄
Lisa, i do remember you and i’m sorry to hear school hasn’t been positive for Katy. Do you think you will HE again?
I suppose i’m waking up to the idea that the things that change might be outside my control, i might have to accept that my ideal of them always staying as HEed might not happen. I’d hate for it to happen out of their boredom, because i hadn’t done well enough and i’d hate it to happen in a way that altered the future opportunities for HE for the others. And i’d miss them, i’d dislike having to take someone back out of school again (with or without their consent) and deal with that fallout, and i don’t want to change the status quo much either.
With a gradual slipping off to school of friends, it is kind of inevitable that it might become more likely; i’ve got that “sand slipping beneath my feet” feeling – mainly because i just don’t feel i’m up to scratch.
ROFL – i know, i don’t mean it to sound like that; i think i’m just grabbing hold of the duvet top so that nobody forces me out of bed and out into the cold of a school run!
(Besides, Violet can walk to a school, i’d have to drive!)
lol, if I’d had to drive to school mine would never have gone 😉
And that’s all I’m saying on the subject, while I hear what you’re saying, I’m with Chris on this – you had a hard year last year, just enjoy the year of HE ahead of you with your girls, and make the most of it!
My school runs used to take up 3 hours of my day at least.
Z did look at a school fairly recently then decided h.e was better, I agreed with her. fwiw there is never a perfect solution.
The early years my older three did at school were enough to put them off for life! They won’t even sign up for college courses now and wouldn’t go back to school if I begged, pleaded or offered to pay them to. And deschooling took at least a year, and is still going on now to some extent nearly 8 years later. But maybe it’s different when the impetus to enrol and keep attending comes from the child.
I don’t know what I’d do if the younger ones ever wanted to go. I’d probably end up letting them try it in the spirit of autonomy, but it would be one of the most difficult things in the world for me to allow, after all the damage done to the older three and myself too from my own schooling, I guess. I just can’t see it as being a positive thing at all, but I suppose if it came to it I’d have to try to.
Merry,
I can’t address most of your points as none of my children have been HEed. However the reason that would be bottom of my list for sending a child to school would be the “friends” issue. Emily’s ‘best’ friend returned to Iceland and the last few years (Y4 to Y6) have been fairly miserable as everyone is paired up and it’s very difficult for a girl to make new close friends in school. She has a wide group of friends who come for tea/sleepovers etc but I know these relationships don’t give her what she’s looking for.
I’ve not given my children the choice. Yours have all the opportunities in the world, even if you can’t see that, lol. Trust Fran. Trust yourself. Surely we can’t protect our children completely. At some point don’t they need to learn from realising they have made the wrong choice (presuming it is the wrong choice, it may well not be)? God knows, we all have to at some point. But how many of us know that we have a safe haven to return to where we won’t be judged for the choices we have made.
Hi Merry,
lol, I too have control freakery days when I desperately hope (possibly panic!) that A and M won’t ever want to go to school. But anyway, what I wanted to say is that I have been into a *lot* of primary (and quite a few secondary) schools for my work – usually doing a days’ workshop or small residency, often doing writing based on experiences of school – and there is no way that the Curriculum, and ‘education’ could be better than what you are offering at home. I think if any HE child makes the decision to try, and stay at school, then it must be for things that we can not easily provide at home … like lots of ‘friends’, and that kind of thing. Or maybe a child who craves rigidity, or routine, or certainty for some reason. I have *never* met a child who didn’t complain that the ‘work’ in school is boring.
I think schools are improving, If you have a Creative Partnerhips school then they are doing quite exciting stuff. Some schools I’ve been working in are completely reshaping the curriculum, and working in themes or cross-curricula ways. But in the main, this hasn’t yet reached most schools and, even the best curriculum still has the disadvantages over home education that we all know about.
I kind of try and think to myself that if A or M try, and survive, a period of time of school, it is because I have enabled them to be free thinking, independent kids who can cope with the school environment, by having them at home for the early years. After all, the whole ‘attachment’ parenting thing is about being closer in the early years so that, later on, the kids will want to fly (in the positive sense, not as in flee!) independently, isn’t it? I think school must have a much less negative effect on a resilient mind, than on a 4 year old who never wanted to leave home.
p.s – sorry, submitted the comment when I thought I was previewing it …
wanted to add that my thoughts on school are very much in terms of damage limitation … I feel that by doing the early years home education, then the potential damage usually inflicted by school on little ones is not an issue … I don’t, by any means, feel that my kids have anything good to gain by going to school … but maybe they might see it differently. I really, really hope not!
I’m sitting here pretty bemused really – it just does not feel to me like a big deal 😆 We got into all this in the first place when V was 4 because she didn’t want to go to school – now she’s curious, so she’s going to see what it’s like.
She knows she doesn’t have to be there – that simple fact seems to me like a fairly strong defence against any crap that might come her way.
A 10 year old wanting to know what it’s all about is very different to a 4 or 5 year old being sent there without the knowledge that there’s any alternative.
I wonder if she were going to France for 6 months to stay with a French family whether people would be blogging and commenting on it. That seems like a much bigger deal to me! (And to Deb, I imagine 😉 )
Yes! I think i would! Lol; but it isn’t about you, more a realisation about us really 😉 Suddenly had a realisation that all of a sudden, things could alter.
What makes me think it most of all, is that you were here the day Sarah’s lot did their trial day and decided to go. Violet was utterly astonished and baffled at their decision then so she’s changed viewpoint quite a bit on a year. Just makes me realise i can’t assume life will always be like it is here.
I started to answer this but decided it was actually more of a blog post – so as I’m trying to fill up my blogring blog I’ll go and do it over there! 🙂
Oh, well, I haven’t seen any posts about En Famille since Deb said B’s decided to go, perhaps I missed them 😉
She may have thought A&A were mad then, but she’s also been curious for at least 3 years. It’s perfectly possible to hold both ideas – especially when you’re 9, lol.
I think assuming life will always be like it is is a pretty terrible plan anyway 🙂
But I don’t think V’s curiosity re school has anything to do with home – it’s just a natural extension of her general interest in the outside world.
No, i’m sure it isn’t. The home thing was, as i think i said if not implied, much more an extrapolation of me feeling my HE provision has been sadly lacking in quality and wondering if i need to address that more specifically to avoid dissatisfaction creeping in here.
I don’t need to blog about my children going to France, i’m completely and utterly sure (far more than i am about school ever being interesting) that the first of my children who’ll consider leaving home before 16 will be Amelie. And she’s not old enough for En Famille yet 😉
Love that I’m being talked about in other people’s comments 😉
Yes, six months in France is probably a bigger deal – and it will include attending school for most of it, so double whammy!
I haven’t blogged on it recently – too busy tbh. But I have been thinking about it, and people *have* been commenting on it irl. Must write something soon.
Returning to say more – I wouldn’t have expected B to go to France either. You might want to make sure Fran doesn’t read my blog – she’d be old enough for En Famille on her next birthday 😉
I’ve blogged about it now. And the denial thing was working so well until the comments here *sigh*
Lol, sorry Deb 😉
hi Merry.
just to throw another bomb – would it be okay to say no to her if your judgement as a parent is that such a decision wasn’t actually best for her anyway!?!
mine are young still. this isn’t what i would necessarily do, but *we* are responsible for extending the fences gradually as their needs require. and each child has different needs. some need a little more attention and closer fences than others.
I think the issue is more about *you* making the decision as best for F and the rest of the family rather than that she may get curious and want to try school out for *whatever* reasons.
she might want to try all sorts of things at all sorts of ages, but life isn’t about what we want to try out of curiosity. we are parents for a reason.
so i contend that the issue is rather more complex than any gaps you may have in home ed!!!
and remember for some children less is more – again only each child can say what they need. if mine were on your schedule they would be drowning.lol. a child could just as much want school for the regular and the mundane as for new and exciting experiences.
the beauty of home ed is we can speed up the pace and slow down from day to day, never mind year to year. and tune in to each child individually. (even though it feels a nightmare sometimes balancing six ppl’s needs, right!!!lol)
and this is absolutely without judgement of any style of home ed. it is amazing to see how many options we have, and the flexibility.
wow. we are so blessed to have this basic right, and so are our children.
I’ve just become official with home edding due to daughter’s age so this is our first official “term”. Your Muddle Puddle website has been an inspiration and great help.
This is something that has crossed my mind over our future, particularly as I have an only child (socialising for play is something we work very hard on to ensure that daughter has a positive experience of playing). Daughter did try pre-school very part-time and very briefly and disliked most of it (she liked the playing with toys and playing with friends stuff but didn’t like being forced into academic stuff or the idea of having to attend all day and 5 days a week which would have been the school’s requirements from September). We didn’t like the set- up either but we thought we’d give her a chance to try it because she had asked about it.
I think it’s good to think of things like this – it shows you care as a mother. I think the good thing about home education is it gives us choice – state, independent or home education – and nothing needs to be fixed. We’re lucky in that the schools in our area, particularly at secondary age are really dodgy (which most people would view as a problem) so I would hope that my daughter would weigh the pros and cons and easily know that the school option is a no go. I think I’d want to put a protection caveat in for a child attending in that I’d say that if there is trouble e.g. bullying or disruptive stuff to learning etc then don’t think you have to put up with it and don’t think that you’ve failed – it would be the school system that is failing. Then that way I’d hope that they wouldn’t put up with anything.
The more I look at home education and the more I observe how my daughter learns the more negatives I can see about school (occasionally I get rose-tinted glasses on but the school I dream of is fiction through and through). I guess one could think of a school as another learning curve for an older child who chooses to attend it and also it doesn’t have to be permanent – if it doesn’t work then deregistration is an option and the experience can be chalked up to social studies etc.