To Home School or to Not Home School

I’m not fed up of school.

I love school.

I am excited by all that learning. I love learning, even now. Most days I get up & start planning what I can squeeze in. I am literally desperate to learn most things; playing the ukulele, speaking Spanish, drawing, I’d love to learn to paint or sail a boat...oh my goodness I could go on & on & on.

We finally received a letter this morning telling us they’ve offered him a place in a school in exactly the opposite direction from Ed’s, so that’s helped me make up my mind about what to do with him next year.

We only started thinking about this because Bean didn’t get the school place we’d applied for at Ed’s school. The thought of stretching ourselves between two schools made me think it would be easier, and far more fun to home school him for his reception year until a place could be found for him at Ed’s school. But the more I research home education, the more interesting it is. And it’s something we spoke about before we had children, having both had rubbish experiences at school ourselves.

I constantly find myself looking around Ed’s classroom, checking out their latest projects & feeling massively inspired & slightly jealous. As I look around I always think to myself; I want to make my home like that, I want to put that on the wall, I want to spend time with my kids doing that project. They must have so much fun in there.

Am I just a massive nerd?

I'm so jealous that the teachers get to do all these awesome things with my kids and when I try on a weekend, they seem all ‘schooled out’.

When we were planning our children I never envisaged someone else teaching them this cool stuff, I thought I’d have at least a part time role in it, but at the moment there’s nothing left for me to do aside from feed them, wash them, clothe them & put them to bed. All massively important jobs obviously! But I want to do fun stuff with them too. I want to teach them how to swim, how to ride a bike, speak another language, how to sew, I want to read with them all the time & I can’t wait to introduce them to my favourite novels!

Am I just being über selfish?

Is it selfish to want to spend time with your kids?

I’m tired of getting the dregs of Ed’s childhood. By the time he’s done at school he’s so shattered and even on Saturdays all he wants to do is chill out. Understandably.

Everyone who knows us well, knows I’ve always had problems with Ed’s behaviour. He’s stubborn &  feisty, like things his own way, but is very thorough in everything he does, sponges up information and keeps it in his little noggin. Home schooling him would either kill us or cure us. I would love our relationship to feel less negative. At the moment 90% of our life is me trying to keep him clean dressed and fed, I’d love more positive moments

I’d love to have more time with them. I’d love to have the pleasure of teaching them. I’d love them to have more time just being children, and all the running, hopping & yelling that involves.

Yes, it would be hard work, and yes, sometimes we’d have baaaaad days. But I trust myself that in the long run I would never fail my kids. I’d never let them be ‘behind’ or social misfits. I will always fight for what I think they need. I will always to my best.

I’m not sure how Ed feels about school. He’s happy when we get there; happy to see his friends & have a good run around in the playground but when the bell goes he often turns a bit sulky.

At home, Ed tells me it’s too noisy, that the teacher doesn’t notice him. I know it’s because he’s so well behaved there & all I can tell him is that she’d sure as hell notice if he was naughty. I tell him I’m sure she’s noticed that she’s not telling him off all the time, but it doesn’t seem to help.

From his accounts, he seems to spend a lot of time waiting his turn – a valuable lesson but surely not one he has to learn for half the day, every day.

Of course he tells me good things too, occasionally I get passionate accounts of what they’re working on & the games they’ve played that day. Once he flew the whole class to Spain and back!

I asked him what his favourite bit about school was & he replied;

“After lunch we play in the playground”.

That seems an awful shame, especially since he’s still on the EYFS curriculum, which from what I understand is mostly play. How will he react to KS1?

Anyone who’s ever met Ed knows he’s a very physical boy, who communicates with his whole body, so I would presume he learns best using his whole body. The role-play activities at school are definitely the ones that hit home the closest. I don’t get much out of him when it comes to what he’s been doing all day, but they’re the ones I hear about. If that’s how he learns best, what is sitting at a desk going to do to him?

And Bean, an entirely different boy, learns in an entirely different way. Bean is a flitter. As his mum I can tell you he will never cope with sitting and learning for a length of time. If he goes to school, I predict in a few years he will be prescribed ADHD drugs, when all he needs is a different method of learning. I can get him to concentrate, but it has to be done in really short intervals. As he gets older, I’m sure those intervals will get longer, but he needs the speed that a 45 minute lesson will never provide.

No-one could say they needed the same kind of learning system. If I could provide them both with their own programme of learning, as it were, they could learn at their own pace & in their own way, without having to tick anyone’s boxes (except mine). And I’ll keep them up to date with the national curriculum so that if they ever chose to go back to school, or if it just wasn’t working out, they can. They’re both very confident & outgoing, so I’m sure they would cope.

I’ve searched online for support groups, found a few families in our town who home educate & found learning resources. There are even museum days for HE groups where they can see those awesome chemistry experiments I was worried about them missing out on.

And since no-one wants to be with their Mum day in day out, so I’ve made provisions for them to have time at a regular sports/social club so they can socialise & have someone else be in charge.

I know its crazy idealistic, and I’m often far too romantic in the way I view my life but I figure, as with most things in my life, the old adage (old as in, 80’s pop) applies;

‘If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?’

And my dream is to have kids who are happy, eager to learn and well behaved.

We haven’t fully decided our plan of action, we’ll use these two weeks off school to experiment with school work & make a decision as to the if’s and when’s.

But what if it turns out to be the best decision we ever made?

What if they love wearing red shoes every day?

What if they learn loads & have a great time doing so?

What if it makes them happy, well-adjusted young gentlemen?