Home Education

Proving that life is what happens when you're making other plans, we're now home educating E. In his particular situation, this is because the school we have been sending him to since September is, shall we say, not a match for him. A few of our complaints? Things like being forced to miss five minutes of break if he needs the bathroom during lessons. He is a fairly rule-abiding little boy, and one day he waited until break, and was told he couldn't go back inside to use the facilities. HE IS SIX. Miscommunication, perhaps, I'll never know, but when I approached someone in-the-know, I wasn't given sympathy/apology, but rather a "your-son-wasn't-listening" kind of spiel.

There is no trust between the powers-that-be and parents. Children are punished by losing their entire break time if a parent doesn't sign their reading book every night (and I do mean every night, that's seven times a week. Last I checked, school ended on Friday and began on Monday. Now they dictate what I must do on a weekend with my child?). Homework is make-work and there's a ton of it, too much for age six--probably about an hour a week, which eats into family/weekend time. And then he comes home and I ask him about his day... and I get a little boy talking about who's misbehaved and gotten a red form, and his misery at the boy who doesn't speak English and rips down the other children's belongings, and the fact that he can't leave anything unattended or it will be thrown away or taken, and his sadness at not being able to go to the 100% attendance party, and having to sit through a school-wide assembly on the same, because he was genuinely sick last term and didn't go to school. Yet he was never late, never missed school without a "good" reason, but got caught by the luck of the draw. And yes, I have seen vomit on the way to school because a child has been so caught up in the 100% attendance party! fervor and went to be counted as present/not late, then gone home vomiting, only to rinse and repeat. Once, a child borked all over the classroom floor. BUT GUYS, AT LEAST HE CAME TO SCHOOL TO BE COUNTED AS PRESENT, THANK YOU BOX-TICKING CULTURE. And hello, germ spreading!

NB: I was given a form stating that he'd attended all but two of the forty one days of the half-term. Attendance was wrongly calculated as 94.29% And I was trusting this school to educate my son? Certainly the trust doesn't go both ways--children who don't do their homework are forced to sit in school and do it!

There are other issues, social ones being the main, that prompted us to finally home ed. E was miserable, going to school. He'd walk in like he was going to a funeral, not bouncy and cheerful and already talking to other kids like he was at his other school. Since we told him on Saturday that he didn't have to go back to school, his attitude has been amazing, and the questions have been coming thick and fast.

"Did dodos go extinct during the reign of Queen Victoria, or before?"
"If tornadoes have no debris in them, if they're just pure air, how can you tell if it's a tornado?"
"If that cafe serves hamburgers, why isn't it called a bistro instead?"

And so on, and so on.

On Monday, we pulled out a dusty magnetic science kit that I'd been meaning to get to during weekends or after-school, and never did because of all the daily life getting in the way. We learned how to magnetize a compass. We learned that metal with iron in it is attracted to magnets. We learned about the fundamentals of a mag-lev train by doing an experiment ourselves. After I picked C up from nursery (she's still going five mornings a week. We were offered full days but I declined.) we trundled off to the British Museum where we explored the Egypt section, looking at thousand year old statues and seeing hieroglyphs up close and personal. And real granite, which he's been mining in Minecraft.

Today we walked a bit over three miles, broken up by 45 minutes in a cafe where we had lunch and he did some pages in several workbooks (math and handwriting). Then we went shopping where he was the lookout for discounted items, and helped me add up the cost of everything in our basket. I'm on several lists, FB groups, on the hunt for local groups to meet friends, and am already discovering home ed stuff in this area.

We didn't go into this intending to home ed for the long term, but I feel strongly right now that this has been the correct decision. I feel relieved not to drop him off at school every morning. And I know he feels that way too. He is on the waiting list for several good local schools, so we'll see where we're at in the next few months.

Why home ed? Here's a post that I mainly agree with, one I wish I could link in real life when question are asked.

Now I have to go. The four year old has requested frogs-on-snail-toast, with rubbish flowers on the side. Side effect of me Calvin and Hobbesing her into eating her lunch. It's much more fun to eat pretend crunched up cars than a fried egg, don't ya know?