Home Schoolers- anyone else?

clark24

Corelli wrote: »

How long ago was this, Clerk24? I'm asking as there has been a big discussion about the necessity of GCSEs to get into further education now. This was on the [EMAIL="HE-UK@yahoogroups.com"]HE-UK@yahoogroups.com[/EMAIL] Consensus was that admissions policies have been tightened up a lot for the more academic courses and that stories like yours are not being repeated. there were alternative routes in like OU credits, portfolios and a good personal statement but now the criteria of a GCSE is now essential.

3 years ago, it was just before her 16th birthday and she turns 19 next week She started the OU course last October and did a evening college course for a year before that to get the credits needed.

Cash-Cows

Shouldn't teaching be left up to the pros? I appreciate there may be a lot of support groups on line but I can google how to re-wire a house but doing it would be irresponsible.

WantToBeSE

Cash-Cows wrote: »

Shouldn't teaching be left up to the pros? I appreciate there may be a lot of support groups on line but I can google how to re-wire a house but doing it would be irresponsible.

This is not a thread to discuss whether home education SHOULD take place.
In my situation, it IS taking place, and with all due respect, your opinion isnt going to change that.

silvercar

mimmy1977 wrote: »

Not sure how much the average child education costs the government (which we saving them) but that another discussion.

Mojisola wrote: »

It varies around the country - average is about £4.5k per secondary pupil.
http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/news/how-much-per-pupil-funding-will-your-school-get

If you expected the government to give you the money to educate your child in the way you chose, there would be a lot of parents with children at private schools with the same demand. It isn't going to happen.

silvercar

Cash-Cows wrote: »

Shouldn't teaching be left up to the pros? I appreciate there may be a lot of support groups on line but I can google how to re-wire a house but doing it would be irresponsible.

WantToBeSE wrote: »

This is not a thread to discuss whether home education SHOULD take place.
In my situation, it IS taking place, and with all due respect, your opinion isnt going to change that.

It may be the right choice for you, but it isn't the right choice for everyone and sometimes facing up to difficult situations provides a life experience that can't be taught. The point is a valid one, even if it isn't the right decision for you.

Sometimes the knowledge that they have to hold it all together only until the end of the academic year can mean that the right decision is to stick with it. Not in all cases, but in some. So IMHO it is a valid point to make in the discussion.

WantToBeSE

If you want to start your own thread about home schooling, and the politics etc of it, please feel free.
But i want this thread to stay on track with my request, which is asking OTHER HOME SCHOOLERS for feedback.

I am not interested in hearing from people who dont agree with HE.

WantToBeSE

Lily-Rose wrote: »

Awwww, I can't give any advice to you, but I just wanted to say that I am really sorry about your son's issues, and you're a diamond for helping him. Home schooled kids do very well, if it's all done the right way.

I wish you well.

Thank you Lily-Rose

meritaten wrote: »

Good on you for realising that school is not the best environment for your son.
ReeRee is a lovely person and I know if she can help you she will. haven't seen her for some time but in her last posts she reported that her grandson (who SHE homeschooled) was doing extremely well.
you do realise that GCSEs do NOT have an age limit? they don't have be taken by the age of sixteen! if you want to delay by a year or two and are paying for them, then you are able to do so.

Thanks Meritaten I cant find her on the list of users, so cant find her threads.

clark24 wrote: »

I home-schooled my daughter as we had to remove her from her school just after her mock GCSE's due to the worrying and obsessive behaviour of a senior member of the male staff, and the adverse effect it was having on her mental health.

She didn't sit her exams in the end, the school refused to let us have her coursework and we decided to let it lie, and focussed on getting her in a better place emotionally. We then moved to Scotland for a fresh start, so the system was completely different, and nobody does them up here anyway.

WE then home-schooled her in various things, not aiming towards exams, just towards finding out what her 'thing' was, what she wanted to do with her life and she chose being a psychotherapist or psychiatrist so she applied to college and got into a course of psychology and counselling which counted towards enough credits for a Uni foundation. The college didn't care one jot that she didn't have qualifications, only that she had the intelligence and aptitude to do it. She then got accepted to Dundee Uni but subsequently chose to do Open Uni due to my ill health, and is about to start her 2nd year.

So GCSE's etc are not the be all and end all, nor is the time they are sat (if you do them) and it is perfectly possible to do a degree without having done them, or A Levels, at all. Many institutions of higher learning are very open minded about the fact life can go awry but the person is still perfectly competent.

So if a child has a social anxiety then there are ways of doing distance learning, as long as you are prepared to look outside of what people see as normal.

Thanks Clark I have researched home education to death, so i know that home ed'ers often do as well, if not better, than their counterparts in mainstream school.

My son wants to do GCSEs, so will concentrate on English, Maths and Science to start with.

I am a bit confused about IGCSEs, and whether they are accepted in place of 'normal' GCSEs when doing A levels/FE. Does anyone know?

Mela322

Cash-Cows wrote: »

Shouldn't teaching be left up to the pros? I appreciate there may be a lot of support groups on line but I can google how to re-wire a house but doing it would be irresponsible.

The problem is, these so called professionals are letting the students down.

I had to fight to get my daughter moved forward. She was flying through her books and it took me a month to get her moved to the next level. She has only had 18 tricky word sheets since the start of the year. Months and months of asking got me nowhere. On her last day, I was given the master list by an assistant! We have only been at this for about 6 weeks and she has already mastered 6 more sheets! and has mastered 4 sheets of spellings. They aren't given spellings until they master all the tricky words so she would have never even been started in spellings in year 1. She is above target in her English and she is learning year 2 maths. That is down to my unprofessional teaching compared to a professional.

My son was in year 5 and was put in a 3a level for maths. This is the level they need to be in by the end of year 5. I thought, wow! fantastic! However, as we have gone through maths at home, I found he was struggling in multiplication and fractions. How can a child be placed in the top level of his year when he struggles with basics? Oh, yes, they are the professionals. Since learning at home, he is caught up in fractions and is working on daily drills for multiplication.

Seeing that my children are thriving and learning more with me at home in my unprofessional training, I'll leave their education to the un-profressionals.

The best thing about home education is I get to see what they are learning, they don't move on until topics are mastered. If I have to go back a year, I go back a year. We have the world at our fingertips to teach our children and we know them best.

Mela322

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Thanks everyone

Sam- i have just emailed that user, thanks I did a search, but must have missed that.

Mela- thank you I have found a lot of local groups, but none that cater for teenagers, and most info is geared towards pre schoolers, or the under 10s.

I am freaking out a bit that GCSEs are quite expensive (about £300 each) so really need to tighten my financial belt.

You can look up your local school that offers testing and see which books they are using and purchase those along with the revision guides, that will be a huge start. There is a Facebook GCSE group that would give you lots of support.

WantToBeSE

Mela322 wrote: »

You can look up your local school that offers testing and see which books they are using and purchase those along with the revision guides, that will be a huge start. There is a Facebook GCSE group that would give you lots of support.

Thanks. They are working towards OCR exams, so are using OCR books. I already have some of the revision books so thats helpful.

I have just requested to join several FB groups, one of which is the IGCSE/GCSE one, and i have also requested to join some Yahoo! groups. Everyone is slow to respond to my requests, probably because its Easter!