If you had said to me two years ago that I would be home educating the boy I would have laughed in your face! Me? I could not even help him with his maths homework without getting irate, let alone teach him the whole curriculum!
But I have and when people marvel at this I say its because I had to. The situation we were in was so dire with his rapidly increasing anxiety and our lack of knowledge, lack of professional help in managing this, home education seemed like the best and only option. I likened it to fixing a broken leg before the football player can play again. There was no way the boy could learn if he was not comfortable in school. Plus he was missing so much education by refusing to go that at least I could ensure that he was learning. The most important factor in all of this was his emotional wellbeing and his education.
One day I will do an entire page on school refusal from a parents perspective and the little things that I have learnt along the way that will hopefully empower parents so that they do not hit the wall like we did. Best make sure for that post you have a hot drink and tissues as its rather heart breaking.
Anyway, the decision was made, we de-registered him and the school were extremely understanding, probably because we were taking responsibility for him instead of relying on them. There are heaps of fantastic resources on Home Education. A good place to start is Education Otherwise http://www.educationotherwise.net/ which informs you about the legalities of it all plus, there are templates of letters that you can print to inform local authorities. I read books, (Dad always taught me to read around the subject!) Ross Mountney http://rossmountney.wordpress.com/ is a particular guru of mine and when I read her book, it just made sense. Very reassuring that I was doing the right thing.
There are two main approaches within Home Education, Structured and Autonomous. Autonomous schooling is child led, they choose what they want to do and concentrate on activities that supplement that. Learning is through play and this type of education would support the view that learning is occurring outside of the classroom, thus a visit to a museum at the weekend can contribute to this or a walk on the beach. Quite a few parents within my Home Education Group are of this genre. Their kids have never been to school and they look at me in shock as I talk about lessons, "needing to learn" and "curriculums"
Unsurprisingly, we fall into the former camp whereby we try and follow core subjects, sometimes this is in line with the National Curriculum and other times we go off piste. We follow the school term, as the girl still attends school so we break when she does for holidays. We work from books, online learning resources, the boy is currently studying World War 1 Aviation design on an Open University course that is free.https://www.futurelearn.com/. We have been able to access a Dyson Hoover from the James Dyson Foundation and take it apart, we have borrowed microscopes from the Royal Microscope Society, there is so much out there. It is mind boggling at times!
I use a diary to plan our work, we roughly follow the same pattern every week, thus daily maths and English, twice weekly Science, weekly history and Geography. I work one day a week ( more about that another time) and on this day, my Dad teaches him maths plus he is required to complete work that I have set him. This ranges from worksheets, to an essay or poster. We attend a group within the home education group specifically for the teenagers once a week, the teenagers also have a lovely PHD student teaching them historical views on gender, race and class once a month at the University, plus we do some voluntary work, filling a book case at our local vegan shop. He walks the dog with me every day too, thus there is plenty to be getting on with. The home education group also organises trips and recently we were very lucky to visit the local newspaper building and see the newsroom in action.
Our first day was awful, I had planned so much and we ended up shouting and crying at each other. A lot of Home Education resources describe the process of de -schooling in that the child needs to recover from being schooled and they quote that this takes a month per year that the child attended. During this time, no attempt should be made to educate them. I knew that we had to re build his trust in us so I got round this by ensuring that the material we used to educate him were documentaries and sensory based activities, such as cooking and planting because he was so anxious. By about February of this year, more activities that his school attending peers were participating in, could be introduced to him with good results.
He is now doing a distance learning English and Maths KS3 course which involves completing assignments for a tutor to mark. He did very well in his English recently so it is reassuring to know that he is not falling behind his peers.
Am I getting any help with all of this you ask, the answer is plainly no. The boy has the new Education and Health care plan, so I thought by obtaining this for him I would have some support, financial or a least a pat on the back occasionally but it seems to fall to me to be ensuring that all the provisions are met. There is currently no financial assistance which would be true for most electively home educated children. Some authorities have welfare officers that visit the home and check that the family has a philosophy of education and evidence how they are going to achieve this. Ours doesn't, but I think that is because our Home Education group has worked so hard to achieve a good relationship with the authority that it isn't deemed necessary or as a priority.
GCSEs are looming, he has expressed an interest in working for the police, intelligence or as a farmer. Will keep you posted on that side of things as we progress along.
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