Does anyone here home educate?

This is a really interesting thread.
Dh & I have talked lots about HE. Especially when he made a series of programes about it for work. He interviewed a well known HE family & found it all very positive. \

We were talking recently to some friends of ours, one of whom was HE'd. They are from the US & all had a pretty negative view about it & seemed surprised we thought it was such a good thing. My friend said without a doubt the best thing about being HE was that she is very good at self directed learning & finds it very easy to teach herself new things. She still has a strong desire to learn new things & is currently studying for her masters at uni. SHe did say however that she hated being HE. This had more to do with her parents & by the sounds of it they did it for all the wrong reasons ie they wanted to control her & her sister & didn'tlet them socialise with anyone other than the kids at their church or other like minded HE families. They were saying that in the US HE families have a reputation of being wierd & poor socialisers. I had to agree that in my small experience of HE'd families I've met irl (1 American, 1 English) the kids were very 'wierd' & when the American family tried to send their kids to high school over here it was a complete disaster. In these instances I have to say I don't think it was because they were he'd but rather the fact that there were a lot of other issues at home which made them 'wierd'

If i didn't have to work it is definitely something I would strongly consider & I guess like most of us on here I do it with out realising on a day to day basis. I know one thing for sure, Rebekah won't be going to nursery school full time this month as she is meant to. I think it's way to mush for a 3yr old to be expected to sit in a classroom for 6hrs + every day.

Sorry, this has become longer than intended

For all your HE'ers - do any of you work part time....its something i would like to do but unfortunately the Mortgage needs paying! if so, how do you cope when they get to school age? can they do school part time and home ed the rest?

For all your HE'ers - do any of you work part time....its something i would like to do but unfortunately the Mortgage needs paying! if so, how do you cope when they get to school age? can they do school part time and home ed the rest?

DH and I both work. We're self-employed and work partly from home and partly on customer sites.

You can ask about flexi-schooling, but it's not a legal right so the school have to agree to it. It can work for some children (usually secondary school age children who only want to attend for one or two subjects) but most primary age children who try it revert to full-time HE. The problem is that if they are at school, they have to be on the school roll and follow the school curriculum and do the same tests and exams as school educated children. This means that for the part of the day they are at home they usually end up doing the same work they would be doing at school. Also, the head teacher can change their mind at any time and insist on full attendance.

Most families prefer to HE full-time and be inventive with employment opportunities.

I would love to HE but dh hated being HE so he won't even consider it. Don't think his mom really took it that seriously & they weren't socialised at all. Dh was painfully shy when I met him, the complete opposite to me.

Also, dd is being educated in an extremely good school through the irish language. In juniors (age 4-5) they speak both english & gaelige for 2 weeks & then they are only allowed speak "as gaeilge". It still amazes me how fast they pick up language at that age. This was also a major factor in our (& by our I mean my coz dh won't consider it) decision whether to HE or not. I'm not good at languages & would like to give her that start. BIL was educated in a gaelscoil (Irish language school) & he can speak several languages & picks them up extremely fast.

DH would like Molly to go to our local gaelscoil, although neither of us speak Irish so I thought it might be difficult for her. Well, DH is learning it, but its certainly not an easy language to learn when you start in your 20's! How do you find homeworks and stuff? I'm worried if she went to that school, we wouldn't be able to help her if she got stuck

I would consider HE too, except that I dont think there are many other parents around here who do it and I would rather have a local support network in order to undertake such a challenge. Molly also has heard of "school" and is really looking forward to going, so if it was up to her I think she'd choose to go! If she didn't get into the gaelscoil or the local Integrated school, then I'd reconsider HE. At least I've got time to think about it!