We have decided to give our 13 year old daughter home schooling as we have found since she started secondry school she has hardley had any proper education because the teachers cant be bothered or cant handle the classroom.
She has now left the school.

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who has done home schooling and if anyone can put me on the right track.
I am worried and excited because i dont know where to start.

I truly do not wish to be rude, but make sure it isn't yourself teaching your child English or, moreover, grammar.

Incidentally, how's Eastbourne. I was there in 1978 you know:thumbsup:

Originally posted by Brigette
We have decided to give our 13 year old daughter home schooling as we have found since she started secondry school she has hardley had any proper education because the teachers cant be bothered or cant handle the classroom.
She has now left the school.

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who has done home schooling and if anyone can put me on the right track.
I am worried and excited because i dont know where to start.

its not the teachers problem, its the pupils at the schools, they think they can do what ever they want went they want. Parents Problem!

It is their (as in your daughter's) problem if she's hardly learnt anything, it's because she can't be bothered, maybe I should point out that you should perhaps just leave the people trained to do their jobs to do them.

I WAS NOT POSTING A POST TO HAVE MY DAUGHTER HAVING DIGS AT BY STRANGERS WHO NO NOTHING ABOUT THE SITUATION!!

i WILL NOT HAVE MY DAUGHTER BEEN TALKED ABOUT LIKE THAT I WILL BE REPORTING YOU BOTH TO THE MOD!!

Originally posted by Brigette
I WAS NOT POSTING A POST TO HAVE MY DAUGHTER HAVING DIGS AT BY STRANGERS WHO NO NOTHING ABOUT THE SITUATION!!

i WILL NOT HAVE MY DAUGHTER BEEN TALKED ABOUT LIKE THAT I WILL BE REPORTING YOU BOTH TO THE MOD!!

You're the one being dug at with your lack of grammar. If you're considering home schooling your child you need to learn basic grammar and spelling.

Caps Lock is inappropriate shouting and isn't appreciated here.

MOD: Brigette, I think Hook is right, the oblique digs are at your poor grammar not your daughter's abilities.

To the rest, please be a little more tolerant.

Originally posted by Brigette
We have decided to give our 13 year old daughter home schooling as we have found since she started secondry school she has hardley had any proper education because the teachers cant be bothered or cant handle the classroom.
She has now left the school.

Why did you really decide to take her out? Is it because she complained that she didn't get on with the teachers, or did she even have a say in it? What I'm asking is; was it your decision or her decision. At 13 (2 years into secondary school and 1 year away from GCSEs) she will miss out on a LOT of the social interaction that enables these children to learn how to live in amongst the real world.

i think this is absolutly terrible , the lady came on here asking for advice about something, not to be insulted.

Brigette take no notice of these clowns it is most probebly cos they are sad little muppets with little better else to do.

and before said muppets start on me I KNOW I CANT SPELL !!!

way to go you ... i think you are very brave it is something i would have loved to have done. i would love to hear how you are getting on, if you dont want to answer on here ya can PM me if ya like :thumbsup:

Blessings
Litha

bridgette,

a friend of mine "home-schools" her children.

I believe there is a support network (on and off the internet) of parents who home-school.

I think they share ideas, and where to get resources from, to do with the subjects being taught. I also believe that thery offer advice about the legalities of the home schooling

You might want to try "googling" to see if there's a link to this organisation/ association..

there is also an organisation called "Education Otherwise" which supports parents who home-school. they might be very-much worth a try, too.

Hope this helps

PT

Try the following site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/

the BBC web-site has quite a substantial amount of information, plus they outline the key areas in which students will be tested for their GCSE's, so if the topics are not in-depth enough you can research and teach your child in a more detailed approach.

Personally, I would always have doubts about teaching my child from home rather than allowing them to attend a school, there are social implications as mentioned earlier, keeping a child out of school means they miss out on a lot of vital lessons that you really would never think about as being useful, although these are more important in pre-teen years, but still can be important in the teens.

if/when I have children I would probably consider a mix of allowing my kids to go to a regular, or private school, and teaching them, or at least helping them, in areas I know I can teach well...

When it comes to maths, the science's, history I am quite adept, but teaching English would certainly not be a good idea for me, I only got a C in my GCSE English :? although I consider my spelling and grammar to be much better than most of the people that scored much higher grades at GCSE, and even people who took it at A level... which is weird :?

Thankyou so much everyone for your kind words you know who you are.
I appreciate your help in this hard time and all you've given me is really helpfull.

As someone who has been home educated for the past five years I would just like to say that I am utterly appalled by the negative responses to a request of help and advice.

I have often heard Sheffield Forum described as friendly but have seen little evidence of that here. Apart from the odd one or two well wishers the posts have been rude and accusatory.

I personally think that congratulations are due to Brigette for firstly having the courage to take her daughter out of school and secondly for standing up to the unfair opinions expressed here.

Good luck to Brigette and her daughter

Originally posted by woolspinster
I have often heard Sheffield Forum described as friendly but have seen little evidence of that here. Apart from the odd one or two well wishers the posts have been rude and accusatory.

Maybe she shouldn't have been rude and accusatory toward the teachers. With the best will in the world, the opening paragraph of the post sounded like nothing more than a rant, and the genuine request was lost due to it.

Anyway, I asked a question (a valid one, I feel), and put forward an opinion based on experience. I'm sorry that we don't all think home schooling is the best thing ever(tm), but sometimes (quite often) it is done for the wrong reasons. I just don't want anyone to go through the problems suffered by others I have known who have little or no interaction with other children during the day.

I was educated at home.
Education Otherwise (www.education-otherwise.org) is worth a visit, and they may be able to put you in touch with other families who are teaching their children at home, which could be useful as you have to make sure your children meet other children in their age group to socialise with even if they aren't at school.
Good luck :thumbsup:

Going to university is about a lot more things than just the course work...

...and like it or not, going to school is just the same.

I'm not having a dig at anyone here, but think long and hard about the negatives of this potential move, as well as the positives.

Have you talked out the problems with the school/LEA.

If that doesn't work out perhaps think about your daughter moving to a different school (not ideal I know), at least as a first try, if that didn't work, you could always look at the options again without having so many (potential) problems.

Just my 2p.

:)

There were many well respected people who were educated at home, a few of these are:

Thomas Edison,
Albert Einstein,
The Wright Brothers,
Alexander Graham Bell,
Leonardo da Vinci,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Winston Churchill,
Charles Dickens,
C. S. Lewis,
Mark Twain,
Hans Christian Andersen
Florence Nightingale

If it was good enough for them it's good enough for me.

There is nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school. To begin with, it is a prison. But it is in some respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not forced to read books written by the warders and the governor. In prison they may torture your body but they do not torture your brains - George Bernard Shaw

Originally posted by woolspinster
There were many well respected people who were educated at home, a few of these are:

Thomas Edison,
Albert Einstein,
... snip ...
Hans Christian Andersen
Florence Nightingale
George Bernard Shaw

An interesting list, and more interesting to not that none of them went to a modern state school. When they went to school the world was very, very different. Caning and the like were still commonplace, and the world held a very different set of social values. Now, if a child was repeatedly beaten by a teacher I can understand removing that child from the school, but in this day and age the teacher would be locked up...

Originally posted by Brigette
Thankyou so much everyone for your kind words you know who you are.
I appreciate your help in this hard time and all you've given me is really helpfull.

Did you come here just looking for kind words?

I think some of the critisism is valid, if a little harsh. If your posts are a good example of your own grammar and spelling then you have to consider whether you are capable of teaching your child to a satisfactory standard at home.
And you do need to think about the other implications that have been raised, particularly the social interaction and friendships that your daughter will lack through not interacting with 100's of other students.

Finally, if your daughter has truly learnt nothing in (2 or 3?) years at secondary school, she must either be very gifted and is way ahead of the curve (thus not being stretched by the classes) or there is some other issue which could be discussed with both her and/or her teachers.

The whole point is that the people legaly responsible for a child receiving an education are the parents, NOT LEA's, NOT teachers. The thing is that most parents prefer to offload their responsibility onto the state. Others choose to take that resposibility themselves, and why not!

As regards social interaction I can only assume that none of you have ever seen a meeting of home educating families, the children are able to interact with younger and older people and not be expected to stick to their own age group. Many home educated children also attend a wide range of different activites ie. gymnastics, horse riding, swimming etc. just as schoolchildren will, and do they not meet and ineract with people there? Or do you see this as not being relevant?

Originally posted by Cyclone
Finally, if your daughter has truly learnt nothing in (2 or 3?) years at secondary school, she must either be very gifted and is way ahead of the curve (thus not being stretched by the classes) or there is some other issue which could be discussed with both her and/or her teachers.

I spent all my schooling not being challenged, what difference does it make when everyone takes the same exams at the end of the day? If your clever enough to pass with little effort at school then just read books or have fun with your mates outside of school...

I left secondary school with a whole rack of GCSE's and a GNVQ with little effort on my part or my teachers, especially in maths and science where my teachers thought I was a dream to teach...

at the end of the day GCSE's are mostly about regurgitating facts and memorizing things, they aren't much about intelligence... even when you get to A level that fact still holds partially true... to be honest if your bright enough and have the self motiviation at 14/15 you could just sit down with a set of Letts revision guides and learn all of it...

also, you have to take into account the fact that most GCSE's require coursework, not quite sure how you go about doing that if your home schooling? I'm sure you don't have a laboratory in your home for the science coursework? :?

there are plenty of children who take there gcse's one or two years early, getting a head start on A-levels and then on a degree.
Of course whether this truncation of childhood is a good or bad thing is another issue, but allowing children of any ability to coast is a failure of our education system. The target is of course, not to have children passing exams (this is just the measurement), the target is to educate, someone who is coasting is not getting the best education they could.

There is no GCSE that cannot be taken through independant organisations ,you simply get the coursework from them and work through it , you will then be sent a list of establishments where the exam can be taken along with other students. Some choose to not bother with GCSE at all while some do many.

As for a laboratory this is only relevant for a very small amount of subjects and there are laboratories other and the method and results of most experiments can be found in textbooks and on the net.

Lots of over reactions on here I think.

A few spelling mistakes, even made up words, not the end of the world, doesn't mean you can't do a good job of the other 1,000's odd words in the dictionary.

Teaching from home doesn't sound bad at all, as for the interaction with other children bit sounds like the education have got it covered.

In my opinion there might be some meaningless useless experiences many kids can do without, that you can get in school. Low teacher expectations is one, another is bullying, and others like not challenging enough are great reasons for home teaching. Alot of plusses in my opinion.

Pot
Kettle
Black

read back.

While attention to detail is great, a few spelling mistakes doesn't mean you're dumb, that's what makes a good teacher arguably, not being so anal.

Good Luck

I agree with what your saying Cyclone, I actually did an extra GCSE a year early, I completed learning it an taking it within 6 months. which is why they also allowed me onto the pilot scheme of doing a GNVQ in Engineering in school, which was something only a few schools were doing when I was there, although I hear there are a lot of them doing it now.

the thing is, I'm a VERY socially inept person, so staying in school did me a fair bit of good, if I'd have lost even more social interaction I'd be even more of a secluse... and as with school, college and University, the social life is just as important as the learning itself... I've spent quite a lot of my time with my mates helping them to understand things, when I was in 6th form I helped to teach some year 7's and 8's, all these kinds of things are great for improving confidence, improving your understanding of things when someone says "well, y'know, what if that happened instead?" and you realise you'd missed an entire different alley because you understood the most logical solution...

although, my parents teaching me would never have been feasable, everyone always says they don't know where I get my brains from in this family :hihi: maybe my milkman was really an undercover PhD student? :hihi:

I am currently refusing to educate my son at home. I started a topic " Bullying in schools, can you help? "

We feel isolated and alone, and my son feels persicuted for standing up to bullies.

I watched the Panarama programme on TV a few weeks ago and found out there are 90.000 kids out of school due to bullying incidents.

All I want for my son is to have a decent education and be SAFE in school. Apparently this is asking too much.

Should I have to teach him at home, because teachers can no longer control the kids?

I saw someone wrote that its not the teachers its the kids, well it isnt my kid and they are "loco parentis" when my kid is in their care. He has been abused mentally and physically. Stabbed twice. If they cant handle the kids then they shouldnt teach.

The schools have no control anymore and will not even admit to having a problem.

Originally posted by Brigette
We have decided to give our 13 year old daughter home schooling as we have found since she started secondry school she has hardley had any proper education because the teachers cant be bothered or cant handle the classroom.
She has now left the school.


I'm not preaching, but I'm sure every child at one time or another comes home from school unhappy with things. That's because they're children, and with all the hormones bouncing around the body during adolescence it can be a stressful time. The most important thing is to get through it, because it's all valuable experience that can then be used positively in the rest of your life.

If as you say, you are unsure as to where to start regarding home schooling, I'd examine very closely whether going down this route is in the long-term interests of your daughter. If you can teach GCSE subjects as well as individually specialised teachers, more power to you - but be very wary of the social impact this decision will have. It could be the most important choice you ever make for your daughter.

Originally posted by Brigette
We have decided to give our 13 year old daughter home schooling as we have found since she started secondry school she has hardley had any proper education because the teachers cant be bothered or cant handle the classroom.
She has now left the school.

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who has done home schooling and if anyone can put me on the right track.
I am worried and excited because i dont know where to start.

Learn to spell!

Originally posted by shudnobeta
I am currently refusing to educate my son at home. I started a topic " Bullying in schools, can you help? "

We feel isolated and alone, and my son feels persicuted for standing up to bullies.

I watched the Panarama programme on TV a few weeks ago and found out there are 90.000 kids out of school due to bullying incidents.

All I want for my son is to have a decent education and be SAFE in school. Apparently this is asking too much.

Should I have to teach him at home, because teachers can no longer control the kids?

I saw someone wrote that its not the teachers its the kids, well it isnt my kid and they are "loco parentis" when my kid is in their care. He has been abused mentally and physically. Stabbed twice. If they cant handle the kids then they shouldnt teach.

The schools have no control anymore and will not even admit to having a problem.

Hear, hear. It isn't just a problem in Sheffield our local area is rife with it, and I have requested that my daughter attend a school several miles away rather than joining her peers in the local high school in September. Fortunately for me and her, she was accepted into the school of choice with little fuss.

It's certainly sending the wrong message to the little monsters of today, when they can behave however they like and receive neither punishment nor exclusion. The brat who has terrorised my daughter has not even had a letter home about his behaviour and his parents are blissfully unaware about what is happening. I dread to think how he's going to grow up, by I thank my lucky stars this is not my responsibility.

Hi Brige , I'm seriously considering this action with my own daughter who is due to go to secondry school in the summer.I applied for a place at All Saints ,but after going to an appeal panel they decided she didn't fit the criteria.I don't belive the local comprehensive school has anything to offer my daughter who is about to sit SATS ,she is expected to come out with top marks for all subjects .I refuse to send her to a school where because of her love of learning she will be considered a freak , I refuse to put her through the trauma of being bullied which she has endured in the past because apparently she is a "know it all ". I don't care if she misses out on interaction with other pupils ,she is a very sensitive child who just want's to learn and I will do everything in my power to make that a pleasurable experience.On that note I suggest you go for it ,there is plenty of advice on the net for us and the information that Plain Talker put up previously has made me feel more positive about doing this for my child. As for the shallow minded people poking fun , when someone ask's for help or advice you don't slap them in the face with demoralising comments , manners obviously were not values you learnt as a child. It's sad really that you feel you have a right to comment so negatively.



love pretty woman xxxxx


P.S Feel free to pm me and let me know how you get on xx

I think there is a kind of knee-jerk reaction to home schooling that goes along the lines of "school teaches young children how to behave with each other". So I reckon as long as your kid gets enough interaction with children of all ages, and don't miss out on any of the hardships of being young and misunderstood, then they'll be fine! Try brownies/guides if you're worried about her missing out on that kinda stuff.

If anyone who is considering home education would like more information or a chat with someone who is home educated feel free to contact me.