Homeschool vs. private school

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I live in England and so I don't know what the rules are for anywhere else, but this is what I had to do.

The education officer would come about twice a year, he would want to see some of their work and disscuse with me any problems I had or tell me they needed to be doing more of a particular subject.

But the law was and I think still is as far as homeschooling is, that the child has to be educated, it doesn't say what in , but the lessons have to be for their capability. But as loving parents as we all are on this site we made sure they had a good grounding in reading writing and arithmatic. I wasn't to keen on geography so we did projects of different countries. For history we did bible history and some about the Romans and Egypitians. We did biology and science.
We arn't musicalminded and not well off enough to pay for lessons.

But when our son was 10 years old we paid for a tutor to come to the house once a week and do maths with him, this lasted a year and the tutor said he couldn't teach him anymore unless it was GCSE level. which would have cost us too much. So B our son taught himself GCSE maths.

Also try to keep all their work no matter how small, keep it organised as best you can and dated, a diary is a good idea, especially of trips out. where you went, what you talked about to do with their education, what did they learn. and when home get them to draw or write about something they remember about the trip, or something particular. and date it.

You can get some excellent exercise books to do with science and biology, English etc, with questions and answers at the back, fun ones for all ages and abilities. For spelling a large print Find the word books are excellent. so is the dictionary but not as fun.

But I found that different things interested them at different times, eg our son went through a time of measuring everything and carried a retractable tape measure with him wherever he went. Our daughter went through a stage of Origami and when we ate out would leave little penguins on the table made from napkins. She also carried her book with her wherever she went just incase she had time to read some. We became great friends of the local library.

Unfortunately our son is also dyslexic so reading and writing was no fun for him, this was his hardest subject and a story could takes weeks to finish.

No lesson lasted more then half an hour from the age of seven, and before that were about 15 minutes. unless it was art or cooking which would last all afternoon. Outings were all day.

Also I tried to get four hours a day from age 8 years. When they were younger between an hour and three. I also made sure we each had an hour in the afternoon to do something individually, B would do maths or watch a Video, C our daughter would read, usually my books over my shoulder, this was also my time, a whole hour to do what I wanted to do, no housework, just me time.

I tried to get as much as possible from each lesson, eg, English would be with any written subject in as far as grammer, spelling and handwriting. Their handwriting is legible, thank goodness for keyboards. But handwriting practice is a must for the outside world.

We had some great education officers and we had only one who was nasty. Not everyone agrees with homeschooling, and they can get nasty, you must be prepared to fight for what you believe is right for your kids. But for us it was the best time in their lives, so far.

Now we start the courting oh what fun.

If anybody would like to send me a privete message to do with home education or anything else I would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much redvelvet. That is quite inspiring. It gave me very good ideas on record keeping especially after outings.
I do take our daughter out much. There are fights about it some, but she needs it. We are really seeing her blossom because she is starting to ask questions.
She is working on reading level 2 books. I'm not sure how we taught her, but she can phonetically sound out most words and has memorized others. Maybe it was her curiosty with words. She also loves to draw and write some. Writing is a little harder but then she is only 4. When she does do it, it is good. We think she will be a big reader when she can read all words. Right now, the library is big and she is intimitated by it so we go to the bookstore. She also loves to do work on the computer for fun. She doesn't realize it is teaching her.

I homeschool my AS son along with his NT sister... it would be nothing short of cruel for me to put him in school. I don't think there is much difference between private and public school for AS kids. In fact private can be worse due to the uniforms (and yes, it does feel like sandpaper to wear the wrong fabrics).

However if there were the opportunity to send him to a very unique school that could understand him and work with him, of course I would consider it, but no such options exist for him presently.

I would also never leave a child in school, public or private, who is being bullied. I would pull him out immediately and homeschool. That's something I feel very strongly about. No child should be left in a school situation where they are being bullied. Remidiation rarely works, and often makes the bullying situation worse.

en_una - I am curious about your comment that remediation does not work and make bullying worse. I am thinking maybe I'm not understanding you correctly.

I have remediated special needs and NT children successfully and advocated for special needs children who were remediated in public school successfully. I also have never known these children to suffer from worse bullying due to remediation. In fact, I find they get along better with peers when they have gained further confidence in their own skills and have increased self-esteem. The current set-up of remediation in most classrooms is very discreet and can even be done outside of regular hours if discression is an issue. The days of "that kid goes to the class with the ret*ds" is not the norm.

Please understand that I"m not out to have an arugment - I just found your statement curious and since these parents are making a big decision for their child I feel its necessary to be as clear as possible.

On bullying, I have strong feelings on this - All kids have to learn to deal with their peers at some point. To isolate a child perpetually because they might be singled out for some reason is detrimental to their development, IMHO. This statement in NO WAY says bullying is ok or that we don't work with the schools, teachers, parents, classrooms, etc. to address the problem - but even as adults we deal with people we don't like and who don't like us. For my AS child, reading what someone truly thinks of them is difficult, but gets better with practice. At first we had a lot of meltdowns because he could be convinced that someone was picking on him or mad at him because there was a misinterpretion of the situation. But, yes, some jerks do pick on our kids (and other kids too). What is important and determines the success of our children in this situation is their SUPPORT SYSTEM. If we get the tools in place to help them deal with the situation (which will vary by their age as to their invasiveness) then they can deal with life's downs and not get totally snowed under and grow in confidence, maturity, etc. The key is that we NOT throw the blame on a school, a child, a parent, etc. We have to look at our resources and use them - not just cut bait and run. Teaching our kids that if they have a problem you just wait to get rescued really sells them short, IMHO. (and you especially don't want them to think they have to depend on mom and dad forever) Learning problem solving is vital for all types of children.

Thank you for all your input.
We have decided to homeschool our daughter. We believe it is in her best interest for numerous reasons including she can learn at her pace which is really fast. Putting her into K-5 would be putting her back two grades. She already test at the end of 1st grade. She is very hungry for information.
Forcing her to wear clothes and put up with other sensory issues would take away from learning. When she is grown some of these things will not matter, so why should she have to do it.
Our public school system has not been helpful so far, and we don't want to spend all of our time fighting them. That time can be better spent.
We do have many homeschooling resources here including zoological classes at the local zoo, science center with classes and children's museums. There are also homeschool classes for high school kids as well. There is much support in the community. In addition to that she wants to take music lessons, art lessons. We will also try some sports to see if there is one she enjoys playing.
We may not have the support of our families but we are willing to live with that. They don't agree with her diagnosis so this is just another wrong on their list. What is important is what is best for her.

I am pleased you chose to home school, the rewards are unlimited.

I would like to make a comment on an earlier post about bullying.
When our two were 8 and 10 years old we moved to a new town,where my sister lived, Her daughter was at school and so my two wanted to go as well. So we put them in school. Claire didn't have much problem, well the first day they thought her reading book was her brothers, then it got lost. She soon got bored and thought the other girls were vain and stupid. But she got on with the boys better. Also she didn't take to being pushed around, hated anyone in her personal space and was soon quick to push them out of it, literally.

But our son ben had a harder time, already both were at least two years ahead of the other kids.
While in a maths class Ben would spend his time looking out the window while the rest struggled with their work, Ben would sit down to do his ten minutes before end of lesson and get them all correct. His class hated him because he was different, quiet and intelligent, so he got bullied terribly, The headmaster was a loser and never took it seriously. One day I had complained again to the head and this is what he did, he opened the classroom door and spoke allowed "Did you Adrian hit Ben?" "No sir not I sir." was the reply.
another incident he got kicked in the back, telling the teachers was no good, so next week Ben kicked the lad back.
As well he had things thrown at him everytime the teacher wasn't looking.

Ben put up with it untill the day he was beaten up by five lads. I had had enough and he never went back. Claire stayed the school year then we took her out as well, she was getting very bored. Ben was in school 7 months.
When we took ben out is when we paid for a maths tutor.

It took a whole year before we got our ben back, he became very introverted and moody, looking back he had depression.

I wish I had never bothered putting them in school, even for that short time.

jennthered-I have remediated special needs and NT children successfully and advocated for special needs children who were remediated in public school successfully. I also have never known these children to suffer from worse bullying due to remediation. In fact, I find they get along better with peers when they have gained further confidence in their own skills and have increased self-esteem. The current set-up of remediation in most classrooms is very discreet and can even be done outside of regular hours if discression is an issue. The days of "that kid goes to the class with the ret*ds" is not the norm.

Bland-I also have found that children in "resource room" these days are not considered idiots like they were when I was in school. Because of mainstreaming, these children are accepted alot better than before and bullying in my school district is severely and swiftly punished; if it is reported. I don't have too many complaints about my district but I know that my AS son could do much, much better academically at homeschool. I homeschooled him through 4th grade and I'm glad I did. He was better socially than the other Autism Spectrum kids who were in school since toddlerhood. I think that the stress of school for a small child, especially an atypical young child, is not conducive to healthy development. I'm sure there are exceptions. The school was very, very impressed with my son's "coping" skills and "adaptability" and they told me he had an excellent base of knowlege. But after a year and a half of public school, his social skills have improved but his academic advantage is gone. He is now in special ed. for language arts and math. That's okay with me if it's a stepping stone but I have the sinking feeling that he'll forever be in there. I observed the class and saw the quality of work that the teacher accepted and praised the students for and I thought, "My son can do much better than this and if she expects little, he'll give little." As far as social skills are concerned, I don't believe that school is the only acceptable setting in which social skills can be aquired. Let's face it, how did people acquire social skills in history before most kids were institutionalized and peer segregated? In my personal experience, spending time with my peers only made me withdraw more. I don't agree that there's only one way to educate a child. There's also no "one size fits all" solutions. Each individual is different and each family is different and each school district is different. I could not provide enough socialization for my son due to my many responsibilities and limited time and energy. He took to school like a duck to water! He likes to be kept busy and do many different things all day long. Boredom is his biggest enemy. I am now taking on-line classes and preparing to go to college to be a special ed. teacher. I hope that I can help these kids reach their full potential. I do wonder though if I will enjoy working in the public school system.

I went to both public and private schools(1 public school and 6 private schools) and didn't see a significant difference in bullying. Even though private schools can remove problem students with little or no recourse, my experience is many rarely do because of the bottom line, money. Every student expelled is a decrease in revenue and some will put up with more than a public school probably would because of this. One private school I know of locally will expel students in a heartbeat, but that school also has a long waiting list. In other words they can expel a student today and have their desk filled tomorrow so revenue isn't an issue.

I've also found private schools are just as guilty of cutting corners as public schools are again, for the same reason. If buying used out of date textbooks will save money over new ones, they'll do that. When I was in 7th grade, we were taught 10th grade world history because the books for 7th grade social studies didn't come in, so they used the 10th grade books since there was a surplus thinking nobody would know the difference.

I may have mentioned my high school before, with its demeaning and humiliating "freshman hell week" and constant forced socialization. I wish I could have done some sort of independent study or been schooled privately in someone's home, so I could just stick to learning instead of all of this other nonsense.

I do not think there is one right answer. My brother lives in a wealthy Chicago suburb; AS kids there have massive resources within the public school system. My sister and brother in law teach in a private high school in Indiana which is strongly supported by the church; AS kids are supported within the same classes but guarded against bullying. My choices have been much more limited and problematic in both of the private schools my son has attended.