My Story

I decided to home-educate my children during the first term of my daughters schooling life.  She had been in school for approx one term when I decided to take her out. Lots of reasons helped me make that decision, but the main one being, she was very unhappy.

Jodie my daughter had always been a very sociable child who loved nursery and any social gathering.

I'll never forget the first day she started school, she was so excited all dressed in her uniform and was looking so forward to the day, I was also very excited to see her and hear all about what she had done.

The first day when I went to pick her up I was greeted by this angry little child with her hands on her hips saying, " don't you every every send me there again, " the teachers don't listen to you, "  "the kids in the playground don't say sorry if they hurt you,"and " I had to stand in line so long today to ask the teacher a question, I forgot what the question was when I got there."

She was very upset and angry about the experience, however she still wanted to continue to go and of course we thought it was normal thing to do, she would soon get used to it I would think.

However as we continued with school we watched this beautiful inquistive five year old girl change within the matter of weeks, to this crying whinging little girl who didnt want to speak or share anything with me when she came out of school.  She wouldn't tell me anything she had done and was just so tired and drained wanted to sleep.

Every weekend would come and she would start on Friday night saying I dont want to go to school and this would continue the whole of the weekend and then Monday mornings big melt-downs.

In a very short time we lost our happy confident  girl and she had changed into this very unhappy child who had no confidence.

There were lots of little  things in the school that I was unhappy about but I tryed to ignore them. The time I went in school and my daugher was upset as she had a sore throat, and the teacher wouldn't let her get a drink, as it was against school policies. When I asked why this was I  told by the teacher that she should have got a drink at lunch time, then in the same breath she told me the dinner ladies did sometimes hide the water at lunchtimes so the children have to buy drinks, as the canteen was now being run by a company and also the water foundation in the playground didnt work.

Others things started to crop up, having to write on paper without lines as the school couldn't afford to buy paper with lines.  I didn't realise this until a mother can up to me and asked me whether my daugher used lined paper to write, I said, I'm sure she does as the school supplies all that stuff, she told me she had kicked up such a fuss that her daughter now has lined paper, but others did not. I was shocked. I asked to look at her writing work and saw they were doing it on plain paper and my daughters writing was awful, she had no concept of a line, she start in one corner and ended in the other corner at the bottom of the page.  I found out through chatting to mums around 10 children in the class were being given lined paper as they had kicked up a big fuss about it, and others like me had not.

Another thing that really surprised me, I thought all the kids got the same attention in the class, but in another conversation with one of the mums I was talking to she stated she was really proud of what the teacher had wrote in her childs book and I was a little confused as she never wrote anything in Jodies book, so one day when Jodies friend came to play, I had a little sneak look in her book and sure enough there was this daily conversation going back and forth by teacher and mum and appartenly this was happening with just five other children who the teacher had picked out as high achievers and she was giving more attention and guidance to mum.

One day my husband went to pick her up and the teacher told him that Jodie, my daughter might be a little upset as she had to tell her off today for some-thing she had done wrong. 

When she arrived home she was sobbing, apparantly the teacher had accused her of breaking something that she hadn't and instead of having a quiet word with her, had asked the other children to made a circle around her and then balled her out in front of all the other children, total humilation. This was witnessed by a mum who was working in the school who pulled me aside to ask how my Jodie was, as the teacher had really screamed at her and Jodie was so upset. I was horrified that this had happened.

Jodie used to cry about that incident right up to the age of around ten, not understanding why she was accused of doing something she didn't do and why did the teacher shout at her in front of every one. Today I am sure it still affects her in some ways.

After that experience Jodie did not want to go to school and would cry every day telling me  she didn’t want to go to school any more, crying and screaming when I took her through the front gate and clinging on to me asking me not to leave her. I would feel so bad and spend the whole day worrying about her.  The teachers would prize her away from me and tell me she would soon get use to it and not to make a fuss, it would be okay, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I used to walk away every day upset and crying my eyes out.

As Jodie was now at school and Ross in playgroup I started to work with a volunteer group to do reading in schools with young children who were struggling.  This was such an eye opener for me as it gave me full access to the staff room and the teachers and how the children were really treated.

The way the teachers talked about the children and their families was unbelieveable, some of the teachers had already given up on some of the children, as they were judging them on older siblings or made comments about the families and how the children didn't stand a chance coming from a family like that. I was truely shocked.

I also experienced bullying myself from a teacher, now I tell you, I am not the sort of person to be bullied, but this teacher had a way of trying to humilate me in front of the kids.  Every time I went to pick one up to take them for their reading session from her classroom, when she saw me coming across the school yard, she would lock the door of the classroom so I couldn't come in and make me wait outside until she was ready, sometimes I had to wait for 10 mins, whilst some poor little boy keep saying, but Miss, Miss Dawn is outside and its time for my reading. She would would just tell him to be quiet and get on with his work.

Another teachers remark I would never forget, was when I went to pick another lad up, I said "can I have Joe for his reading", she said "you can keep him".  This poor lad walked out of the class, shoulders rounded and looking at the floor. His self esteem was rock bottom. She said this in front of the whole of the class.  I before had never really thought of teacher bullying as I suppose I had them on a bit of a pedestal, but this opportunity was really opening my eyes.

I spent a lot of time building the kids self esteem, and chatting to them in-between reading, some of the kids were so low, I could see it was going to be hard for them to achieve in school especially as the teachers seemed to already have given up on half of these children. 

This was really making me think about school and Jodie and how I was leaving her with people who had no interest in her future or building her self esteem or even trying to get the best from her. Working in this school really made me see how teachers operated and I was trusting the growth in my child to another human being who would never value her as much as I do.

One day after chatting to a friend about all the problems I was experiencing with Jodie, she said to me " you know children don't have to go to school, you could home-educate her."  I had heard of kids being home-educated, but didn't know how it worked and thought the same as everyone else if they didn't go to school how on earth would they learn stuff, what about friends, would they lonely, how would they socialise. 

I was so torn, do I continue to do what most of other parents are doing or do I step out and do what I think is best for my child.  I chatted it over with my husband and he was a little concerned and had the same questions as me about how would they learn, I wasnt a teacher, how will they get to meet other children, what about their communication skills so many questions................................ and no-one to answer them. Just opinions. 

I went to do our local library ( the internet was just getting going) I found one book only, I took it home and read it, it was a great book and made home-schooling sound idealistic, I think it was called "Schools Out".

After spending an afternoon reading this fantastic book and visualising how beautiful life would be without school for me and my daughter, I made the decision there and then to home-educate her.

 I remember asking Jodie about giving up school and she kept saying I want to never have to go there again, but what about my friends. She was scared, I was scared but  I realised I was the one who had to make the decision for her, so I just told her, we were giving up school, but we would still keep in contact with her friends and we would make lots of new ones as well.  From that day on we never looked back. She never asked about it and in a few weeks I had my beautiful happy inquestive daughter back.

Don't get me wrong I was scared and worried about what people would say, but right at that moment I knew I had to do something fast as my daughter was changing so much and it was so very sad to see. I knew if I allowed this to continue this could affect the whole of my daughters life and I was not willing to let that happen.

I had done a great job up to now with both my children and there was no way I was going to let the school destroy all of this.

I wrote my letter to the head of the school, and asked they take my daughter off their register as I was educating her from home I sent in the official letter and immediately felt this huge weight lift off my shoulders. I was so scared, I wasnt sure if I was doing the right thing and all the parents at the school thought I was nuts.

A neighbour down the road actually called me crazy,  It was funny everyone seemed to have an opinion of it and wanted to be able to speak their opinion. In time I got used to it and found lots of different ways to handle it.

My parents were supportive, but there were other close family members who thought I was just clearly nuts, and just never discussed it with me.

I made a really good effort to keep in contact with all her school friends, however that did prove to be harder than I had anticipated.  Some didn't want to continue the friendship as they felt Jodie being out of school would influence their children to want to come out of school and cause them problems and others we drifted away from, but we made loads of new friends, both of us did with home-ed groups and other activities they got involved with.

When we did get together with old school friends I would sometimes find the mothers of the children trying to test Jodie, with them asking them spelling or times tables or other stupid stuff, like what do you do all day, and sometime their remarks would filter down to their children and I would hear their children say to Jodie it okay doing all this fun stuff but how will you learn or even get a job. I used to get so angry but explain to Jodie we were learning, just in a different way, a more creative hands on way. Jodie got the hang of that really quickly and I would soon hear her telling kids and mums that. Quite often that would be enough to shut them up.

At the time, there wasnt a lot out there in the way of groups and you had to travel quite a distance sometimes to engage with others.  I was lucky that I found a lady in Reading who was very knowledgeable.  She had taken her son out of school and arranged lot of different activities for him and for others who wanted to join her.  We used to go to meetings once a week and the children just used to hang out, playing games, and it was fun for them to meet with others.

We joined up with the local home-ed group in Berkshire and met with a lovely lady called Pat who was the co-ordinator for the local area. I must be honest the first time I made contact I was not sure what to expect, but the people were lovely and the kids were great, we meet some lovely like minded people with who we are still friends with today.

Home-education was not so well know then, but there was a strong group of people in our area and we went ice-skating, swimming, kung-fu, spanish, at times we were out and about so much we were worn out, but it was great. The kids would come home worn out and we had done so much.

As we got more into it we found other groups to join with and done some really special stuff.  We used to go ice-skating at John Nike, go to theatres, museums, meet in parks, it was a lovely way of life.

When I first started I used to try and do school at home, like a lot of other parents I met, however I quickly realised that wasnt the way for us, so I looked at different ways of learning.  We would use our walks, for learning maths, measuring things, sorting, learning about nature, trees, seasons, it was endless when you started to think outside of the box.  Learning was all around us.

When they were young we spent lots of time, cooking at home, talking, going on supermarket trips, sometimes a trip to supermarket would take us hours, as I was in no rush and we would have such fun learning about all the foods and adding stuff up, reading labels, we would visit farms and garden centres, libraries and the kids would just soak up all the information.  I would use tapes in the car for story-telling, languages, times tables, spelling and education and when I need a break to chill I would use videos and TV for learning.  The BBC had some great learning programmes.

If we travelled I would put on stories, or learning materials, like Spanish tapes, times tables, easy spelling and the children would listen to that. We would also use that time to talk and discuss different subjects.

If we went shopping I would give my children lists of things to find. Get them to weight stuff, read labels.  Sometimes before we went we would do recipes and they would find the ingredients.  Dont get me wrong, shopping took a lot longer but it was a good learning experience for them. 

Jodie loved the independance at the supermarket, and loved to be able to tell the nosey check-out till operators, who never failed to ask, "No school today, are you ill" she would stand there and quote that school was not a legal requirement and that she was being home-educated. The till operators would look at me for clarification but I would just get on with the packing, and ignore them and let Jodie talk.  Ross my son was a little different.  He used to get fed up of it and say " tell them mum"

Some days I would start to worry about the work we were doing and whether we were doing enough, so I started to keep a diary and just jot in it everything we had covered during the day.  That really set my mind at rest, as when I looked at that I could see we were covering so much more than the normal child in school. I would include discussions we had, maths we had done at the supermarket, stuff we had learned about during the day, visits we had been on.  I took huge amounts of photos and keep them in albums in case I needed to give accounts of what we had been doing to the LEA.

Keeping a note of all the subjects we covered that day, made me feel happy that I knew in my heart of hearts that both my children were learning and progressing.

Ross never went to school.  He went to playgroup and nursery and I could see his attention span was zero.

When it was time for show and tell, at nursey  he would just get up and wander around, he found sitting still very difficult. The teachers would pull me aside after and tell me he didn't like to sit for long and tell me he was always getting up and disturbing the rest of the group. They told me it was there job to get him ready for school where he would have to sit for longer lengths of time.

I think I had already made up my mind that I was going to home-educate Ross as well. I knew it would be harder as they were both very different personatlies but I was determined that this was the way I wanted to go, if at a different date Ross decided he wanted to try school we would look at that when it happened.

We decided to home-educate both of them together.  It was a lot easier, as in the pass I had always had the day cut in half with having to get back in time to pick Ross up from nursery and I was always late, so was constantly frowned upon from the teachers.

Jodie wouldn't write and didn't write until she was around 8 years as learning writing in school had put her off so much I didn't push her, we done a small diary daily but that was about it, I really didn't want to put her off any more. I wanted writing to be some-thing she enjoyed. At the age of 14 she started to write her own music songs.

As the children got older it was clear that they needed more consistant contact with friends. The groups were good when they were younger, but they were very inconsistant.  The children would make a friend and then the next week you'd go back to the same group and they werent there, they had gone some-where different and you would end up with very disappointed children.

This happened on a regular basis as most of the groups were just drop in and you didnt have to make any commitment. So it was pretty hit and miss who would be there each time.

Jodie and Ross told me they were fed-up of going to groups and meeting new people and having to re-invent themselves  each time, they asked if we could we not set up a group where other home-educators can meet on a weekly basis so they could see their friends every week.

This was the start of Heroes which is still running today. 

I set up a learning group near to my home, and contacted other people who were home-educating and invited them along to get involved in different workshop and activities once or twice a week. They had to make a monthly commitment and paid on a monthly basis, that way we knew parents were going to turn up or they would lose  their payments that had been made.

It worked, we had a thriving group, we would meet once a week at a local hall, and do all the things we couldn't do at home, we done, hands on history projects, had speakers to come, artists, sports teachers, drama, teachers, drumming, hip hop dance, science projects, cooking, the lists goes on and on. We had around 20 families who would attend and each paid a fee on a mothly basis which we would pay the teachers and hall costs with.  The children made consistant friends who they met up with weekly and all in all we all had a good time.

Ross and Jodie made some great friends, many who they still keep in contact with today.

Heroes got bigger and it progressed to become a learning centre  in the woods where we rented space and we would have so much going on, we had music teachers, art teachers, specialist who would come in and the parents who wanted to get involved in that activity would buy in and split the costs between them. We would take piano lessons and split it into 15 mins sessions the same with guitar, we had steel pan band and done camps in the woods, woodland activities debating and discussion groups. This made it cheaper for all of us.  I cant think of anything we didnt do, we even had a forensic day where the children had to solve a crime as scientists. It was a mixed age community full of like minded people (or nearly like minded people) but it worked.  

We also kept a monthly fee for becoming a member which kept the group consistant.

This was good for my children as they were both teenagers now and they needed to be around their friends more than being at home with me. Heroes was then running 4 days a week learning was fun and we had lots of social gatherings, the teenagers went off on tall ships for 4 days at a time, got qualifications in woodland skills, went to home-eds camp and festivals, had discos, teen challenge events. 

At around 13/14 years Ross made a decision he wanted to go to school, he felt he was really missing out on learning.  He lasted one month, he sooned realised he was missing out on nothing.  I remember the first day he couldnt wait to get out the door and get down to the bus stop and meet with other kids, but he soon got fed up of that, he said he wasn't learning anything and half the teachers had no respect for the students and spent the whole sessions shouting at them or tring to get them to become quiet.

He always found it difficult how much bullying was going on aimed at weaker students and how the teachers did nothing. I think it really opened his eyes to what he had got and he started to appreciate it so much more.

It was always more difficult for him, as he had never been in school, whereas Jodies had experienced it.  All Ross remembers, was us  taking Jodie to school and all the boys playing football in the playground. I think thats what had stuck in his mind, well, he was the first to admit it was nothing like it at all. 

By this time we had found Ross had ADHD and was dyslexic, whilst home education suited Ross, school definately did not.

After one month all the home-education teenagers were getting ready to go on the tall ships and Ross announced he wanted to go as well.  I let him know he was now in school and I couldnt get permission to take him out for that activity. Thats when he decided he had enough of school and wasnt really enjoying it, so we were back to home education again for him.

However now the authorities had been alerted that I was home-educating him and I got a call from the LEA asking how I was proposing to deal with his education.  I stated the same way I had being doing it for the last 14 years.  There had never been any contact for Jodie or for Ross as he never went to school, he had slipped under the radar so we never had an inspection.

I had always made sure over the years that I had kept lots of pictures of what we were doing and had a scrap book and kept a diary of what subject I felt had been covered during the days, so I was quite confident all would be well.

We had our visit and they were more than happy and actually quite helpful with other resources they knew of. We only ever saw her once and she never bothered to contact us again.

However thats not the same for everyone, everyone has a different experience. I think the important thing is keep photos or back up of any subjects your child might be involved in, so you feel confident, if you are contacted.

Make a note of subects you are covering, like cooking, budgeting, art or whatever you child might love to do, lego can be seen as designing, if your child likes reading note the books they are reading or if they like to draw, keep their picture in a scrap book.

Remember you have rights and what you are doing is perfectly legal.  The LEA cannot just turn up at your door, they must make an appointment with you, and they don't have to see you child, they can just sit and chat with you and you can have your child in another room with another suitable adult. They can't test your child, however they do need to see evidence of learning and progession, which is where the scrapbook of photos comes in, showing learning is taking place.  Like I said before there are many forms of learning so this dosen't have be your child sitting behind a desk reading or writing, it could be in park, painting, at the local wildlife park, river the list goes on.

One thing they seem to like to see that your child is in contact with other children, they worry that they are not going to get enough socialisation and I heard of many LEAs reports that stated work and learning was satisfactory, however we need to see your child is socialising with others. 

That can be difficult if your child dosent like to mix but even if you take them swimming where there are other children or join a group or two on a regular basis that seems to satify them.  Again I suppose it depends on your LEA, but dont be bullied by them or scared by them. I know sometimes they can come across bullish.

One mum I knew was getting a little bullied by her LEA who was stating that her children should be back in school and that was what they wanted to see. On her visit she got all their work together, and photos scrapbook, books they were ready etc.  The LEA office arrived 10 mins early which at that time seemed very common, I don't know whether this was their way of getting control. She she sat  the LEA officer down, the children were in another room with her mum, and she got out a tape recorder and said I hope you dont mind, but so none of us get confused or forgot the conversation  I am going to record the meeting.  She said the meeting went really well. The LEA  really seemed to choose her words a lot more carefully, and the meeting was very successful.  From then on they backed off, they accepted her way of her children learning and left her to it, communicating with her by letter for an update.

We got involved in lots of stuff and my children had a wonderful education that I know they are both proud of today.  They didnt have to contend with any bullying or the stuff that goes on in the playground, no horrible teachers and met a lot of lovely people. Their CVS looked great as they had done so much and employees were genuinely interested in them and what they had done. 

As they had not had to grow up with the same age children around them the whole time, they learnt to communicate with people of all ages, which is a wonderful skill, this helped them lots in the future years.  They also learnt to be free-thinkers and were not just used to being told what to do. School is the only place where you are grouped with children or people of the same age.  It really dosent set them up for the real world, where when you go into work, for instance, you are working with people of all ages and abilities.

One day Heroes had a visit from a man who was Head of Education in Wokingham. He had heard about Heroes and wanted to learn more and asked if he could visit.

When he came down he said to me "I heard you can tell the difference from a child who has been home-eduated to a school child who is in the school system, is this true" II said yes it was and to prove my point I introduced him to four teenagers who had never been in school.

I had to make a cup of coffee for him, so I just introduced him and left him with them.  When I come back he was amazed.  He couldnt believe the teenagers talked to him, asked him questions, were genualty interested in the answers and give him eye contact.  He stated if that had been in school,the young people would be looking at their feet, no communication and no eye contact.  Point proven. I felt quite proud at the moment.

Many people ask me what was the hardest part of home-education for me and a few things come to mind.

Feeding the children was one of the difficult things, you had to be very organised and they would graze continually through the day when they were at home, or there were the packed lunches if we were going out for the day, or the evening meal if we got in very late. 

So I guess  for me that was one of the hard things I found about home-education.  I had to become more organised.  I would make sure I had stuff in the fridge the kids could snack on. I would on our shopping trips make sure I had brought enough to get us through the week and make sure we have plenty of fillings for sandwiches, and I also invested in a slow cooker and learnt to make some very quick easy meals, that would take around 10 mins to knock up as the children were both staving hungrey and hubby had also just come in from work. 

Organising myself gave me a good skill set, that I could pass over to the children, I had to learn to become more organised, or we all be running around crazy in the morning trying to get out the door on time. I would get the children involved to help me make the sandwiches for the next day if we were going out, or I would get them to  organise the clothes they were going to wear so we werent all falling around outselves trying to sort out clothes.

I would make large meals when we had time, again I would always get the children involved, this way there was always left-overs in the fridge for when the children wanted to snack. I  showed the children how to make their own pancakes which were quick easy and filled their bellies easily. We used to ground our oats we had brought and make oat pancackes which used to keep them going a lot longer than the traditional ones and we would put butter on them or fill them with banana or experiment with with other fillings.

Spainish omlette or just cheese omlette was always in our fridge cut into wedges, it was great for putting in lunch boxes, snacking or having as a meal, it could be eaten hot or cold and would keep them going for quite a while. Meat tacos made with minced meat and veg and stuffed in a taco always made a good snack at lunchtimes whether we was on the go or at home. I would cut up pieces of fruit in a fruit salad which never took long, and I always made sure I had apples, bananas and grapes on me for snacking.

I was a very particular on eating healthy so sometimes I found it quite difficult as it was so easy just to go out and get packs of crisps to fill on but I didnt want to do that so had to think of ways of filling their bellies that was healthy and desirable, that they wanted to eat.

Another difficult part of home education was the house, when you were out and about a lot which we were, sometimes I got really behind with the housework and things didn't get done. After getting a little fed up of living in a place that wasnt as tidy and organised as I wanted I found a way around it.  If we had arranged for a visit to meet with friends or go to a group certain tasks needed to be completed and we would do this as a team.  i.e. the washing up had to be done, before we left, or the washing machine loaded and switched on, beds would need to be made.  Once the children realised what was expected we got things done a lot better and had a better routine.  I am not saying there were no arguments about doing stuff, but I think they both began to realise that if they wanted to get to their activities on time, then certain stuff needed to be done first.  These were our priorities and would keep our house running smoothly and needed to be done first.

Not having any me time was also very difficult as I was with the children 24/7 and sometimes I would feel very worn.  Once I started meeting people at the different groups and found others that had the same values as me, life got easier and we would take it in turns for playover days, or one activity I would pick up their children and take them  and the next they would do the same for me, so you got to spend some-time on your own.  Having others around you was in-valuable.  However as I started at the beginning of this sentence you need to make sure they people you are leaving your children with are like-minded and have the same values as you and sometimes that can be difficult to find. I met many people who were home-educated, but they were doing it in a completely different way to me and our views, well lets say were completely different, so I would have to spend quite a lot of time with people before I felt I would trust them looking after my kids.

These days there are groups were you can leave the children, but in our days it was always where parents stayed.  

Today I believe its a lot more easier to take the GCSE, you can do this at local schools if you can find one that will accept external students, get together with a home ed group and set up a GCSE learning group and then find a place to sit the exam, or there colleges who are now taking younger children. 

In the early days of our home-education journey, both my children went to kung fu classes and I remember well a conversation I had with the instuctor, who loved what we were doing home-education but really felt as they grew up we were hampering their way into employment as their CV wont have all the exams on it like other children and wont look as good with home education on.

I strongly disagreed with him however I must admit I was a little worried how employees would view it.

Jodie took one IGCSE, but said she was not going to take any more as she felt she had crammed her brain with so much rubbish that she would never use again, her words not mine.

However I am glad to tell you not having any GCSE never got in the way of either of the children getting employment.  Jodie got a job at the age of 18 years old in a well know book shop and they loved the fact she had been home-educated and said her CV was so interesting it stood out so much from the other candinates.

Ross got a job as well at 18 years and both have been happy in employment throughout the years. My children were never interested in going to college or university so there really was no need for the qualications. 

One thing I have noticed is, my children, now, not children,  still love to learn, and find out new stuff, a lot of children who are in the school system hate learning and stop doing anything to do with learning as soon as school finishes.  Many teachers I have spoke to say, when children come back from summer break they have gone backwards in their learning.

Jodie is now coming up to 32 years old and I would describe her as a very fun loving girl with a desire to learn and communicate with all levels of people. She has a great job she enjoys, is very confident and we have a very close relationship. 

My son is 28 years old is confident and a wonderful young man who can communicate with all levels of people. Again we have a very close relationship.

Home-educating together has been a wonderful experience, it has brought us very close together as a family.

There were also some wonderful benefits to home-education, going on holiday out of school time was wonderful, cheaper, less crowded, going to ice rinks when they were empty and having the rink to ourselves, the same as the cinemas  I remember one time, when we were the only people in there it was like having our own very personal cinema and oh course not to forgot the theme parks where we didnt have to queue, the children could stay on the rides until they got bored.

One time when Jodie went to a theme park at the weekends with a school friend she couldnt belive how long she had to queue for, she never went at a weekend again.

School would have never had been a suitable environment for my children and by home-educating we have been able to follow their interests and gear their learning towards things they enjoyed doing to keep them motivated.

They are both very intelligent, well balanced,  and all the things we were told they would not be,  if we home-educated.

My Uncle summed it all up 6 years ago when we were having a good old family chat up with all the family and he said to me "  Dawn your kids, they okay aren't they"!. I said "Yes Alan they are Okay,  what do you mean,   he stuttered and stumbled and said "well many years okay when you said you were home-educating them I had my doubts but Yeh they're great, there're really okay. I told him to shut up I knew what he was trying to say.....

Dont listen to others your children will learn in their own way, just become their facilitator and make sure they have the materials around them and they will direct themselves.

I wish you all the luck with your home-schooling journey, the children grow up so fast, so take your time and enjoy it  and I’m sure like me, when you look back you will feel very proud of what you all have achieved and the life you have created for yourself and your children.

Dawn Dingwall

Sample Letter to take your child out of school

Date

Your name and Address

Dear (Name of Head teacher)

 

Name of child

 

I am writing to inform you that I/we have decided to withdraw our son/daughter from school in order to take personal responsibility for his/her education.  Please delete her name from the register in accordance (pupil registration) Regulation 9(1) (c) l995, as he/she is now receiving education otherwise.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Your NAME

 

                       ___________________________________________

LEA Officers ( or they might be called a different name now)

LEAs are the people who will be informed of your decision and they will normally contact you a month or so after to have a chat and find out how you intend to proceed.  Please don’t let this put you off, you do not legally have to show time tables.

All LEAs differ some are very helpful and others more demanding, but it always helps to be well informed of your rights and your children’s rights.

As a parent it is your job to make sure your child is properly educated and your LEA may ask for proof of how you intend to do this.  They might ask to visit you and your child at home and see what activities you are doing. 

In my experience it is best to let them come along and let them reassure themselves that you have your child best interests at heart and that you are not some mad insane woman or someone who is neglecting their child.

If you child does not want to be there, maybe they are scared or nervous, then explain that before, either in writing or on the phone.

Maybe invite a friend over who can play with your child whilst you talk to the LEA advisor.

With or without your child, have some of the activities or work you have been doing on show or the favourite book you child likes to read. Try to have a few ideas of which direction you want to go in so you’re ready for any of the questions they might ask you.

• Are you going to keep a time table?
• What subjects if any you are going to cover?
• How will you get out and about to meet other children?
• How will you cover physical education?

Remember you are well within your rights to educate your child at home, do not be intimidated.

If you need support ask your husband/wife/grandparent/friend to be there when you have your visit.

Home visits are always arranged in advance.  If someone turns up at your door unannounced, do not let them in and tell them you will accept visits by appointment only.  Make sure you take a note of their name and a telephone number.

Visits are normally made every 6 months to a year, though some people I know haven’t had one for years.

After the visit you will normally get sent a letter thanking you for your time and making some suggestions on which way to go.  You can choose to take this on board or ignore them.

PLEASE NOTE, BELOW RARELY HAPPENS, BUT I NEED TO PUT IT IN SO YOU KNOW.

If the LEA think you may not be educating your child properly, they could serve you with a notice giving you at least two weeks to satisfy them that you are educating properly.

If you fail to satisfy them then they can serve you with a school attendance order telling you which school they intend to name in it where your child will attend. You have the chance to choose an alternative.

If you don’t comply with the order they can take you to court, but you will still have the opportunity to show the court that you are educating your child.

This situation does not happen often only in exceptional cases.