Home schooling for the third term of Y6

[southbucks3]

I think the very positive thing about educating your child in a school environment is that the children alone are entirely responsible for who they decide will be who important to them in a very complex social hierarchy and that we, as parents have no influence at all once they are inside the school gates. Sometimes my sons befriend children who I would never of dreamed of pairing them up with, which is just fantastic. Sometimes I have children round here playing and haven't more than a polite word to say to their parents, it's not my friendship after all, sometimes the parents become firm friends and the children fall out.
The home educated child whilst not confined to friends and social groups selected by parents, except in sad cases of parents exerting absolute control, has to work harder to join clubs, sports groups and local friendship groups in order to experience the same level of social interaction, but even then may miss out on those simple school friendships where you have nothing in common at all, share no sports or hobbies, but simply fit together.

I was lucky enough to have two inset days alone with my youngest this term, while his bruvs were still at school, it was wonderful, he did gain educationally from our trips out, but I still think he benefited hugely from this last term of fun and frolliks at school with his chums.

Purely out of interest, because I know you guys have these stats at your finger tips. The home education figure of 17%, is that further broken down into sections, e.g.. parents: age, religion, race, birth nationality? Age interests me, as I wonder if younger parents are more likely to home ed (more energy )

[pinkrabbit38]

Whilst you seem to have had a positive experience with home schooling for the last term of year 6, I do feel that your DD has missed out on so many life experiences that the last term brings. I couldn't imagine removing my DD for the last term....she would have been mortified....missing out on seeing her friends everyday, missing out on the spectacular end of year production, last sports day at primary school, last Summer Fete, Year 6 leavers service, Year 6 leaving party....you never get these times back!

[ToadMum]

At our primary, in DS2's last term more or less all the 'fun' things came in a package put together by one of the mums for £20 each. Most things the pupils were expecting the school to organise never materialised or were cancelled 'due to bad behaviour' (this last being solely on the part of a very small number of children, who could just have been excluded from the trips etc rather than the whole year punished, of course, but Ho Hum). Even then, when I asked him whether he would have preferred to have been home educated, the answer was a resounding 'no', the reason given being the socialisation aspect of school. He even wanted to go to the leavers' disco, which I have to say rather surprised me

[Stroller]

Being out of school has advantages and can be a very worthwhile experience. We've done it previously.

Having just completed it though, I have to admit that Dd's final term at state primary was amazing. Volunteer community visits coordinated by the school. A week abroad. Sports Day. School fair. Three entirely distinct music concerts with different participants and audiences. An ambitious and very successful year 6 production. The leaver's disco, the leaver's service, the end of year school-wide event. The year book. A number of birthday party invitations including some from kids who hadn't had parties in previous years, but who were having a final celebration with their primary friends. Induction day at the new school. The pace was exhausting!

Academically, very little happened and there was plenty of downtime, but all in all loads of genuine teamwork and pushing beyond comfort zones that more than compensated.

[LostInTheShuffle]

pinkrabbit38 and Stroller, the experiences of your DDs sounded wonderful. My DD's school didn't have such extensive activities, and DD did visit her school on several occasions, including to take part in a theatre outing, sports day, summer fair and graduation.

The "other factors" that prompted us to consider homeschooling DD included some unhealthy social dynamics among similar-age peers (a tiny group at her small private school). Unfortunately, this appeared to have persisted during the past term so, in that respect, we were glad DD was removed from such an environment. (Having said that, as indicated in my previous post, I had some concerns that DD wasn't getting enough social interactions with other children.)

Regarding "you never get these times back," we felt the same, except from we looked at it from a different vantage point. As I mentioned in my original post last November, we wanted to spend more time as a family as we felt DD was going to be much busier once she starts secondary school.

If there is one thing I wished we had done differently was to travel more extensively as a family. We had originally planned a trip to Africa but due to concerns about health safety, a heavier than expected workload at my end, and uncertainty about the timing of DD's music exams, we didn't proceed with our plan.

I suppose the key takeaway for anyone considering homeschooling for the last term of Y6 is that there are tradeoffs to be made (as the various posts indicate).

[um]

I homeschooled dd for the final two terms of Year 6 and I'm really glad we did it.
Unfortunately she was not that happy at primary school and had lost a lot of her confidence.
Having those two terms at home turned her 'back' into the girl she used to be when she was much younger - confident, willing to try new things, enjoying life and learning.
In fairness we did not complete a great deal of academic work although she went to a tutor once a week for Maths. I had younger children too and work from home so was limited in terms of not being able to sit over her all the time.
She did do quite a lot of horseriding, read loads, did plenty of science experiments, completed crafts and a few projects. We visited educational events and places.
Despite not having formal lessons through most of Yr 6, this doesn't seem to have impacted on her at grammar school. She has been far happier in Yr 7 than at any point in her primary school and her report was surprisingly good and doesn't note any issues with her progress.

[Choppersdeedee]

I'd like to deregister my son for the last half term of primary school. He's unhappy there and is being bullied. I'm concerned that this will have a knock-on effect for his grammar school place. He's worked so hard for it I'm having palpitations worrying that they'll deregister him there as well! Would I need to inform the grammar school?
Thanks for any pearls of wisdom.

[Daogroupie]

In the state system primary school and secondary school are not connected.

If you have accepted an offer for a place at your local grammar then that is nothing to do with your primary school, they are not involved.

So long as you have provided current contact details where your new school can contact you nothing is going to be done via your primary school.

I know well a student who is currently being home schooled because of bullying who will be going to a state selective.

This student applied to a range of state selectives and the fact that they were home schooled was a total non-issue with all of them.

I hope that reassures you and you are able to build your son's confidence before he starts his exciting new life in September.

Bullying needs to be spoken about much more so that victims do not feel so alone when it happens to them. Winston Churchill was bullied at school as were many more very successful people.

I hope your son can make a fresh start and leave it all behind him where it should stay.

Bullying can happen to anyone, even students who seem very popular.

In my personal experience secondary school has dealt with it a lot more effectively than primary school. DG

[Choppersdeedee]

Thanks for your advice. I know it's the right thing to do for my son, he's been bored at school since the end of year four! I've already had correspondence from his grammar school through the post. I was just concerned that the LEA would take it upon themselves to deregister him from secondary as well as primary.

[PettswoodFiona]

DD homeschooled for last term of Y6, we had two visits from the LA and she got to attend the end of year party. She got to do lots of things she couldn't do at school and had a great time developing a sport she loved, some subjects hard to learn in school. No problem with taking up the grammar school place.