Home education

Yesterday we had our annual visit from the really nice man from the council who oversees my son’s education. The three of us sat round the dining table, looked through the file of work that the Teenager has done over the past year, and discussed the music career he hopes to have.

This is not how I imagined it to be when I took my tearful four year-old into school for the first time. I hoped that he might be as academic as I am, maybe learn several languages, maybe become a doctor. Life was not straightforward for us, though, and school became increasingly difficult for my son.

Secondary school was even harder. The Teenager is very bright, rather artistic, and very musical but had problems with some of the pressures of school life and the whole timetable thing made him very anxious. Eventually, he was suffering from severe migraines every few days and hardly managing to get to school at all. The school were sympathetic and tried to help, but I think they were relieved when I told them I was taking the Teenager out of school to take responsibility for his education myself. That was three years ago.

I was fortunate in having a legal background; the first thing I did was to look up the law. I found that it is perfectly legal to take your child out of school. You don’t have to teach them the national curriculum (independent schools don’t have to, either), just ensure that they have a “suitable” education. This means suitable for the particular child. Each child will have different interests and needs.

Home educating primary age children does have to include certain skills. For example, they have to learn to read and write and do arithmetic. Luckily, I didn’t have to do any of that with the Teenager! My aforementioned academic background meant that I felt perfectly capable of ensuring his literacy was up to scratch and I roped in an equally academic but mathematically minded friend to do the same for maths. For a while we ploughed forward with maths once a week, an art lesson once a fortnight and we continued with the music lessons the Teenager had been having before leaving school. We also did lots of outings, to castles, museums, a history festival, walking holidays etc etc. I had tried some more formal lessons such as French and Italian, using resources I had at home, but the Teenager became very anxious if anything seemed too like school, so we decided he would learn from “doing stuff”.

I hadn’t realised how quickly things would change. The maths and art lessons soon became redundant as we realised that GCSEs, while being important for those wanting jobs which require GCSEs, aren’t necessary for employment in the music business. I also came to the conclusion that trying to pass GCSEs could really harm my very bright but very anxious and school-traumatised son. More important to learn life skills, absorb as much music technique and theory, encompassing a number of instruments, as possible, and work on increasing confidence. Also, for a 13 year-old it may be fun to visit castles with your mum; when you are 15 or 16 you don’t even want to walk down the road with her, let alone go on an outing!

The question we are always asked, in common with other home educating families, is “what about his social life?” Well, my son’s social life is so busy! We live in a large village and all the youngsters call for each other and converge in various spots around the village. The Teenager now has friends several years older than himself as well as some who are younger. I think it is healthy for children to mix with others of different ages, rather than all the same age which is the artificial situation created by school. It is also particularly helpful for an only child, like the Teenager, to have friends of various ages.

My home is often full of kids, especially during the winter when it is too cold for them to be outside much. It’s a good thing I am pretty relaxed and not houseproud, as home education is definitely not compatible with a pristine house! For one thing, you and your child are in the home much more than if you were at school and working (needless to say, I couldn’t work full time once I had made the decision to take the Teenager out of school, and this decision has contributed towards my move away from legal practice). For another, there are so many activities, especially with younger teenagers and I am sure even more so with small children, to clutter up every room in your house. In the first year or so there were a lot of models made in our house, and we still need to make room for a workbench for mending and tinkering with guitars, and room to set up instruments and have lessons (the guitar lessons continue, with a wonderful teacher – the only outward sign of formal tuition).

So where are we now? The Teenager is 16, and in the summer he will be beyond compulsory school age. As things stand now, however, nothing much will change at that point. He wants to go on with his guitar lessons and taking his Grade exams. He passed the last one with 96.5%, wasn’t too surprised by this, and expects to get the same next time. Eventually he should have a collection of Grades in two or three instruments and music theory. He plays in a band; the other members are two or three years older and more experienced, musically, so there is a healthy challenge for him. Outside of music, the Teenager looks like any other – just as scruffy, just as mumbling and with most of the usual teenage vices. On the other hand, he has an excellent knowledge of current affairs, is able to converse with anyone including any adult, and has the capacity to understand other people’s feelings, thoughts and behaviour. In short, pretty well rounded and mature.

Would I change anything? Possibly the only thing would be to start home educating earlier. I’m not sure about primary age – it would be the maths that would worry me – and I wouldn’t really have wanted to timetable our day. In fact what happened after a while was that we did things at the most suitable time. Outings during the week and holidays in term time. If we wanted to make a model or learn to solder late at night, then we did. So we have become far less aware of the school day and terms, and more responsible for our own time management.

I think it might have been more difficult had the Teenager not had his passion for music. This has meant that he is motivated to learn, think and be active. I would imagine, however, that most children have a passion if they are given the time and space to seek it. Once you have discovered the thing that is most important to your child it is easy to tailor their education around it.

We have been very lucky with the advice we have received. The two organisations whose websites appear below were helpful when we were setting out, as was our local Pastor who had home educated his son as a teenager. The man from the Council has also been wonderful. At first I was nervous and thought I would have to prove that I was providing a “proper” education. In fact it was he, a year ago, who suggested ditching our attempts to learn maths in a formal way and our vague thoughts of GCSEs. He said, “just focus on music; you can learn everything you need to through that”. We were surprised, but he seems to have been right!

For further information, have a look at these sites:
http://www.education-otherwise.net/
http://www.heas.org.uk/