Yesterday we went to see a school.
Pause for everyone to pull themselves together, exclaim in astonishment, and settle in to read on aghast. 🙂
It’s not a particularly ordinary school. It’s a new Montessori, based in a listed converted mill cottage, caters for ages 0 – 11, and has flexi-schooling built into the prospectus. So we’re trying to figure out the arithmetic of it all, not least because the children absolutely loved it. Big was most upset to hear that she couldn’t start tomorrow (ie today) as it isn’t open for at least another week!
It is rather lovely. I’d point you at a website, but they haven’t got one yet. I had a long chat with the principal before we went to see it, and I realised something about myself and home education. Even if we do start to use a school for some of the time for our children, we won’t stop being home educators. No part of our responsibility leaves us, we remain in complete control. We’d just be buying in a service in the same way that we buy in ballet, and will probably buy in music lessons in due course, or languages, or anything else that we aren’t particularly specialised in. So call us outsourcing home educators, and yes, I daresay a few of you will take every opportunity to take the proverbial (eh, Jonathan? 😉 ) but it’s going to be water of muddlepuddle duck’s backs 🙂 (and try saying that in a hurry when you’ve had a couple!)
So, that’s possibly on the cards, but this week is tough. To set ourselves up for it, we went and spent the day in Yorkshire – a lovely lunch out with Jan, Jonathan and co, then abandoned the children to their tender mercies while I took Tim on a tour around the village I grew up in. Blast from the past, the vicarage is up for sale. A snip at £675k. I went to Sunday school there (yes, I went to Sunday school 😉 ) and then when we’d moved away my first boyfriend lived there. Stalled my mothers car on the road up towards it the very first time I drove out alone. Learnt to shoot in the grounds, and learnt electric guitar inside. And no, nothing much else, we weren’t that close I’m afraid.
Lots of houses for sale around and about and some even within our budget, so plenty more food for thought.
As always after a trip off the path, we were late back, though not terribly so. Struggled to sleep last night – I’d left my code not compiling on Friday, and was able to not worry about it over the weekend, but last night it came back to haunt me.
Got away plenty early enough this morning, but it made little difference to the journey. Sigh. Spent the day frustratingly making very little progress, and got home a little later than Tim from his first day out gainfully employed, to spend the evening reading books with small ppl (4 books for Small, two chapters of Naomi’s New Step for Big) and now we’re taking in in turns to run up and down the stairs to try to persuade Small to stay in his own bed. Must get some food.
Comments
23 responses to “Considering outsourcing.”
Wow! Have been wondering how it’s all goingto pan out for you guys. So where is this school? I have a vague memory of somewhere on the way to the millshop being like what you describe. But I may be wrong.
Haven’t got a website??? Would they accept webdesign as a contribution towards the fees? 😉
Monte places do seem good about flexi-schooling, the primary school in Oxford used to say (last time I looked at their prospectus) that they were happy for it to happen and boasted plenty of HEors used their school. I used to drool over their website, lol, I heart Montessori 🙂
Big step though 🙂 Oh, where is it?
It’s just a junction up the M62 from where I’m working. So would be doable even if (when?) we get moved. Will depend on what the joint work position is though, it isn’t cheap!
I liked it, the approach seems to make sense to me, in all sorts of ways that mainstream doesn’t. Nice place, nice people, we’ll have to see.
Alison, FWIW ♥ = ♥
Hmm WP stripped that
♥
giggle.
very coherent tim!!
i think flexischooling sounds exciting – particularly when it is montessori, so no need for you to follow nat curric.
hopefully both of you can wangle perhaps a 4 day week, and then 3 days at monte.
i look forward to hear how its going.
i think it sounds a really positive step forward, as something sustainable long term,and particularly nice that Big excited by it too.
fantastic!
It does sound exciting. Is it a nursery as well, is Small included in this, or is it just for Big?
And if only all parents realised they were home educators outsourcing for some of the time!
Keep us posted, I really hope the move and everything work out well for you in terms of location, timing, etc.
“And if only all parents realised they were home educators outsourcing for some of the time!”
I think those that are, do – if that makes sense. None of my friends who use school see it as passing the buck responsibility-wise, tbh, and I think that’s why they can get a bit defensive towards home-educators who imply that. As a teacher I’ve certainly seen evidence of those who unfortunately do, but it’s not the norm in my experience. Some of my friends put *me* to shame with what they do with their kids outside of school. I think this does all go to show that just like home-educators can’t all be put in a box, neither can parents who use school.
It sounds like you (and Big) have decided what you want and as long as everyone is happy and fulfilled, what more is important? It must be a hard (and brave) decision to make, given that it’s such a shift from the path you had initially envisaged but you know that at the end of the day you are doing it for all the right reasons.
I’m glad it was good because its got to be the current most sensible option. I really hope it works out, i too am a little envious 🙂
Doesn’t have to be forever anyway does it – you can change or stop, though the children will, i guess always have more of a say now as they’ll have seen “the other side of the coin” – but that is necessarily bad.
““And if only all parents realised they were home educators outsourcing for some of the time!â€
I think those that are, do – if that makes sense. None of my friends who use school see it as passing the buck responsibility-wise”
No – neither do mine – those that think about it. But just imagine if *all* parents could learn to think of it that way …
I have to admit to being very envious, would love some sort flexi schooling for Zoea as H.E doesnt seem to be working for her, good luck look forward to reading more.
Jax- if I had a blog that would be my post!
Apart from that there isn’t a montessori school round here and Pip’s nearly 8. The head of a local school that I really like the vibe of says he sees “schools as providing a service” and that it’s his “job to ensure it’s a service we want” so flexi-schooling is on. We’ve yet to thrash out the details but I’m going for 3/4 days inschool, adding up to (about) 150 days per year max so I still consider myself HEing. I haven’t given up on HE, school is just a resource we need to use right now. This is negotiable as our future needs evolve.
And I hate the whole thing *some* HEers have that school-using parents dump their kids at the school gates, any school gates and whisk off to shop and have child-free lives, only minorly inconvenienced by the 3pm school run. Hasn’t fitted with any of the parents I’ve known so far, although I’m under no illusions; it probably does fit *some*.
I think this kind of thinking is the result of a polarized view of school/HE that directly stems from having to always defend and explain HE to everyone, over and over.
Wow! But I am considering flexi- myself for some time in the future – maybe next year or the year after. I am hoping it’ll be the best of both worlds and not the worst…. I do think it’s a good idea from many points of view. Good luck!
If there was a Montessori school near enough and if we had the money and if I thought Becca would be happy there I’d not hesitate. I think the Montessori ethos of following the child is so much better than anything the state system has to offer with its targets and tick boxs.
Jax, you know what is right for you and your kids and if they are up for it and you have found somewhere where you still have the control then where’s the harm in giving it a try. Montessor or Steiner are the only things I’d consider for my kids now. Hey if you go back to the village you grew up in you’d be right by my favourite campsite 🙂
Heather – get a blog! I miss your giraffes 🙂 And sounds good about the local school – that’s what I think all schools should be like, and for all ppl, not just children between ages of 5 – 16/18
To various of you, um, I do know multiple parents who treat school as a one stop childcare and view it that their responsibility ends at the school gate. We have one friend who wouldn’t dream of describing herself as a home educator I suspect – but is downsizing her life so that she can drop her son at the school gates and pick him up without him having to use after school clubs, and make sure that her time with him is fun.
ps Jenny, your comment was in moderation when I wrote the main body of this, wasn’t ignoring you, honest 🙂
Sarah, yes, this is for Small as well. There’s an outside chance they’ll be in the same room, can’t decide whether that is good or bad. May well have to renegotiate the whole thing in a couple of months anyway, but we can but try.
sound really interesting, looking forward to hearing more
Gosh it’s all been happening in my absence! Sounds really exciting Jax. Wish E’s Monte Nursery didn’t stop at 5, it would be really good for her to continue her 2 day/week.
At the risk of offending everyone, and in the hope that this will be taken in the spirit in which it’s intended:
I don’t think home-educating parents stop being home-educating parents because their child goes to school. I think all good parents “do home-ed” some of the time.
But I do think a home-educated child loses a lot of what being a home-educated child means when he or she goes to school.
Because school – any school – means losing some of what home-education is about. Freedom. To learn when you want, play when you want, sleep when you want. To learn what you want. To spend the day outside when the weather’s good and not go out for a week when the weather’s miserable. To change your mind about plans for the day at a moment’s notice.
School means following the school, rather than yourself. A schedule. A routine (whether it suits you personally or not). A requirement (or at least expectation) to be somewhere at a particular time. I’ve yet to see the school that is willing to explain sines and cosines at 9.30 pm, as we did a couple of weeks ago. That was when he wanted to know, so that’s when we did it. We could have done it even if he’d spent all day at school, I suppose – but I somehow doubt that he’d have asked then.
Bear in mind that I’ve done school with one of mine, and nursery with two of them. There is a difference, and while school – any school or this particular one – might be a good solution for a particular family at a particular time – it’s not the same as full-time home-education. And going to school – even a new, small, progressive, thinking school (as ours was) – does change a child. Maybe for better, maybe for worse. But definitely change.
Sorry, and hope everybody doesn’t hate me now.
TBh though, a lot of your description of the constraints of school could be about most childcare. Which is obviously necessary for Jax and Tim atm 🙂
And hey, I was at school for 14 years, and I had plenty of conversations about cosines at 9.30 😉
Doesn’t offend me, and I don’t know what I’d do if we found ourselves in the situation where I had to work too for some reason – I just think the change has already started, and finding somewhere great for the children to be is the best way of making sure it’s a positive change.
There’s also another point here, not all home educated children are free in the manner you describe, and you have missed out possible benefits from being at school. I think it could well be a good thing for both my offspring to get the chance to explore a whole load more resources than I’ll ever have here, to experience a bit more give and take with other ppl (not just age mates, this school has small mixed age groups) both children and adults.
If I weren’t working, we wouldn’t be able to afford this school, nor would we need the childcare, so the discussion would never have arisen. Given that I am working, and pretty much have to for at least a little while, we will take the best we can from this.
Deb, you haven’t offended me, doubt you’ll offend anyone here when all you are doing is stating your very reasoned and reasonable point of view. I like a bit of debate – if I wasn’t up for it, I wouldn’t have posted 😉
Glad I haven’t offended anyone.
No, not all home-ed children have the same degree of freedom, and not all schools are equal either. I suppose it comes down to which bits of the home-ed “package” you think are important. I want all of it.
I think childcare is a little different, in that a childminder can cater to the individual in the same way the family can. A nursery can’t, of course. BTDT with both.
Benefits of school – after 4.5 years of home-ed, I’ve only been able to identify one benefit that can’t be had in another way, and that’s for me, not them, and it’s the ability to go Christmas shopping during the week without the children in tow!