A child with differences/potential can often get bored in a mainstream school. My son for example loves to become immersed in anything that catches his attention to the point of obsession! He loves nothing more than to be able to educate you in the fullest way possible about his new passion and tell you everything that he has learned about the subject.
Unfortunately, this also has it’s polar opposite. If he finds a subject boring, he just will not listen or join in with completing the tasks that are set by the teacher and will produce no work during class time. He sees it as a waste of his brain activity and would rather daydream about his chosen subject, whether it be Xbox games or historical events that happened in London on 23rd April 1645! (I don’t actually know if anything happened on that date, it was just the first date that popped into my head xD)
Home-schooling was fun for both my son and I, however he soon began to miss being with other children his own age. I tried to take him to mingle with other kids, but there aren’t actually that many places where you can find older home-schooled children in the UK, especially not where I live.
So I agreed to let him go back to school despite my worries that he would not function as well as the other mainstream educated children. We are now in the 2nd year of senior school and my fears are being realised. His school report shows that his work is not up to scratch, in fact it has dramatically fallen since he started at the school. When I approached the teacher’s for help, I was told because he is intelligent and has the ability to learn, he would not be given any help or support because there are other children who need it more.
So now I face a dilemma… Do I let him continue to ‘fail’ at school for the next 4 years? Or do I remove him from school so that he can learn in the way he learns best, with support at home? I don’t feel that the school is able to offer him the space to be an individual and learn in his own way, and if he stays there following their way of learning, he will be told regularly that he is a failure. I do not want this for him, he is not a failure in my eyes, he just doesn’t fit into their pigeon holes. How important are GCSE’s? Do they really matter? When I spoke to school about my concerns, they said that as he will be starting his GCSE’s in September, they are hoping he will be better in class as he will have chosen the subjects he is interested in and he can drop the ones that don’t appeal.
When I broach the subject about taking him out of school, my son get’s upset as he has found a group of friends and enjoys the social aspect of school. So what do I do? Do I let him continue on at school enjoying the social time and hope that he decides to work in the subjects that he chooses for his GCSE’s? Or do I risk taking him out of school and him hating me forever, but him not failing at school? It is so hard being a parent!
Do you have any experience with homeschooling older children in the UK or elsewhere and have faced these issues? I would love to hear from you!
Thank you to Unsplash for the free images (Except for my son tree climbing) and thank you guys for looking!
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