We’ve entered into the world of home education and it is like an alternative reality we never knew existed. It appears there are as many ways to home educate as children who are home educated. There is unschooling, school at home, structured, semi-structured, world schooling, but don’t think of doing anything until you’ve deschooled. Then there’s all you need to read, like Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Naomi Fisher and many others. There are screen-free families, online learning families, Christian families and pagan families. Stay at home parents and those who manage to balance home ed with working full time. Those who spend the days outside and those with classrooms in their homes. You’ve got forest schools, coding club, Roblox and Minecraft, and crafting. No idea is better, it’s what works best for your child, but there definitely seems to be an underlying judgement of what’s “right”. Facebook groups abound with conflicting advice, solidarity, inspiration and commiseration. Some parents who love spending every waking moment with their children and others who just.want.a.break. Those who came to home ed out of necessity and those who desired it from the start. Kids who have never been to school, those who did primary, those who are now doing secondary and everything in between.

But there is a consensus that it takes a while to find your feet, weeks if you’re lucky, years if you’re not. You can change your mind, try all the things, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, but don’t buy all the workbooks at the very start. After all, every child is different and learns differently and it is only through trial and error, experimentation and exploration that you find what works best.

We are still at the “figuring it out” stage and see no end in sight. I oscillate between thinking home ed is the best thing ever and wishing we could just get our son in school. Saying that, I do not miss the fight every morning, the emails, the WhatsApp group and the phone calls. I don’t miss the feeling we were doing something wrong by keeping him in school. But socialising is much more difficult when you don’t have built-in friends in your class. We are yet to find “our people” so it can be very isolating and lonely. Most days I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing and other days are full of small sparks of connection and learning. Perhaps I still have a lot of “deschooling” to do so I can stop thinking education has to look like school.

Onwards we go, thanking God for Twinkl and a kid who can already read. Who knows how long we’ll be here? While we’re here we might as well make the most of it. Term time holidays, empty parks, pyjama days and random days off. As long as the kids are happy and feel safe, we’re doing just fine.

This is the second time I’m writing this post as my first draft from a week or so ago was all doom and gloom and stress. I feel a bit differently about things now, so I thought it deserved an edit to reflect that! If you read my last blog post, you may remember our issues securing a school place for our son, who is autistic. Unfortunately we have now reached an impasse where the LA (Local Authority) have declined our request for specialist provision, the special schools are too full to take him anyway, and the mainstream schools are unable to support him because they state “a specialist placement would suit his needs”. Riddle me that. So instead of putting him into a mainstream school that has expressed they are unable to meet his needs, we have made the (reluctant) decision to home educate him. Our son was too young for home schooling during lockdown so this is our first foray into it.

Now you may be thinking, “But Emma, you love your kids! You’re a stay at home mum so wouldn’t need to quit work! You love stationery and you’ll need loads!” and all these things are of course true. But what is also true is that, in order to stay sane and healthy, I need rest, downtime and, most crucially, time a-l-o-n-e. Home education makes that harder to come by. Thankfully I have found a few groups my son can (hopefully) go to which, when paired with the twins being in preschool, will give me a few hours each week to myself to plan, sort the house out and, crucially, rest. (I’m trying to hold this loosely though as we’re not sure yet whether he will be up for going out to groups at all.)

I am very grateful that I’ve recently discovered that the twins are eligible for 30 free hours of childcare since I receive Carer’s allowance. I was otherwise looking at a lot of time with all 3 kids at home. Sometimes this is wonderful and they play beautifully together, other times they need a staircase between them to avoid WW3. So, mercifully, we won’t have too much of that. However, I am aware that when the twins see me teaching our son at home, they may well then refuse to go to school and instead request to be home edded too. Maybe when it comes around to it, I’ll have fallen in love with home educating by then and be thrilled to teach all our three children. At the moment, the thought makes me come out in hives.

There are also the concerns I’m sure every parent going into home education has: what will we do? How will I be able to convince him to actually sit down and do stuff? What if he gets bored? What if he just wants to play or watch videos all day? What if we never leave the house? How will he make friends? Thankfully there is a large home ed community in the area we live in, though that requires him to leave the house which, at the moment, isn’t a given.

I know I’ve painted a picture of real doom and gloom and you’re perhaps concerned about my state of mind right now… Nevertheless, keeping him home does seem to be the most loving and affirming decision for him at the moment, rather than trying him again in a mainstream school. His last school was fantastic and his teacher was basically Miss Honey in real life, but, even with all their experience with autistic kids, they could not take away the sensory overloading school environment. Consequently, when he got overwhelmed he would often have a meltdown or lash out at other kids. Some days (to my shame) I literally had to carry him into school screaming. School did not feel like a safe place to him and the strain took its toll. Meanwhile, being at home and being with us is his happy place and the security of a known environment will hopefully help him heal from some of the trauma he experienced at school (no shade on the school at all, it was just how he experienced it).

So here we are, about to embark into a New World, with trepidation, anxiety and a smidge of hope that this could be a pivotal moment in our family. We will also at the same time be gearing ourselves with evidence to appeal the LA’s decision which will lead us to a tribunal court hearing. The judge often does favour the families in these appeals but it won’t be until the new year and there’s a lot of work to be done beforehand. Plus special schools are still full so even if the LA’s decision is overturned, we may not be able to get him a place at a special school immediately.

The fight for education is a story that is by no means unique to us, there are thousands of families in the exact same boat. ITV news did a segment recently on SEN kids and shared that 5,254 children in England and Wales who have an EHCP don’t have a place at any school. For a lot of people it then makes sense to step out of the formal education route and choose to educate their children at home. We feel we have been forced by circumstance to make that decision, but who knows… it might be the making of us.