Our Reasons to Home Educate.

How will they make friends if they don’t go to school?

I am a mother to three daughters, two of whom are now adults with partners and their own children. My youngest daughter was born 13 years after my middle daughter. She would not sleep from day one. She quickly developed a very extensive vocabulary and a very enquiring mind. When she was sixteen months old, she remarked that a bumblebee was “kissing the flowers better” on my bean plants. I knew that she was not an ‘average’ child. She was lively and sociable. She could ‘rave’ with my teenagers and their friends and hold an intelligent conversation with any adult she came into contact with.

She started a playgroup at two and a half and the leaders there remarked on how ‘bright’ she was. She came across as very mature and had a way of ‘directing’ any play activity with her little friends. When she was three and a half she decided that she just didn’t want to go any more. There was a boy there who was horrid, he was spiteful and never said sorry. I went along to the play sessions for a week or so to observe her. The playgroup was very structured. My daughter loved learning to write her name and the books but she did not like the ‘rough and tumble’. She came home and sat glued to Sesame Street and learned to read by first recognising the word Safeway on lorries and moved on to breaking down the words on street signs. She looked forward to starting school.

The day came when she was four years old. She brushed past a little boy who was clinging to the gates protesting “I don’t want to go!” , she turned to his distraught mother saying, “I do!”. I asked her how her first morning was and she said “OK”. She spoke of having lots of friends but one in particular. On our first parents evening I enquired what the score result was and what it meant on her first report and her teacher, the deputy head, told me that this score meant that she was the top in her year group. I did worry when she came home and said that someone had hurt her and not said sorry. I told her that not all children have manners and that it was not their fault, it was their parents’ fault. I stood in the playground and hated the fact that parents were staring through the windows often with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. I also hated the foul language coming from the mouths of some of the parents in the earshot of my daughter, which was repeated by some of the children.

In year one she moved onto her new teacher and she excitedly asked me to come and meet her. She ran to her new teacher and gave her a big hug around her legs, at which her teacher looked annoyed and said “I am not your teacher yet!” My daughter went through the reading scheme at a rapid pace and was given a free reader book in year one.. She came home each afternoon and asked me to give her some work. At open evening her teacher said that she was getting through her work very quickly and so I asked if she could have something more or at least something more challenging. It turned out that her teacher was very proud that she had a child in her class who could help the other children or sort out the bookshelf. My daughter was so attached to her friend at school but then unfortunately this lovely child left to go to a different school. My daughter became very lonely as she could not seem to attach herself to any other child. The other children seemed to be hostile to anyone joining their ‘group’. On a few occasions I was telephoned to collect her from school at lunchtime as my daughter had complained of feeling unwell. As I walked through the playground past the ‘dinner ladies’ they quickly scattered from the huddle that they had made talking together whilst the children ran around, the boys kicking balls and the girls walking about together talking. There were also children crying in corners or sat on benches on their own. On one occasion my daughter was stabbed with a fork on her hand by a boy who apparently ‘couldn’t help it, he is special needs’.

The school holidays came. I took her to the park and she innocently asked two little girls if she could play with them and they told her “No! Go Away”. I collected her little friend from her house and took her on outings but she was the only friend my daughter had. I invited other children from her class home and they appeared to get on very well but on return to school the children went back into their groups and my daughter was isolated again. Now and again she found someone to play with because that child’s best friend was away. Once the new playmates best friends return she was left alone again.

At the end of the holidays we were met by a new teacher. My daughter was impatient to start learning again, for two weeks she produced nothing on paper at all. The other classes came out with spellings but not hers. I thought that the new teacher sounded very patronising to the children, the excitable ones with bad behaviour were met with, ”Please don’t do that darling!” followed by a pat on the head. One afternoon at last my daughter came out clutching a piece of paper...homework at last! She looked very angry and showed me her spellings which she had to learn. The words were,’ I’, ‘A,’’ am’, ‘at’, and the hardest was ’the’. At home my daughter was spelling the words ‘beautiful’ and’ because’, so she was rightly insulted. I questioned the teacher and her reply was that she had to start from scratch until she found what the class was capable of. I was so angry that she had not seemed to have taken the time to look up the school records to discover the childrens’ personal capabilities. The head teacher agreed that my daughter should have key stage two work but refused to accept any criticism of her teachers approach. Word leaked out that I was dissatisfied and I overheard some parents discussing how I thought that my daughter was better than anyone and my daughter was a ‘boffin’.

I moved my daughter into her friends school, but she was in a different class. At least my daughter had a teacher who understood her completely, she gave her work which was challenging and when she finished this she could take a picture out of the box and write a story. She still had problems making friends and yet again her best friend, whom she had the company of at playtime, moved away. She made friends with a little boy much to the amusement of some other children. A little girl joined the class and her school life became unbearable. The little girl stole her lunch and threatened to tell tales, which were completely made up in order to get her into trouble. One dinner lady ordered my daughter to play with her because this child had complained, she told my daughter that if she didn’t she would have to go in the naughty square. I complained bitterly but agreed that perhaps as this little girl was lonely that she could try and be friends. She went round the child’s house but when she came back she seemed to hate us, she never went again and the girl continued to bully my daughter. My daughter obtained level 3 a‘s on her SATS tests which her teacher said was all that was required as she was prevented from letting her try the level four papers as this was not the school policy.

The school holidays came and went. I collected my daughter’s two friends from their homes and took them on outings, and she returned to an older ‘more experienced’ teacher who appeared to have little control over the same group of children. The whole class dynamics changed and my daughter sat in silence for most of the day while this teacher shouted at the top of her voice at the ones who had challenging behaviour. My daughter made friends with children who had temporarily lost their best friends to illness because the friendship of the boy had fizzled out through teasing, with the little boy being called ‘gay’ because he played with a girl. The bully was still stealing her lunch and her teacher advised my daughter to get up a group of children to retaliate and stop the girl from bullying her. She had to find the courage and do this herself though, also find enough children to back her up so it seemed. Coupled with this the work content had ‘cooled off’ and so my daughter was bored and sat on her table not being allowed to speak after she had rapidly finished her work. All around the bedlam continued until one day I could stand it no longer and marched into the classroom and demanded to know why on earth I brought my daughter to school. In desperation I said that I could do a better job myself and much to my surprise the teacher agreed. “Why not?” she said. “She is bright enough!” I approached the head about my daughter not being taught to her ability and she was given two test papers, maths and english which proved her to be two years ahead of her peers and was awarded the label ‘ very able’. When the test papers were sent to me I was very annoyed to see that the marker had incorrectly marked her spelling of ‘orchestra’ as wrong when upon checking with a dictionary it was indeed correct!

The head teacher got visibly sick of my complaints when nothing resulted following her assessment, she was still friendless and still bullied by the same little girl so we took a final gamble and moved her out.

A new school had been built on an exclusive development. It was also a church school so I figured out that perhaps the Bible had taught the children to love and respect their fellows and as a last resort she enrolled. At last she had the correct level of work because the class only numbered sixteen children and she was placed on the top table of year four children, she was then officially year three. Unfortunately after three happy weeks, my daughter said that she had made many friends and was happy with the work...the bully enrolled and her new teacher sat her next to my daughter, because they knew each other. My daughter’s new friends were ordered away by the girl giving my daughter no choice but to escape from her clutches by holding a dinner ladies hand at playtime. At open day the teacher said that my daughter had social problems because she had told tales about this little girl, which was not acceptable because the school regarded that she should forgive and forget the previous relationship with the child. The teacher also warned that unless she changed her timid attitude and stopped walking about with the dinner ladies she would never have any friends! The little girl shortly left. Later she was put into her correct year group as the class had split and she was then unmercifully teased for being a ‘boffin’ and ‘clever clogs’ because she had been the only one on the top table with the older children who had then been placed by their age group in a different class. I did not insist that she be moved because she adored her teacher and the year four teacher was ‘spineless’ and shouted all day, according to the parents of that class. I received many telephone calls at lunch times asking me to collect her as she felt unwell. I always told the receptionist that she felt ill because she was being bullied at playtime. I took her to the doctors who told me that her illnesses were stress related. The final straw came when the school held an own clothes day to celebrate being open for a year. My daughter wore her new dress and the other girls arrived in skimpy lycra skirts and crop tops or jeans. A group of the ‘popular girls’ called her a ‘gypsy’ all day and she came from the school gates in tears, a timid, quiet, defeated shell of the child she once was.

I urge you... if you are reading this because your child has been going through similar experiences at school, please think. Please consider my story if you honestly believe that the only place for a child to ‘socialise’ is at school. I cannot say hand on heart that she has now a marvellous social life, even though she has been home educated for over a year now. She is very suspicious of children but has a couple of friends, one she met though my husband’s hobby of radio controlled car racing, and a couple more which she has met through St John Ambulance. In fact she has been on four weekend camps this year, one in Germany, and she is gradually learning to feel comfortable in a group setting. I now believe that some children will never feel comfortable in groups of children day in day out. Some children will never make good friends at school. At least my daughter is happy now. She can work at her own pace and is never called names for doing so; she can also choose when she wants to mix with others. My daughter and I have learned a very hard lesson about ‘socialisation’, and she now loves her own company. In time she will feel able to trust again and then we can take advantage of our local group with EO and the many opportunities available for making like-minded non-judgmental friends.