Homeschooling Stories

Here's where we share our homeschooling stories.  Reading these real-life examples helps us all re-affirm the reasons we choose to teach our children at home.

You also find it very inspirational and moving!

The following homeschooling stories are shared by members of the Courageous Homeschooling Facebook Group.

Jayne's Homeschool Story

My daughter, Jayne, suffered from Selective Mutism. She just couldn't speak to anyone other than her family.

Her anxiety was very high but her teacher got her to stand up in front of parents and children and say a few words.  She just stood there in tears. I was crying and all I wanted to do was take her away.  The teacher blamed us as we were there watching and I was told I made it worse as she could see me in tears. 

When she went into school at 7, she was being pulled off me every morning crying as she didn't want to go. Her little face every time she came home was dark under her eyes. This went on for 8 months. Every time I spoke to the teacher with my concerns, she reassured me Jayne was ok.

I investigated homeschooling and decided that enough was enough. We went in to pick her books up and she was given cards and some of her friends gave her little presents.  It was a very emotional hour, my friend came in to support us, she put her arm around both of us when we left. I looked at Jayne and she looked so relieved that she knew she wasn't going back to school.

I got home to see where she was in her lessons.  I was so shocked there were little notes from Jayne asking for help, eg "I don't understand this." There were no answers. I asked Jayne did they ever answer her questions, she shook her head.

A year later, Jayne's health and confidence has improved so much, it was the best thing we could have done. I just wish we had done it before then. 

~ Sylv

Why We Chose To Homeschool
~ Anonymous

I trained to be a teacher because I always strived to be that teacher that made a difference to young people's lives.

When I gave birth to our daughter my husband thought he was going to lose both of us. I went from being medically fit to both of us having medical complications, one of which created by the hospital, I needed an emergency c-section which was not done properly and I had to return for emergency surgery.

So you can see I would do anything for my little girl. We didn't put her into nursery in case she was bullied and wasn't able to stand up for herself or explain what was happening. We didn't want the confidence knocking out of her before she started.

The school had supposedly never come across a child who had never been to nursery before and she was assessed for everything under the sun. Basically our daughter was not dependent on other children's attention, was independent and happy in her own company. She never had any separation issues with us. Ironically her speech and language scores were well above her age. However she had an individual education plan (IEP) which focused on little things like eye contact, initiating play and dressing (she never needed any toilet assistance).

Our daughter had an IEP for 2 years but was taken off the special needs register after 2 years as her academic levels were too high to warrant her staying on.

In Maths our daughter made NO PROGRESS over a year as demonstrated by the school's levels. She was predicted to be half a year behind. I worked with her every night after school and she smashed her target achieving the 'required' level. 

I taught her to read, she achieved a year ahead, and although she had significant writing difficulties, again I worked with her every night on the 'wet-dry-try' method. She achieved half a level above average.

Our daughter was also subject to persistent unprofessional and degrading comments from her teacher.

Whilst she was at school her best friend turned against her, persistently physically bullying her on a day to day basis and incurring injuries. The girl went on to attack other children and staff. 

We couldn't wait till the end of the year and start homeschooling. I collected her at the end of the day and she held my hand tightly. I said, "Let's do this," and she went and did a celebratory lap of the playground waving her arms in the air.  She skipped ALL the way home, we played 'School's out for summer' loudly when we got home and opened a bottle of champagne.

We have had a fantastic year home educating so far and our daughter has really thrived. We had a meeting with the home education officer who gave us a glowing report and said our daughter was getting a better education than she would in school. Today we received our year review letter. I just hope they're prepared!!

You can see more homeschooling stories on my Mom's wisdom page, which has free e-books to download.

I would love you to share your homeschooling stories!

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