Like I said in one of the previous blogs, we had to send a letter off to deregister our oldest son out of the government school. In
“Who’s filling this out?” was his question to me. Of course he was, so I got quiet all the while trembling in my shoes, thinking they were going to haul us off to prison before we could even start home schooling. He continued with the paperwork filling out form after form until his head was swimming (I know mine was just looking at the paperwork!) then all I did was sign at the bottom. I sort of gulped because I thought I was signing my life away. Still, we knew home schooling was the right thing to do at that point so we did it. We sent off all the forms and within a short amount of time, we received a letter stating that someone from the LEA would be there (soon) to visit us and see how things were going. I was really nervous about that for a couple of months until we decided we probably wouldn’t get a visit. Not once during that first school year did we receive a visit from the LEA; however, at the beginning of the next school year we received a letter from the LEA stating that on a certain day we would receive a visit.
We went into high speed mode and decided just what we would show him and what we wouldn’t. I heated the water for hot tea or coffee, my husband ran to the store to get some biscuits (known as cookies in the states), and we were ready for the showdown to begin!
He showed up on time and the battle began (at least that was our perspective)! First, we let him sit down for a few minutes rest (driving a car is difficult work, you understand) and do a little bit of chatting. I asked him what he would like to drink. “A nice cuppa tea,” he replied, in surprise. I heated up the water, put in what he wanted (milk, no sugar) and brought in a plate of biscuits (cookies).
“I shouldn’t have this,” he gave a bit of groan, then after eyeing the biscuits a short time, he took a couple and began munching whilst drinking his tea. Mark kept him busy by asking him loads of questions about his job. During this time, we found out we didn’t have to fill out the paperwork and it was a community service just inviting him into our house. Amazing! When he finished his tea and biscuits, we got right into the important business – showing him what our oldest son did in his school work on a daily basis. He got to see the computer work (where our oldest son did most of his schoolwork), and then he looked at book reports (from books over 400 pages long), then the finale! We had our son come downstairs with his flute and play one of his most difficult pieces. The battle was won! He told us he was really impressed with everything we did and said that if the regular school system would use the same system that we did, then they would be better off! We chatted a bit more and he left.
Mark was on top of the world! He’d beaten them at their own game by simply being prepared but then he determined he would never allow them to pull that trick on us again. It isn’t that we are embarrassed over what our children are learning but we don’t feel it is their business as long as they know the children are learning, that is the important thing.
Stay tuned to see what happened next!
When
we first put our younger 2 boys into the government school, we thought it was a
great idea because then they would have a regular routine, wouldn’t they? At least, that’s what everyone tells us! Your children must have a routine! Looking back now, I can’t remember us ever
having a routine except when they were at a school instead of being
homeschooled. We could do what we
wanted, when we wanted, and even go where we wanted in the midst of all the
schoolwork! When we had a regular routine
we were tied to the schools dictation and it was rather burdensome! If we wanted to go somewhere as a family,
then that meant we had to pay top prices wherever we went because that meant
the boys still had to be in school.
There
was another con about sending them to the government run school and that was
they began behaving in ways that we had already taught them as youngsters not
to behave. Since they were around
children that did it all day long, they picked up these bad habits and brought
them home. I was so pleased to see a
change in their lives once we
homeschooled them again.
We
did go for two years with our youngest 2 in the school and, although the
teacher was strict and she didn’t allow pornography in the school, there were
still times where we had disagreements with her on how the boys should be
raised. She would take a step back when
she was reminded gently that they were our children and it was our
responsibility to bring them up the way we felt was best.
In the end, we went back to the states for a time and whilst there, my dad had a stroke. We felt it necessary to help my parents out and are very thankful that we were given that opportunity. This did allow for pulling our youngest out of the school at the beginning of the school year so we could homeschool him. We felt, spiritually, he wouldn’t be up to one more full school year, especially as his brother was no longer in the primary school. What a blessing returning to the states had been for us and we know that God, in His providence, always guides for His honour and glory.
Like I said previously, the child goes to high school when they turn 11. Well, our oldest son, being 11 years of age, toodled off to high school with the older children. The first day we took him, I ended up crying because I wasn’t sure what would happen to him. It wasn’t too bad at first until we began checking out the curriculum. We sent a note off to the head mistress explaining that we didn’t want our son in the sex education class, or anything to do with witchcraft. Yes, witchcraft was allowed to be part of the education!! In fact, both the English class and the Drama class had witchcraft in it.
She set up a meeting with us (which was our desire anyway) and did we ever watch the fur fly! We explained our beliefs and asked if our son could have a pass to be let out of these classes. In return, we would supplement his education in the evening time with a different curriculum. The headmistress was very upset and made a big deal about it although she did admit that there was a Muslim girl who didn’t go to these same classes and was able to live by her principles. Nothing was settled and we left stating that if she didn’t support us then we would remove him from the school. She refused to listen or to do anything about it and we were well within our rights for what we had asked.
That was about the beginning of October time so we made the commitment that we would homeschool him by the end of that term. We did have to deregister him with the LEA as well as with the school. We received a letter from the headmistress stating that she felt he had settled in nicely and everything had been worked out so she didn’t understand why we were taking him out of school. We didn’t argue or go into any detail but sent a letter back saying that we felt we could do a better job at schooling him. Amazingly enough, our son thanked us several times for homeschooling him.
Stay tuned for more of our homeschooling history in
Homeschooling in
In the meantime, my husband was a pastor of a little church that was half a mile from where we lived. When the people heard that we took our oldest out of school and began homeschooling, there were several that had a major reaction to the whole situation.
“You’ll do what?!! Don’t you realize you have too much to do, as it is?”
“We don’t pay you to be a teacher, we pay you to be a pastor 24/7!” was one of the responses.
“You have no right to force your wife to school the children. There’s a lot of work to be done at the church and she will have to take care of all the responsibilities that the previous pastor’s wife did!” was another response.
“You’re not qualified to be a teacher! Leave it to the professionals that know what they’re doing!”
“You have no right to take your children out of the school because they help to bring young people in from the schools to the church!” This was the overall response even by some that supported us throughout the ministry.
Stay tuned for more on the road less travelled in the UK!!