Oh the Irony...
In this case the irony is that I am not quite finished with home educating The Boy after all. Yes he is at college. Yes, he seems to be doing very well. But no, they are not helping him get his English GCSE. (He already has an A in Maths.)
They offerred Functional Skills. One hour a week. Except nobody else showed up for the first lesson. And all you get at the end is functional skills level 2 qualification. When I asked the tutor if education institutions would view this as equal to a GCSE, should the Boy wish to go on to further study, he paused for a moment befreo replying in the negative. Of course not. So we are working at home doing the English Language B IGCSE from Edexcel. He will take the exam in January as a private candidate and it is costing us £86.
I share this irony with another home educator, who has a daughter who is also 16 as is doing a painting and decorating course.She already has a B in English. Her college were going to help her get her Maths GCSE. But the resit class that she was attending was not receiving any instruction. They were only being given assessment after assessment and being told that they were not improving. No shit. So she is also working from home trying to help her daughter get a Maths GCSE.
So that is two home educators still home educating even though our children are in full time education. How ridiculous.
On a more positive note. I attended The Boy's first paid gig last night. I was impressed. I sat there watching this talented young man, and his talented friends, and I couldn't help but think that actually, getting an English GCSE is rather irrelevant to his life. And it seems a useless box ticking exercise when he is already writing essays for his music course and getting good marks. He doesn't need to improve his English, he just needs to prove that he has the appropriate piece of paper. What an expnsive time wasting exercise.
The gig was good. He debuted one of his songs. :-)
He has also mentioned in passing that it is a good thing he isn't doing Functional skills anymore, because he has auditioned for something called the Difficult Music Group, and has been chosen as the drummer. It is on during the same time as he would be sitting in a room with a bunch of kids who don't want to be there, and not learning English.
He is doing loads, and meeting musicians, and doing charity gigs, and writing songs, and doing well at college, and really getting on with life. And I keep nagging him about his handwriting and his revision. How odd.
They offerred Functional Skills. One hour a week. Except nobody else showed up for the first lesson. And all you get at the end is functional skills level 2 qualification. When I asked the tutor if education institutions would view this as equal to a GCSE, should the Boy wish to go on to further study, he paused for a moment befreo replying in the negative. Of course not. So we are working at home doing the English Language B IGCSE from Edexcel. He will take the exam in January as a private candidate and it is costing us £86.
I share this irony with another home educator, who has a daughter who is also 16 as is doing a painting and decorating course.She already has a B in English. Her college were going to help her get her Maths GCSE. But the resit class that she was attending was not receiving any instruction. They were only being given assessment after assessment and being told that they were not improving. No shit. So she is also working from home trying to help her daughter get a Maths GCSE.
So that is two home educators still home educating even though our children are in full time education. How ridiculous.
On a more positive note. I attended The Boy's first paid gig last night. I was impressed. I sat there watching this talented young man, and his talented friends, and I couldn't help but think that actually, getting an English GCSE is rather irrelevant to his life. And it seems a useless box ticking exercise when he is already writing essays for his music course and getting good marks. He doesn't need to improve his English, he just needs to prove that he has the appropriate piece of paper. What an expnsive time wasting exercise.
The gig was good. He debuted one of his songs. :-)
He has also mentioned in passing that it is a good thing he isn't doing Functional skills anymore, because he has auditioned for something called the Difficult Music Group, and has been chosen as the drummer. It is on during the same time as he would be sitting in a room with a bunch of kids who don't want to be there, and not learning English.
He is doing loads, and meeting musicians, and doing charity gigs, and writing songs, and doing well at college, and really getting on with life. And I keep nagging him about his handwriting and his revision. How odd.
I keep coming back to the thought of how crushed that little boy would have been in school and everything you did for him to help him, to allow him to be young without pressure to grow up before he was ready, and now he is ready there will be no stopping him:-)
ReplyDeletewith much love
martine