Is the summer bad for your child's brain? What about the rest of the year?

Times, 26th August 2009

Last week, I asked "Is the summer bad for your child's brain?" Peter Darby, founder member of online home education group, Action for Home Education explains how summer wasn't the problem....

"It wasn't the summer that worried us. It was the rest of the year.

It was the summer between my son's reception year and year one at primary that set us on the path to Home Education. It was seeing my son's devouring of anything that fired his curiosity during that break that cemented our decision.

My son fought against school. He told us he liked his teacher and his friends at school, but just couldn't express why he resisted. "Resistance" consisted of, at the very least, daily arguments about getting ready, which could lead to screaming matches, which could induce asthma attacks or vomiting. Which over a year of weekdays led to all of us dreading Monday morning.

Reports back from the teachers, however, told us that our son was bright, not remarkably so. Quiet in lessons. Cheerful enough, easily distracted.

At home he was voracious. Any opportunity to learn something new was taken. Granted, we were deliberately taking time to engage him with what we would now call “learning opportunities”, like going out, or looking at books together, or watching TV while talking about it. This is something that a teacher can't do, admittedly, but surely, we thought, they are trained experts. They'll have techniques that make up for that?

At the end of reception class we were given a list of words for the children to learn. Bristling at a five year-old being set HOMEWORK... over the HOLIDAYS.... we set off, and with a little bit of attention he'd picked them up in plenty of time for term to start.

Feeling a bit smug, we told the new teacher we'd got him to learn the words... No, we'd got it wrong. Those were the words they would be learning THIS term. By the end of the next ten weeks, at least half the class were expected to know over half the words.

Oh, so could we see the next list? No. That will go out at the end of this term.

We started scratching our heads at his reading reports. Our son had been going through the set book in one night at home. In his one to one reading, we had reports of “Doing well, nearly made it through half the book”. Asked why he was only reading half a book he'd finished, he said “If I finish it, they send me off to sit on my own. I don't want to sit on my own.”

He had, as predicted in the books of John Holt's (author of, most famously, How Children Fail, which proposes that children in school are encouraged not to learn but to conform), become an expert in gaming teachers for his advantage. Not liking maths, he'd learnt how to look like he was trying to work out problems, not actually looking at them, because kids who look like they are working get help. Kids who stare at problems get ignored.

So we decided to take our son out of school, maybe just for a term. We could always go back. What could we lose?

We've never looked back.

My son is now ten, and still amazes me regularly with what he has picked up without me realising. He's confident and polite when talking to anyone of any age. He wants to be a film director when he grows up. When I was ten, I don't think I even knew such a thing existed.

If you do manage to set your kids up with a happy, educational, engaging summer, you may find yourself asking the big question: Why go back?"

A fantastic article.

When my son was at home or out and about his appetite to learn new things was never ending. This is what spurred me on to embark on home education. I asked myself the question "if my son is so inclined to learn new things, even if they are not NC subjects, then why bother trying to make the school accommodate his SEN? School is for children with no desire to want to learn outside of the classroom". Before my son had finished reception class it became clearly evident that he was learning more stuff outside of school than in. This situation continued right the way through until KS2, yet the teachers were consistently writing in his report that he was of lower than average ability or needed extra help with things that he was ahead of his year group in. One even stated that he chooses unsuitable reading material for his age!

I have never looked back since embarking on HE and wished I had done it earlier.

What was your son reading and why was it unsuitable?

I was reading a Haynes manual when I was 4 and found it fascinating. It had chapters on the engine, gearbox, suspension, electrics, and fuel system. I could read entire sections although I didn't quite correctly pronounce some of the longer technical words. I took the book to school but my teacher wasn't impressed when I wanted to read it instead of story books with short simple sentences written in half inch high letters. The teacher was even less amused when all I wanted to talk about during circle time was how carburettors worked and the optimum fuel air ratio. My end of term report stated that I choose unsuitable reading material in lessons.

Now, has history repeated itself.

That's really impressive for a 4 year old. Teachers only seem to be interested in the work they set for the class or the National Curriculum material. Few seem to share a child's interests or appreciate their knowledge and talents.



Definitely. It was obvious to all even as far back as reception class that my son preferred to read factual books of a technical variety more than children's books intended for his age group. Can anybody find me another kid who isn't one bit interested in Harry Potter? My son will happily read a book about C++ programming or video editing but not classical English literature. I dread to think how he will survive secondary school English lessons with all the Shakespeare and Dickens.