The penny begins to drop

My daughter has not fully realised just how much of her time school is going to take up. I'm quietly trying to discourage her from taking on TOO many new activities. One or two activities a day is very easy to fit into the diary of a home educated kid, but could mean stress for a schoolchild.

It's now school holidays. Yesterday she said she was looking forward to going swimming when the pools had got a bit quieter, so she and her friends can play together in peace and not have to queue for a shower. "How long until school starts?" she asked, "so we can swim when the pool isn't busy?" I reminded her that when school starts, she'll be starting with it. I saw her realise that there will be no more peaceful visits to the pool.

One of her friends told her about a couple of fun-sounding home ed trips his mum had booked him onto in the autumn. She asked me whether we could go too. "No," I said, "you'll be at school."

Last night she was deep into the details of her latest moneymaking scheme: sewing clothes for stuffed toys and selling them online. "Once I have my patterns done, I should be able to make two pairs of trousers an hour," she calculated. "If I work three hours a day, I'll be able to make six pairs a day. After paying for the materials I'll earn £12 a day, if I can sell them all." I said nothing. It seemed too unkind to point out that soon she won't HAVE three hours a day, not if she wants any kind of life outside sleep, school, and her new business venture. I guess she'll see that soon enough.

First day at school

She's done a trial day. The parents were friendly. The children seemed friendly. In fact, I think every single girl in the class came up to meet my daughter in the playground before school.

I took Small Fry (aged three) to play with some home educated friends in the park. They asked after The Kid, hoping she wouldn't be doing a very long stint at school. They wanted her as a regular playmate, and they knew they wouldn't be seeing much of her while she was enrolled in school.

Six hours later, out she bounced. She had done lots of fun things, she told me on the way home. The maths worksheet was far too easy but she could have a harder one next time. However, she did have a splitting headache - either from doing more close work than she's used to, or from the noise level. Children in her class are allowed to talk freely whenever the teacher isn't telling them something. I'm delighted to learn this, but hope it won't mean daily headaches.

The other problem: socialisation. You remember, the main reason children are supposed to benefit from school? It turns out that all those girls who'd been so eager to welcome her were members of different little groups. Each wanted to suck The Kid into her own faction. She said they'd been trying to turn her against the others. "You don't want to be friends with her; she's nasty" and "Well, you have to choose between us and them."

That preteen girl clique nonsense does happen among home educated children too, and in fact it has been an issue recently. I'm not pointing the finger at school, not entirely. But it's clear already that it is going to be far more intense in this closed group. Always before there has been an escape. We didn't ever HAVE to go to a particular home ed group, and if we did, when things heated up too much it was perfectly OK for my daughter to opt out by hanging around with younger or older children, or the grownups. Lately she has been seeing friends in ones or twos, which works better.

The social jockeying at school is a challenge from which The Kid will be unable to opt out. She reported that she had managed to avoid allying herself with any particular group YET. She doesn't think she can manage it indefinitely. Fortunately, the few boys in the class seemed nice. She tried chatting with some younger children, but was caught at this unwholesome activity: "What are you DOING, hanging out with Year Threes??" She isn't used to restricting her choice of friends to children who are exactly her age. This will take some getting used to.

Imagining a costume

My husband joked yet again about how easy things would be if only I would put the kids in school. I told him he had another think coming: two school runs a day, uniforms to buy, wash and iron, helping with homework, manufacturing costumes for World Book Day with three days' notice. So I hear.

He suggests sending her as some sort of literary urchin. That's right up my alley: whenever we have to produce a costume for a home ed history day, I always plump for the pauper look. The Kid groans and rolls her eyes in embarrassment. "I'm going to run away from home and live with the wolves," she declares.

"I've got news for you," I reply, "The wolves aren't going to make you a decent costume either... unless you want to go as Mowgli?" And not your Disnified Mowgli either, I think, clad in improbable pants. "Naked!!" both of us parents shout in glee. "We'll send her to school naked. With a flaming torch."

I am counting down the weeks until World Book Day.

Blotted our copybook already

Welcome pack duly received. Full of enthusiasm, the Kid immediately set about completing the application form for the local authority, using her own spelling and barely-decipherable handwriting. I mentally rehearsed the phrase, "But don't you WANT her to practice her writing?"

Her diligent efforts were punctuated by requests for advice on filling bits in:

Kid: "Previous education"?

Me: Put "Home educated."

Snide Dad: No, put "None."

Me: "HOME EDUCATED"!!

Kid: How do you spell "home"?

Dad: See what I mean? Put "None."

Later we examined the Home School agreement. My section contained nothing to which I objected, so I signed. The Kid, however, has been learning to consider documents before signing them. She observed that her section obliged her to "do all my classwork and homework as well as I can" and also "tell my teacher if there is anything bothering me." She wasn't prepared to agree to do this at all times. She expects that at times the work will seem pointless and she won't be bothered to give it her all. And she didn't want to share every personal matter with her teacher. I advised her to sign it only if she was prepared to follow it. She decided not to sign. I wrote "declined to sign" across it.

Upon receiving the forms, the secretary said The Kid must sign hers. I pointed out the word "optional" on the form. Looking doubtful, she said she'd have to check with the headteacher, because "everyone has always signed it before..." I don't think either one of us is going to fit in, somehow.

Meeting the head

Today we had our appointment with the headteacher to have a chat and a look round the school.

The Kid and I arrive 20 minutes early and sit on the village green eating our sandwiches. We find a few children nearby, constructing a rope bridge over the stream, and help them test it. Pretty good, I think. I resist the urge to ask why they aren't in school.

With uncharacteristic punctuality we walk in the door on the dot of 2:00. The head invites us into his office. He seems OK, a bit "old school" but perhaps that means he'll have some common sense. My usually chatty child is utterly silenced by the surroundings and his aura of authority, and proceeds to keep her mouth shut throughout the entire visit. He tries to draw her out with some easy questions. Not a word.

Never mind, I think to myself, he'll be hearing plenty from her soon enough. It turns out that he'll be teaching her class two days a week. He doesn't know what he's in for!

A decision made

My home educated daughter is ready to try school. I've always known she would. Conformist that she is, how can she go through life without this experience that 99% of children have had? Even among her home educated friends, she has difficulty holding her head up. They talk knowingly about school, agreeing that it's a waste of time. She nods, and looks uncomfortable. What's it actually like? No one can really tell her that. She has to find out for herself.

She would have gone earlier, without a doubt. At four or five or six, certainly. Perhaps at seven. Not at eight, when self doubt crept in. She thrives on new experiences and is one of the most sociable people I've ever known. She wants to be where the action is.

If she'd been strong willed and insisted on going, I would've let her. But she isn't like that. She's very susceptible to other people's opinions. Easily led. It wasn't difficult for me to propagandise. What about playing outside? What about sleepovers in the week? Did she really  want to be told what to do?

And so the years passed, and school could only be imagined and glimpsed secondhand. So why didn't I want her even to set foot inside a school? Aside from the obvious, of course, that I think she's better off out of it? To anyone who understands my educational approach, it may seem strange that I dragged my heels about sending The Kid to school. Autonomy. Self-direction. Let a child choose what and how to learn. As long is she doesn't choose school. Why the hypocrisy?

Two reasons. First, the very fact that she is easily led. If she's going to absorb wholesale the opinions of whoever bends her ear the most, then I want that person to be me. That's particularly the case where the opinions may define her view of herself. There are plenty of lessons I didn't want her to learn at school: that her worth is measured in how well she can spell and add up, that she can learn only when someone teaches her, that sitting quietly is a virtue and speaking her mind is not.

Second, The Reading Question. I allowed The Kid to decide when to learn to read, as I let her decide most things related to her own learning. Like many children who have this choice, she decided that reading was not something she was up to taking on at the age of four or five. She started at the age of 6 1/2, and only recently, around her ninth birthday, became a fluent reader. It didn't come easily to her, but along the way she never lost her enthusiasm for reading or her confidence that she would master it when the time was right. School, I feared, would derail this process.

These two obstacles are past now, more or less. She's a fully formed person with her own views. She's still rather susceptible to pressure from others, but she's learning to stand up for what's right. And, critically, she can read. She may like school, she may not, but I doubt it will damage her much now - as it might well have done when she was four.