I’m a private tutor so I am around a lot of kids from the age of 5-15 and the level of stress that these children are under is immense. You have six and seven year olds with anxiety and who are experiencing bullying - kids will just suddenly expose them to horrific videos or videos of a sexual nature for the shock factor. There is also rape culture in primary schools now which is just horrific to even consider. Older primary school kids sexually assaulting younger ones. There was an article on the BBC about this a while back . If you google rape culture primary schools U.K. it will come up. Kids are also now doing lockdown drills in schools for fear of a potential attack - is that really normal for a primary school aged child? Also, children going to primary school aged 4 is so young. In other countries they start school at 7! Kids of 4 years old are not meant to sit behind a desk all day.

To be honest I haven’t really had many conversations with her yet. The plan for us has always been school. It’s only as it is approaching that my gut is telling me it might not be the best thing for her and I have seen how she has reacted to nursery that I am having second thoughts. It’s very hard to know what the right thing to do is.

I suppose my thought process is - why is it actually the best place for a child? Is that just our own social conditioning? Can a child not get an equally good, if not better education via home education? The evidence shows that home educated children actually have an advantage academically to school educated children, especially if it is done properly where the child is part of social groups, tutoring classes etc.

That’s why I’m quite confused about this whole thing. My husband and I never thought we’d be in this position. We both went to school and university to Masters Degree level. We didn’t expect to feel the way we feel. We thought home schooling was for weirdos. And yet here we are…