firebird2110x

I can find lots of information about how long the flu can drag on but how quickly can it be over?

Yesterday, after a disturbed night my daughter woke with a high temperature, sore throat and painfully stiff neck, painful enough that she kept screaming when her head was moved! I was checking the symptoms for meningitis it was so bad, but she didn't have the cold hands and feet or several other symptoms so I decided to wait and see. I settled her in front of the DVD player and kept her supplied with smoothies, fresh fruit, vit C and paracetamol. She was still sweaty when she went to sleep but woke up this morning with only a slightly sore neck and by lunchtime even that was better. That would make it something like 36 hours total? Is that possible?

Every time Autonomous Education (aka Unschooling) gets discussed it seems that someone will voice their concern about the child not covering certain things 'they needed to learn'. What ARE these things? Once you've got basic literacy and numeracy what exactly are these people going on about?

A little more than a year after the last consultation on home education they've launched another one. This time with no warning and giving home educators a single month to reply. The standard is 12 weeks but they are allowed to get around this "in exceptional circumstances, such as where Departments need to respond quickly in the best interest of the public." When did home ed become such a dreadful threat to the British public?

If you're interested in reading it the 'consultation document' is very, very short http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?act...

It's hard to dream up a benign excuse for this, in fact I've so far totally failed to do so. The only possible reason is that the government want to bring in new powers to monitor, regulate and control home eduction and hope that they can rush them through before we have time to mount a defence.

When the subject of graduating, or in the UK, passing GCSEs comes up there are varied opinions, but it seems like there's a lot more weight put on them from apparently younger posters. I'm wondering if it's the longer view which makes me tend to see those little bits of paper you get at 16 as being really pretty insignificant? I see people post about the 'importance of an education' like what you get in school is the be all and end all of learning and I wonder how old the person saying that can be.

There's a lot of putting down of people who come here with a with a dream, saying if they don't get 'an education' then they're nothing, but how much of any significance was ever achieved by anyone who didn't step outside the norm? I must point out that I'm not including all the home educated kids who post helpful advice and support, it's the schooled ones who take the time to come here into the HS section to slam HS that puzzle me.

I'm posting this question under homeschooling because this is the kind of weird thing that another HSer is sure to have done :-)

Granddad is having cataract surgery so naturally dd (age 4) wants to know all about it. I've shown her a diagram and explained the procedure but it would be nice to make a model too. Something using common household and arts & crafts materials if possible, or a paper craft thing that I could print out and make. Any suggestions?

"Are you anti-school?" or any other question that boils down to that.

I'm directing this to parents who are ARE pretty much anti-school or at least anti-the-system-we-have and don't think it's the best option for any child.

Do you come over all PC and say it depends on the individual? Do you vary your answer depending on who is asking, like trying not to upset friends and family but telling strangers what you really think?

Please, no answers from anti-HE posters, kids, or even parents who aren't "anti-school", I want to know how people deal with this rather tricky social situation.

It doesn't make any sense and they don't explain it.

http://www.subwayfreshbuzz.com/kids/contest.aspx

"Contest is open only to legal US residents, over the age of 18 with children in either elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted. "

Couldn't the athletic equipment go to a community group of some kind rather than a school?

It's not the first time but I'm really irritated this time because it was a good answer and yet I've been sent a violation notice "Violation Reason:Not a Question or Answer"

It seems that someone didn't LIKE the answer and reported it for that reason. I'm complaining of course but based on last time I don't expect that to do any good.

Has anyone else had this problem?

This question is for section regulars. I've not been here long enough to know if it's a normal variation, but when I arrived questions from parents and children in the UK seemed to be rare. Now they seem much more common. I wonder if recent positive press coverage over here has fuelled a bit of a boom or maybe it's the time of year with exam pressure and failure to get into desirable schools. Any thoughts?

A mention of HS kids in the movie RV has me wondering what other movies there are featuring homeschooled or home educated children. There are old ones like Mary Poppins and The Railway Children where it's not explicitly mentioned but it's obvious that the children don't go to school. What more modern ones are there?

There seem to be so many questions here which ask about online high school courses and getting a diploma and basically just following the whole public school model at home. I feel so sorry for the kids agonizing about getting some bit of paper and wonder why they're doing it. Is it really so important?