Anyone familiar with Seton Homeschool and what are your thoughts about them?

Answer 1

We are a Seton homeschool family, and have used their program for the past 12 years. Our eldest two children have graduated and are currently in college classes, and the yongest four are still at home. They range in age from 6 to 14, from first to 9th grade. So I have had the opportunity to use the entire program from start to finish.

Some people will tell you it is a tough program, and if your child is starting it after being in the public school system I will agree it is tougher. However, the school highly encourages parents to tailor the program and work to the child's needs, and is always ready to help you do that. You can take up to a year to complete a subject, and even get extensions after that time. They have a department to help you with educating a child with special needs or learning disabilities as well.
Seton provides a lot of other support to make things easier as well. There are online lectures for the high school kids in English, Sciences, and Foreign languages- online tests, online record keeping, and extra helps like worksheets and such.

As it is a Catholic homeschooling program, as you would expect the teachings of our faith are infused throughout the subjects from kindergarden thru 12th grade. Each year the children read at least two saint's stories for book reports. Catholic children also take a religion course each year, and that provides them a much better understanding of their faith than what they will get in CCD once a week. Non-catholics aren't required to take the religion courses, but they will still read the saints books and be exposed to the ideas in the other subjects. Most of the books are either published by Seton, except the mathematics and vocabulary workbooks. Mathematics is a workbook from MCP math up until 4 or 5 grade, when they will switch to Saxon math books. The vocabulary books are a series called Wordly Wise, which are pretty good.
The most useful tool offered by the online site for me is the online lesson plans. You can download an entire week of lessons, or just one day- or a combination of them. Then you can open them and edit to suit your needs. Saves you loads of time writing them all out in a plan book by hand!
My kids have all fussed about the amount of writing they do, compared with their friends in public school. There is a lot of emphasis on English grammar and writing skills, I agree- and as much as they fuss about it, it does pay off. The older two children were able to test out of the initial college English courses because of it. They also have a much easier time producing the reports, papers, essays and such than their contemporaries, and typically have recieved better grades. They have told me that as much as they hated doing it all at the time, they are now very grateful they had to and did.
The curriculum is traditional in orientation, and classical in approach- but not unwilling to change and adapt. I've heard folks complain that it's too hard and too traditional, but I personally don't think that's really a fair assessment. It isn't a watered down curriculum, arranged to help junior pass a standardized exam or state test- but it will be a challenge for a student not used to having to meet a higher standard. The folks who complain are either not willing or able to tailor the program to what the child needs, or the child thinks they can get things easier by whining they can't do it because it's too hard.

The only thing I can think of that I could list as a shortfall would be that in the desire to provide things in a Catholic light with a positive spin, sometimes they stretch the credible and don't always provide a balanced view. But as you can tailor the program, that is something easily corrected if you feel it necessary. As our children became teenagers, we spent more time discussing the various views on subjects. I can't say that was a bad thing either, because it made us all dig in deeper for information than we probably would have otherwise. And that was beneficial for all of us.

I suggest you check out the official website and ask for more information. They will send you a package, plus I'm sure you could probably call and talk with one of the counsellors who could answer you even better.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Seton Homeschool

Answer 4

Seton Home School

Answer 5

Just do whatever you think's right. If you want to keep her home for most of her life so she can learn the right way, then go ahead. But if you want to let her go out to the real world and grow up, learning that you can't trust the world because they'll lie to you, then do that. But if you DO send her to public school, you can always ask her when she gets home what she learned. And if something she says is garbage, tell her to not believe it and tell her the truth. Good luck!