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Considering years it of formal education for (will be) a year 8, 6 and 3

8 replies

Flum · 07/11/2015 12:15

I'm am reposting this from 'Home ed' looking for opinions.... Of course but also ideas for online resources or how best to manage this.. And whether the level of education I could offer them for a year woudl be adequate. All are very self motivated and keen to learn so that issue is fine. I would not be surprised if my eldest would push herself to do two syllabus years in one! Very keen academically! Anyway see original post below.....

We (well me, DH not convinced yet) are considering taking our kids out of formal education for one year. They are currently at an international school and performing well academically, all in top quartile.

Can you recommend some online (we will be traveling so want to minimize books etc) that they can work on with my guidance at their own pace.

They are currently studying the Primary Years Programme (younger two) and middle school towards IGCSE's - older one....pretty much based on British program I think.

They will all ultimately end up completing their education either in an international school overseas or a British boarding school so IGCSE's, MYP, IB etc..., or a UK state school if we move back and they get residency status back in UK.

I would really like to concentrate on the Maths and English side of things on the computers probably and probably do topic based work as we travel.

We would be traveling slowly with a few weeks or months in each place.

Any guidance, advice or links to good websites much appreciated. Happy to pay for an online school scenario. The eldest one particularly does not want her education to slip as she wants to go to a pretty selective boarding school in UK so wants to be sure of getting in.

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Flum · 07/11/2015 13:32

Should read a year out of formal education

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user789653241 · 07/11/2015 13:37

uk.ixl.com/

For maths and English, this site follows national curriculum.
It's £59 for one, £99 for a year for both English and Maths.
You have access to entire curriculum.(YR r to YR 13 for maths and yr3 to yr7 for English. I assume they might be adding yr8 above for English, since it's new this year)

www.khanacademy.org/

This site is American and it's free. Maths programme is excellent, and covers Computing, Science, Art, history etc. No English though.

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Pythonesque · 15/11/2015 10:29

What is the timing when your eldest wants / expects to switch to a boarding school? If she is year 8 on your travelling year and looking at year 9 entry then you may be needing to factor in timing and location of entrance tests etc? Would her school of choice be expecting her to sit common entrance; have you looked into what their alternatives are? (I say this as a parent of a year 8 girl twisting our arms into boarding for senior school! We will have a busy term next term with academic and music scholarships, if all goes well she may not have to do common entrance in the summer so that will be a more pleasant term!)

I haven't got any specific constructive suggestions to give you. (Though did have an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with daughter about how home ed. can work and specifically what we could do with her if she decided she wanted a year "out" of normal school - she found it eye-opening)

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Flum · 16/11/2015 01:39

Thanks Irvine, exactly the ideas I was looking for.

Python... She will be year 8 next year. She has to do the schools own exam which is mainly maths and English, they have told us there is no prep needed for it and they won't give us past papers. She doesn't have to do Common Entrance as she has not gone to a prep school.

She is very academic, top of the class and all that, rarara, but tiny class only 16. I wasn't going to bother putting her in for scholarship... Couple of reasons.... One, I have no idea what the standards are, two, unnecessary pressure, three, they don't offer any financial support along with the scholarships so doesn't seem much point since we are not bursary material and four, it seems wrong to potentially take a scholarship place away from a child from a family who could not otherwise afford it.

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Pythonesque · 17/11/2015 16:41

In that case yours sounds an excellent plan to broaden your children's life experience as well as their education. I know what you mean about the difficulty in knowing just how academic your child is or isn't. For us the pressure is off the scholarship process as it has been made clear that the provisional bursary offer is the level to which any scholarship award will be topped up.

I think that, with a core of basic work supported by resources such as those already suggested, doing a range of work inspired by your surroundings and following things of interest, should be ideal. Hope you have a really good time!

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Flum · 18/11/2015 04:16

I wish I could edit the title of this thread, its so jumbled!!

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fabulousathome · 20/11/2015 09:51

You could have her tested privately by an Educational Psychologist to change her levels and therefore chances of getting into the type of school that your are interested in. Her current school may recommend someone.

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fabulousathome · 20/11/2015 09:52

To "gauge" her levels, not "change" them.

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