I home educate my 3 children

[LilyTuesday]

As the subject title says! I have found myself answering lots of questions over the years, once people find out we home Ed our children… but they are probably being polite and not saying how they really feel about the idea of choosing to never send a child to school…. So AMA if you’ve ever been curious!

What does a typical day look like for you?

How much time do you spend with your kids? What percentage of their waking hours?

And how often do you hide in the toilet for a bit of peace and quiet?

Me too op. How old are your children?

A typical day has changed so much over the years, but typically now would involve ferrying the older 2 to their activities, if my youngest doesn’t have anything clashing with those times, and then with my youngest, it will usually look like a home Ed group meet up, an activity (indoor rock climbing, gymnastics, swimming and horse riding usually) one full day a week is forest school for the youngest. We go on a lot of home Ed trips as well, so really does vary!

With my older 2, I don’t think I spend any longer with them than most parents do with children of their ages (12 and 14) as they go to various classes, social meets and hobbies independently now. Though in reality, I do end up being taxi driver at least once a day for them, and we often eat lunch together. With my youngest (6) other than a Thursday which is her full day of forest school, I guess I’m with her 24/7- but it feels very different to the way 24/7 with a pre-school child feels! I go with her to everything except forest school, but she’s not by my side constantly and I don’t have to watch her constantly either. For example, at her swimming lessons and gymnastics, I’m outside waiting (same way that all parents are at that age really, except our activities all take place during a ‘school day.’
She also understands ‘mum needs some quiet space please’ 😅
My husband is home by 5pm, and we split everything 50/50 so I feel we have a good balance of things.(I work part time)

Hi! They are 14,12 and 6. How old is your child / ren? ☺️

What are your plans regarding formal qualifications to help your children access higher education/apprenticeships/employment and all the other doors that qualifications open?

You say that you Home Ed, but it sounds like your children are out at activities quite a bit and you work part time. What role do you play? Do you teach them when they aren't out? Who home educates them when you are working?

If they ever wished to go to school, would you allow them?

Yes same question from me

what is a typical week for each child?

Have you always home educated op? Do you feel they miss out on anything by not being at school?

Do you feel guilty that they're missing out on anything? Formal qualifications and social skills seem to be the 2 that come up in home schooling discussions all the time, but I'm wondering if there are other things that you've noticed that you didn't expect and perhaps have found ways to rebalance?

What was your work experience and educational level prior to home schooling?

I home-ed three similarly aged children, but I have a different approach to you and spend substantially more time with them than a typical parent.

What makes the piecemeal set of external activities you're taking them to superior to school provision?
Have your children always been home-ed?
Do they have access to the internet?

I home educate too. I hope this doesn’t come across as being mean to some posters because I really don’t mean it to, but it’s obvious from the replies you’ve already had op that people know absolutely nothing about home education. I thought it had become more of a mainstream thing in recent years and I’d assumed that the general public would have more of an idea about what it entails. Shows how wrong I am so it’s great that you’re doing this AMA!
I’m an ex teacher and it’s like people have this weird idea that during a teaching degree we are somehow gifted with a a magical ability to ‘teach’. That’s absolutely not how it works. Teaching 30 children is about class management, it’s about teaching the same thing to 30 different children with different abilities/some with learning difficulties/special needs etc. It’s absolutely not about being taught the ability to teach. In fact all you need to teach is a text book with the course material inside. There’s also YouTube, various websites like bbc bitesize, outsourcing to specialist tutors etc. I have three children, my eldest is 18 and at sixth form college having passed all her GCSEs with good grades with me teaching her from the text books (I was a primary school teacher so nothing to do with me being a teacher). In fact every single home ed friend of my dd’s did the same.
It’s relatively easy for home ed students to sit formal exams, despite some people thinking that it isn’t, although that might depend on where you live as some areas are better than others.
Socialising has never been a problem for us either. There is a huge home ed community where we live. I also don’t believe that sitting in a class with 30 people who happen to be the same age as you is the gold standard of socialising.
Sorry to have jumped on your post op but wanted to add my twopence worth when I saw all these wrong assumptions about home ed!

9&13. One is in school (his choice) the other has been HE since 7yrs, he is staggering his GCSEs starting this year. We love HE, its the best decision we ever made.

I'd be interested to know more about your reasons for home educating. For example, is it anything to do with not being happy with the schools in your area, or would you have made the choice anyway?

This might sound rude but how much do you roughly spend a week on activities?

What was your reason behind deciding to home ed? Is it something you'd always known you'd do or was there a specific trigger?

This was what I was wondering. Going off the huge list you have posted of extra curricular type activities you fill your days with it sounds like home eduction the way you're doing it would be out of most people's budgets.

What advice would you give to someone considering HE?
My DD is only 1 but it's something I have always been interested in and I'm starting to consider it more seriously.

With the forest school your child goes to.. are all the other kids home educated too? Is there a big community of home educators in your area?

I do often think we need a different name for ‘home education’- as we are rarely there! But that is the same of most home Ed families we have met over the years. It’s very different to the ‘homeschooling’ people imagine it to be.
I have let my children lead the way, and have gone with their interests. I guess my role is like a mentor… In the early years, and with my 6 year old currently, I do set up learning activities. I observe the areas we need to work on, and find an engaging way to learn. We make use of bitesize, twinkl, oak academy. And she also does 2 online classes.
so that’s the home part!
something I love about home Ed, is that we aren’t restricted to the hours of 9-3 Monday to Friday. Or term times. We legally have to provide a full time education for each child, age appropriate and suitable for their aptitude. There is no guidance on how that should look. So we have devised our own routine that suits us all. We work together and around each other.

That is the downside of home Ed. We have had some money struggles in the past- not terribly, but enough to have to stop some activities. However, there are plenty of free meet ups in our town. We are in Essex and there is a huge home Ed community here! Often we find the activities are cheaper than if we did these things outside of school time. The swimming lessons, for example, are £2.50.
horse riding is £15 but that is for all 3. Trips vary- some are free, others are extortionate- Iceland is £1400 pp - we are not going!
I would say that roughly I spend around £100 a week- I’m including their online lessons, activities, petrol and their lunch in that.

yes, all home Ed children. And yes, the community is huge here in Essex!