I home educate my DC AMA

[PsycheEros]

They are 8 and 6. The 6 year old has never been to school, the 8 year old was pulled out in reception. Fire away!

I would say that, being mixed race myself, this was probably my biggest concern when starting out actually, although having said that when DS started primary we lived in a very white middle class area and therefore almost all his classmates were white and middle class. It is definitely a struggle though we've found there is more diversity at the schooled groups they attend, and also there are a fair few Muslim home educators in my area. So not as diverse as it could be but then the school they would attend wouldn't be either, it's just that sort of area.

As to the learning resilience thing, I get you, but I feel that my DC have this already from their groups so I don't feel it is a particular issue. Children have to "fit in" in any group, and even in home ed groups there's a huge variety in terms of personality types.

I think a definite disadvantage of home ed is that if you're an introverted person yourself (which I very much am) you have to (at first) put yourself into a lot of social situations and have a lot of small talk to ensure your DC socialise. Haring out and about to groups all the time is not my natural comfort zone, I'm a homebody, so that's been difficult for me. But is much easier now they have their own independent friendships, as they would at school.

I also get a lot of "but how will they learn to deal with XYZ if they don't go to school", to which my answer is I'm not sure I ever learned to deal with XYZ, and I spent thirteen years at school. All I can say is, the things I didn't like about school when I was 5 are the same things I don't like now as an adult.

On the back of the diversity question, which was one of things I wanted to ask also (I'm purposefully raising my kids in London, to be exposed to as many different religions and races as possible, to counteract my very white upbringing), how diverse is it from a social class perspective? I always imagine it's a very white middle class pursuit, and therefore, the kids wouldn't mix really with poorer kids, for example... the same way I imagine is the case for Steiner too. Would you say that's the case? Volume all the way.

Hahah, I have no idea why it says volume all the way at the bottom of my post 😂

Actually it's fairly mixed on the social class front, at least in Bristol - there are a fair few working class families doing it (some out of necessity, some out of choice).

I am not a fan of Steiner, there are lots of Steiner groups around here but I don't let my DC go to them.

I'm so interested to read about this @PsycheEros . My DCs are adults now and both went to school. In hindsight I think my DS would really have benefitted from Home Ed.

What things do your DCs naturally gravitate to learn about when they aren't doing the academic work?

Have you faced much judgement from family?

My eldest is very much into books and writing, my younger to arts and crafts (though they both like these things). And they both love being outdoors equally (which is a shame as I don't 🤣)

My family, no - my DM always says she'd have loved to have done it herself if she hadn't needed to work as a single parent. I think most of DH's family think we are mad but if they do they've been too polite to say. Funnily enough I've had loads of support from SIL who is a primary school teacher; she's pregnant with her first and thinking about doing it herself.

Thanks Psyche. It looks good so I've ordered the first book.

Also they both love anything related to science or history, and DS1 is also into Greek and Latin because he loves ancient history.

It doesn't really work like that though as most children learn at home, so few children are denied teaching at home. But most go to school as well.

It isn't as clear cut as home educated or schooled. A tiny percentage of children only learn at home, and a tiny percentage only learn at school, and about 99% learn at home and school

Parents who home educate their children will (or should) naturally spend more time facilitating their child's learning at home than parents whose children go to school will, though.

I simply wouldn't have time to do everything I do now with my kids if they were at school, practically speaking.

0.5% of many millions is hundreds of thousands! Have a search on Facebook for home education + your local area and you’ll probably find groups that will give you an idea. A lot of the home edders I know will travel further for an activity that a school family generally will (as they’re not constrained by the school day), so you have a wider catchment area.

I’d love to homeschool. Right now my reception child adores school, so we’re continuing it. But it remains on the table as an option.

Also not to be pedantic but homeschooling and home education in the UK are two different things. Homeschooling is when your child is still registered at school and the work they do is set by their teachers there, but they're not physically in the classroom for whatever reason.

Home education is when your child is not registered at a school. It's not "school at home".

Many use the terms home education and home schooling interchangeably though, don’t they? Including the government here and one of the most common internet schools, InterHigh, used by some EHEing.

Not in the actual home education community we don't! King's uses that terminology because it teaches students worldwide, not just from the UK.

many years enrolling into sixth form have left me with serious concerns about home education, My sixth form, which is one of the largest, most diverse and with the widest possible curriculum offering, attracts many home educated students. some do brilliantly, some don't cope at all

But, the EHE community aren’t the population as a whole and you stated “homeschooling and home education in the UK are two different things” which isn’t the case in the population as a whole as many in the population, including the government and organisations, use the terms interchangeably.

I love this (and I’m a teacher!). A few questions.
What does a typical day look like for you? e.g. how many hours of academic book work vs outside play etc.
Do you have a garden? I imagine it would be far easier to educate with a house and garden rather than in an apartment.
How much screen time is involved?

This would be my worry. Once you hit secondary, the reality of exams and the pressure of deadlines is part of the schooling experience. I’m not sure that can be taught in homeschooling. And this, unfortunately reflects the world of work, where deadlines and deliverables are how many people earn a living.

I know your DC are young OP, but do you have an idea of how you will manage this in the future? Perhaps having them do exams like ABRSM for music for example?

Do you find that you are able to effectively tailor your curriculum to each child's needs at school?

Do you send children into exams confident that they have received effective instruction across the entire curriculum?

Are you confident that no child is missing out due to disruptive behaviour or problems to do with staffing levels etc?

I ask because engaged and dedicated home ed parents are able to ensure these areas are covered. It would be interesting to know if you can confirm this happens in your sixth form college too.

Home ed parents say home ed because it's not school at home (lockdown showed that generally doesn't work) - it's getting an education, which is quite a different thing.

It varies depending on activities, but as a snapshot, this is what our Thursday looked like last week:

Morning: we did sit down "book work". We did some french flashcards (at the moment it's the weather) and listened to a piece of classical music from the book "A Year of Wonder". I read them a chapter of our current readaloud and the boys then did some reading comprehension questions based on that, and then some handwriting, spelling and grammar practice. They then each did their own free choice literacy based activity - for DS1 this was working on the story he's currently writing and for DS2 this was writing an acrostic poem. They went out for a kickabout in the garden while I prepped their maths activity - we all do a logic puzzle together using maths manipulatives, they each did a couple of pages of their respective maths workbooks, we played a maths game and we did some quick times table revison. This took us up to about 11am, when they had another run around the garden. Then we went onto Science as our slightly deeper dive (some days we do History, some days Geography etc) - we are doing biological classification. We went over the mnemonic the boys had already learned to remind them of the biological classification order (domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species - mnemonic device Keep Ponds Clear Or Frogs Get Sick). I then asked them to look in our books to choose any animal, pick its 3 main features, work out based on that what other animal it might closely be related to and then draw a hybrid combination of the two of them. That took us through to lunchtime - they played outside while I got lunch ready and then whilst they were eating lunch they read whichever books they're currently reading independently (and I ate my lunch at my desk catching up on some work). DH works from home so he came downstairs, had lunch with them and then they played a game of cards and had a quick game in the garden before he had to go back to work.

Afternoon/evening: Thursday is multi sports home ed so I took them there - the session is 90 minutes and afterwards all the kids went to the park together and played there for another couple of hours (or thereabouts). We got home around 4.30, they watched TV while I made dinner. DS1 has a music group in the evening so we eat early on a Thursday and I take him to that whilst DH takes DS2 swimming with a couple of (schooled) friends. They both had supper when they got back, we played a board game together, they went to bed. I did a couple of hours work that evening, watched a bit of TV with DH, went to bed around 11.30.

Hope that gives an idea! Just one example, we do different stuff each day but it's a fairly similar formula.

Yes, we do have a garden. We did used to live in a flat but that was pre home ed.

They didn't have much screen time on Thursday but I do usually let them play a bit of minecraft first thing in the morning, and quite often for science or history they will watch a video. Some days they have more screen time than others of course.

I know, my point is that the population as a whole, including the government and organisations involved in EHE, use the terms home education and home schooling interchangeably, therefore it is wrong to try to police others’ language when it isn’t incorrect.

It was more to the PP who is interested in home education, as you get people's backs up in the home ed community if you use the term homeschooling. Not mine, I don't really care to be honest, but others will take it the wrong way.

I certainly never felt any pressure to do well in my exams, and I went to school. I did well at the subjects I loved because I loved them, and at subjects I didn't love I did the bare minimum and scraped C grades (which, in the end, didn't matter at all - I went to a good university). School, for example, taught me very early on that I was rubbish at maths and therefore I felt there was no point trying. I realise now this was completely wrong.