Home schooling

[Kaywatson]

Good afternoon, I want to know if anyone is home schooling a soon to be secondary year 7 child or any form of secondary year group?
How is it for you? What r the requirements? And many more.

I don’t home school but I know someone who does due to commitments with sports. A lot of life skills are classed as home schooling, so going to the shop and paying in cash etc.
I also know someone else who pulled their child out of education 3 months ago due to adhd/autism and they have had no contact from the council to check if any work is being done at home. I think there are many Facebook groups of people who homeschool who can give you ideas on how to make it fun and will hold local meet ups for child who are homeschooled.

The PP is right, most home ed groups are on Facebook these days so that's the best place to go. However, there is a home ed board here on Mumsnet with some helpful people on it. You'll get a better response if you post there.

I home educated my two kids right the way through and will try to answer some of your questions. However, I am going to a home ed camp in the morning where I will be for a week, so I might not have time to post much. 🥰

My kids both loved home education. The older one was conscious of having much more time due to it being far more efficient than school. That gave them the chance to relax, do hobbies, learn more, see friends, get enough sleep, and do paid and voluntary work. The younger one is not so aware of how her life compares with the lives of her friends who go to school, but it's my opinion that it has enabled her to reach adulthood with her self esteem and love of learning intact. She has a learning disability and I think school would have taught her that she isn't good enough.

The requirements are vague. You must give your child a suitable education. That is the long and short of it. What that looks like is up to you to decide, based on your child's individual needs and interests.

There's a huge variety of effective approaches, ranging from school-style formal learning with lessons through to child-led learning in which the child decides what, when, and how to learn and the parent facilitates that. Most families do a fair bit of experimenting to discover what suits their child best. Then your child grows and changes and you need to adapt your approach!

Teachers in a school need to have everything planned out in order to prevent their classroom becoming chaotic. That doesn't apply to home education, where it is quite reasonable to try things and see what works. You figure it out as you go along.

Have you looked at Kings Interhigh? That may be something you'll find interesting.

@Kaywatson yes I do:)
My oldest two kids are secondary school age. They been HE for a lot of years.
Your other questions;
What is it like? We love it! We would never go back to school ever. They follow their interests and attend a variety of activities, groups, clubs etc and do some online classes but not many. Only in topics they are passionate about. Nothing like maths or English.
What requirements? None really. All we are ‘required’ to do is fill in a short form once a year for the LA outlining what they get up to. Our LA are very ‘hands-off’.
Happy to answer any more specific questions.

We are reasonably new to home Ed but my dd would have been going into year 7 in September. We had to withdraw due to the school failing to safeguard my dd. So, while, it wasn't something I had expected to do, I am really pleased that my dd will not be attending secondary school. We have the freedom to learn what we want and do activities that are true passions.

Like another poster mentioned, it's important to me that my dd navigates the teen years with her self esteem intact and continues to enjoy learning for learnings sake. I wish I had considered it years ago.

Thank you, just went on the website and I am quite excited to see all those subjects at a good price.

Thank you everyone for your post it's making me feel more positive in my approach in home Ed.

Everything I hear about Kings Interhigh is good. I've no affiliation with them and nor do my children use their services but the reviews are always raving about the establishment!

You don't think your kids should learn maths and English? Do you not think you are doing them a mis service?

She didn’t say her kids hadn’t learned any maths or English. She said they hadn’t taken online classes in those subjects. There are other ways to learn. Many home educators adopt a sort of “pick and mix” approach, learning different subjects in different ways. It’s very unlike the school model, in which one provider is expected to cover everything.

No I don’t. Quite the opposite. As stated above they do learn those topics just don’t have regular online classes.

They are excellent and passionate readers and can write and spell perfectly well.
We have been so conditioned to think that the only way children will learn is sat at a desk with a teacher but I can tell you that kids will learn to read and write naturally through life given the right environment. My goal has been to provide an environment rich in books, literature and learning and they are reading and writing organically. I model all of this too.

The only thing we have sat down and done some formal ‘learning’ on is in maths as some stuff has to be learnt discreetly (ie not through every day life). When they were little/primary age, they learnt maths through everyday life, including baking, cooking, weighing parcels, measuring their own heights, playing with shapes, playing Minecraft to name a few. Now we sometimes look at things like algebra and Pythagoras as they will sit their GCSE at some point.