advice please! 11 & 12 year old, waiting for school place...

[persephonesnape]

do hope you feel able to help me. my sons are joining me after a small period of upheaval, where they have been living with grandparents due to me getting a new job and i am currently trying to organise school places for them- there will be a period where they are out of mainstream school and i will need to set them some work - tutor them myself. clearly this is terrifying! I was going to do some life skills and museum visits (we're moving from Glasgow to London..)but it might take around 4 weeks to get them placed and i want to have some structure and keep them up-to-date.

Does anyone have any ideas what kind of thing i should be looking at? i want to focus on independent study and was thinking of setting a project around the new area - any ideas would be really helpful! :)

The only thing I think it important to keep them up to date with for such a short period of time is maths. Things like English they won't miss much, although going over grammar might be a help. Science is the only other one to keep up with but it's such a short space of time I don't think there is any need to panic. Good luck with the move.

If they're switching from the Scottish to the English curriculum, then I don't think there's much benefit in trying to "keep them up to date" as they'll need to adjust to the different curriculum once they're in school anyway. Your plan to look at life skills etc sounds good, as that will give them a chance to feel settled into the new place and get over the changes.

A project for the new area could maybe be looking at patterns of housing or other land use? Plenty of excuses for exploring, getting the hang of the buses etc!

Sounds fun! There's no need to do any more than you or your sons feel up to, so choose something that interests them.

If the boys' time out of school is due to the fact that you have asked the Local Authority to provide places for them in a state school and you are waiting for this to get sorted, you have no legal obligation to provide any education in the meantime.

I'm certainly not trying to put a damper on your enthusiasm, because I think it could be a valuable experience for them to learn something new, or learn in a different way. Just want to make sure you don't feel stressed over it, because it's optional!

Having worked under both systems the English system is quite far ahead in maths but lags in other subjects. Could you get a copy of the local schools curriculum or speak to other mums in the area to see what they are working on?