I wrote our LEA 'assessment' letter and wanted feedback... I think its quite good actually, but since Ive never written one I wanted someone to hold my hand thru it all and let me know if Ive said enough, too much, what do you think?
To Whom it May Concern,
First of all let me introduce myself. My name is [gentheyank] Im mum to S(d), J(d) and J(s). As you are aware we began home educating in February 2012. We consider ourselves to still be in a 'deschooling' stage where we are just getting used to home education, finding what works, what doesnt for each of our young learners. That isnt to say we arent doing anything that would be 'educational', it just doesnt look like 'school' and for that reason, Im very sorry to say, we dont have any written work to show! I apologise for this but so much of our learning doesnt leave a paper trail at this stage. Anything that has been written is more personal in nature; journal entries, art work (or little drawings that a formal educator might think of as insignificant), letters to pen pals, etc. We do have some of this sort of thing, but again, we are rather disorganised in this regard at this stage and its sort of all over the place.
As far as an 'education' is concerned I can say that we do so many things its hard to number. Ill just go through some of the many things we do together that we believe serves to educate our children.
We read all the time. We read fiction, nonfiction, biographies, we read newspapers, magazines, we look information up on the internet, visit the libraray on a regular basis. We as a family devour books. Since leaving school, my children have read more books in the last 4 months than they were able to read in school. We read books together, taking turns reading outloud to each other. My children will pick up books and read through a book of 500 pages in a few days. We talk at length about what we read. I feel this alone provides an invaluable source of educational material.
We watch films together, again, all kinds of films. Films like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List have given us opportunities to talk about war in general as well as details about WWII. These tend to be springboards into various research projects. Sometimes they last just a day, some 'projects' last weeks at a time. We discuss geography, social 'norms', sociology, history, logistics, mathmatics, etc. J(s), for example, learned about different clouds and weather patterns because he and I were sifting through an encyclopedia type book that had a fascinating section about clouds. He recalled that a certain cloud was featured in a movie called UP. This was weeks ago, we are still researching clouds and weather, making note everyday what the clouds are saying and what they mean. My children do play video games, altho I do try to limit the amount of time they spend on them. Saying that, I have discovered how much they actually learn from them. It requires maths skills to figure out how much money they need to purchase different things within the game, but also how much these games cost and how to get the money to buy them.
We dont 'do' subjects, as they would in a school setting but as far as mathmatics is concerned the children are working on ways of making their own money. They've discovered that if they want to go shopping and get what they want they will need to be earning some extra money that mom and dad arent willing or able to just give them whenever they want it. They have discussed selling things at the local carboot sales and S(d) and J(d) visited a paper shop recently to enquire about paper round opportunities.
As far as biology is concerned, again, we read a lot about the human body, we are growing tadpoles we saved from a mud pool at in (local) Woods. Their father recently had an operation and a nurse comes everyday to dress the wound. This has provided first hand experience on how an open wound heals. They met the nurse and we discussed career choices.
Socialisation is an issue that comes up whenever we discuss home education with people who dont know much about it and we can say that we socialise with a variety of different people on a regular basis. We attend church, which my daughters in particular enjoy and they are also invovled with the church youth club. We meet up on a weekly basis with other home educators and their families at various parks. They also still meet up with children who arent home educated, friends they made when they went to school, neighbours, friends from youth club, etc.
We are also very active. We walk quite a lot. They will spend time at the park on their scooters. J(s) was invovled with an athletics club, which he's shown an interest in joining up again. We go on little hikes through the moors, getting a bit of exercise as well as discovering facts about local history. They can go swimming, walking, we do gardening. They are interested in various crafts. J(d) discovered knitting recently, S(d) enjoys drawing (doodling mostly) and fashion and J(s) has a talent for the keyboard which I encourage him to practice regularly. We are considering guitar, and possibly drum, lessons also.
I dont know if this is the sort of information you are looking for. Im quite confident that we are able to provide a very well rounded education for our children. They are safe, confident and are beginning to learn to love learning again! I hope this provides a satisfactory account of our current home education experience. Please keep in mind that we are still in a 'deschooling' phase, which means we are learning how to learn without education materials being spoon fed to us. For this reason I am extremely keen to keep things as informal as possible. I wanted to give my children the opportunity to discover so many things they might not have been able to in a school setting. Reading classic novels, one on one discussions about things they are interested in. This is an opportunity for them to discover the things they are really interested in, which I believe is vital for them to meet their full potential. I am so very pleased with the 'progress' we've made thus far and I am pleasantly surprised at how much they have learned even tho I havent been formally teaching them anything. What they've learned, to a small extent I have motivated and inspired to a degree, but they have learned in a very natural and informal manner.
Sincerely,
Mrs Gentheyank