Can I ask what your 13 year olds (KS3's) are doing workwise?

[mumofjust1]

We are currently doing:

Genetics (Science), Guitar (Music), Polish (language), Algebra (maths), space and measures (Maths), handling data (maths), Witchcraft (History), Shakespear (English) some poetry (english) and Buddism (religion).

Is this enough? It's mostly stuff she has chosen to do and is interested in - I know we don't have to follow the curriculum, but I feel better knowing what subjects our work covers.

DD also does cooking, swimming and cycling.

She also does lots of drawing and reading outside of our timetable - would that contribute too?

We have the inspector coming early next week and I'm worried that we aren't doing enough, are doing the wrong things, don't have enough to show etc.

I know we don't have to have the inspector here, but It's now arranged and I don't want to cancel as I'm woried it might appear we are hiding something and doing nothing :(

Grandson will be 13 on Monday. We're doing some KS3 stuff but we do a lot of project work too. We have had visits in the past but not any more. I've refused them. I don't really give a toss what they think, they have no remit to visit anyone. Don't get yourself stressed about it, you'll be fine. You're doing loads of stuff.

Looks like plenty to me

The drawing and reading counts too. If you are worried that you need to tell inspector more things - do you go to any local Home Ed groups? Or Church Groups, Guides, clubs ? LAs like to know about things like that as they worry about socialisation.

Also if you have been on any days out that could vaguely be discribed as educational (most can if you really think about it) mention those, and if you have photos even better. We visited the aquarium recently and DD took lots of pictures - we went because she likes it and likes to take photos of animals - but its all educational.

Show inspector DD drawings if you and she are happy too - assume they are in the style of an artist you are studying?

And you could make a list of the books she has read recently and the ones you are 'going to read next/soon'

You arw doing plenty by the sound of it (im new to HEd but have talked to lots of people in my local group about inspections) you just havent realised how much of it is Home Ed!

Hope it goes well

Hi

Is this the first time you've met anyone from the Council about home education?

Are you in England. If so, I've got info about the law & Guidelines in England here
edyourself.org/articles/helaw.php

I imagine people are going to say "you know you don't have to meet anyone".

If you DO go ahead with a meeting, I personally feel it's important not to think of it as seeking their approval.

The LA only has a duty to act if it appears that a child is not being educated. It doesn't have a duty to make exhaustive investigations before allowing you to continue.

Out of interest, what would you do if the LA person (or anybody) said "hmm, but what about laboratory work for science" or "why only one Foreign Language, at school they'd be doing two".

Because you never know what kind of random question someone might decide to throw at you about home ed.

Personally I'm thinking along the lines of "well, that's an interesting thought and I'll certainly bear it in mind [earnest pause] but this seems to be working just fine for us right now, can I get you another cup of tea/would you like to see the garden before you go"

Sounds broad enough to me, OP.

There are a few hot spots that LAs look for: social life, being 'seen' in public, physical activity like sports, swimming etc, group activities, core NC (Maths, English, Science and a language). You have those covered so I can't see them having concerns about your provision.

We do nothing like a full NC education (ds is 13.5) as we found it way too hard to fit everything in and do them to a reasonable standard. Ds is mostly doing IGCSE courses now on the subjects that matter to him - we dropped the rest along the way.

I like to write a report for our annual review as I find it better to have everything in writing so I don't forget important points in conversation. It also keeps matters official just in case it might be needed. I do a general overview of progress and personal development then a breakdown by subject of what we're doing, what tools (they seem to like this rather than cobbling subjects together yourself), aims for the next year. I also give a separate list of activities, workshops, field trips (museums, theatre etc) so I can show what else we do when we're not at home working. Some LAs still have a vision of us hot-housing our kids all day and don't grasp that we actually have fun lives so it's worth reminding them .

I agree with Fiona that although it's not compulsory to meet or otherwise engage with your LA, it's worth building a positive working relationship with them as it makes your own life easier. It's far more time-consuming to have to defend yourself against a difficult LA than to knock out a couple of pages of report once a year and send it with a polite covering letter.

I get DD1 to write a daily diary...listing what she's done even if its educational or not. She also writes a review on all the books she reads and a mark out of ten plus whether she'd recommend it to others.