How do you plan work?

[Imsosorryalan]

Sorry, I know it may sound simple but I'm new to all this, and am only in the 'thinking about doing it' stages. I am a trained teacher but have been a SAHM for a few years.
I just wondered if you could help answer a few as.

• do you use the nat. Currurriculum to plan work?
• do you plan worksheet stuff or practical?
• do your kids listen to you??
• how do you do it if you have siblings?

Thank you, I'm just trying to get my head around it all. My dd is only 5 but is so bored at school already and is struggling with the daily structure. So just considering options at the moment really.

Any input is greatly appreciated!!

Some families use a little bit of structure or a lot of structure, and they'll be able to answer your questions.

Some of us are "unschoolers" or "autonomous home educators". This means that we don't use the national curriculum, we don't plan lessons at all, we don't impose anything top down.

We might well have a house full of books and craft stuff and games and interesting DVDs and the internet and musical instruments and so on, and a world outside our door that is full of adventure, and our home educating journey is about providing an environment in which our children explore whatever floats their boat, and we try to be available to help them when needed and answer their questions.

If my children aren't listening to an explanation, then I have obviously completely misjudged what they wanted to hear!

Siblings: juggle them, just like the rest of family life :-) turn taking, activities that different children drift in and out of, and approach at their own level (ANY age can get something out of baking, painting, whatever it is, if they feel like engaging with it)

Hope this helps. Keep asking questions.

Oh, and the first thing you would need to do (and I mean this kindly, as someone with a teaching qualification myself) is forget all that stuff you learned about how to manipulate 30 children in a classroom to all be engaging with your top down educational agenda. Those skills are marvellous and splendid, but completely irrelevant to a home-based and family-based context :-)

50% of our time is very structured (eg cimt, formal english curriculum). 50% of our time is spent having "fun".

DS is ASD so NEEDS structure and routine, a timetable. It's part of his disability, most kids don't. However he loves science, bushcraft, making and creating and building.

He's very dyslexic so in order for him to get to a point where he can research his own interests we need to do some formal reading instruction daily (currently using headsprout). he's fascinated by electronics but you need a grounding in basic arithmetic to take it to any kind of interesting level, so we spend time on maths, following a formal curriculum (cimt as it's NC compliant)..

I divide our days so that every day we spend 3 hours on the 3 R's, and then we do something interesting, such as making soap, building a robot or a den etc. His innate curiosity means he wants to spend time learning more about the vikings, or vertebrates, or weather patterns so once formal lessons are out of the way I let him do just that, seeing my own role as facillitator, and taking him to the library, or providing the resources or materials for him to explore in the afternoons.

In time once he has the 3r's I think he'll be able to follow his own interests and fly. Had he stayed in school he wouldn't have been a fluent reader by secondary age, & would have been left unable to fully access those secondary lessons that most interested him independently. so this for me is about giving him the foundations to beat the drum to his own beat at some point in the future.

I will however insist he does the "tickbox GCSE's" you need to access further eduactional and employment opportunities. One of my reasons for taking him out of school is that I could see that he was at risk of joining the 42% of young people who do not get the 5 core GCSE passes you need to easily access so much in the modern adult world.

He's a child, so doesn't yet have the life experience to know what might set his intellect and interest alight. I see it as my duty to expose him to new experiences, so that he can make his own discoveries. That might be a new style of music or a new sport, but I try within the limitations of his ASD, (and my budget!) to give him as many novel experiences as possible. I personally see a danger in the totally autonomous approach in that without that initial parental push sometimes a child might never get to tap that hidden talent or gift without encouragement.

It's all about balance. Home ed enables you to tailor that balance so that the perfect match is achieved for the optimum development of your child, rather than the needs of the majority. Helpful if you have like mine, one that doesn't "fit" the standard mainstream v SS model.

Hello OP.

We don't do any formal planning at all. As a qualified teacher myself I set out with plans, schemes of work etc to follow the nc. I even did a couple of past SATs papers with dd to get a basic level. It took me most of the summer holidays before we started in the September.

It was a huge mistake and we never did use the plans, much past the first few weeks. It is just another beast to school teaching, ime.

We do some formal work, not particularly following the nc, but most of it does, and will fall in there somewhere. Maths is Maths however you do it. So Maths and English is none negotiable on an almost daily basis but not necessarily sitting down with work books, sometimes it is practical through shopping or baking.
English can just take the form of dd completing her diary or journal.

Music is a huge part of dds life and she tends to want to practice and has lessons during the morning.

She chose to study Italian and has almost completed the topics for ks2 mfl now and wants to move onto German and French to complement her music.

I think there are huge opportunities to tailor make an education to suit your child be it autonomous, structured or a mix of both.

Our dd is just 10 would be y5 now and left school at the end of y3.
I hope this has helped a little.
I would be glad to give you anymore info/share experience and you can pm me if you like.

Good luck and best wishes.

Hello

We don't follow NC but follow ds interests. This term he wanted to do 'FOOD'. Well he is a growing boy with hollow legs.

I draw a spidergram/mind map (whatever you like) with food at the centre and then arms shooting off with topics to cover and areas to explore. Then I do small seperate mini versions at the bottom of the page for English and Maths. Then at the very bottom of the page I write in the subjects which have been covered in my diagram (such as Geography, music etc). But I also find I end up writing subjects such as politics or motor mechanics. I then see which subjects are missing from the grand plan and try to include them so that we end up studing the topic in a cross curricular way.

Then I make a list of project or activity ideas.

I go through all the resources in the house (including documentaries on tv) and assess what is available.

I find useful websites.

I try the local libraries for books linked to the topic and I check for places to visit.

If I plan to follow a course/book then I list the main topics within that.

Then I show the plans to ds and get his opinion. He usually says 'no' to one or two ideas and will also come up with ideas for himself to add to the charts.

So I end up with one master sheet (A4) and a few lists= perhaps 4 pages.

Then we begin. We begin anywhere on the charts/maps lists and I make things off as we cover them. I may have a plan about which thing we will do next but we end up moving into a different area. I am relaxed about this and know that with my charts I can keep control of what is being covered (I need this control rather than ds). We will discuss many side topics as they arise and maybe investigate some. I don't do lesson plans but set work each morning to nibble away at my lists.

personally, If I were doing it i would go back pre-nat curric and follow children's interests but also make sure I gave opportunity for covering the nat curriculum subjects, if not their content.

I am also a thinking about it person and ex teacher. when did you give up teaching?

I would keep a note of areas covered that weren't planned.

• do you use the nat. Currurriculum to plan work?

No, we don't plan work. I wanted to when I first learned about HE when I was pg with DD1. Turned out, after reading loads and meeting with other HE'ors, that planning isn't necessarily helpful...in fact, it can be a downright hindrance! Disappointing, but ten years on and my children are all animated, curious people with lots of different interests and masses of knowledge and skills

• do you plan worksheet stuff or practical?

We plan fun :) I watch the children, see what they're into, try to think of things they might enjoy, ask them if it sounds fun, plan it if it does. If you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, then true learning can't take place until all the other needs are met, so our priorities are our children's relationships with us and them feeling safe and happy. We trust (and have had it proven to us!) that when they feel safe and happy and trust us, they will learn. Sometimes they want to do worksheets - we have a few workbooks in the house and a few printables websites bookmarked - and that's fine :) If they're interested and enjoying it, then they're learning.

• do your kids listen to you??

Mostly...but then I'm not trying to force them to do things they have no interest in. They don't listen to me when I'm trying to get them to stop squabbling or get ready to go somewhere htey don't want to go They're normal kids!

• how do you do it if you have siblings?

Juggle. Get help so that if someone wants to go somewhere and no one else does maybe a friend or someone can take them. Play with them all together. Come up with activities that all ages can take part in. Do things with one or two when the others are engrossed in something else or at a friend's house (I have four children).

See if you can get hold of a copy of HOw Children Learn at HOme by Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison - really eye-opening research. I got started on this route by being recommended to read John Holt by my primary school teacher mum. My mum is very supportive of our unschooling/autonomous learning approach, despite being a teacher (or maybe because of being a teacher!)

Just marking this thread to look at again later - some interesting ideas here

Does anyone know which website sells national curriculum?

The NC is just an outline of targets for each age group in each subject. It isn't something you would buy. You can download it from government websites.

If you want to follow the National Curriculum then you can either use materials sourced from wherever you want (and work out for yourself how they relate to the NC targets) or presumably you can buy materials which are specifically labelled as to how they relate to particular NC targets.

It isn't something I have looked into, really, as I go in for a more individualised approach and don't find the National Curriculum especially relevant for that.

Thanks , I am home ed my 5 yr old son. I just worry he isn't learning enough. This is my first experience of home ed. Have you been home ed long?

Hello Truth

Try looking at some SATS papers online. These are for older children of course, but will show you what would be expected at age 10/11. You may like to just relax a little when you realise how simple these papers are and that you have 5/6 years to get to that level.

In school there is just a few hours a week where children need to sit and write/draw at age 5. Remember your last memory of what was expected at school was when you were 16 or older. Actually if you do a very little English and Maths, everything else will come naturally if you lead a busy life of going out and having plenty of discussions.

Thanks Maggie that post has helped me a lot I will have a look at the online sats papers. Thanks again for your positive encouragement.

We do no formal work, no planning, no projects.
DD asks question and I do my best, with the help of google and friends that home ed.
We have had 2 visits from the lea and had glowing reports both times. DD does not believe there are children that are not interested in, the human body, formation of the univers, how the world wars started ect.
DD cannot yet read but has books on cd in her room.
DD is 7.
Every family finds a way that works for them.

Very insightful thread for a HE lurker like me, thanks