I wonder how easy it is to educate two children with a 3 year age gap - is it hard to find the time to focus on each individually?
I haven't had trouble coping with the age gap - it's a matter of getting each gainfully occupied while you engage with the other, or else doing activities that work at different age levels (a 2 year old might just be smooshing playdough around, but a 5 year old might be using it for learning to make letters, or some kind of counting. Or smooshing it around would be fine too)
Does either miss out?
Well, I guess the children never get that monofocus of being an only child. I think they gain, in the end - my children find themselves coming along to things that are primarily for someone else's benefit, but quite often we find that actually someone who was supposed to be just coming along for the ride is the person who has got the most out of it
And about structure. Do you have a set idea of what you will cover over a week, say? Do you plan it like teachers do lesson plans? Do you try to follow the National Curriculum?
We are autonomous home educators. No structure. No curricula. No lesson plans. I just try to make sure the children have the resources they need, and answer their questions. They are in charge of their own learning. What I DO plan out (and it's on a big calendar on the wall, and they are absolutely engaged with it) is our activities each week - HE groups, other activities, meeting up with friends and family.
Do you plan to HE for primary and get a place in a good secondary, or HE all the way through?
At the moment, no plans to send them to school, but if they want to go then we'll support them in that. It's something I've come across quite a lot - children choosing school on a temporary or permanent basis, but there has been such an explosion of HE in our area in the last few years that I get the sense that it's likely to be happening later and later, becuase the HE community is so active (and therefore the children aren't feeling lack of friends or fun things to do as they hit their teens). VEry likely to go to college at some point
And what about you. Do you ever doubt yourself and feel like you're failing your DCs?
Occasionally, when I compare some of their achievements with those of their schooled peers. And then I remind myself of the amazing things they can do or that they understand or know that are way beyond the NC, and I hand myself a grip.
Do you get any time to yourself, ever? yes, I work full time (flexitime) around HE. We manage it by having a shift system as parents. So what we lack is time all together as a family, but we do carve out time for each adult to be on their own.
How do you find other home educators?
It used to be yahoo groups, but now it's all facebook groups in my area and the yahoo groups are moribund
Are there any national organisations worth joining? Not really, honestly - we are all so networked on a local level. If we get a Labour government again next time, we'll need to be activating ourselves again on a national level, but we haven't needed to in the last 4.5 years because the Conservatives are big HE supporters (it goes with their idea that people should make decisions for themselves and their families - Labour are much more intrusive, which HEers are not cheerful about - we only just managed to delay their last planned lot of legislation (for regulation and monitoring) by energetic lobbying, submitting material to a commons select committee, mobilising conservative MPS and Lords etc, and Labour ran out of time to push it through before parliament was dissolved).