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Home ed

Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

Being a home ed teacher? Advice/thoughts needed

7 replies

socktastic · 15/09/2019 16:22

I'm just wanting to do a bit of research here and I understand that experiences may vary from region to region.
I've been thinking for a while now about changing tack in my career and eventually working for myself working with home schooled children. My idea is that I would run small, targeted classes covering all areas of the curriculum offering a personalised educational experience but would also aim to work with parents to devise a curriculum for their child along with providing resources to meet these needs. I'm not sure how much support is available for home schooled children already from council etc.
Is this a service that is already commonly available? Is it something that would be useful? Would it be something you might pay for?
Thanks in advance.

OP posts:
meditation · 15/09/2019 16:36

Put the course on and parents will apply

Tinuviel · 15/09/2019 17:43

I do something similar in that I offer cross-curricular courses that run for 4 - 8 weeks, once a week. I provide resources for them to do at home if they want (no pressure to complete it/no marking from me!) We do lots of hands-on stuff and have a good discussion about which ever book we're reading that ties in with it. I've also just started doing longer term sessions in my own subject (ex teacher).

I used to home educate my own kids, which I think helps. I got some HE friends to post a link to my courses on HE groups and it's taken off from there. I don't get masses of kids but it's fun to do; I make enough money to cover my time (usually) and I'm getting a few more people coming now.

I could do personalised education plans by recommending specific resources but nobody has ever asked me for that!

socktastic · 15/09/2019 19:07

@Tinuviel how did you get started? What sort of registrations do you need?

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Tinuviel · 15/09/2019 20:24

I have a DBS check, although it's not that recent now but as the parents stay with their kids, nobody has actually asked me about anything like that!

The hardest bit was getting my info onto the HE lists as by the time I realised there were some local ones on Facebook, I didn't bother joining as my youngest was 14 and we were approaching the end of our HE journey. Luckily I have some fab families who are more than happy to share links!

What age were you thinking of working with? To be honest, you have to offer something that's fun and provides social time as well as educational - parents can usually manage the education side themselves.

What they love is that I always base my courses on a book, most of which have been new to them (because being older, I use books that I used to enjoy). So the kids are reading something that they probably wouldn't otherwise have read. I also use American books that my kids read as we used a lot of US home ed resources.

If you want more info, please feel free to PM me.

Basecamp65 · 16/09/2019 10:41

As an former HE parent and now HE Grandparent - we love the sound of this type of thing but the nature of HE means one parent always having to be at home therefore money is often tight for many HE families. Also we love the freedom of not having to be in set places at set times and limit the number of on going activities we do. There are many different approaches and attitudes towards education within the HE community and people would want classes that fit with their ideas of education.

Therefore most families want to dip in and out of this type of provision and only a limited number commit to a on-going outlay of money - and this is predominantly for English and Maths with languages and science less popular.

I think the number of parents who would pay for tuition in any of the rest of the curriculum is very small. As mentioned most parents find the education side easy and just want outside involvement occasionally to double check they are covering the basics.

It may be worth thinking about just running English and Maths specific classes as these are by far the most popular. However i have to say we have 4 different classes running within 10 miles of us already offering maths and English tuition and all struggle for numbers. Only around 1 in 10 of the HE families we know use external classes for this type of thing at all. We are reasonably typical in tending to pay for tuition when we need extensive equipment - e.g. Horse-riding, Falconry, Gymnastics.

To give an example of how many people work - Near us we have someone running science classes but we do not want our children to attend all of them just those most relevant to what we are talking about at home or those the child is particularly interested. If we had to commit to all of them we would not go at all.

You do not mention what age you are looking at as GCSE level there may be more demand.

You do not mention where you are as there may be more demand for this type of provision in wealthier areas. We live in the Midlands and we have far too much choice already of activities and groups.

The only way is to advertise the classes and see how many people book on - but if I can be brutally honest I doubt it would generate a real wage and you may barely cover your costs - unless you are extremely lucky with the area you live in. Someone near us has started drop in sessions on all sorts of topics - all with AQA certificates attached and she is still running at a loss after 2 years.

In addition unless you already have links into your local HE community you may well struggle - Tinuveil - who commented above clearly had those links to start her off. We can be a right suspicious lot!!!!

Therefore I guess I am saying that there is a demand for this in the HE community but it is probably far smaller than you might imagine and the cost would be a barrier for many people.

I feel like I have been very negative about your idea but honestly there is not a massive demand out there - most HE families are doing brilliantly and not struggling to provide everything their child needs so you would need to be offering something that they cannot in order for them to part with their money!!!

Tinuviel · 16/09/2019 10:55

Basecamp, you're absolutely right about families wanting the freedom to dip in and out. That's why I run my cross-curricular sessions as fairly short courses as most people are happy to commit to 4 or 5 weeks but don't want anything longer term. Some still need to miss a week and I just make sure they get all the resources they missed and talk them through what we did.

The new longer term courses I run, whilst not GCSE, are a preparation course for it and I'm hoping to start a GCSE course next year.

I'm also lucky that I have a free venue, which helps keep the costs down! If I had to pay for it, I wouldn't be able to run the courses.

socktastic · 16/09/2019 20:36

@Basecamp65 thank you for the candour - negatives or not, I need to understand all the pitfalls. I'm in Scotland and there doesn't seem to be a single service like I'm considering around. I'd need to stay at school too for couple of days a week I think to make sure ends meet or until I know if I could make a success of this or not. I'm a primary teacher so in Scotland I can teach up to second year high school but not certificate exam courses.
I'd envisage myself focusing mainly on English and mathematics skills, mostly in the second level where they are a bit more advanced. I'd also give curricular advice, helping parents create plans which develop specific areas of the curriculum.
As you say, one of my biggest barriers would be that I'm not experienced in the HE sector. I've joined several Facebook groups for my area so I can best find out more about it.
I'm on maternity leave this year anyway so I'm hoping to use some time to thoroughly research what support is actually available in the area, what the needs are and what I would need to do (in terms of employment law/insurances/registrations) to get started.

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