Cost of home ed

[luckycat2]

Hi everyone,
I'm looking into home educating my little boy. He is two and a half now, his birthday is very late in the summer which is one reason I am looking into home ed.
On my local home ed facebook page there are a lot of groups advertised e.g. drama, music, languages but they all involve a cost. I'd like to think that at first I can teach him a lot myself but there are some things I would need to take him out to do.
So, coming to my point, have you found that it ends up costing quite a lot to do home ed, with all the groups to go to and museums to visit?
Also, we live in the countryside, not near to any good museums or galleries so there is added cost of travel to these places.
He is our only child, so I have no experience with older children going to a 'normal' school and how the cost of trips out, buying kit etc. compares.
Would love to hear your thoughts
Thanks for your help x

Yes, home ed is expensive. However, it sort of balances out, when you consider the incredible cost of school stuff - uniform, bags, lunch boxes, school trips, snack money, non uniform days, etc.
I teach my son myself, using mainly free resources, although we do pay for subs for a couple of sites - twinkl being the main one.
All the extra curricular stuff is mainly stuff hed do anyway.
We're rural too, and our main expense most of the time is diesel to get places.
You dont have to send him to drama classes, or science club, or any of that. And, to be honest, most primary stuff is easy enough to do yourself, its once they get to secondary age that it gets harder, by which point they've outgrown most of the home ed clubs and classes.

It does add up, however I find that most of the things we pay for are from a social perspective. There are many things we could cover at home but I do think learning from another / in a small group of children is beneficial. We only do 2 or 3 of these a week - subscription to Reading Eggs is worth every penny. Then there's dance classes which would be there irrespective of home ed. I do try to offset costs with the idea of the expenses that come with school. Some weeks cost more than others. We are lucky to be in a location with many museums, free galleries and exhibitions etc.

In the early years you are in much more control of what you spend. It can be expensive if you sign up to expensive trips and clubs. If you get books from the library or second hand, meet friends at the park, trips can be a coastal project where you spend various days rockpooling etc, we did lots of our science in local parks (playgrounds are great for looking at forces) it can be cheap. The biggest costs in the early years were the lack of salary due to me not working and transport costs. By GCSEs yes it is expensive but so is having a child in school at that age (I've done both)

Thanks everyone,

Yes, one cost I had considered is the fact that I wouldn't be working at the same time, so no extra salary for us.
I'm a bit intimidated by trying to teach secondary age topics, but I suppose by then I would have had plenty of time to research them!

I'm a stay at home mum just now and am having to choose which groups we go to carefully and which places we visit because it can all add up during the week.

Lots to think about!

There are plenty of free resources on the internet to assist home schooling, and second hand books can be bought cheaply on ebay/ amazon type websites. Some home education groups are free to families, but others make a charge. You can find out what is available locally using facebook and other social media, and there are some excellent home school blogs available to inspire (freddiesmummyuk being my favourite). While trips out for learning are a nice addition to the curriculum, much of the learning can be achieved at home. When my children were in State school, they had about 2-3 trips per year to visit zoo's or the theatre. Most school budgets do not stretch to frequent trips so home schoolers are probably at an advantage in this respect (in that you can do as little/ much as you want).

I use youtube tutorials (homeschoolpop etc), bbc bitesize, and tes to find lesson materials for free. I use matific with my youngest. Both children combine home schooling with internet schooling for core subjects. We use MOS which accepts from Year 4 at present. There are other internet schools out there, and perhaps some accept younger pupils.

we use online schooling at £234 a month.

Not sure if you’re aware of this but you can apply for your summer born child to start Reception aged 5 (ie a year later than he would normally expect to). We’ve done this for my DC1 and it has been brilliant. He’s doing well at school now and is learning loads and enjoying the experiences. Also applied and been accepted to do the same for DC2.

*enjoying the experience