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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.

New to home schooling

5 replies

Singlemum99 · 18/04/2021 08:10

Hello
We’ve just decided to give home schooling a try - my dd (age 7) has been unhappy at school for a long time (due to some bullying and social difficulties).
I am optimistic it could work for her - as she really blossomed (both in terms of improving in her work but also in terms of her general sense of happiness and reduction in anxiety).

I’ve been reading a lot and I think I can do this - but I’m feeling a little bit daunted right now.

Any tips or advice from someone who has moved to homeschooling for similar reasons would be really helpful right now. Thanks x

OP posts:
BusyLizzie61 · 18/04/2021 09:23

Do you work?

I agree with many improvements after the whole Covid homeschooling, my lo flourished. But I'm concerned about the social Impact of homeschooling that cannot be fully replicated via groups etc.

Flemingshat · 02/05/2021 16:33

Welcome :) my 6 YO is home educated. He went to school for a term in reception and we then withdrew him.

It is a myth that home educated children do not socialise. There are a multitude of activities your children can be involved in. My son attends forest school after school drop off club where he mixes with home educated and schooled children alike, we have regular playdates with small groups of fellow home educated children, he does a drop off art club with a mix of home educated and schooled children. There is honestly loads, you just have to know where to look. My little boy is very confident and sociable with children of all ages plus adults, as are many other home educated children. Please don't buy into the myth that our children are all locked in the cupboard under the stairs and never see anyone else!!

Aside from that, my advice would be:

  • take some time to "de-school" (yourself as well as your DC). This is a period of time where you have no structure or formal learning per se in place, giving you both time to adjust to a different way of learning. The general rule of thumb for this is a month of de schooling time per year your child has been in formal education.
  • do not try to do "school at home" as this rarely ends well. Take some time to figure out what works for your child and for you.
  • look into the various methods of home education, as there are many. We follow the classical method with our son with some elements of Charlotte Mason thrown in. I do also keep an eye on the national curriculum to check where he is compared to his peers at school, but many other home educating families discount the NC completely.

We start our day with "morning time" which is where we cover a lot of our sit down learning time. This involves reading (me to him and him to me), poetry, French, maths, music study and art study. We don't do all of these every day but reading, French and maths we always do. After this we have a "main lesson" where we go into depth on one further subject (science, nature study, ancient history, geography etc). Then lunch. After lunch we often do a social or outdoor activity. On the odd days we don't have anything planned we'll go for a walk and then he will choose what he wants to do - often chooses a craft project or to learn more about something he finds interesting. Once a week we have "poetry teatime" where we bake together and then sit down to read more poetry.

We don't do any formal handwriting lessons: he writes as part of his other learning. His spelling is excellent due to the amount we read.

Hope that helps. How we do it won't be necessarily how you want to do it though, so honestly my best advice is take time and work out what is best for you.

Saracen · 03/05/2021 07:12

I agree with @Flemingshat! My kids are now 21 and 14. The social side of home education has been great, much better IMO than they would have had at school. You do have to ferry them around more unless they have friends in the immediate neighbourhood, but there's more flexibility to meet their individual social needs.

They've had more time to socialise, which has made for deeper relationships. Playtime at school is brief and there are many distractions, and kids are limited in their choice of friends. Out of school they can really get stuck in and get to know each other and work together on projects of their own choosing by hanging out together for hours on end. Together they build dens, form bands, bake and sell cakes, create Minecraft worlds, write comics, fill hundreds of water balloons to put on the trampoline. When they do have friendship problems, which all kids will, they have the opportunity to take a break from each other to think it through and discuss it with an adult who knows them well and has observed how they behave with their friends.

It has been absolutely brilliant for both of them.

AllWashedOut · 06/05/2021 12:13

Following with interest. I am considering h/s for my 10yo who struggles massively with the social tumble at school. He lacks all the basic skills of conversation and friend making and as he matures this is making him sad. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that a safe environment that supports social engagement and exchange (that he perceives to be) may be achievable from home.

TheyWentToSeaInASieve · 08/05/2021 22:46

We've done HE for a year -- the best decision we ever made. The child falling behind has caught up and the one who didn't have many friends at school has found his gang in the HE group. They achieve so much more outside of school: ours have truly relaxed, changed for the better and love doing things like music and creative writing now.

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