First steps to setting up for home schooling

[Mummyofthree82]

Hello, since the first lock down and starting home schooling, I realised how much my children and myself really enjoyed it. I love the fact thats its more one on one and I have time to help them if they are struggling. Also with everything that is going on with covid that just adds to my reason to want to school them from home.

Can anyone give me any advice on what i need to do, where i need to start and websites i can use?

Thanks in advance

So they are still registered at school and you are planning to withdraw them? If you are sure it's the right way forward then you don't need to delay while you "set things up".

You can just take them out and then figure it out as you go along. It is fairly rare to start out with a plan and then stick closely to it. Most families find that they need to do a lot of experimenting and adjusting as they go along, in order to discover what suits each child. You may well end up with a different approach for each of your children; for example, one of my kids asked to be taught to read with the Oxford Reading Tree series, while the other just picked reading up by using speech-to-text apps to communicate with friends.

Watch your children. See what makes them happy and engaged. Offer them a range of types of books and websites. Take them places. Look for what gets them excited. If something isn't working, try something else. Don't spend too much (if any) money in the early days, or you risk feeling shackled to some curriculum your kids don't like. See what you can borrow or get on free trial. Join local home ed groups and ask other families what they use; they might be happy to lend it to you so you can try it out.

Many parents advocate an initial period during which the children have no adult-imposed learning at all. This is called "deschooling" and gives you an opportunity to let go of school-type expectations and watch how your children really learn. Some families like mine stick with this approach in the long term, allowing the kids to decide what and how and when to learn. It's known as "unschooling" or "autonomous education".

Are you familiar with the legal situation? Have a look at the Education Otherwise website for this, or SchoolHouse if you are in Scotland.

Have fun!

There are lots of facebook groups, including ones for local areas.
Twinkl not only has lots of worksheets (etc) but a dedicated home ed section

I have two of different ages, one is 10 and the other is 11, one is nearly finished primary and the other started secondary in September.

My main concern is someone either CC or School trying to block my withdrawal of both, the younger one is very hyperactive and has really struggled with going back to school since covid, we live with my elderly mother and they are both so worried about bringing it home to her.

The older one is quite quiet and doesn't 'fit in' with his peers, and when he tries to act like them so he isn't 'different' this causes him to get into trouble. He isn't happy at all at school and to be honest both struggle to 'conform'.

We had a great time in home schooling, I helped them when they needed it but to be honest they were a pleasure, (we had the odd day where they really didn't want to do it, but 99% of the time they just got stuck in.)

They were that good that I had to wonder what happens to them when they go into school, the reports I get home especially from the younger ones teacher are not that great. His teacher has also said in his mosr recent report that he is very time demanding and needs someone to 'hold his hand' while doing work. I total have the time to hold his hand and will hold it for as long as he needs me to.

I have worked out how they both like to learn and identified things they enjoy learning, I have spoken to them and explained what I plan to do and they both seem happy, the younger ones main concern was that he wouldn't see his friends, which I have assured him will not be a problem.

With the way things are these days school trips are off the cards but it is something that we will be able to do as a family, while learning from home I can also teach them basic life skills which every human needs.

I feel so strongly about this and I want to do right by them and make sure they grow up to be as fantastic as adults as they are as children. At home they won't feel they have to act a certain way to fit in or be in with the cool kids, they can just be them and will have no worries that we can't sort out.

If they ever ask to return to school that won't be a problem and when it comes to GCSE's I'm happy to pay for them to do that if that is what they want to do.

I guess at this age, you’d need to think about not just paying for and organising gcses (exam centre, practical/coursework components); but also tutoring for it (if you are doing the tutoring, then familiarising yourself with the syllabus or finding tutors - sometimes further education colleges may offer maths and english classes).

I currently home Ed younger kids and sometimes worry about how to organise all of it if they choose to continue home Ed to gcse age and beyond (we hope to try some flexi schooling and give them a choice). I guess you could try it for a couple of years and discuss the options with them in year 8/9?

I guess my main concern is being stopped from doing it, i've already explained to them if they feel that they are missing school or they want to return to school then we can sort that. I hope that this really is as simple as just writing a letter to say they won't be returning.

Unless either of them is in a special school then you just send their head a letter informing them that you’re deregistering and crack on. No one can stop you from doing it. There’s quite a lot around the law and what it says (and loads it doesn’t say!), the net result being you can pretty much do what you want as long as you can articulate your children’s progress each year. Probably a huge over simplification but that’s what it boils down to, there is detailed guidance regarding home ed for parents and for LAs from DfE (search DfE home ed guidance and it should pop up as a gov.uk link).

If you’re not already, I’d highly recommend joining FB groups - there are a couple of national ones like Education Otherwise (they have very handy guides and info, they also have a website) and Home Education UK is good for broader home ed chat. You may have local FB groups too. All of this will provide much more info on home ed in general as well as local recommendations, experiences etc.

Also forgot to say… good luck! When you research home ed it can feel daunting, wondering how to do it ‘right’, will someone say you have up send them back, will the LA be difficult… but there are loads of kids being home educated every day, without issue, whether deregistered or never having attended school. The guides from Education Otherwise will help cover the basics (like writing a dereg letter, writing a report if the LA make enquiries etc). The main focus of your time will hopefully just be you and your children and doing what works for you

I agree with @triflinpud: "you can pretty much do what you want as long as you can articulate your children’s progress each year. Probably a huge over simplification but that’s what it boils down to"

The laws in the constituent countries of the UK vary, but all give parents great scope to educate their children according to the children's individual needs. There are some scenarios in which children are made to go to school against their parents' wishes, primarily

1. if the child's other parent wants the child to attend school, they can take it to family court, where the outcome is often uncertain
2. if Social Care is involved, they may have a prejudice in favour of school, and in some cases parents are best advised to comply
3. if the parent is unaware of the legal procedures and isn't connected with the home ed community, they may not realise they don't have to do everything the LA wants, and may send their child to school when the LA threatens legal action

Assuming none of the above applies to you, there's no need to worry about your children being sent to school.

When the LA ask for information about your children's education, you can get help and advice from experienced home educators, who will point you toward the relevant laws and explain your options for responding. If the LA phones, ask them to write to you instead. That way you have time to confirm whether you have to do whatever they are asking you to do, and you can give them a well thought-out response. That is in everyone's best interests.

In short, you really can just focus on your children and what's best for them! Carry on following your instincts. Home ed is very different from school. There are no one-size-fits-all rules about attendance, attainment, curriculum, or anything else. The world is your oyster.

Thank you so much guys I really appreciate your advice! Thank you and take care x

GCSEs loom big in the minds of parents who are home educating older children. Most home ed kids do sit them, though they aren't required. Parents report that the education side of it isn't as difficult as they had feared. You don't have to be knowledgeable in all subjects yourself. There are various options, including self-study, studying with help from parents, using tutors, online schools, and home ed tutor-led study groups.

However, organising this IS a lot of work for parents. You have to identify a centre where your children can sit each exam, and then decide how they will learn the material and arrange that. On the plus side, other home ed parents are terrifically helpful, and there are Facebook groups you can join for this. With your kids being the ages they are, you have a few years to get the lie of the land. Home ed gives more options for which subjects to sit and when and how. You don't have to do a huge number of subjects all at once at the age of 16.

Covid has thrown a major spanner in the works. Centre-assessed grades and teacher-assessed grades are often unavailable to kids who study independently. Some have managed to scramble to make arrangements to get grades, while others have been left high and dry. That is a huge issue for HE kids wanting to sit exams now, but should be history by the time your two are doing exams.

So if I were you, I would go ahead and get stuck in to home education. Unless your kids are very precocious and ready for exams now, you have a few years in which to get to grips with all the details of sorting their exams. You could always have the backup plan of home educating them for a few years and then sending them back into school in Y10 for exams if you think the prospect of HEing GCSEs is too daunting. But I expect you won't find that necessary after all! It's hard, but it's possible.

Thank you very much x

You should check out Outschool. We used it to supplement home learning during lock down and love it. There are 140,000 different lessons on there (not all academic) and it’s a good way for children to interact.

They struggle to conform so you are cutting them off from kids their own age ? How will that help the situation when they go out into the world

White rose maths is really good. The whole maths curriculum is there split into stages and terms.
You can watch the video; the PowerPoint and then do the worksheet.

It's so easy and kid friendly. I use it to teach all ages and stages

Not to put words into OP’s mouth but surely @cherrypie66 her DCs are already in the world. Being home ed won’t put them in a vacuum, there are lots of ways and opportunities to interact with others and make friends. Plus IME being a pupil at a school doesn’t bear great resemblance to how one functions in day to day life as an adult.

@cherrypie66 , because schoolchildren spend so much time at school and have so many social interactions there, the idea has taken hold that school is a GOOD preparation for later social life. But is it? It wasn't designed with that purpose in mind. In fact, I remember my teachers saying, "We are not here to socialise, young lady!"

If you look critically at the social environment at school and outside of school, you may notice that the social skills needed at school are often very different from those which kids will need elsewhere. I'll give you an example from my own life.

When I was nine, a boy in my class was often teased at school. He talked at length about his special interests, sometimes drooling in his excitement. He didn't always notice whether other people were interested. He tended to insist on playing games his way. He took little interest in fashion and wore his trousers shorter than the other kids. His hair wasn't cut like the other boys' hair.

At school, I avoided him. I didn't actively pick on him, but I was only just civil to him. I didn't intervene when the other kids were nasty to him. I tried not to sit next to him at lunch, in case they thought he was my friend - or worse yet, boyfriend: you were NOT allowed to be friends with boys! I knew I'd be ostracised if I associated with him. When you're stuck with the same kids 30 hours a week, ostracism is a powerful threat. Your social interactions are never private. They take place under the relentless spotlight of peer judgement. And anyway, there were other kids at school who were more appealing playmates for me, as they shared my interests and didn't insist on playing games their way.

But this lad was also my neighbour. We lived across town. The other neighbour kids went to the local school. Away from school, I treated him much better. I was free of the fear that I'd get bullied if somebody saw me playing with him. In the neighbourhood, he wasn't bullied or excluded. Sure, he wasn't our first choice of playmate, but whenever we needed somebody to make up a team for a kickaround, of course we would ask him, just as we asked the little five year old from over the road. He and I would fall out sometimes, but as soon as we were bored or lonely we'd make it up. In that setting I could learn to be patient and get along with someone different from myself.

Only when I was grown up did it even occur to me that I could have treated him better at school, could have stuck up for him there, could have made time to play with him sometimes rather than leaving him invariably alone on the playground. But was that even possible? It would take a very brave kid to do the right thing at the risk of being bullied herself. I guess I wasn't that brave. By nine I had unconsciously absorbed the social skills required to survive at school. It didn't even occur to me to flout the unspoken social rules by being nice to an unpopular child.

Never since school have I been in such an unforgiving environment that I couldn't risk being nice to someone who was lonely. I guess I don't blame myself much for how I treated him. I did what was appropriate for the environment I was in. But behaving that way didn't feel right, and I was relieved that I could acquire different social skills the very moment I left school.

My own kids are 22 and 15, both home educated from the beginning. I've seen them face all sorts of social situations (yes, home educated kids do actually have friends). Sometimes they've made good choices and sometimes not. But it has always seemed to me that they had a better range of choices available to them than schoolchildren do, and that allows them to develop strategies which are relevant to the world we all live in. As @triflinpud says, they are in that world already, rather than being segregated from it at school.