Hiring Someone to Home Educate my children? Do people still use Governesses???

[CountryMumAtHome]

We have recently moved to the countryside and have several children, 4 with another on the way, (all varying ages 1-7) and I have been considering educating them at home until they reach the age of about 8. However, my DH and I work, either at home, or travel to London for a few days often. Not having the children in school would allow more flexibility for them to travel with us at the moment. Since we both work though we wouldn’t be able to teach the children on a set school day schedule which is what we want so we have been considering hiring someone to help with schooling. We also want our children to spend time being children while they’re so young instead of sending them to school all day, with most of the local preps requiring Saturday school at some point.
Im not completely sure how we would go about this, should we look for a teacher, nanny, or tutor? We have looked online a bit and some sites advertise the role of governess which lists their job as teaching children in the home. I don’t know how common it is for someone nowadays to hire governess and if anyone has done so recently. We would want the children to enter prep school eventually, around the age of 8 so they can make friends, as we do live in a more remote country area, as well as preparing them for a senior school.
Has anyone hired a teacher, or even a governess to teach their children at home?? How did this go for you?

I was a governess for seven years, happy to answer any questions about your expectations of a governess etc 🙂

Yes I know a (wealthy) family who did this. At such young ages you can probably be more flexible about who you employ as well.

Yes, people still employ governesses.
They are usually live-in, and you will pay a lot (think £800+ a week).
See here - burlingtonnannies.com/governesses/

I would advertise through an agency - try Imperial, Burlington, Silver & Bow, Greycoat Lumleys, Nannies of St James.

Thanks everyone for the replies! I wouldn’t say we’re an extremely wealthy family but we’re certainly in a comfortable position. With quite a few children we thought it might make more sense to educate them at home for a while instead of paying for four or five prep school fees until they’re older and we haven’t looked at many local primaries yet.

Athomewiththehales89 As a governess did you create the entire academic curriculum by yourself or did parents help? I would love to help out but with work I don’t think I could do most of the teaching on my own.

Is the academic level similar to what is being taught in school, or did the children you taught eventually enter school at a certain age?

Did you travel as a governess while teaching? This is something we might be interested in with business travel as well as possibly being able to travel outside of peak seasons for holidays.

What did a typical school day look like for you and the children you taught? I don’t have much experience with governesses or home Ed so I’m not completely sure what to expect.

Thanks Katapolts for the recommendations, I’ll make sure to check those out! We have the space for live in which might make it more feasible, both for what we’re looking for and with the cost.

Thanks HairyKitty for the advice as well! We have employed a nanny before which has worked well in the past so it’s an option!

I think it sounds like a brilliant idea!

One of the wonderful things about home educating is you don’t need to follow any set school days or hours or any kind of curriculum. Until 7ish play/curiosity based learning is best anyway

Kids don’t generally respond well to school being recreated at home. I’m pro home ed but seems like it’d be worth you looking into what home ed can actually offer instead of creating a mini home school. Your governess would also have to facilitate lots of social interaction/groups for your kids not just be at home so that’s an extra thing on top

My bad I meant to tag @Athomewiththehales89 with this post!

@BuffaloCauliflower Thank you for the advice! This is kind of what I’m looking for, something a little less formal when they’re younger and shorter school days. However, I’m not quite sure when I’d want them to enter “normal” school. I was thinking around age 8-10 as I’d worry about social interactions not being enough. When they are older though I would want there to be some more academic emphasis placed on the schooling which a governess would help with.

@CountryMumAtHome I created the curriculum without the parents input but would have been happy to work with parents input if they had preferred. I usually planned for each half term so depending on your commitments you could sit down with your governess every six weeks or so to discuss what input might be feasible for you at that time and work it in.
The children both entered school at age six and I ensured they were able to meet the schools’ curriculum requirements before they started, most schools are happy to share their learning aims for each year with you. They were on target in all areas and obviously working ahead in some, they entered an international school.
I travelled extensively with the family. It was amazing to incorporate the culture/geography/history of each place into the children’s lessons when we travelled.
Our days varied but we would generally do a couple of hours of more formal learning including literacy, numeracy and then either history, geography or music/drama etc. Some form of physical activity and then some nature based learning plus usually a daily class with other kids.
Usually governesses only work for around five hours a day Mon-fri, while an expected working week would still be full time the additional time would be given to lesson and activity planning plus planning feedback etc so if you need childcare as well some families have a nanny too.

Hope that helps 😊

Would you expect a governess to mind a 1 year old as well as educate the other 3?

Oh goodness don't use silver & bow we have only had awful experiences with them! Would second the recommendation for greycoat Lumleys though

Why don’t you just send them to state school for a few years if it’s the Saturday school which bothers you

@Athomewiththehales89 Thank you so much this really helps with what I’m looking for! I love the aspect of having those more formal school hours to help prepare them for a “real” school experience while also having that flexibility. Also good to note the hours they work to consider if we need a nanny, or nursery times as well!

@Pkrwbssdp Ill make sure to look at Greycoat Lumleys, It’s always good to see what has worked for others, thank you!

@SheilaFentiman This is a good point, I’ve been thinking about this as well, and I think we will probably have to get a nanny to help look after the younger children while we’re working as that wouldn’t be the governess main focus. I’d also be happy with them attending nursery school for a half day depending on how things go so they would be able to make friends.

£70,000 with on costs for an experienced qualified teacher- a bit less if they live in. On costs are high, pension, NI.

As has already been answered, yes there are still governesses and home tutors. As for the cost though - if you look back into the founding documents of many of the oldest, greatest and most expensive public schools, they were founded charitably to educate the sons of poor gentlefolk - where by the understanding of the day "poor" didn't mean actually living in real poverty but "not working class obviously but unable to afford the full time services of a governess and/or tutor but able to club together with other families of similar wealth to share teaching staff among dozens of pupils to bring the cost down". I would therefore expect the services of a well-qualified person to cost considerably more than any reasonable level of private school fees.

You also should have an annual visit from the LA and be required to provide an educational programme for each child of statutory school age

Compulsory registration is anticipated to be in place shortly.

There are definitely still governesses out there but I think you’d be well advised to speak to an agency about what a governess will and won’t do - their job expectations are very different to a nanny. What I mean is, they aren’t like a nanny who will proxy parent plus do a bit of home Ed the way you’d want to do it as a SAHM. And I’m not sure a governess would be an appropriate form of childcare for babies/toddlers/preschoolers. Would a nanny with experience of home Ed/play based learning possibly suit you better? It might be worth considering all these things.

My advice would be to think about what is best for the children. Look at the local state school and sort out extra child care if necessary. Care, high quality teaching and commitment to what is best for each child is what I have found in state schools.

My cousin's son was "digitally homeschooled" for a period of time as he was in between schools. The company were really good - it was all online and then my cousin just hired a "cheaper" nanny/babysitter/housekeeper to come and watch him during the day. It worked really well for them and the company they used had really good tutors which gave him a much better standard of education than even some of the ultra expensive private schools my friend's kids go to!! I can find out the name of who they used if you'd like?

Thank you for all the new replies, quite a few to reply to all separately so I’m going to try to do so here!

As for cost, we will definitely have to check with an agency to see exactly what that will be, throwing a nanny in the mix along with a governess would look a bit different as well. Independent prep school fees seem to be around 20,000 per year, so for 5 children that would be 100,000!! Not cheap! That is part of the reason we started to look at the possibility of having a governess, as paying 20,000 for a 4 year old does seem to be a bit much. Im open to both local primaries and preps, as well as switching to an independent school later instead of at prep age.

We also like the idea of a governess for the flexibility they would offer for our children since we do travel for business often. We would probably need another form of childcare such as a nanny though.

I think I am going to contact an agency though and start looking at this as being a real possibility. I’ll keep an eye on compulsory registration as well.

Not really, no. That is what some LAs would like people to believe, but the law states that LAs have the duty to intervene if it appears to them that a home educated child in their area is not in receipt of a suitable education. The law is reactive, not proactive. There is no provision for monitoring. Most families do opt to provide a brief historical report about the education (once a year at most) if the LA asks, but that is straightforward enough. It is likely a governess would be providing more than that to the parents anyway.

Whether compulsory registration will come in is debatable, but that doesn't really affect the OP much anyway. Her children - at least the older ones - will become known to the LA automatically when they are withdrawn from school. Compulsory registration is intended to identify home educated children who are not known to their LA, for example because they never attended school at all.