Keeping records

[Marjoriew]

When grandson was younger, I used to keep records of all he'd done.
I don't so much now, but feel pressured when I don't.
I know what he's done from week to week.
Do any of you do planning/keep records?

I don't keep records as such.
I use my diary and calendar to remind me of any trips or visits we've been on for writing an annual report.
Any work that the children have done I keep in a box 'just in case' anyone asks to see it. I would probably keep most of their work anyway.

I keep absolutely anything that looks like a "product" in a carrier bag hanging on the back of the kitchen door. When it fills up, I start another one. I don't index or sort in any way. stuff in there has often spent a few weeks stuck on the wall before it gets put in the bag.

If some LA busybody wants to chart someone's progress, they can do the sorting out themselves. (there is case law precedent for this sort of record keeping )

I find that children can seem to plateau in some developmental area for ages and ages and then suddenly BAM! they are confidently doing something I had no idea they even knew about, let alone were thinking about doing. So keeping records just leads to lots of anxiety for weeks and weeks and then a sudden WOW THIS IS AMAZING!!!. I'd rather cut out the anxiety and just enjoy the WOW bit

and of course, 95% of the learning round here does not result in any sort of concrete educational product at all, but any state busybody can whistle for that lot, frankly. Conversations between me and my family do not happen for the purpose of telling some inspector what we talked about and what the learning aims, objectives and outcomes were.

As we are more structured, I do planning 10 weeks at a time, in a table in Word. Each row shows 1 week and each column shows each book/subject. I fill in the page numbers I want them to do for DS2 and DD and they colour over them as they complete the work; DS1 fills in what he has done although I do put in halfway and on the last week where he 'should' be. Trips I would note in my diary. Art and craft/making crap stuff, just happens as and when. When LA man comes out, they show him anything they are particularly proud of.

ommmward, can you give me any more info on the case law regarding krrping records, please?

There have definitely been cases where an LA has taken a family to court claiming that the autonomous education they were providing was "not suitable" and the family have turned up with boxes and boxes of the stuff their children had done, and the court said "you are clearly educating your children and the LA can sod off". Ask on one of the national email lists and someone will be able to give you a reference. I can't remember where I read it. Sorry!

Thanks, ommmward.

There's no requirement to keep records, just to prove, if clearly necessary, to prove that you're providing an education.

Some weeks I jot down in a diary what they/we do together. I also tend to keep the odd thing they do, but, like Ommmward, it's not organised, and it's not pressured.

Hi, Since last September I've kept an informal notebook with the activities we've done each week. Sometimes it's quite detailed with lots of "little" activites in, and other times I fill it in retrospectively after a couple of weeks and just put the main things that I can remember.
I also write in there any topics we have talked about/researched (when I remember) and notable developments like reading new words, showing a new mathematical skill / understanding of something (when I remember).
It's really just for my peace of mind, so that if I am asked what we've been doing I have something other than my memory to rely on.I also like to be able to look back see how ds has learned something step by step - like proof to myself that this autonomous education thing is really working!
We also keep "educational" things like any worksheets we occasionally do, art work, things picked up on trips, all stuffed in a big box ready to sort (or let someone else sort - thanks omward!)

Well we're not HEing yet but DH and I agreed we'll get a page-a-day diary and jot down roughly what we've done at the end of each day:

• went birdwatching, saw a woodpecker!!!
• multiplying fractions
• wrote a poem about woodpeckers
• made muffins

...etc. Ooh it's going to be fun!

I'm also considering keeping a blog, but I'm not going to kid myself I'd record everything on there - I'd like to just post when we do a big project or find a new way to learn something, to share our excitement.

I'm definitely going to take photos a lot though - but I'd do that even if we weren't HEing, I think it's great to look back over them and remember all the fun!

I'm interested in ways of keeping all the physical evidence (projects etc) - I don't really like the idea that at school subjects are divided into history, geography etc.

I think a blog is a great idea. We've just started one but nothing on it yet.
I'm still trying to get the hang of uploading the photos on it.

I don't think I'll bother with writing down planning either, just do it in my head as I've always done, and write it down when we've done it!

I'm not sure what we'll do in terms of planning. it's the only thing DH and I aren't agreed on. he wants more structure but I'd like to be more child-led, I think democratic is the term for what I imagine, not completely autonomous. Maybe at the start of each week we'll have a family chat about what they'd like to do, and if we have any ideas, and go from there.

Has he read much about autonomous learning himself, yet, MMM? Maybe if he does and/or when he sees how incredibly efficiently your children are learning without structure, he may come round to your way of thinking?

I frequently have wobbles about our totally autonomous approach, but the second I actually take a step back and see what they know and understand and can do, I can see that it is by far the most efficient way to learn

no, neither of us have really read about it - although I've found out a lot on here and have a few books about it on my Amazon wishlist.

I think he's a bit more concerned than I am about proving ourselves to the LA. Another concern of his was "what if they don't want to do (e.g.) maths?" - a fair point IMHO, how would you deal with that? I'm just hoping that our enthusiasm for learning everything will be passed on to them (instead of being drummed out of them at school ).

FWIW I'm confident we'll reach a middle ground, as I don't think we're suited to either totally structured or totally autonomous.

"Another concern of his was "what if they don't want to do (e.g.) maths?" - a fair point IMHO, how would you deal with that?"

Well, the best way is to stop dividing life into the different subjects that school likes. Don't say 'maths' and 'literacy' say 'reading the recipe and working out the amounts needed' or 'writing the shopping list and then going and buying the stuff' or 'playing card games' or 'sharing out sweets' or 'counting your pocket money and deciding what to spend it on' or 'measuring out your vegetable plot and working out how many plants you can fit in it and then ordering the seeds from a catalogue' or 'building your lego house' or 'makign patterns with your hama beads' or 'sorting your animals into extinct and non-extinct' or 'trying to create multilink models that look like the picture on the sheet you've got' and so on and so forth. The whole point is that you don't need to 'do maths' - which creates a big chance that they may decide they don't want to 'do maths'. All you need is to include them in every aspect of your life and do lots and lots of talking.

Of course, if it's not enforced or called 'doing maths' you may find they end up loving some of the fantastic computer games that are around now that involve loads of maths concepts - zoombinis is great, my daughter loves timez attack (for learning times tables), she also loves competing against other children around the world on mathletics.

One of their favourite activities at the moment, if we have a large group of people, is to make pictograms of people's favourite colours or shapes or whatever.

I think children only don't want to 'do maths' when 'doing maths' involves sitting down and 'doing maths' because someone's told you to IYSWIM

thanks I s'pose maths is one subject where I would be so sad if my DCs didn't enjoy it... bet you never would've guessed!

but you're right. I am a big fan of 'cross-curricular learning' (not that we're planning on following the curriculum!), there isn't enough of it in schools. my DSDs HATE maths and I'm sure the SATs they did last year had a lot to do with it

oh and actually, you mentioning Hama beads reminded me - I recently started a file where I keep ideas for future projects, links, little ideas for learning certain things (a few of which are stolen inspired from this board!). one I thought of a while ago was about square/triangular/cube etc numbers, and how we could build the sequences with lego, moon sand bricks, or aqua beads! I'm too lazy for Hama - barely know how to turn the iron on!