Melissa Corkhill

By Melissa Corkhill

16th May 2016

Where do you start? What do you do? Ross Mountney explains how to get started on the home educating journey. The thought of home education can seem a daunting prospect to most people. But like most things, once the first steps are taken you realise it’s different to what you expected. A bit like the thought of being a parent when you’re first pregnant; you can’t imagine what it’ll be like and how you’ll cope, but you do in the end. And it’s exactly the same with home education as it is with parenting; you grow into it, everything is achievable in small steps. And the first step you need to take is often the hardest; the decision!

Melissa Corkhill

By Melissa Corkhill

16th May 2016

Melissa Corkhill

By Melissa Corkhill

16th May 2016

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Why do it?
There are as many different reasons as there are different families but there are common threads among most of them; that education should be a happy and fulfilling experience, that individual needs should be at the forefront of the decisions, that children should never suffer for an education, e.g. through bullying, and that children should achieve their full potential and enjoy the journey. All of these things are achievable as home educators.

Materials needed
Surprisingly there is little you need to home educate successfully. The things you do need are more to do with you as a person than with material possesions. The most basic and important thing that you need that underpins all else is a good relationship with your child. Many home educators have found that learning together as a family enriches and deepens their relationships with one another. After that you need an interest in learning, the ability to research, time and commitment, and an enormous helping of patience and humour! What may surprise you is that things you won’t necessarily need are the things we usually associate with education such as a classroom, teacher training, masses of money, masses of equipment, or masses of qualifications yourself. Learning is a process you can grow into along with your child and it doesn’t have to be costly or complicated. Some parents use work and text books and course materials, but not all. Materials are sometimes shared around and handed on through home educating groups. Michelle, who has been home educating for four years now, says: “People do think that home educating is harder than it is because they compare it with school – they think it has to be the same long drawn out schedule and I think that is one of the things which puts them off. I think that people who have never home educated are not aware that it is not the 9 till 3 option but it is a lifestyle. Home education becomes something that we do automatically without thinking about it. So even when we are not consciously home educating the child is still learning.”

How to get started
For parents whose children never start going to school it is an easy transition. There is nothing you are legally required to do. And the progression from pre-school to home school need be nothing more formal than an extension of what you already do with your child. It is not necessary to suddenly start taking a structured approach to their learning just because you reach the September before they are five as you will already have been teaching them things even though you may not have been aware of it. This happens through conversation, enjoying stories, involving your child in what you do, encouraging creative, constructional and mind challenging activities. Any sort of active play, (building, den making, or playing dressing up), is educational in that it gets children thinking and talking; it stimulates the brain and develops skills. Manipulating materials, toys and tools, such as cutting out paper dolls helps to build skills needed later on for academic work. It is not necessary to buy expensive workbooks and make children fill them in unless they like them, although they’re useful for some skills practice and to keep tabs on what their peers are covering at school. Children can learn such a lot from everyday living experiences. Shopping, for example, can be a chance to look at the labels, country of origin, weights, ingredients and an opportunity to discuss, raise questions and compare, etc.

Deregistering
For those children who have already been in school the move to home education is different. Problems at school are usually the reason parents withdraw their child, sometimes after consultation with the staff. But some schools are unsupportive so it may be best just to write to the school letting them know that you wish them to take your child off their register as you intend to take full responsibility for their education yourselves at home, as it is your right to do. The Local Authority will be in touch and send forms to fill in with your educational plans and intentions. But you’re not obliged to do so. What you do have to do is to be clear of your reason to home educate and ask for some time (six months perhaps) to adjust to your home educating routine before you make any plans. There is help with this process through the Education Otherwise website. Then you will need a period of adjustment. There’s a saying that you can take the child out of school but it takes longer to take the school out of the child. This can be a time to encourage children to do things they like and forget about formal learning for a while. Music, sports, arts and crafts, reading, playing in the garden and meeting other home educators are all worthwhile activities. It can sometimes take a year for children to get back to their own selves and start enjoying learning again. Don’t worry about time gaps; children do not learn in a linear fashion, they progress through leaps and long plateaus. Healthy, happy children learn easily!

How does learning take place?
Children are learning all the time – it’s just that we don’t notice. Small children learn from the things their parents do. Older children learn a lot through their own investigations. Where education is concerned we have all been led to believe that the only valuable learning is formal, at school, with kids behind desks, with teachers, books and silence. Anyone who’s been home educating for any length of time will tell you that this is not the only approach that works. Learning can take place in so many different circumstances, through different approaches, in different time scales. For example, children do not only learn to read through a reading scheme. There are home educated children who have never used a reading scheme; they’ve just enjoyed books with their parents, had stories read to them, read magazines, read any print that is around them – even the cereal packet, been encouraged and allowed to enjoy what they want to when they want to read it and still ended up as competent readers. Some children read easily and quickly when they are very young. Some children, particularly dyslexic children – often boys, do not read until they are in their teens. And that’s okay; by the time they’re eighteen no one could tell the difference. Home educating gives parents an opportunity to cater for these differences. But it does require faith. It requires us to look beyond the normal model of education presented to us through schooling and seek other ways that are more appropriate to our children’s differences. Many children learn much more successfully through active participation, physical activities, investigation and experimentation than they would at a desk being talked at by an adult, or wading through a scheme book. Children learn a huge amount by being given plenty of opportunities to play and investigate for themselves, at whatever age. For example; give them a tray of water, various containers and let them play, then introduce measuring jugs, litre bottles, talk about the idea of litres, then show the way the word is written etc. A child who has played like this has a better concept of litres and millilitres than one who hasn’t. A teenager who’s seen a Shakespeare performance or film often has a far better understanding of the play than one who struggles with the written language in the book. Cooking involves science; heating and cooling, mixing substances, reactions, changing states, etc. A child who lives in a household where there is conversation and inquiry about everything easily becomes educated. It becomes a natural part of living a life, as it should be; a hands-on, organic approach to learning, which can easily be refined into academics later on. For Sarah and Pete, who have been home educating their three sons for twelve years now, learning became part of their family life: “We started out formally doing school at home when our first son came out of school. When we realised how quickly we covered work, we became more relaxed, seeing there was no need for this kind of intensive structure. All three boys just seem to learn things anyway, even when we’re not looking, and we are sometimes astonished by what they know! With our younger children, who have never been to school, we allowed their learning to evolve naturally by creating an atmosphere of interest and questioning. We filled in any shortfalls with more directed learning, dipping in to formal textbooks or using web-sites to develop skills or knowledge for specific outcomes. Our youngest child was never formally taught reading, spelling or grammar, but he seems to be the one who’s best at it!”. Their first son is going to university this autumn.

Test and examinations
Many parents don’t realise that continued testing is not essential for a good education. It is simply a means of measuring learning – a rather inaccurate one at that. Many home educating families leave testing behind when they leave the school system. Some use computer based tests to give them a bench mark. As for exams and qualifications, it’s best not to worry about this at the start of home educating. Be reassured that home educating children can take qualifications just as school children do and you can sort that when the time comes. Home educated children achieve university places just like school children do. Many home educators like to concentrate on giving their children a good education day by day, rather than one that is only geared to qualifications.

Personal development
When your children are in school this is not something you have to ask yourself much – you probably already have a fixed idea related to qualifications. When you home educate it is something you have to think about a lot because you can make a good education anything you want it to be. And this very often relates to lifestyle choice.Many parents feel that a good education is as much about personal development as it is about academic development. Get the personal bit right and the rest follows. It is often the personal side that is neglected in schools. Some parents feel that through education they want their children not only to have wide ranging knowledge and skills, but more importantly to be confident, caring and happy, aware of their strengths and interests, able to enjoy good relationships with others and to know how the world works and what they can contribute to it. These become priorities. They do not necessarily want to steer their children towards highly qualified jobs just for the sake of it. They would rather their children steered themselves towards fulfilling work and a fulfilling life and understood things about themselves that would help them achieve it. Education is, after all, for living a life, not just for schools. It takes a while to grow into, just like anything else that grows. Forced plants are weak and prone to damage. Forced children are too. Home educating gives parents an opportunity to allow their child’s education to grow more naturally.

FURTHER READING:
Learning Without School Ross Mountney
Freerange Education: How Home Education Works Terri Dowty
One to One: A Practical Guide to Learning at Home Gareth Lewis
How Children Learn at Home Alan Thomas and Harriet Pattison
Teach Your Own John Holt

USEFUL RESOURCES
education-otherwise.org
heas.org.uk

THINKING ABOUT HOME EDUCATION? IT HELPS TO:
RESEARCH Have a look at home education websites (e.g. education-otherwise.org) for ideas.
PLAN Consider how you’d manage the practicalities of your daily lives/work/other commitments etc.
CONNECT Talk to other home educating families about their experiences – the more you talk to, the more rounded view you’ll build of the many options. Be reassured that no one home educates in isolation and home educated children have friends and excellent social skills.
RELAX Don’t worry too much about the learning side of it at the outset as it’s not as hard as you’d imagine. The internet is a great resource. And remember; any decision is reversible at any time if need be.
STAY CENTRED Keep the needs and the welfare of your child as your priority.

ABOUT OUR HOME EDUCATION JOURNEY
We home educated our children after a short period in school. We made the decision because they were becoming unhappy, often unwell and switched off to learning. This altered almost the minute we took them out and despite inviting them to go back and try school as various milestones were reached (change to secondary school for example), they never did. We did not stick to one specific style, but rather varied our approach along with our children’s needs. For example, we used lots of discussion and practical activities wherever possible, taking the learning away from being print led out into the real world, such as visits to a Roman site, for example; exploring different habitats and various workshops. We encouraged practise of skills related to the National Curriculum, sometimes using workbooks to practice something specific. We encouraged the children to explore and develop their own interests. We met lots of other home schoolers and took part in a wide variety of activities; educational, physical and social. Our children did not do tests or exams except those that they chose to (dancing, swimming, etc.). They decided not to do GCSEs but went to college and studied for BTEC qualifications related to their career paths. They were both accepted at college without hesitation and our eldest is now leaving to go on to university.

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