Jax’s children were not among those starting or returning to school this September. They’re not at home because they’re poorly, or truanting. They are instead among an estimated 100,000 school-age children in the UK who are home educated*, a figure that is rising by 15% each year. Here, Jax from liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup talks us through a life less ordinary… but lots of fun.
Along with a growing number of families in this country, we home educate. This means that my three children don’t go to school, instead getting their education at home, or indeed, pretty much anywhere, anytime.
One of the suggestions in writing a guest post here for BritMums was that I describe a typical day. I’d do just that, if we ever had one! We don’t do school at home, or have any set routines, although I do know people who do or at least are rather more structured than we are, so there’s not a great deal typical about any day here at the moment.
I do require a certain amount of maths to happen during a week. It’s a subject that I feel benefits from regular practise and we use an online system following the national curriculum. There’s no requirement for home educators to do that for any subject, but I like to feel that we’re covering all the bases. In fact the only legal requirement on any parent is that they provide an education suitable to age, ability and aptitude, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. It’s that otherwise bit that makes home education perfectly legal.
Once he’s done his maths, Small (eight-yearsold) usually continues to spend time on the computer. Earlier this week he was exploring Audacity, software for recording/editing audio files. Today he spent a lot of time finding out about the Voyager space missions following a chat with my partner last night. He also wanders away from the PC and runs about outside for a while, seeming to know when he needs a break and to stretch his legs. Oh, and I get him to practice with his new pencil grip regularly – he has weak wrists so I’m hoping regular practice will build up the muscles and make life easier for him. Does mean that he’s started drawing regularly again, which is lovely to see.
Big, age 11, would have gone to senior school this year had school been in the frame. Several of her slightly older home-ed friends are taking the school route this year, out of choice because they want to start working towards qualifications. That prompted a few conversations about school here, and means that we’re reviewing her academic skills in case she wants to consider it later on. We’re working steadily through a KS2 revision book on maths, English and science, and proving that apart from spelling, most things do seem to have sunk in by osmosis over the years.
The other question people often ask is about socialisation. It’s a red herring generally speaking, and there are lots of articles about it out there. My children mix with schooled children at Guides, Cubs, swimming lessons, swim club, the park, the beach and so on. We meet regularly with home educated friends – holidays, camps, parties and – for example, our history days, where we are working our way through a history syllabus with shared craft activities. There are local groups and activities in most areas, usually coordinated via email groups, it’s just a case of tracking down your local contacts.
Basically, there are as many ways to home educate as there are families home educating, and probably that many reasons to do it too. We do it because it works for us.
–By Jax, liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup
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* While there are no official figures on how many children are home educated in the UK my research suggests that around 100,000 (approximately 1%) UK children of compulsory educational age are currently (2011) being home educated. A figure that is rising at above 15% per annum. – Source: www.home-education.org.uk
About Holly Seddon
Holly Seddon is a writer, editor and community consultant and helped launched the community for Adoption UK, which won charity website of the year just 9 months later. She also writes a music blog.
Christine
Monday 19th of September 2011
Really interesting post, its something I wonder about but to be honest, know very little about. I think from my point of view, I would be worried that without teacher training if I could educate my children to a good enough level, but I guess if the resources are there to follow, its not too difficult. We live in Portugal and sometimes I worry about the levels or more the style of education here and I agree with Tasha that if they were being bullied, struggling or having any issues, its a route I would consider with proper guidance.
Tasha Goddard
Friday 16th of September 2011
Interesting post, Jax. Thanks. I was home-educated for a few years - did Reception and Year 1 at school, then left, and went to school in Spain for a year when I was 10, though a lot of the time I was actually doing my home-ed work, just in a school surrounded by Spanish people. I chose to have a structured timetable, because I basically wanted to be at secondary school learning secondary school stuff. When I actually got to secondary school (started a year early and half way through the first year), it was a bit of a let down! Anyway, I loved being home-educated and do sometimes wonder if I'd have done better continuing at home for secondary as well. We don't home-educate, but are completely open to it as a possibility if either or both children would benefit more from it than school. At the moment, Rosemary is loving school and thriving there (with lots of input from us outside school). But if that changed in any way - she started struggling, she was being bullied, she was getting bored - home-education would be high on list of alternatives.