I am a mother of five, educating twin sons at home who should have started school this September, 2006. I am neither new to home schooling nor to blogging, but this is my first home education blog. This blog has been created as an aide-memoire more than anything else, and also for posting up photos of our home school activities and details of what we plan to study. It's not aimed at anyone in particular but if other home schoolers or people curious about home education stumble across it in the course of browsing the net, I hope it amuses and provides a few ideas.
My decision to remove my two boys from their intended school came after visiting the school on several occasions and finding several members of staff hostile and patronising. This, I feel, was in response to my natural concern that one of my sons, who has special needs, would not fall easily into step at this very tightly-run school, whose emphasis was firmly on academic results rather than creative development. Several unfortunate incidents during his visits to the school alarmed me, and finding the head teacher almost as uncooperative as the teaching staff made me take the rather drastic decision to home school both of them.
It is true that I could have found an alternative school at the last minute, but I was suspicious that this problem would simply have recurred at another school, given the current school climate which is so biased towards academic results above all else. Also, I have home educated my children before, at various stages of their lives - I have two grown-up daughters as well as three children under five - so I saw nothing to be afraid of in keeping my sons at home, at least for a year or two, possibly longer.
Ironically, I do actually believe in academic progress and results, but achieved in a less militarised atmosphere! So the activity plans and posts on this blog may come quite close to those of a typical Reception class curriculum at times, but the way they are carried out will be in a laid-back home schooling style. Which means that if my son with special needs can't keep up with the daily activities, it will be fine to cover old ground with him and consolidate his learning while his twin brother steams ahead with new work. This has always been the pattern in their learning so far and I see no reason to change now.
My home education plans are always kept flexible. So while months, weeks and even days are planned in advance, usually linking in with the seasons and annual festivals, there is nothing to stop us switching activities from one week to another, or dropping an activity which proves boring or fruitless. Some weeks we may not work at all on academic subjects, but follow a special project instead.
This lack of rigid structure is quite normal in home schooling, if you have never come across such a regime before. After all, as all home schoolers will tell you, one solid hour of learning at home can equal three or even more hours of learning at school. This is mainly because crowd control and other en masse activities - dozens or hundreds of kids queuing for lunch, queuing for assembly, waiting their turn to read - do not exist at home. I can also give one-to-one attention where necessary without having to move on to the next child before the lesson has been thoroughly understood, unlike busy teachers in a large Reception class.
I hope you enjoy this blog. Do leave comments below posts if you wish, and I will reply where possible.
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