Dear LA Boss,
We are asking to remove our child, Lorelai Zambo, from Boringsdale Primary School so she can be home educated. She doesn’t want you to tell the school we’re asking this as she doesn’t think it’s any of their business, and we’d like you to respect her wishes. She says she’ll keep attending school but hopes you can be quick about it as she wants to just get on with “proper learning” at home.
Lorelai doesn’t have a Named Person and we don’t want her to have one. We attach our plan on how Lorelai will learn at home and want to keep everything in writing.
Sincerely, Mr and Mrs Zambo.
Lorelai is 4th generation Circus Performer and wishes to learn more about her culture. We believe in trusting Lorelai to follow her interests so she can be excited about learning. We’re all confident this is the right move for her and her wee face lit up when we asked if she’d prefer to learn at home.
Lorelai will lead her education at home, although that will include us offering lots of different options, such as clown school, trapeze practice, and joke exams. As circus performers ourselves, we will both spend significant amounts of time each day working with Lorelai to help her develop her skills. Her grandad – a former ringmaster – also visits most weeks and Lorelai loves hearing him talk about the old traditions and lore. An uncle is also keen to share his knowledge on performing budgerigars.
Lorelai has her own computer which she is learning to use for researching information safely online. We found a fun app called “Custard Pie Bake and Throw” which Lorelai is keen to make progress with. We have a large selection of books, comics and magazines which Lorelai can access, and we’ve taken out a subscription to Clown Junior, which is a weekly magazine for children aged 7-12. We will look at using the Circus Literacy series of books and also use the Juggling Maths videos and games, as Lorelai has never enjoyed formal maths worksheets or books like in school. She has free access to arts and crafts materials, and has plans to make a mural on the garage wall for her custard pie target practice. Lorelai took up horn parping while at school and will continue to work on this; she has already passed her grade 1. Lorelai is also keen on the Science of Trapeze and, as we’re both trapeze artists ourselves, this is something we are passionate about sharing with her. We have all the equipment necessary to ensure she can fully explore all areas of Circus performance, and fully expect her to be knackered from all the physical activities that involves daily. She’s also looking forward to attending Performing Practice once a week, which is a chance for all the circus families in the town to get together socially as well as sharing ideas and skills. As well as this, Lorelai is keen to keep meeting up with her friends from school and we’ve got a WhatsApp group in place already to encourage these friendships.
Obviously, this is just our ideas that we’ve talked about and agreed with Lorelai, but they might change because she can be an opinionated little madam! We’ve found lots of local and national support from other home educating families so don’t expect we’ll need to hear anything from you for around a year.
Not much has changed from our last few reports. Lorelai is thriving with her home education set-up and says it’s the best thing ever. She says to tell you she definitely doesn’t want to go to Boringsdale High School and will throw a custard pie at anyone who tries to suggest she isn’t learning enough at home (and her aim is improving all the time thanks to that mural of hers!)
Lorelai continues to lead her education and has requested we continue with our weekly Performing Practice gatherings and the now twice-weekly clown school sessions. She enjoys the chance to meet up with the other circus families in the area and prefers to spend time chatting with the adults rather than the kids. She’s continuing to research and write her own book on circus performing through the years, using the stories her grandad tells her, as well as independent study. She’s decided not to continue with the performing animals course she’d signed up to, which we respect. Instead, she’s looking at taking a general skills course and specialise later on. She continues with her horn parping though and is now at grade 5; we’re very proud of her as none of the family are at all musical.
As you know, last year Lorelai decided not to continue with the Circus Literacy series of books but has decided to enjoy the more relaxed book series, “Who Threw the Bucket at Bonzo?” We talk about them over the dinner table each night and it’s amazing how much she’s picking up from them. She’s still enjoying the Juggling Maths programme and is making slow but steady progress. She finished the “Custard Pie Bake and Throw” app a few months ago and has moved onto “Ringside Language”. After deciding not to continue with the Clown Junior subscription last year, as it felt too young for her, Lorelai tried a few different magazines before settling on Circus Weekly, a magazine for teenagers. She enjoys taking part in the experiments in it – it took us a week to get rid of the whitewash stains from one of them! Her “Extra Creamy Custard Pie” recipe came from the magazine and is a big hit when she makes it for family dinners.
Lorelai is doing well with her trapeze work, although we feel she’s maybe reaching the limit of her skills in this area. She’ll continue it for fun, and we may start her on tightrope walking as an alternative.
Lorelai didn’t want to add a personal statement this year as she thinks you should know what she’s like by now. We’ll keep going in whatever way Lorelai needs and expect we won’t hear from you again for at least a year.
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