Audio of the styles overview.
Make sure to read through all of this page for information about different styles.
Home Education includes a wide and varied array of methods for educating children. At first the range of possibilities can seem a bit daunting, but it is precisely this range that makes Home Education so suitable for many children.
Every Home Ed family will do things differently, even those following the same style. This is why Home Education is amazing, it is a unique experience, tailored to each child.
The most important thing to remember is that Home Education is not school at home and for the vast majority of Home Ed kids it is not the most appropriate approach. It is of course a valid option for those who require such a formal organised routine. Though, please do not jump straight into this style, always take time to deschool.
Immediately creating school at home usually ends up causing tension and upset and Home Education quickly fails for the child and parent.
If you want to talk to other Home Educators and hear about how they Home Ed, please do join our group
You’ll find lots of information below about the many styles of Home Education.
It’s important not to dive into any particular style when you first start out. Children and parents are used to the spoon fed nature of a school education and suddenly you are found with no rules on how to provide the education. Take a step back, take time to read about your options, and take time to observe what makes your child tick.
Whilst the law requires you to be providing a suitable education from the first day of Home Education, it is important to remember that suitable means suitable to your child’s age, ability, aptitude and SEN/ALN/ASN. In other words, you do not have to be following the national curriculum or doing formal lessons if that does not suit your child. The only way to know what suits your child is to take time to deschool, time to get school out of your system, and read below about different styles of Home Ed.
Home Education must provide what your child needs to learn and progress at a pace suitable to them, how that happens is up to you, you need to be satisfied that the education is suitable. The Local Authority can make informal enquiries, but they do not expect school at home, in fact they can sometimes deem that as unsuitable as it isn’t right for the child, or has no flexibility or opportunity for the child to follow their interests. We suggest always responding to the LA informal enquiries using the appropriate section in our menu for your part of the UK.
Remember there is no such thing as behind, as long as your child is learning at a level appropriate to them, then it is suitable in the eyes of the law.
Remember, what suits your child this month may evolve into something else as they get older and their needs and interests change. This is normal. And to be expected.
Deschooling is a period of time a previously schooled child, and the parent, take to adjust to home educating, time to unlearn the school way of learning…
It is time for the child to adjust to learning without the rigidity and formality of the school system, and for the parents to observe their child and how they learn. Often the parent can need longer to deschool than the child, especially when the niggling questions arise such as 'is the child learning enough?'.
How it works...
The question of whether to have structure in Home Education is as wide and varied as the families who do it.
There are three styles that are often referred to – Structured, Semi-Structured, and Unstructured – but there are also different ways of doing things within each of those styles. The reality is that, when Home Educating, each family can determine what works best for them, either by thought and discussion, or often just trial and error.
However, a common pattern we see is that immediately after deregistering from school, the parent and child feel that structured, even timetabled, learning is the only way to learn. The child asks to be taught, the parent sits up for hours planning lessons, it goes well for a short time, but then suddenly the child doesn't want to wake up early, isn't interested in the topic, refuses to engage, everything becomes a battle. This is because they're seeing there are opportunities outside of pre-planned taught lessons. They want to start leading their own learning, but because you jumped straight into formal learning this isn't an easy transition and you're now arguing and both needing to deschool. This deschooling period can then be fraught and uneasy, it will also take longer. Our advice is to take some proper time out straight from deregistering, jump in puddles, climb a tree, eat cake, go to the beach etc, take time to rest and relearn how to learn.
Once you've had time to deschool you may find you naturally fall into a style and level of structure, this isn't always the case though and you may need to trial a few styles.
Some families retain formal lessons for some subjects, some choosing to do this for the core subjects of English, Maths and sometimes Science, others retaining formal lessons for subjects where outside tutors are used (for example music). Some families chose to do lessons in the morning and leave the afternoons free, some turn the day upside down and take advantage of going out and about in the daytime, saving their formal learning for the evenings. Another option is to set the children work that needs to be completed by a set date but leave them to determine when they will work on it.
It's important to remember that whatever style you follow, the law requires the education to be suitable to the child.
“Structure” can refer to the educational style, the layout of the day, or both. Examples of these are:
Family A : Have a structured educational plan. They have a timetable and there are set lessons, with content delivered by the parents and/or a bought curriculum. They have a term planner, with weekly lessons and lesson plans, and progress records. They may mark the children’s work and set homework for them to complete.
Family B : Have a timetable which sets out what will be happening and when. However, when the children are learning it may say “project work” or “online learning” and the children are free to do what they are currently working on as a project or continue with work on a website (for example Reading Eggs or Khan Academy). Other things on the timetable may include “free play” or “picnic at the park”.
Family C : Do not have a timetable. Work is set by the parents or they are working through a bought curriculum, but the children decide when they will do the work they have been set.
None of these is either right or wrong. Every family is different, and they must do what works best for them. There is no legal requirement to follow the school day, terms or holidays, and so if they do not work for your family, do something else!
Arguably the greatest thing about Home Education is its flexibility. It gives each family complete control and the ability to change things as required as time goes on.
They may choose to carry out the majority of the children’s learning in the afternoon and evening, having made the most of the peace afforded them earlier in the day when out and about. If they are naturally early risers, they may get the majority of the learning done early in the day and have the rest of the day to do as they please.
The only thing that matters in your choice as to how much structure to build into your day is that it works for you and your children, and makes your lives easier to manage rather than being something you feel you have to adhere to regardless of whether it is working well for the whole family.
This spirit of leaving the children to determine when they do their work themselves however is perhaps the first step on the road to being unstructured. This is where the children are not exactly in charge of their own learning but are certainly the directors of it.
Again there are varying degrees of being unstructured. Some families have an outline or monthly plans of what they want to cover, while others have no plans at all, choosing to go where their interests take them. This can at first seem very scary to people new to the ideas of Home Education. They think of children on holiday from school who spend their days watching endless TV or playing computer games, but the reality is that a whole life devoted to unstructured learning is very different to a few weeks’ break from school.
A good example of unstructured learning is learning to talk. No one sits down and makes lesson plans, goals and tests for teaching their child to speak, it just happens naturally. You teach a few words, your child engages, and before you know it they are chattering away to you, perhaps making you wish you hadn’t taught them the word ‘why?’. Those same children will, if given the chance, keep asking ‘why?’ endlessly. All you have to do is answer them, and as their questions get more complex, help them find the answers. This can be as enjoyable experience for the parents as the children.
When you talk of unschooling and autonomous Home Education, people immediately make assumptions based on the information they have been given by articles in the mainstream media. They will think that your children do nothing all day, have no rules, run wild, are rude and inconsiderate, dirty, feral, and will grow up without even the most basic skills. In almost all cases, the complete opposite is true.
Unschooling or autonomous learning, as a method of education gives children complete ownership of their learning. They choose the topics based on their interests, and they choose the way in which they will learn about those things. Every child learns in a way which is unique to them, and allowing them to use that style of learning means allowing them to learn in the most natural, and therefore most effective way. For example your child may learn best from reading, rather than listening.
Some children do not process information efficiently in certain ways. They may prefer to watch a documentary, or rather many documentaries, on a subject, and will amaze their parents with the extent of the knowledge they have retained some time later on the subject. Some learn by doing – they cannot learn by sitting and reading or watching, they must be involved, somehow, in an activity which engages their physical senses at the same time as their brains. These children will gravitate towards building models of castles out of the recycling, using a bicycle to discover how a dynamo works, caring for plants to see what it is that living things need. And of course, there are children who use a mix of these methods depending on what it is they are learning about! In all of these, though, the child IS learning. The core skills – Maths, English, and Science – are picked up organically along the way. In the same way as a child learns to walk and talk, they learn to read, to write, to add up and take away, to predict outcomes scientifically, and all the rest, without ever needing to spend their weekend memorising spellings for a test on Monday morning. It allows complete freedom of learning, meaning that a child is never hurried from one subject to the next. You never have to say “yes, that is an interesting thing about Ancient Egypt, but we’re learning about World War 2 now” or forced to continue a subject that holds no interest or relevance and so will not be retained beyond the end of the lesson. A family could be completely unschooled educationally, but still leading an otherwise traditional lifestyle with set mealtimes and bedtimes etc.
An older child/teenager who has been allowed the freedom to lead their education is more likely to have established interests and strengths, they may know if they want to do GCSEs or what they want to do post 16. They will want to do what is needed to move on to the next stage of their life, and be able to create the structure needed to study the content of a GCSE for example.
Radical Unschooling builds further on this. As well as there being no arbitrary rules or limits on their education, there are none in any part of their lives. Bedtime is not a set time, but happens instead when a child is tired. Parents of younger children help them to recognise the signs of tiredness – yawning, feeling irritable, not being able to concentrate etc – and encourage them to act in an appropriate way to deal with that physical need. The same happens with all other needs – hunger, thirst, illness, and emotional upset. It allows the children to take control of their bodies and minds, and to learn from birth to respond to those needs in an appropriate way. There are, naturally, fewer rules in a family who lives in this way. Respect, however usually is one. This covers every aspect of life. Self respect – including, but not limited to, respect for your body and its physical needs, respect for your emotional needs, respect for your own belongings. Respect for others – their needs and belongings. Respect for animals, for the environment, for everything you can think of. If it deserves respect, it gets it.
Conversely to what is expected of families who live in this way, children gain emotional intelligence from a young age. They are actively encouraged to think about the consequences of their actions and to make amends in a genuine way if they have done something wrong. Parents work alongside their children in a partnership, guiding them through their childhood, and allowing them the freedom to grow into the best version of themselves that they can.
So, whilst most families identify themselves as one of the three main groups – Structured, Semi Structured or Unstructured – the reality is that they are all spread out at varying points throughout a spectrum. Ultimately the only real way to know what will work for you and your children is to choose a starting point and see how it goes. Very few families hit on the perfect style in the first few months, so the key is not to be afraid to try things and then, if you decide they aren’t really for you to move in whatever direction you feel is best (either towards more structure or away from it). A good time to be thinking about styles, and eventually trying things out, is during the deschooling period.
Staffordshire website design and website SEO by Fellowship Studios.
Keep up to date with home ed news, important info and some fun stuff.
