Home education for me was not really planned. It was a knee jerk reaction to lack of support and lack of understanding of my sons SEN (dyslexia) and school anxiety. I whipped him one morning when I couldn’t face the tears and struggles to get him into school anymore. Then suddenly though “Umm what do I do now?!”. And so, I committed the awful “home schooling” mistake. I went out and bought lots of schoolbooks and set up a table to learn on. Needless to say, we burnt out within weeks! Educational Freedom and Cheryl came to my rescue and I haven’t looked back since. So, what did I learn in that first year?

What actually is Home Education?

Home Education does not look the same from one family to the next and in some cases from one child in that family to the next. My eldest learns very different from my youngest. My eldest thrives on regular routines and reading from books, my youngest? Rolls up different with each day, uses videos and actual doing things to learn best. I threw away the idea of the national curriculum and we followed the child’s interest. As such my son has a deeper understanding of many subjects his peers have covered at school. And guess what? He enjoyed the learning along the way! It’s so worth doing your research on styles and spending time deschooling when you start. Spend some time with your child, find out what they want to learn! Throw away the idea that home education needs to look like school! After all it was originally set up to make model workers for the factories and hasn’t changed that much since!  

Learn the law!

Before I connected with Educational Freedom I had had phone calls and forms from the LA. Lots of them! And I had a visit. Now I was very lucky the lady I had a visit with came when I was in my home-schooling phase and saw Harry sitting down apparently working diligently at a book (he didn’t learn a thing from that book!) This came back to haunt me when our home ed style changed. The LA were shocked that I wasn’t sitting with him at a desk 9-3. On the phone they tried to insist that I need weekly “check ups”. I should show his work to them. I needed to follow the National Curriculum.

Thank heavens I had by then discovered EF and realised I shouldn’t have had the first visit (they kept trying to use that to repeat visit). I instead sent a report of what my child had learnt. And told them no phone calls or visits or copies of work. EF helped me greatly here with giving me confidence to respond to a pushy LA. And actually in later years, I have spent time with this same LA teaching THEM the guidelines and different styles of home ed.

Every moment is education.

Comments came from friends who were teachers, parents, family etc that it “doesn’t look like he’s learning”. Actually, he was curled up on the sofa deep diving into learning about the French Revolution watching a funny but superb documentary on it. We listened to history about on podcasts in the car and visited Versailles when he took pains to correct the guide about some facts! We have been learning at 11pm at night on our back on the driveway while we look at the stars. We have learnt world facts at 7am in the morning after hearing a snippet from a song or from the radio.

Short of staring at a blank wall from the second they wake till they sleep your child will be learning, they are like sponges! Remember they were born ready to learn and whether its question on the way to the supermarket, cutting up a cake into pieces or fractions why is learning it at home any different from learning it in a class?

Socialisation

My youngest is not social. My eldest is a social butterfly! Obviously, we were told my youngest would be “weird” if we home educated him, he’d stay home, not learn social skills etc. We tried a huge variety of different home ed clubs, but we didn’t really fit in and he didn’t relax. What we did find though was he adored his dyslexia tutor and they learnt incredible skills off one another and he learnt confidence. He can talk to many adults and child from different situations and ways of life. He is confident in himself and his actions. Yes, his best friends at the moment are his brother and some older ladies he meets each week at riding, or his tutor or children older than him he sees at other clubs or friends who live abroad but he’s happy. He can hold his own in any conversation and adds so much to any gathering. We created our own home ed group around this.

My closest friends have been hugely supportive despite having their own children at school and involve him in anything we do and he loves it! He can bounce questions off people and he has a community! Look up your local home ed groups but remember there’s also online FB groups, uniformed groups, Forest Schools, daytime classes, home ed days out, random people to meet out and about. Follow your child’s interest and you’re likely to help them make friends.

Fundamentally home education can look like anything YOU and YOUR child want it to! Whether you’re out in nature every day or huddled up on a sofa while it’s raining outside learning timetables! Whether you’re out at groups all week, or a quieter gentler way suits your child best its individual! And its what’s best for your child! Take a look at some of our other blog posts to see what a home ed day could look like!