In the UK education is compulsory for children between the ages of five and sixteen, school is not. It is legal to Home Educate. According to Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 which applies to England and Wales:
Compulsory education
7: Duty of parents to secure education of children of compulsory school age
The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable—
a: to his age, ability and aptitude, and
b: to any special educational needs he may have,
either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.
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History
Home Education is not a new concept for me as I was home educated myself.. I had home educated friends so I found out all the info, presented my case to my parents and had them agree to HE me. Their only conditions were; they weren't going to teach me- Id have to do it myself, and they weren't paying for anything in the way of books,exams etc. So my education was purely self-directed. I didn't follow prescribed curriculum for any subject but did get textbooks from the library to work from. Each morning I would do 2-3 hours work, then I would go to the library. Two afternoons a week I looked after four kids for a lady I knew. I learnt to read to
approximately GCSE level French, learnt some Spanish, I vaguely learnt to sew and knit and took a couple of art classes. I read heaps of books about lots of subjects and read classic literature. My parents, as I mentioned, had no input whatsoever.
I dont think I'm the product of some miracle of autonomous education, child-led education. I just happened to be fairly bright, easily bored and keen to learn new things. I was motivated to learn 'something' as long as it was what interested me.I did enjoy being in charge of my own learning. My experience may have been wildly different if I were not as motivated as I was
My own Children
When this meant was that I knew kids can and do learn things all by themselves when they want to. I have always been keen on the importance of life skills, of learning how
to learn, how to discern what is valid, and of knowing how to acquire knowledge as some of the most important things a child can know. I took the mainstream route until my children struggled at school. I always wanted to HE but decided to 'try' school and did so until my eldest three children were 9,8 and 4 respectively and were having issues
We started HE because we were having difficulties with my eldest son. He had behavioural difficulties and social/emotional issues. and school spent more time excluding him than teaching him. That is their right when dealing with a badly behaved child, but no one was trying to
help him or us. At 9, ds was finally diagnosed with Aspergers and Dyspraxia. That was all very well but all the school could say was 'well he doesn't look autistic to us'. It was typical ignorance. At around this time oldest dd took her KS1 SATs tests. All year I had been telling the school there was a problem, although I wasn't certain what. The school fobbed me off saying she was doing fine. But at home she couldn't read the books they sent her, she couldn't do
the homework and she told me she copied off friends. So SATs came back and she got only 6 % of the questions right. This wasn't even on their P(SEN) scales, let alone rating W or 1 like her friends did. I was furious that they had ignored my concerns. Later she was diagnosed with Dyslexia and processing issues. At the same time I was being called to meetings about my 4yr old dd who was in nursery. She didn't speak at all during sessions, she would play alone and wouldn't respond to staff. She wet herself there regularly and would refuse to do anything. They asked if she was like this at home - she wasn't. She spoke at home and only mildly showed not talking if she was upset.She went on to be diagnosed with processing issues and selective mutism.
It wasnt long before I decided to home educate them. It tied in with my husband getting a job in a different area and so we decided to just do it. My son chose to return to school within the year but the girls have remained at home and I have another son who is
home educated too.
How it works for us
My philosophy has evolved from cobbling together several philosophies of education over they years. Most
pertinent to us have been Charlotte Mason, Montessori, and Waldorf, with
CM being my main influence. Those are not my sole sources of
inspiration but the main ones - I have also been inspired buy other
Homeschool bloggers, AP parents, AE educators and life in general.
My kids have a different HE experience to mine. My children aren't particularly motivated to
learn I feel it's important to learn lots of different things and so
I direct their learning to a degree. I
wasn't/am not particularly pushy during the early years and tend to try and keep it to a minimum. The girls and I have tired several different ways of working including NC workbook type work, Waldorf, Sonlight,TEACH and lapbooks/practical HE.
We initially 'deschooled' for 6mths. I cant comment on it from others' point of view but for us it was a disaster - I wouldn't do it again. So next I bought some workbook packs from The Book People and plodded through them. We wanted to do ACE but it seemed prescriptive and expensive so instead I found a couple of companies who stocked homeschool products in the UK and purchased from them. We did a lot of mix and match whilst I was pregnant with my 4th child. Oldest ds returned to school which made life easier and we began to do Waldorf for oldest dd and Montessori for youngest. Neither method was wholly successful so we moved on to a CM style of working - it worked better but again didn't succeed wholly.
With this we moved on to Sonlight. This was a big success! It was rigorous, interesting and suited us all. We did this for two years but reading only began to wear thin and we mixed it up again.
Cue where we are now:
Abi
Would be in year 11 and has completed her GCSE in English, Apologia Botany and Zoology 3. She still does:
Bicton College - level 1 Animal Care
GCSE Maths, she has module 3 left to do exams in before her final grade.
Apologia - Zoology 1
ACE - Science
Music
Emma
Would be in Year 7 and she does:
ACE - Math, English, Science,
Apologia - Zoology 1. Astronomy
Sonlight Science Grade 3
Food Technology
Art
French
Spanish
Seb
Would be in year 2 and he does:
Singapore - Math
Explode The Code
Childrens Bible lessons - Bible
Sonlight - science, language arts
Oxford Reading Tree
The kids attend home ed group on a Friday and see friends in the week. As well as this the children attend groups - Cell Group, youth, Scouts, Swimming, Gym and Beavers. As well as church.
We are sort of structured, we are also very flexible - we dump work and go to the park or the beach. We go on day trips and outings, we visit friends - we even do nothing and eat chocolate and watch movies. Since we first began HE 7 years ago I am a different kind of home educator and a different kind of parent. I still don't subscribe fully to one sort of HE method over another. I am eclectic, flexible and changeable - it works for us.
