I was homeschooled until I was 17 and one of the biggest benefits has been being with my family a lot of the time.   My memories of early homeschooling include sitting around the kitchen table with my siblings to do school work, going on trips together with friends to castles/museums/walks and reading the bible at breakfast time.  All this means I get on really well with my family and love spending time with them. We even had a whole year away together so we got to spend a LOT of time with each other then!  We all get on really well and like doing a lot of the same things as well as having our own interests.

Another great thing about being homeschooled has been learning to teach myself.  It’s been a gradual process as my studying has become more and more independent but I was able to teach myself the curriculum for all the GCSEs I took and I have found it really helpful with my A-levels even though I’m now at school (it was especially helpful having those skills during lockdown when there was no school, a lot of my friends struggled as they weren’t used to learning by themselves).

A question homeschoolers often get asked is ‘do you have any friends?’!  I could point to various activities like sports, church, clubs etc but my most numerous and best friendships have been with other homeschoolers.  When we were younger we spent time almost every day with other homeschool families to play, study, go on walks and had yearly camping trips together.  I’ve never felt that there has been a lack of people to be friends with and it has been great to have the shared experience of being homeschooled and almost growing up with other families and doing so many things together.  I have close friends who are a couple of years older and a couple of years younger – if I was in school I guess a lot of my friends would all be the same age.

I started doing some online English courses with Dreaming Spires Home Learning a couple of years ago and really loved the lessons and the interaction with the other students and I think this helped to prepare me for starting school.

When I was 17 I started doing my A-levels at our local secondary school.  I think this is a really good time to enter the school system because sixth-form is a lot more relaxed, I only have to go in for my lessons (which are 3 subjects that I have chosen to study) and there is no school uniform!! I’ve found it easy making friends with some of the others who are doing the same subjects.  I enjoy the routine of school and find it helpful to have the deadlines for doing my homework!

Story written by Dan and uploaded by Streams.