My story began over 20 years ago when our 1st  child was born.  As  new parents, we were full of idealism and wanting the best for our daughter and we both thought home educating would offer a wonderful way to educate our child.  My husband encouraged me to home educate then  but I was reluctant, due to the fact I had struggled with dyslexia at school.

It took 7 years of a growing desire to home educate.  I think if I had meet a home educator earlier, I might taken the plunge sooner. The tipping point for us was when I saw the signs of dyslexia in our second child as she struggled  (She is now doing Master in Engineering.) So for the next 6 years, I home educated 5 of our children. I loosely followed the national curriculum using topics to cover all aspects of education….a topic would spark an interest and drive them to find out more.

Maths was the one subject that I taught systemically with a curriculum to lay down a solid foundation. My older 5 are mostly grown up now – two are in employment, and two are working towards degrees, and one doing his A levels.  I asked them if it was a good thing overall.  They answered that for primary schooling  they thought home education was better than school but had mixed opinions about secondary education.

One thing I had not done with my children was formal exams, so when they went into secondary they did not have any exam technique. So my daughter who went into school at 14 years old found that she had a lot of exam practice to catch up on.

I now find myself back home educating my two youngest, aged 9 and 7 years old.  After the lockdown I decided to once again stop work and start home educating.  I am more relaxed this time around knowing its okay… you can go fast in educating if they are interested in a subject  and stretch them, or gentle and slow for the things they struggle with, but in time achieve.  Academic results are not the only outcome of home education.

What’s the end goal? For us, it’s happy, kind, thoughtful grown-up children who are able to support themselves in work and accomplish their best.

My top tip would be – get out for the day to go somewhere interesting. Often a trip somewhere to a museum, English heritage or National Trust would  generate that spark for questions and learning.

Written by Rebekah and uploaded by Streams.