Amazingly encouraging report of how one Mum has been working with her children, copied and pasted from another site…
I have been so impressed reading about what XYZ’s and ABC’s
> children have done. It is amazing what can be achieved within the family,
> and in both cases I thought that perhaps all that time that is usually
> spent commuting to school, doing school admin, school busy work etc, has
> instead been channelled into a truly impressive education.
>
> That’s not really the case here, however. I feel like we are muddling
> through but it seems to work, and I feel school would waste so much time
> which they could spend better elsewhere. We are not ‘finished’ yet as DS1
> is only 15 (school yr 10, ie due to take GCSEs next year on conventional
> timetable) and there are 5 younger children too. However, he’s got a good
> bunch of qualifications under his belt already and I thought some people
> might like to hear how it has worked in this family so far – how working
> towards exams can work even if you are not very organised…
>
> I have never been organised enough to follow a timetable, and even when I
> have tried, it is like herding cats with the kids all suddenly developing
> urgent things they ‘neeeeeeeed’ to do (cue plaintive cries of “But we’re
> being autonomous / creative/ imaginative!” as they cynically attempt to
> manipulate me). Something always crops up to throw a spanner in the works
> – usually a baby/toddler! I would blame the chaos on having a large family
> but that doesn’t cut it as I have a friend with 12 kids who home-eds and
> she is always wonderfully organised! I think it is more that I am easily
> distracted, love learning new stuff, have no sense of time and get
> sidetracked into new things all the time. Anyway, we have never been
> either card-carrying autonomous, or structured – it’s been a case of
> structure for core subjects and looking out for educational opportunities
> and following our interests elsewhere. From somewhere around age 5-7
> depending, I have started them doing some simple maths and handwriting
> workbooks about 3 times a week, as well as learning to read. We also did
> some Bond exercises eg Non-Verbal Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning. Total
> sitting-down time for littlies probably an hour, with lots of
> interruptions, about 3x a week, plus ad hoc things like doing some science
> activities or drawing or a new craft, but that is just as and when it
> happens. Lots of sport. Lots of informal science, reading interesting
> articles in the newspaper, pointing out interesting things, encouraging
> hobbies and keeping lots of animals. Lots of reading fiction of all sorts.
> We subscribe to New Scientist and really find it helpful. Computer game
> time restricted to around an hour a day because I do worry about it
> crowding out other things. Big kids spend longer on it as they are on
> Skype with a group of friends. Oldest does computer programming and DS2
> does some as well as computer graphics. Everyone has French and Japanese
> lessons (a family project). Big kids do music lessons and go to drama
> group.
>
> DS1 wanted to start taking exams early because he was fed up with people in
> his sports classes saying “How will you get any GCSEs if you don’t go to
> school?”. He took modular maths when he was 12 (A*), then Physics at 13
> (A*), ECDL (IT qualification) and Digital Creator (another IT qualification
> which is 2 GCSEs worth), and Japanese speaking/listening (A*/A, half a
> GCSE). Aged 14 he took Chemistry (A*), Law (A) and Japanese
> reading/writing (this completed a full GCSE in Japanese, overall A grade).
> So aged 14 he had 5 GCSEs/IGCSEs all at A* or A, and 3 vocational
> equivalents. This year he’s taking Biology and Additional Maths and has
> retaken the law. So before he even reaches the year in which he would have
> taken GCSEs at school, he will have 10 GCSE equivalents, including 7
> GCSEs/IGCSEs, and then next year he will take at least English Lit &
> Language and maybe French and Geography. So he’ll finish with somewhere
> between 9 and 11 ‘real’ (I)GCSEs plus the vocationals on top, and that will
> be having usually worked for only 2-3 hours a day, steadily, throughout the
> secondary years. Actually for the first couple of years of secondary, when
> he was just doing Maths and then Physics, he spent only an hour or so a day
> studying these things, although other time doing his own things eg computer
> programming.
>
> We have mostly skipped any formal work aimed at KS3 (11-14years), except in
> maths. In the other subjects it seems to be all either repeating stuff you
> would have done at primary level, or beginning things you’ll have to do
> again in GCSE courses anyway. Of course, in schools this works well as
> part of the ‘spiral learning’ concept whereby you go over the same material
> several times in the school career and expect a bit more to stick each
> time, but it’s not necessarily the most efficient way for home education.
> For science at least, I just could not see the point of following a KS3
> course for our family. At GCSE level I think there is quite a difference
> between education and qualification, and while the kids are happy to jump
> through the hoops required to get the qualification, I don’t want the
> national curriculum to also dictate their *education* – that’s something
> wider.
>
> We had a token attempt at studying English with the oldest two about 3 or 4
> years ago but they didn’t really want to write much and I wasn’t that happy
> with the books we found. I tried Galore Park but they got fed up with
> those, and we tried something else but they argued with the textbook, so I
> just left it – they read widely, had good handwriting, so we just got on
> with other subjects and I asked them to write stories now and then. It was
> only 2 weeks before DS1’s law GCSE that we realised he’d never actually
> written an essay and – whoops – he would need to do that for the exam, or
> near enough, as the longer questions on paper 2 require answers which are
> around a page of A4. He managed well enough, but was not happy with the A
> grade he got, so this year he has spent a couple of weeks working on essay
> technique and has retaken the exam. We deliberately left English until
> last in the hope that greater maturity would help, and fortunately a lovely
> home-ed mum and tutor has set up an English group which DS1 goes to with
> his friends, so I don’t need to think about that. He enjoys it and it is a
> social occasion, and she is so full of enthusiasm that she is motivating
> the children.
>
> History is done in an informal and sometimes underhand way. I bought the
> Galore Park books and I thought they were great, but the oldest two did not
> like them. DS1 has now declined to study history on a formal basis on the
> grounds that he knows all he needs to know from reading the Horrible
> Histories series, and that the textbooks don’t tell him anything that these
> books don’t, it’s just less interesting (!!!)…… actually he does seem
> to remember just about everything from them, but hmm! History is old hat,
> apparently; I provide historical fiction, lots of podcasts while I have a
> captive audience in the car, and cross my fingers. We go to some English
> Heritage events and learn lots from those. We go to museums, usually with
> a target of just a few things to look at, and will have found out something
> about them beforehand. DS2 has expressed an interest in a History IGCSE in
> a couple of years so I suppose it will be a case of working through the
> book and building on background knowledge.
>
> How the oldest 2 study for the subjects they are aiming for exams in is –
> they take the set textbook for the subject and work through it, doing the
> exercises as they go. In maths, if the exercises seem easy then they do
> every other question. The ‘Review’ questions at the end of each chapter
> are saved for revision.
> The goal we have is to do 3 units of work a day – each unit being an
> exercise from a textbook or homework from French or Japanese. The older
> kids manage this themselves mostly, though if I see them at a loose end or
> starting to get niggly with each other, I will remind them to go and do
> either some studying or some housework. It’s amazing how interesting
> textbooks can be when the alternative is vacuuming the stairs.
>
> DS1 likes to mix maths with violin practise because apparently it helps;
> he’ll do maths for a while, then if something seems difficult, he will play
> violin for 10 minutes or so before going back to it. We call it doing a
> Sherlock Holmes.
> Oldest marks his own work from the mark scheme as he goes along. I have a
> look now and then to see if he’s on track and make myself feel useful. If
> he is unsure of anything he asks me and I will help him find another book
> or a good source online. If I find a good radio or TV programme or
> newspaper article on the topic then I show it to him, but DS1 prefers books
> to videos and presentations as he can go through at his own pace and skim
> stuff he already knows. So far, I have not needed to get involved; he has
> largely educated himself as far as the syllabus is concerned. That is sort
> of deliberate as I wanted the kids to be independent learners, and it is
> sort of necessary as if they were waiting for me to explain it to them,
> they would be waiting all day sometimes! I set up as many science
> practicals as seem a) practical (ha ha) and b) enjoyable. We did get a
> chemistry tutor to come round and do some practicals that I was scared of.
>
> When a date is set for the exam then we do more or less what Nola-Ann
> described, ie look at book sections to cover, divide by weeks remaining,
> saving 4 weeks for review/revision. If you are using a standard textbook
> (we have mostly used Edexcel ones) you will see that the exercises are
> designed to be one school lesson’s worth, so while the chapters may be
> different lengths, the sub-sections are usually a consistent size. When
> the book is finished, go back and do those ‘Review’ questions, then start
> on past papers, as many as possible. Save the most recent past paper for
> last. We do all past papers under exam conditions; I have a suspicion that
> DS1 finds it a convenient retreat from the noise of siblings. He and I
> both mark his mock exams, paying attention to what examiners are looking
> for & always reading the Examiner’s Reports for more guidance.
>
> I didn’t ever envision our home-ed life being quite as unstructured as it
> is; I had visions of them getting a wonderful classical education, me doing
> a better job than school could and probably in a tidy house too! The
> reality has been chaotic and sporadic, but yet it still seems to
> work. I thought I would be doing more actual teaching, but it turns out,
> mostly the older two don’t want me to do that. I am allowed to help with
> problem -solving or locating useful resources, but they want to do it
> themselves mostly. I am very lucky that they are motivated. It must be so
> much harder when you have someone who is not motivated, but you want to
> keep their options open.
Sutton Home Education Forum 