Homeschooling: Answering some questions

A few people have asked questions about why and how we will home educate our children, so here are a few answers...

Why are you home educating?

Good question. Well, the long and short of it is that we want our children to have an authentic Montessori education. We gained approval for a Montessori free school to open in our town, but were ousted by the governing body we recruited. Many things have since changed with the plans for the school which no longer fit into our educational aims for our children. There are no other schools in the area that offer Montessori to primary (elementary) level, so as we are qualified Montessori teachers, we will do it ourselves.

But what about socialisation?

Our children will have many opportunities to socialise. Firstly, there is family (many around the same age now). Secondly, there is church - lots of kids. Thirdly, we will require our children to take part in Guiding & Scouting, so they will interact there. Fourthly, they will also be able to take part in other groups & activities if they wish. Fifthly, there are many children in the area being home educated. We will try to link up with them, and if the groups match our educational aims (trust me some are just free for alls and chaotic) then we will attend them. I am also open to starting/running/joining any home ed co-ops (where several families come together once a week to do art, or a language, or science, or whatever really) in the area.

How will they get anywhere without qualifications?

Well, they will get qualifications. Some families choose to not put their children in for exams, but I think that is unwise and foolish (my opinion only). GCSEs and A Levels can be sat via the exam boards directly, or via places such as the National Extension College. If the NEC is still running when the time comes, we will opt for this option. Also, the International Baccalaureate is trialling some home education programmes, and I hope they continue to do this, as I would be interested in that as an alternative, and actually I will be using their approaches to learning anyway because I think they are the best preparation a child/teen can have for the world of work.

Will you have a schedule?

Yes. I think this is important. Many home schooling families don't have a strict schedule, or they 'unschool' where a child learns naturally from their interest and interactions in life. I'm not up for that. I am a disorganised person, and I, like them, need order and routine otherwise I am a mess. So, we will get up at 6am every day, have family learning and scripture study at 8am, and start Montessori school at 9am until 12pm. The afternoons will be free for outings, seeing relatives, shopping, activities, etc. We will also have term times and holidays of a sort, although these will be different to school ones (so we can have cheap holidays and also travel if possible).

Also, by having a schedule, they will know that timekeeping is important, that they need to work to a schedule, etc.

But they won't get enough education if you only do 3 hours a day...?

They will... trust me! They will get one-to-one and small group lessons all the time. How many children get that?! Just exactly how much time do children get taught for in school anyway when you take out registration, assemblies, break time, lunch time, sports, etc. And in a class of 30 children, how much one-to-one time will they get?

Also, if they want to carry on with a project or other work in the afternoon, then I won't stop them unless we have concrete plans. They can carry on until bedtime and at weekends too if they like! And when they get to secondary, at the very least when doing GCSEs, they may need to do an hour or two in the afternoons so we will just play that by ear.

Won't they get burnt out by your term structure? 

We will pretty much be learning all year round, because why should learning stop? We will have different paces throughout the year - September to December will keep going without a break - yep... no half term! (shock horror gasp splutter!)... Well, Montessori discovered that children absorb things from their environment all the time during the first 6 years of life. Children are always learning, why should we stop when they don't? Also, there are plenty of times to rest, relax, play and do fun things - every afternoon, weekends... and if something comes up that we just cannot miss out on, then we will even take a break in the morning from school! 

We will generally have 35 weeks of the year where we will be strictly educating, classroom based etc. Other than that, we will have 2 weeks 'off' at Christmas, where our learning will be about Christmas etc. We will still have our 1 hour family learning and scripture study time, and do crafts, read books, shop for presents, etc too so there will still be learning going on. We will have a week out from school at the Temple in April, and then 14 weeks over the summer where we will be learning outdoors, travelling, going to the beach or the forest or the park, gardening, swimming. But we will still be learning, keeping up with language and maths skills, and I will try to keep these more applied, like reading a bus timetable, budgeting for activities, etc. Also, the activities we will do will naturally have some basis in education - education is all around us! Travelling to a new place - foreign language study possibly, geography, history, learning about new cultures. Going to the beach - tides, geography (Bournemouth has a great bay!), zoology - I have seen lizards and crabs, birds of prey, fish and otters just taking the in-laws around Bournemouth! And so it can go on... 

Will they be at an educational disadvantage?

No. Any parent can teach their child to be honest, and I do have the benefit of being Montessori-trained. However, my children will not be disadvantaged educationally by being educated at home, and it is my responsibility to make sure they get the best education they can get. There are no limits, no set curriculum, no restraints. I quite often call the Montessori method a curriculum, and I do have albums with lesson plans in, but these mainly tell me how to teach the equipment. However, there are countless other things that children can be taught, mainly in what is regarded as the 'cultural' part of the 'curriculum' (geography, science (astronomy, botany, zoology, matter, chemistry, physics, etc), history, ecology, art, music etc). And for these areas, there are some Montessori materials, but every Montessori school is different because the majority of materials to teach these subjects are lovingly made by teachers to meet their children's needs. 

Montessori has been developed over decades and is in line with how children learn naturally, and actually often will excel earlier than other children in some areas. I have witnessed children reading fluently in phonetic words at the age of 4 before they start school, and doing addition, subtraction, multiplication (up to 10 times table) and division at the same age because the Montessori materials, designed to be so attractive to them and motivate them to learn, appeal to their natural learning patterns, and they cannot put the materials down until they have finished learning with them. Plus, many times, they love it and it does not feel like the drudgery of learning, because it is fun and engages them for hours! A child who needs more time can also have it, rather than being rushed on to the next subject having not grasped the more basic ones. 

Observation is key in Montessori and I will always be observing and making notes on my children's learning, so this will help me assess and guage their learning without SATs or other formal assessment tests in primary etc.

Although it is not necessary, I will also be attempting to map their learning against national targets (although if I know that a certain skill will be learnt by doing something else later, I won't be stressing out about it too much). I have a great Montessori record keeping system online, which allows me to put in the national targets, and then identify which of the Montessori exercises meet them when I enter the Montessori exercises. Then it automatically tracks this for me. Cool!

We will also have a lot more educational opportunities than children will get in school. We can learn all the time, or at our own pace. We can go to museums, do activities, visit attractions, put our learning into practice etc much more than a child can do in school. We can learn more, do more, see more, experience more. The world is their classroom.

Is it legal to home educate?

Absolutely! The law says it is the parents' responsibility to ensure that their child gets an education until aged 18 (I am paraphrasing) but it does not dictate that a child has to actually attend a school. In some countries it is illegal to home educate, but not here, and I hope it never will be. We actually don't even have to tell anyone we are home educating, although if a child is withdrawn from school to be home educated, the authorities do need to know. However, you can inform the local authority if you wish, and we may do this. Many home educating parents do not want inspections and regulation, because they are home educating to be free from the system. 

However, I think there needs to be some regulation or notification at least because I have experienced 3 home educating families where severe problems have been hidden because they have not had to declare they are educating their child at home. One was severe abuse of children, one where a child is just not taught at all and at age 7 can only just write her name and recognise numbers 1-10, and one where a child is never apart from her mother, who has attachment issues. I think the child was premature or something, but the child cannot function without her mother present, and her mother cannot leave her child anywhere without her. Also, the mother's idea of teaching English is getting her child to make up her own language and spell that way (a gobbledegook language, she cannot write or read English well at all!). The child also cannot run, because her hamstrings are too tight (a 7-year old saying that is concerning in itself) and cannot play with other children because she is never given the opportunity. These situations are horrific to witness, and I know there are the majority of home educating families out there whose children are doing fantastically well, and are better socialised than those in school. I just would not be opposed to some form of registration at least to home educate.

Do you get financial assistance?

No, not a penny. State schools are allocated around £3000-4000 per student per year, but if you home educate or send a child to a private school they get no financial assistance. I think this is a shame, especially for home educated kids, as the parents do have to fork out on some kind of equipment for their children. How much does depend on how you home educate though, and many do this on a budget. Montessori can also be done on a budget, and shortcuts can be taken, however, we are planning at the moment to buy as many authentic Montessori materials as possible, and I will make many of them too. We are already budgeting for this, so hopefully we will be able to do as we plan. Also, home educating means that we sacrifice one income - mine. But, again, we have planned for this, and we have set up our own business, Martin works from home (and will have an office too away from home from this week onwards). The business will support us enough to cover both incomes, even if business is slow. And we can adapt it and amend things to match market demands, so for the medium term it will work anyway.

What about sports?

What about sports? In a Montessori classroom anyway, children are naturally more active because they can move around as they please. We have our garden, and our children will be able to play out there, run around, etc. Afternoons can be spent running and playing at the park, or rambling in a country park or nature reserve. A requirement will be at least once a week swimming. We will teach them tennis and go cycling once I recover from my c-section later this year. They will do yoga, and relaxation. We will go on long walks. They can go ice skating, rock climbing (Go Outdoors even has a climbing wall, minimum £1 donation!), play football, etc if they want. From the age of 2, I want Addie to do some form of dance & theatre, maybe ballet. If she wants to do martial arts she can do. At age 3 there is the local football club for preschoolers. We may not be able to afford everything from a club point of view, but the children will be involved in making budgeting decisions about that, and there are so many free things to do. Basketball in the park, archery, fishing, high ropes, rock climbing at Cubs, Brownies, Scouts, etc. There will not be a shortage of sports and activities to keep them active and healthy, and it will become part of our way of life, not just when you are forced to by a teacher you don't necessarily like!

Is it going to be a lot of work?

Yes. And no. The Montessori equipment is great because the children are presented it and shown how to use it, and then they are free to use that equipment for as long or as short a time as they want. Many of the pieces of equipment are used over and over and have more than one learning objective (some are used for 3 year olds, 6 year olds and 9 year olds, at different levels!) 

Sometimes this can mean that a child will grab hold of a concept and work on it tirelessly for hours, days or even weeks. Can I sit back and do nothing? No, but my role adapts to this, and I watch them, perhaps while preparing something else or working with another child. Sometimes a child is not interested in learning the things they have been shown. It is then the duty of the teacher to find something that will work, or observe and re-teach it later. 

There are many materials that do have to be made by me, which means sourcing or making up the documents, printing, cutting, laminating for durability, cutting, sorting, storing, binding etc. But, hopefully, once these are done they can be used for all my children and I can just store them away ready for the next child to use. I have many of these already, or ready to print (sourcing and making them up can be very time consuming, or could take a couple of hours depending on what it is). Montessori uses many manipulatives rather than just words or concepts on paper, but I love making materials so although it will take me time, I don't mind. 

Many of my lesson plans I have already in my albums from my studies, and my studies have given me the opportunity to be able to think up new activities using the Montessori method quite quickly. And I just have to follow each child's learning path, so when they show signs of being ready to learn something, I will be able to get things ready quickly (I hope) so I can teach it. 

I do have to plan, write up records, observations etc, and prepare for each day, but that is no more than if I was a teacher in a school, except I have fewer students! Also, I am looking it as a form of journalling for my children, so I am excited to get going.

For those of you who do not know what I mean about preparing materials for learning - keep coming back to my blog and follow our journey - you will soon see what I mean!

Other concerns

There are several other concerns that people have raised, such as won't they be missing out? Well, they will be missing out on being in a bustling school and class of 30 students, with the inevitable troublemakers who distract and disrupt the course. They will be missing out on being held back or pushed to move on to keep the pace of the rest of the class, and they may feel they are missing out on going to school. However, I hope that we can show them and help them realise that actually being at home is much better. The world is their school, and the opportunities are endless, not constrained by a national curriculum, attainment targets, adults who with all the best will and intentions in the world cannot give 30 children everything they need educationally all the time. I take my hat off to teachers, I think they do a great job. But for my kids, who I will know better than anyone, I will be the best teacher they will have, and if they want to learn about Africa or Aberystwyth, Zoology or sewing a zip - they can and they will, for as long as they want until that interest has passed. 

Got any other questions? Post them in the comments below and I will do my best to answer them