Note: This guest post was originally written and published back in 2015, and has not been updated.
We have been home educating now for nearly 2 years, our decision was based on the ill-health of our twins and the school’s inability to support them. It’s not always been easy (having to fit my counselling and meditation work around the boy’s needs) but I am so glad we have, the boys are both more confident but also more competent.
When they first left school, they needed to be directed to do anything. So much of their time had been taken up with people telling them what to do it was ridiculous; for example they were told which order to eat their lunch in and if it wasn’t obeyed you could get sanctioned in some way!?!
As time has gone on they are much more independent, they have learnt how they study best, what interests them and have taken an active role in choosing what subjects they study. They are now 15 and have sat their first 4 IGCSEs, we are currently waiting for the results.
We decided together last year that they would take four subjects each year and we would do them as 1 year courses. This was in part to give them a real in-depth exploration and understanding of a subject as we knew, due to repeated medical absences from school, that they would have knowledge gaps. So we do one subject per day for around 4 hours, 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours after lunch. This means their learning day is shorter but much more intense. They enjoy having 3 days a week off but I now find they fill it with their own research.
Projects they have done that were not linked to our formal study but were of interest to them include: building and calibrating a 3d printer from scratch (one wants to be an engineer), looking into a favourite illness of the month (the other wants to be a doctor), illustrating their own cartoons/writing and model making.
We socialise through a home ed meet up every few weeks at one of the local adventure playgrounds, they have air cadets and they are learning German with a few friends.
We have just started on next year’s IGCSEs which are physics, maths and German. For our fourth subject we have decided to do an AS level in thinking skills as it will help with both medicine and engineering.
We really enjoy learning together, discussing the important topics of the day and the science experiments. The hardest things are fitting in hospital and doctor’s appointments and finding exam centres that will do a modern foreign language exam at a reasonable cost and distance.
Hopefully next September they will be well enough to continue their A levels at a sixth form and go on to university.
Charlotte also does counselling and meditation work; her website is www.infinitedimensions.co.uk