Another year of homeschooling, here we come!

Last August (2020), we made the decision as a family to start homeschooling. At that point we had no idea of how long it would be for, but we knew, given the way the world was, that it was important for us to be together + live with as least restriction as possible. As parents we were driven by the need for our children to under no circumstance be exposed to anything that made them feel like they had any responsibility other than to be carefree + happy children. The concept of them being made to feel like germ carriers, become fearful of other humans, having to constantly wash their hands, sit metres away from their friends, not touch, walk in single file etc, etc, just wasn’t on the cards. Every decision we have made since Caleb was born 12 years ago, has been founded on our family being emotionally balanced, physically healthy, and free beings. So homeschooling it was.

Were we anxious? Yes. Especially Josh who was concerned they wouldn’t get a ‘proper eduction’ and may miss out socially. I have always been someone who has trusted her gut. I knew we were capable of giving them everything they needed. You can read more about our thought process going into this, in my first blog about it here.

What has the last year shown us?

First + foremost we can all say, without hesitation, that as it stands none of us have a desire for the homeschooling journey to end. With things exacerbating on the world stage, with the inevitable (to many who have been watching closely) jabbing of children now being a reality, and there being no let up in the paranoia, even if we hadn’t loved this last year, we would still make it work until there was more clarity as to how things would progress globally. As it happens though we have all loved it. Yes there have been moments where Josh + I have craved space alone, but as the children are getting older, that is getting easier anyway.

Caleb chose to start Spanish in September last year. It was one of our motivations for choosing the tutor we did, because she was fluent in Spanish (again you can read more about how we chose to run homeschooling, including the tutor, in the blog here). He had never learnt it before, but he had a passion to, and a year on the tutor has told us, if he wanted to, he could take his GCSE within a year from now. He might want to, he might not, but the point to me telling you is that what this displays is how children, when left to follow their passions, on their own terms, excel.

Last Summer Caleb was 10. He is a bright boy; everyone has always told us so, and it is evident to us too. He had gone to mainstream school for Reception + half of Year One, and met all of ‘their targets’. We made the decision to take him out though because he was miserable. He didn’t want to be reading or writing. He hated it! He had loved books + all the knowledge he could gain from them before he started school, and now, at school, every night he begged me to read to him, rather than me having to battle him to read to me. It was torture for us both, and I could see what was happening to his love of learning - it was dying.

When he went to the Steiner School that we first put him into he wasn’t of the age where they expected him to read (at Steiner Schools that is not until they are six going on seven, inline with many other countries in Europe). Just because he could read by then, because of mainstream, didn’t mean he had a desire to carry on; in fact he took it as an invitation to refuse to read until, well until last Summer, at 10 years old. And the first book he read, proficiently, was Harry Potter. You see his lexicon was excellent, and his brain was properly in the zone to read, so if he hit a word in a sentence that a normal ‘first time reader’ of four years old would never in a million years understand and definitely not be able to decipher using phonics (so be the relatively ruleless English language), he would just work it out based on the context around it. A year on he can read anything you give him, to the same level of all other children his age, who have been reading for six years. Again - child led learning - it works.

What about Savannah?

Savannah has had her whole school life within a Steiner setting, so she went into last year with no real knowledge of letters or numbers, just a tonne of play under her belt. I was clear with the tutor that I didn’t mind whether she could read or write by the end of the year, or add up, I just wanted her to feel the joy in learning.

Savannah is not Caleb. Surprise, surprise. No child is the same as any other child, which is one of the ways the education system fails many children. She has not once, not even to this day, even with the younger children’s books, sat through listening to a whole story. She has no interest. Caleb sat through books for children twice his age when he was two, and could likely recite parts back to me as well. Savannah is too busy being busy. She has been able to do up buttons, tie knots, jump rope, fold blankets as neat as you like, for years. She just observes + then does. And she ‘does’ a lot - in fact she never stops. When I was at my friends’ house the other day, Tamsin + Ben, Ben suggested we may need to take the children to the park to wear them out a little before bed. He was mainly speaking about Savannah…I told him not to bother…no matter what we did she would be busy until the minute her head hit the pillow. Oh thank goodness she is homeschooled, and can be as busy as she likes, learning through observation + movement, all day long if she wants to.

And just for reference, she has learnt her alphabet, she can read a little, but she LOVES numbers! Caleb sits in bed with her at night giving her sums to work out. She loves it! Caleb loves maths too. He never minded doing that even from an early age, so it is wonderful to see them enjoying this together. Savannah sets Caleb maths questions too - she has no idea of the answer to them, but Caleb does, so that is all that matters - that + that they are together, forming one of the most important relationships they will likely ever make, and enjoying learning.

What have we dropped?

We originally had the plan that we would have the tutor twice a week for two hours, spread between the two of them. This has increased to three times a week. Caleb does 1 hour 20 minutes, and Savannah does 40 minutes - three times a week - that is all. In that time they do English, Maths + Spanish. I think that is important to keep in mind referring back to the progress Caleb has made in Spanish in one year, and this progress extends to his English + Maths too.

We had planned to split the other two days between Josh + I, following units from Gather Round Homeschool. We did this for one whole unit, which took us about four months in total. We started with Oceans, which the children somewhat enjoyed, and then moved to Botany, which the children had no interest in sadly (I was excited about this topic!). I would still recommend the units provided by Gather Round, as they are beautifully pulled together, but for us we just felt we didn’t need more than the tutoring for formal structure as time went on.

I think this is an important point. If you are going into homeschooling it is likely you will initially want to put things in place that make you feel in control + not like you are going to fall into a spiral of nothingness. You will see from my original blog from last year, we had a very strict structure in place! However, as time goes on you will, in my experience + I know others’ too, find your own rhythm as a family. Children want to learn, and as you have time with your children you will be able to observe how best that comes about for them.

What are we starting?

This year we are introducing Science, with another homeschooling family we have grown to love. Again this will be with a tutor, once a week, split into two age associated groups. When you split a tutor with another family it becomes cheaper of course, which I wanted to say, as I before had never considered tutors when I had thought of homeschooling, but it has worked well for us but I know may seem out of reach for some; splitting it makes it quite affordable however. Though it is not essential, by any means, and again comes down to the individual circumstance, needs + wants of your family, which so much of homeschooling comes down to. (I want to say here too that in the UK there are very little hard + fast rules about homeschooling. We have not been contacted or visited, but it is possible they may at some point + they would be welcome. However, in this country, no homeschool parent has an obligation to let them visit; a conversation on the phone can often suffice. You can read more here.)

We have also recently started taking the children to a Forest School group every Tuesday. Caleb instigated this as he wanted to do more with children his own age. He is far less sociable than Savannah, who has actually been lucky + met many other homeschooled girls her age, but he decided he did want to find something with other children (other than the occasional playdates he had with his closest friends). Typically though, for Caleb, when he is at the group he mainly spends it alone, with his new found love, whittling, but he enjoy being able to dip into conversation when others when he chooses.

One of the things Josh + I admire most about Caleb is that he likes his own company, he knows who he connects with + who he doesn’t, and he is very confident within this. It is not shyness by any means that makes him the way he is, but instead a deep confidence in himself + no desire to compromise (he may or not may not get this from me :-) - although it took me a while to stand for myself in life). Caleb does not like being in photographs for example, and he won’t budge on it. Fair enough - hence why he is covering his face with his book in the photo above!

Other projects we have worked on:

We re-landscaped our whole back garden, to make it a kitchen garden so we could become more self-sufficient. We have loved doing this - it has been a source of real pride for us all. You can read more about this here, and follow my adventures with growing on Instagram.

Josh has started a new enterprise with Caleb. It is called English English, and its purpose is to offer people who are learning English a way of hearing true English conversations. Josh has been learning German for a couple of years now on Duolingo, and Caleb of course is learning Spanish, mainly with his tutor, but also on Duolingo as it takes his fancy. It is one thing to learn a language theory, but an entirely other thing to have to have real conversations with local people, and so they were inspired to create this channel for people who are learning English, to hear real English people speak. So every week they are going out to interview people on the streets, on English topics, and they have started a You Tube channel together. The plan is it to develop on from the videos, to include a membership area with workbooks linked to each week’s topic. Caleb would not be able to be involved with this in the way that he is if he wasn’t at home, and nothing in a classroom could compare to what this is teaching him; plus it is so wonderful he has a project with his Dad. You can find their videos here, and their Instagram channel here.

Puzzles! Lots of them! This is something we suspected we would love to do as a family, so we stocked up, and we have continued to love them. In fact we just finished one today!

So what now?

Onwards + upwards with another year!

We have learnt so much, and no doubt have more to learn. I am so grateful for the additional sovereignty this experience has brought us all as a family. I truly believe that most families would love the experience of homeschooling too, despite inevitable hesitations, I feel confident most would find great joy in making it work in their own way. Even if homeschooling isn’t for you (in which case I suspect you won’t have reached this far into this blog), I do believe there are many ways you can work to bring your family back to you a little more, and this year has seen me grow a real passion to help as many families as possible do that. There is lots to come from me in this space, as well as supporting families to grow their own food, to forage, and to create security through sovereign ways of bringing in income.

I look forward to seeing what this year brings for us all.

To follow along with our homeschooling adventures you can find me on Instagram here or you can join my newsletter here. I would love to hear from you if this is something you also choose to explore, or already have chosen to follow as the path for your family - the bigger the community around me the better!