Still haven’t applied for a primary school place?

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In England and Wales, parents have until 15th January to apply for their child’s primary school place. Applications opened in September, so if you still haven’t applied it may well be that you’re not convinced school is the best or only option for your four year old. It feels like a big decision.

I was recently asked by some parents in this position to talk about my experience of home education, to help them decide if this might be the path for them. What follows is a summary of our conversation.

Via Unsplash

In the autumn of 2019 I spent a lot of time walking around primary schools, trying to decide which one had the happiest children, which one had the highest academic standards, which one prioritised play, and which one I could feasibly get my daughter to for 9am every morning. I listened to teachers talking about curriculums, compared playgrounds and reading corners, and wondered if any of it made any difference in the long run. Eventually, my husband and I sent in our application, our daughter started school in September 2020, we had a global pandemic, and now I’m a home educator.

I’m not alone. The government is aware of over 86,000 home educated children in England—and as parents are not legally obliged to announce that they’re home educating, there are many more children that aren’t on any official records.

Why have we all chosen this path? What is our life really like? What about socialisation? And… is it something you could do, too?

It’s not the huge decision it feels like

You don’t need to have a road map from here to Harvard. Your child can start school later, if that’s what you want. The academic requirements in Reception (Pre-K) are simply a continuation of what you’ve been doing with your child all their life: talking about the world, reading books together, counting biscuits, or cars, or ducks. Choosing to homeschool for your child’s first year of school is actually not the terrifying commitment it might seem. It doesn’t have to be forever. You won’t ruin their life if they start school a year later than their peers. You already know the things your four year old needs to know, or you know how to find out. Opting to homeschool your 16 year old through advanced physics is a daunting prospect. Teaching a four year old to count to ten is not. The first year of school is actually an ideal time to dip your toe in the waters of home education.

And don’t forget flexischooling.

Will Orr-Ewing

wrote a guest post for me recently about his experience of flexischooling his son in Reception.

How did we get here?

For my own family, we realised when the schools were closed that our daughter was much happier when she wasn’t at school. We also found that we loved spending time together as a family, that learning happened very naturally, every day, and that it didn’t require a Herculean effort on my part (my husband was working and I wasn’t, so the childcare/education fell largely to me). From meeting hundreds of other home educating families, this isn’t an unusual experience.

Some parents feel their four year old is too young to be spending six hours a day at school, or that the academic side is not well-matched to their child. Some children are ready for much more challenging work than the typical Reception class can provide, and some children aren’t ready for it at all just yet. A home-educating parent can go at exactly the right pace for their child, but a teacher with a class of 30 cannot.

For a whole post on reasons families choose to home educate, see Why We Homeschool.

What are you obliged to do?

The one-to-one nature of home education makes it hugely efficient. You can get the work done and have masses of time for other interests—sports, games, music, walks in the woods, visits to museums. But let’s focus on the work for a moment. What exactly do you have to do? In the UK, you are not obliged to follow the National Curriculum. Legally, in England your child’s education has to be “an efficient, full-time education, suitable to his age, ability, and aptitude, and to any special educational needs he may have.” There are no definitions about what any of those words mean. You don’t have to stick to school hours or school terms. The government guidance says that your child’s education should enable them to grow up to “function as an independent citizen in the UK beyond the community in which they were brought up”.

This gives you incredible freedom to dive into your child’s interests. Of course you will want them to be literate and numerate, and the government will rightly expect this, but beyond that the world is your oyster. Follow the National Curriculum if you like—particularly in the early years, it can be a good place to start. But the best thing about home education is the freedom. Freedom to spend all morning snuggled in pyjamas reading favourite stories together. Freedom to go to your local museum every day for a week if that’s what your child wants to do. Freedom not to push them on an academic subject if they’re showing no interest and huge resistance—come back to it later when they’re ready.

My own daughter was completely anti-reading when we took her out of school aged 5. She loved being read to, but closed up like a clam when I tried to get her to read a reading book. I backed off, unwilling to create a child who hated books, and several months later, she came to it of her own accord. I couldn’t prise the books from her hands. I had to manoeuvre her around lampposts as she read on the street. This sort of thing happens all the time in home education. Follow the child and they will amaze you. Not everyone is built to follow a schedule. A homeschooled child doesn’t need to feel the stigma or the pressure of being ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’, because they don’t need to be benchmarked against other children. As Baz Luhrmann says, the race is only with yourself.

Via Unsplash

What about socialisation?

For a start, see this post. Remember that school children, especially after the first year or two, spend most of the time being told not to talk. Remember that there are at least 86,000 other home educated children in the country—that’s a lot of potential playmates. Remember that UK schoolchildren are only at school for 195 days of the year—the rest of the time they’re free to play! Consider that spending all day with 30 children all aged within 12 months of each other is a pretty weird version of socialisation, historically-speaking.

Are all home educators a bit weird?

Some are. So are some parents of schoolchildren. Some parents choose to home educate for religious reasons, just as there are religious families in schools too. But on the whole I have found that the vast majority of home educating families that I’ve met are pretty much like me. (And I’m not weird. Or I am, but in a good way that I’d be happy to pass on to my children. Being weird can just mean being happy not to be exactly like everyone else, which is definitely something I want for my children.)

Most home educators want the very best for their children—who doesn’t?—and they put enormous effort and consideration into how to do it. For example, the British Museum, the Science Museum, the Tower of London, to name just three institutions near me, offer dedicated days for home-educating families, and they sell out fast. There are an awful lot of parents, just like you and me, who simply want to give their children a great childhood and a great education. You’ll find you have a lot more in common with home educating families than you might have expected.

Do you need to be a teacher?

No. If you’re literate enough to read this post you can teach your own child. There are many books and websites to give you the specifics of, for example, how to teach a child to read, or what maths they should know at the age of 5 or 6. It is normal in the beginning to feel completely overwhelmed, but time is on your side. Focus on basic numeracy and literacy, follow your child’s interests, and take the time to read a curriculum or two. Remember that a schoolteacher has to cover the material in 195 days a year, but a home educator is working one-to-one, and has all day, every day. Even better, you can wait for the moment when your child is desperate to learn about volcanoes, or whales, or Romans, at which point they will soak up every drop of information you can give them. This is an entirely different prospect to sitting in a classroom being told what you’ll learn today, whether you like it or not.

Is it really hard?

Oh yes. If you’ve spent all day with your child, you’ll know it’s not a holiday. It’s non-stop, full-on, and depending on your circumstances there isn’t much opportunity for a break. But is that any more difficult than working a full-time job and trying to squeeze as much quality time together as you can into the evenings and weekends? There is no easy option. Every morning I get to have my cup of tea in bed and we get going as a family as and when we are all ready for it. Families with school children are rushing to get out of the house, get to work, don’t-forget-the-swimming-bag. So yes, it’s hard. But show me the option that isn’t.

Undoubtedly, it takes a toll on your finances: you can’t work a full-time job and educate your young child at home. I haven’t been abroad for nearly a decade, we have much less space than we’d like, and the only time I get new clothes is when my mum hands them down to me. Everything is a trade-off. But home education itself doesn’t have to be expensive, especially early on. Join your local library—that’s literacy sorted. Some dice, some maths cubes, and a pencil and paper will take you far in maths.

It’s not for everyone, and you shouldn’t feel bad if it’s not for you. Many mothers have told me that going back to work was a positive relief after months or years of staying at home with small children. Home education is not the best choice for every family and you’re not doing anything wrong if it’s not the best choice for yours.

Like so many things, the outputs exceed the inputs. The most rewarding things we do are usually the ones that take the most effort. There is no easy way to raise a child, however they’re educated. Lots of parents tell me there’s no way they could home educate, that they don’t even need to think about it. But some parents look wistful, and tell me they wish they could do it. Well, they can! It’s possible. Millions of families are home educating around the world right now. A child’s education is—or should be—a wonderful journey. Some of us are lucky enough to get to go along for the ride.

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