Home Education

playing with bubbles

This is a subject that I have shied away from here as I felt that it had little to do with the reason behind my creation of this blog. But it is a large part of my life and it makes sense to me now to start sharing a little of what we do. It's unlikely to become a regular feature, I don't want this to turn into a home ed blog but as it is a daily part of our life it does seem silly to continue to exclude it.
I first heard about home education when my eldest child was 18 months. Realising that I had a choice about whether or not to send my child to school was really uplifting. As my son grew older I strongly felt that school would not be appropriate for him. He was confidently reading by the age of 4 but unable to sit still for any length of time. He was also large for his age and this, coupled with a low frustration threshold and quick temper he had yet to learn to control, meant that I was concerned with how he would cope in a classroom setting.

Having discovered the idea of home education early on meant that I was able to identify and appreciate how I was already facilitating his learning on a daily basis. This gave me the confidence to give home education a try. The choice was made easier as I was not happy with the large size of our local primary school and there was a large network of other local home educators.

My reasons for continuing to home educate are very different from when I started. I now have two sons learning at home and I’m confident that they would both succeed in school but the changes we would need to make to our lifestyle would mean that, due to work hours, they would not see anything of their father throughout the week. We now also live in a rural location and this has brought new challenges for us to overcome. Things may no longer be on our doorstep but local support is still here.

I have found home educating my children to be incredibly rewarding. Looking ahead to the future I cannot predict whether they will go in to the schooling system or not as you never know what life will throw at you. It can sometimes feel daunting being 100% responsible for their education, but by taking it just one day at a time it works. 

If you would like more information on home education in the UK then a good place to start is on the Education Otherwise website, http://www.educationotherwise.net/ .