Finding a Home Tutor

Choosing a tutor is a significant decision and should not be undertaken lightly. It is important a tutor has valid qualifications and safety checks, discussed later in this article, but also, from a child’s perspective it is crucial that the tutor is someone that they get on with and can feel relaxed learning with, especially in the home environment. Ask potential tutors if you can arrange a ‘taster’ or sample session where a child can be introduced to the teacher and discover whether he or she is a good learning match for your child’s needs. You might want to sit in on early sessions, unobtrusively remaining in the background but around to hear what kind of learning and teaching is in place.

Home Tutors and Safety Checks

Your Local Education Authority (LEA) might be able to provide a list of local home tutors or teachers who they have used in their past for local teaching, and have checked with bodies like the Criminal Reference Bureau. If not, there are few laws surrounding home tutoring so it is a good idea to go to a local agency which carries out such checks themselves; ask about Criminal Reference Bureau checks (police checks), but also List-99 (banned teacher lists) and how extensive the background checks on new tutors are. Criminal Reference Bureau checks are not a legal requirement but many reputable agencies do nonetheless carry them out. Other ideas are to ask for references from other families.

Funding a Home Tutor

Local Education Authorities might be able to provide a list of local tutors, but they will not usually be able to offer financial assistance for home tuition. Prices can range from £5 – £50 an hour, depending on a tutor’s experience and qualifications and a student’s requirements.

Remember that while background checks and references are crucial, prices will not always reflect quality – sometimes a young university student who gets on really well with your child’s wavelength may be able to more successfully tutor than a qualified teacher with a long list of experience and letters after his or her name. So remember to try a few taster sessions with different tutors if necessary. Some tutors will also be able to offer discounted rates on tuition if you book for several sessions or for several subjects – this can especially help to bring down the cost of longer term home schooling tuition, so do inquire.

Basing Motivation On The Learning Of Pre-School Children

Home schooling parents often cite the example that as toddlers children engaged an internal sense of motivation, since their desire to walk, talk, feed themselves, etc., was a self-motivated drive. Home schooling families therefore often try to re-create the reduced distinction between learning as play and learning as a taught education. A common claim of a home schooling education is that children who do not learn in a school retain (or, if home schooling after deregistering from a school, regain) a personal love of learning and discovery for its own sake.

To boost this sense of a child’s curiosity to learn, home schooling parents should encourage their child to question in order to grow in understanding. Younger children might address most of their questions to the parent and/or home tutor; in this instance, the home educator could answer in a mixture of ways, sometimes (where possible) answering directly, at other times showing the child how he or she can look up the answer in other sources, be that books, encyclopaedias, online, or asking an expert. For older children, this latter technique can increasingly occur independently. When a child has a question that they want answered, he or she is more likely to learn at a faster rate than a child learning according to a mass curriculum.

More Tips To Boost Motivation

Be enthusiastic and instill excitement first thing in the morning – don’t nag, but make schooling seem fun.

Have sessions of reading aloud with your child early in the morning to get the day started in a communal way – or have a few minutes of fun exercise, with pop music in the background to get the blood pumping for the day’s learning!

Focus on lots of short tasks at first to help children get used to home schooling and help them learn self-motivation so they learn to complete tasks and activities alone.

Praise good work and be really positive about the completion of work or activities.

Sometimes ‘External Motivation’ May Be Required

Most people at some stage work for external motivation, be that a pay cheque or appreciation from others, so it’s a good idea to incorporate this in some small way into the rewards of a home education. For example, a home schooled student may be able to help a younger student work on his or her studies and receive paid remuneration for doing so, likewise many students babysit for money or as part of a skills exchange. These can be a useful part of learning about motivation.

Be Organised and Create Lesson Plans in Advance

Some families prefer a less structured approach to home education, such as unschooling, while others have a more organised scheme with daily timetables and lesson plans. Parents of experienced home schooled children who have developed a sense of personal intellectual curiosity and self-motivation may feel more relaxed about letting their children get on with their own education, but parents and families who have just started to home tutor their children, especially if there are younger children, or babies around, will probably benefit from advance lesson planning and a daily schedule.

Here are tips to making one or more daily schedule, but remember the golden rule of home schooling – keep it flexible – in order to capitalise on unexpected opportunities that may crop up which should be integrated into the home education in order to reap its benefits. Even so, it’s a good idea to make plans for the next day’s lesson during the night before, maybe when the children are asleep, when you can think about the learning successes and failures of the day and consider how to develop them the next day.

A daily schedule for home teaching two or more children should be detailed, but not overly fussy – so consider what lessons you want to form the ‘meat’ of the day, and how activities might develop around those lessons, including relevant reading material, extension games, etc. Think about how long each activities will take, and try to find activities of corresponding length for each child, although the level of difficulty will depend on age and ability.

Consider each child’s own attention span so it might be several shorter activities that are planned for one child while the other does one lesson or activity in the same time span, but each child might have a break at the same time, in order to have a snack or run around outside, for example. Mix up active and sitting activities, so after solving a bunch of maths problems, organise a bit of kitchen science or music activity next. Take into account the daily patterns of younger kids, so that if you have a baby with a mid-morning nap time, for example, it’s a good idea to organise your older children’s more focused tasks to take place at the same time so he or she (or they!) can have your help and advice to a greater extent.

Make the Most of Group Learning Opportunities

Make the most of opportunities for individual and group work that can crop up when you’re home schooling several children – plan group learning because working together as a family can be fun, but also remember that individualised learning – one of the central advantages of home schooling – remains important.

Sports have many benefits for kids. They help them to learn teamwork skills, how to become a great loser as well as winner, develop personal commitment and reliability, perseverance, discipline, in addition to the big issue of helping children stay physically fit, learn about the importance of fitness for life and avoid child obesity.

What Kind of Sports Options are Available

A popular option for families who know other homeschooled kids or other families in their neighbourhood is getting local kids together to informally “pick up” ball games like football, netball and tennis through casual (though easily regular) games. These allow children to make new friends in an informal setting while they are also keeping fit, burning off some of their energy and developing some of the aforementioned skills. For parents, a chief benefit is that this option is cheap and it doesn’t require a massive time requirement to organise a team. Unfortunately, in some areas these kinds of casual sporting activities are becoming less easy to arrange as safety fears grow and the popularity of console and computer games takes over from outdoor activities.

Go to the Park

If your kids are particularly keen on a specific common sport, say football, or tennis, it can be worth taking them down to the park to see if there are other kids available looking for a game.

Selective Sports and Local Teams

Many areas will run teams and sports squads for children who want to play sports at a more competitive or frequent level. Sometimes these will involve a trial, and kids may not guaranteed playing time, or they may be less selective. Usually they will involve a trained coach and lots of other kids, and parents will have to pay a fee for their children to participate. A bonus is that there will usually be a wide array of sporting options available, from the common, like football, to the more rare, like trampolining, dance and baseball. This variety of options can help kids to find something they love to play.

Local Schools

Some local schools may allow home schooled kids to join the local school team, if there is a vacancy or perhaps if your child used to be involved. This option, however, will be subject to specific rules and requirements and will be up to the discretion of individual schools. The school is more likely to agree if your child was already a member of a particular team and is very upset to be leaving, but they still do not have to say ‘yes’ and may think that their legal responsibility would make it difficult to agree for your home schooled child to remain on the team. So it’s a good idea to speak to the individual head teacher involved if this might be an option for your child.

Some parents feel unable to cater for their child’s entire teaching and want to hire a private tutor for some subjects, or others may book a tutor for a child’s entire home learning. It’s best to shop around as many tuition agencies offer home education packages with tutors who are especially used to home schooling. These may offer online tutoring as well as one to one private tutoring, with aims such as helping students to better understanding a particular subject, pass an exam or improve intellectual capacity.

Home Tutoring Subjects Available

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Private tutoring options encompass almost every subject you can imagine, from maths and science to art and design technology – although the latter will require the home education ‘classroom’ to contain certain resources. Certainly all subjects on the National Curriculum are covered by tutors, and there will be a diverse range of tutors available in sources like the local telephone directory or online; most tutors are prepared to visit a family’s home for the lessons, although some will host lessons in their own home or another space such as a public hall. It is useful to be aware that all private tutors should know about the National Curriculum and/or qualifications such as GCSEs, ASs and A Levels and can be used as a source of advice.

The Cost of Home Tutoring

Private tutoring was once a privilege for only wealthy families but it is now developing a more mainstream appeal. Many tutors will offer their tutoring services as a supplement to their own income such as classroom teaches. Fees will normally be per hour, but if a home schooling family require a great deal of time, or several children to educate, they may be able to negotiate a discount. Fees usually start at £10 per hour and can rise by anything up to £40 an hour, but again, this may differ if a lot of time is booked for one family’s needs, or a long term engagement is organised.

Finding an Ideal Home Tutoring

Tutors can help home schooled children with a range of skills, from help with general learning of a particular subject to specialised exam tips to helping them go through past papers to advising on the expected way that qualifications such as GCSEs and A Levels will be tackled. Tutors may also help children to work out a study or revision timetable, so it is worth trying out a few tutors to find the best ‘match’ for your child as each may have different skills in these areas.

It’s important that the tutor gets on well with your child, and that he or she comes with recommendations, ask for references or go through a local tuition centre that accredits its tutors. Ask about qualifications such as teaching degrees or courses and subject qualifications such as degrees, as well as whether tutors have had a Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) check. Some Local Education Authorities (LEAs)may be able to offer help such as a list of tutors working in a particular area, although no funding help will usually be made available for home tuition.

To these parents, the idea of break time from work just does not exist. This is true, too, of ‘unschoolers’, children who have autonomy over their education, learning at their own pace and interest level through their personal intellectual curiosity. Nonetheless, for many new home schooling families, a structured day and break times and lesson times can be a useful way to ease into home teaching, especially if a child has left school with its highly structured timetable. This article looks at the kinds of daily routine options, and ideas for break time, that home schooling families can consider using.

Flexible Routine

Before considering the timings of a home schooling day, for example when learning will begin, when to have lunch, when to finish for the day etc., it is important to remember that one of the central tenets of home education for many families is that it encompasses every aspect of life, and that education is therefore unlikely to follow a strict pattern.

If there is breaking news on the TV at 10pm that children wish to discuss, this might be an ideal time to get out the history and/or geography books, so that a child might oversleep the next day and the schedule might be delayed. So keep in mind while forming any kind of break timetable or organising events to do in breaks, that especially at the start while parents are discovering the nature of their children’s learning methods and styles and timings, any timetable should be regarded as flexible.

Making a rough timetable, however, can be a good idea for newly home schooled children. One option would be to sit down with text books and reading books and pens and paper in the mornings, then having non-desk based learning (cooking, art, music, kitchen science, etc.) in the afternoon. In this case, parents of younger children might want to build in some independent reading in the latter part of the morning ’session’ in order to start preparing lunch.

Working out the best timings and organisation will take time and should be based on a child’s own personal peak learning times in order to capitalise on one of the benefits of home education, that individualised approach to learning.

If a child likes to get up early and start reading or working at 8, then it can be a good idea to build a break time in at around 10. Maybe have a fruit snack, and go on a walk together or meet up with a local home schooling family for a half hour break before returning home and continuing the earlier project or starting a new book or learning session. Then work through till about 1pm, when children can then have a longer break which might involve a hot lunch and an activity like sport or art or music, which might continue all afternoon or might be followed by more reading or text book learning.

Studying for Exams

If children are working towards formal qualifications that will involve spending time doing public exams, in an exam centre, for example, it’s a good idea to get them used to working solidly for the amounts of time that will be taken up by the exam paper. So try to build up to three hour slots during A levels, for example, and have breaks around the intense periods, to enhance children’s attention spans. Giving a child a personalised timetable and break times will help him or her to get the most out of home education.

It’s an obvious cliché but many families involved in home educating their children proclaim that there is no such thing as a typical day when a child is learning at home. One of the benefits of home education is its flexibility – if a child is feeling particularly active, a day might incorporate more sport than another; if a particular exhibition or speaker or visitor is in town, the day might involve a field trip rather than classroom (or, more accurately, home classroom) based learning.

A home schooling education typically endorses the idea that education is not just schooling but learning as a part of life. Teaching ideas might be inspired by the world news the previous night, or something that a child hears on the street or sees in shops or finds on the internet. A project idea might be discovered, triggering the next week being taken up by the production of a house newspaper, or feature length film, for example! Home educators generally like to encourage such creative bursts, so they keep their timetable flexible.

Nonetheless, it is also true that new home schooling parents generally like to have some kind of timetable or structure for the day or week in order to encourage a feeling that some learning (in the school sense) is taking place. When children move from school to home school, many home schooling parents like to encourage a period of ‘deschooling’ – a completely unstructured period of time – but alternatively, others prefer to maintain some of the schooling mentality, which might involve focusing on a particular subject in one part of the day, or always doing textbook-based learning in mornings, for example.

New home schooling parents can view some other home schooling families’ routines on the internet, where many home schooling families write blogs or have their own websites to describe their experiences of home schooling. These routines and timetables can be a useful start point for a family to create their own schooling structure, but do remember to retain a flexible mentality, to avoid missing out on the kinds of opportunities (like the aforementioned exhibitions, speakers etc.) that home schooling can uniquely make available. The timetable might also be adapted as one child’s optimum learning period might be in the morning while others’ might be in the afternoon, for example. Trial and error can form an important part of the creation of a daily routine for a home schooling family.

Studying For A Qualification

If and/or when home schooled children start studying towards a recognised qualification, like GCSEs, A Levels or a diploma, usually it will be necessary to begin following a curriculum. Although students can still study at their own pace and ability, usually a more structured routine will develop since there will be a set amount of topics to cover. It can be useful to work out a rough timetable in advance and then adapt it as necessary, to help parents and children relax about covering all the topics in the timeframe available before exams or coursework deadlines.

To avoid this being a difficult transition, many families build in creative work and flexible time into the timetable, so that trips to parks, plays, or doing activities like creative writing are not suddenly ‘dropped’ when qualifications come onto the agenda.

Be aware that just as parents who go out to work might need help with cleaning, or cooking, either from fellow family members or professional sources, or might need to organise rotas with neighbours and so on, so too might home schooling families.

Establish Priorities and be Organised

Sometimes lessons will go according to plan and you will have time to put a load of washing on while your child/pupil is doing individual work; other times everything will overrun or be delayed and you won’t have the time that you need. So prioritise the tasks that are more important so you can complete them first.

If your kitchen is filthy, take time out to clean it, but if you think the back of your sofa might need a dust, that’s less urgent! Likewise, it’s really important to plan ahead. Think ahead about when you need to organise your shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry and how that can fit around your child’s education – perhaps you’ll get up before your child, or set them some independent work, or do it once the “school day” is over.

Involve the Family

Encourage your children and your spouse to help you out at home. Many hands make light work! You can also integrate housework with the education process – look into the components of bleach as you’re using it in cleaning; talk about enzymes as you look at biological washing powders. Bring kids to the supermarket and set maths skills. Encourage your older kids to walk the family pets themselves -think of it as PE lessons! Cookery measurements can become important maths-learning skills. Encouraging your children to teach each other and pass on new knowledge will also encourage personal development of each of your children.

Save Time

Learn some time-saving tips: cook things in bulk, then freeze extras. Use a diary to schedule chores into convenient clusters. Encourage tidiness around the house to prevent wasting time clearing up other peoples’ mess. Do washing in big bulks and give each member of the household a task to complete, making a big family timetable to help them to remember their role in the family. Such tasks create an environment of harmony and working together as well as easing the stress of individual family members.