As such, the number and type of studying that a home schooled child undertakes is completely up to the child and/or his or her family or home tutor. This means that it is likely that no home school education will be exactly like any other – each parent or tutor will choose to teach their child or student in a different way, focusing on different topics of interest, emphasising some subjects over others, perhaps, and organising the home tutoring and learning routine in a personal way.

In short, there are no subjects that a home school tutor is forced to teach: home schooling comes under the Education Act’s provision for ‘education otherwise’ – parents have to ensure their children receive an education, but the nature of that education is not specified. So for most home tutoring families there will be not average day of learning or timetable of subjects, but this article will look at the general issues that many home schooling families cover, as well as the variant ways that it is possible to cover them – which usually goes further than a textbook based, school style education.

Subjects on the Curriculum for Most Home Schooling Families

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While reading this article it is important to remember the word ‘most’ – the personalised nature of home schooling cannot be overemphasised, since it is this that is a major feature of a home education for the majority of home schooling parents and children. As such, some children may benefit more from spending more time learning about some topics that especially interest them than others, and home schooling allows the possibility to adapt a timetable or subject emphasis to embrace that level of interest.

With that proviso in mind then, these are some of the topics that many home schooling families incorporate into their child’s learning and education: maths, English language and literature, reading, spelling, creative writing, science, history, geography, foreign languages, art, design and technology, music, cookery, computing, plus ‘practical subjects’ like citizenship, sex education, traffic safety, health and fire safety.

Home Schooling Subject Lessons Tend To Be Flexible

Home schooling philosophies usually emphasise the idea that all learning is educational, not just textbook based education or the traditional style of learning that we usually associate with school. As such, subjects of learning might be wider than new home schooling families might expect. ‘Maths’ might take place at the supermarket check out, adding up prices faster than the check out till can! Or French might involve a trip to France where speaking English is banned, or a French pen pal, or online interaction with French TV, etc. Home teaching often means the flexibility to re-define education, so many home schooling families would resist the phrasing ‘what does a home schooler have to teach’ since there are no rules.

Starting as a New Home School Teacher: Two Options for a Subject Timetable

New home schooling families usually follow one of two patterns, both very distinct. Many new home schooling parents opt to ‘deschool’ their child just after he or she has left school; this is regarded as a time for a child to develop an interest in learning for its own sake, so parents would avoid setting a timetable with a certain subject at a certain time, or drawing up a structured day with set numbers of studying hours, for example. Instead, the home schooled child would be encouraged to participate in independent reading, and visits to things like museums and exhibitions.

Another option for home schooling educations is to instigate a teacher-led education right from the start, so instead of a child learning about subjects which match his or her own interests, parents draw up a timetable and/or follow a curriculum, since some children prefer a structured day, especially when they have become used to that within the school environment.

Lesson plans are not compulsory to home schooling, and ‘unschooling’ students and parents will be particularly opposed to their use. However, other parents appreciate their structure. Lesson plans can also be a useful source of proof if a representative of a Local Education Authority (LEA) asks for some kind of proof of a home schooled child’s receiving of an education.

Lesson planning may be a very time consuming task for a home schooling parent, but some think this is worth its time investment to ensure that a child learns a set subject curriculum, for example, or continues at a steady or advancing pace of progress. Be aware, however, that lesson plans should always be kept flexible in order to make sure that adjustments can be made if a child is struggling or advancing well with one topic, for example, or an unplanned event crops up that would be beneficial to integrate into a timetable.

What are Lesson Plans and How are they Used in Home Schooling?

A lesson plan is a structured document that breaks down a subject’s curriculum into bite sized chunks that show how to help a child to understand and relate to a topic’s information within a particular time period objective and with goals for the completion of learning. To break it down even further, in home education lesson plans are the guidebooks to a journey, which provide the information on how to start from one location (a lack of knowledge on a certain topic) to arrive at the destination (awareness of that topic’s key facts and/or relevance for real life) within a set period of time.

A collection of lesson plans thus enable a parent to plan how to complete a certain topic or curriculum within a certain amount of time, such as a single lesson, term or school year, time frameworks which some parents opt to stick to even within a home schooling environment in order to differentiate between schooling and ‘free time’. (It is important to note, however, that other home schooling parents reject this distinction, promoting instead the idea that all learning about life is a form of education that should not be regarded as distinctive.)

Lesson planning allows home schooling parents to feel more relaxed about a child’s educational progress, as well as helping him or her to ensure that a child will study and take in the material that you have addressed as needing to be covered within the available period of time, as well as ensuring that one subject or topic does not receive more or less focus than another.

Making a Lesson Plan

First, a parent making a lesson plan needs to define the objectives of that lesson, for example, learning what ’sine’ is in maths, and how to use it in basic situations, might be the objectives of a lesson in maths for a middle school student. Next the lesson plan’s timings would be calculated, for example, how long would ideally be devoted to learning each aspect of the lesson, and how much time would be set aside for practical examples and calculations of ’sine’ equations.

Some parents like to use lesson plan books, easily available from home schooling suppliers, especially in America, which have ruled pages for each day of the year, but daily calendars can work equally as well and are more easily available. There are also a very wide variety of lesson plans on all kinds of subjects available in books and on the internet; these will provide a useful template for making your own lesson plans, or can be used in their entirety for your own lessons, but they may require adaptation for a child’s own subjects, timetable, particular academic rate of development and so on.

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What are the Objectives of a Study Timetable?

A study timetable can help students to feel in control of his or her studies, especially when a full curriculum and a limited period of time (before, say, an exam date or a scheduled visit to an exhibition where material needs to be covered first) could potentially create a stressful studying environment. Study timetables can help students to make a plan for their education and to stay on track with those plans, as well as helping home schooled students and their families to make the most of their time, fitting in lots of other activities, be they extra-curricular, chores or socialising, into the day.

Drawing Up a Study Timetable

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Some students like to buy academic diaries for this purpose. If so, these are usually readily available in high street stores around September time, the start of the year in mainstream schooling, and should be available online at other times too. Otherwise, students can create their own study timetable using a piece of plain paper, or using desk top processing tools on the computer.

Start by drawing a table with several columns, the exact number depending on the days and times you want to break your study timetable into. A five-day timetable would have five columns, for example. List the days, or hours, or weeks, whatever time period you’re using, at the top, then break the table down into rows for the smaller divide of each time period, e.g. hour time blocks. Most students leave small breaks in between a certain number of time blocks, as these may boost brain power – in any case, you can’t study for 24 hours a day.

Next the timetable should be completed by listing the activities and study periods that need to be fulfilled by the student. First, work out how many time periods you will need per activity – e.g. studying a chapter of a book might take one, but doing study followed by a test may take up two. It might help to write a list elsewhere of all the things you need to do each day, and how much time you require for each activity – remember to include time for socialising, relaxation, exercise and sleep – all key components to a successful education.

If the student has exam or assignment deadlines, it’s a good idea to factor the date of each exam or deadline into the study timetable. Include any family or personal dates so your timetable does not clash with other events, and remember to leave gaps in between subject blocks that will cover things like travel to a tutor or getting the necessary resources out for a new subject – getting behind a schedule can be stressful so make a fair prediction of how long specific subjects and events will take to carry out.

Issues Surrounding Self Confidence

For children studying school who are having a lot of difficulties with reading and therefore usually most lessons, school can feel like a negative experience with issues of competitiveness damaging their education. Bullying can be more likely if a child is struggling with school work, and this can make emotional and behavioural problems may likely occur – all these tensions are one reason that dyslexic children’s families might start to consider home schooling.

Within the home learning environment children are more likely to feel like they are learning within a safe environment, in part because it is their home, but in part because their individualised attention is likely to speed up their progress at an activity such as reading, which then generally feeds into all studies.

Within the home it is far less likely for children to feel a fear of bullying, so they may become more confidence if they were previously struggling at school. Some home schooling families also note that the general organisational problems that dyslexic children often struggle to overcome as well as problems with activities such as reading can be more easily tackled with sympathy and individual attention within the home environment.

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Different Schooling Methods

Since home schooling parents are not obliged to follow the National Curriculum, or indeed any formalised timetable, a child’s education while learning at home can be particularised to their own needs, and tailored to his or her own special interests. Maths, for example, could focus on examples from the football statistics if that helps a child to tackle numbers (excuse the pun!). Parents can track down the teaching methods and suitable resource materials that work best for their child, including specialist dyslexic focused textbooks, which are available online, from libraries and book stores. This is usually particularly valid for teaching dyslexic children to read, since this may take longer or occur in a different way to mainstream education. buy mevacor

Remotivating a Dyslexic Home Schooler

Dyslexic children might feel demotivated about education if they have experienced a bad time at school, or feel ’stupid’ when struggling with reading. It’s therefore especially important to make learning fun for newly home schooled dyslexic children – avoid blackboard and sitting behind a desk, start reading outside or spread out on the floor, visit a museum or gallery – but don’t feel like everything has to be turned into a lesson, let your child make their own impressions of events to reawaken their natural curiosity and desire to learn.

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While some parents use that freedom to allow their home schooled child to focus learning on his or her own interests and discoveries, others appreciate the framework of the National Curriculum despite its lack of legal importance within a home schooling education. This article looks at what the National Curriculum is, and how parents may decide to use it within a home school environment.

What is the National Curriculum?

The National Curriculum is a structured created by government education experts and used by all state (maintained) schools as a way to help make teaching and learning consistent and relevant to all school children. The National Curriculum describes issues like the knowledge, skills and understanding required in each subject, attainment targets for children studying individual subjects, and the marking and assessment of pupils. The National Curriculum divides up into chunks of years – ‘key stages’ – which include Early Learning Foundation Stage, then key stages one through to four.

The National Curriculum offers parents and teachers the opportunity to compare their child’s attainment levels and individual progress at a particular subject to that which is regarded as ‘normal’ or typical for a child of his or her age. An example is that by the end of key stage two, many children will have reached level four in their attainment reports. There are also tests at the conclusion of some key stages, for example at the end of key stage two, children across the country have tests in English, Science and Maths. There is no national test at the conclusion of key stage three, while the end of key stage four usually concludes with GCSE exams.

The Curriculum in a Home Schooling Environment

While few home schooling parents follow the National Curriculum in its entirety, many decide to use some National Curriculum-based textbooks, courses and or assessment criteria while teaching at home. Some of the core skills focused on in the National Curriculum that parents who are home schooling their children may also want to integrate into their education provision include creative skills, social skills, linguistic and literary ability, mathematical and scientific knowledge, moral and spiritual awareness, and technological and physical knowledge.

Often, mainstream schools and their teachers use the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) schemes of work in order to plan their curriculum and ensure that their lessons fit into the National Curriculum’s framework – the QCA’s work plans enable the integration of the National Curriculum’s intentions into practical teaching and learning work. Home schooling parents might also like to do so, and can find more information about this on both the QCA website and that of the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ website on Standards.

Finding Support Groups

This is a good first step, since support groups and other local home schooling parents will be able to advise you on how to do all the other steps towards home schooling a child, and may also be able to provide you with textbooks or resources that their child has grown out of, if that is something you are looking to incorporate into your child’s schooling.

Home schooling groups will be able to provide you with the best information on home schooling in your local area, and have information about likely help or monitoring that will be offered or carried about by your Local Education Authority. It’s also a good idea to go online and to libraries and book shops to find out as much as you can about home schooling and discuss the options in forums – even if you do not like the methods you read about, the more you read and discover, the more you will discover what exactly you want your own home schooling curriculum and structure to look like – or whether you want to avoid this kind of organised learning all together.

Identifying your Ideal Home Schooling Method

There are many different ways to begin home schooling. Some parents like to follow a structured timetable, especially at the start if children are adapting from the planned days and terms of a school timetable. In this case, parents would teach, or children would independently learn, about, say, literature at one time in the day and science at another. At the beginning of the day, both home school teacher and learner would know what to expect for the coming hours.An alternative learning and teaching method is ‘interest-initiated’ home schooling, which focuses the learning topics on relevant events and circumstances that are happening at the particular time. So instead of having a timetable written in advance, a day’s learning might revolve around a local exhibition’s focus- a visit followed by a day talking, researching and writing about its findings – or freak weather – a hot sunny day in January might initiate discussion of global weather patterns. Some parents integrate interest-initiated learning around a timetable, just being flexible with their timetable to make room for interesting events and occurrences.

Other parents have more detailed educational philosophies (see the page on this website about these for more details) and their method of home schooling will be closely related to that philosophy. Many parents mix and match these methods, but it is a good idea to know about the possibilities before begin home schooling, so you can decide what might work best for your child and then adapt as necessary.

Buying a lesson plan from a specialist education company is another option for families considering beginning teaching a home education, since starting to teach from scratch, as well as organising and choosing a curriculum to follow (an educational route that some but not all home schooling families opt to follow) can seem daunting. That is one reason why some families opt to buy in curriculum packs with lesson plans for home schooled children.

Specialist home school resource companies, (an example is shown by www.primaryeducation.co.uk) generally do not use ‘off the shelf’ text books which are targeted at school teachers who are involved in schooling lots of children in one go, instead focusing their teaching on the principles of home education and its one-to-one, or similarly low, learning ratios.

Many companies offer a whole curriculum pack rather than single lesson plans, and these will address a variety of topics for a home school educator to cover with a child, including teaching objectives, the best ways to communicate the central tenets of the lesson, plus games, tasks, work sheets and activities for children to actively engage in and practice their newly learnt skills.

Many lesson plan providers integrate a range of teaching methods into their curriculum packs so home schooling parents can personalise their teaching method to their child’s best style of learning. In addition, if this is an important factor for your home teaching style, it is interesting to note that some lesson plan providers include ways to add to and develop the book-based skills in the ‘real world’, such as using the techniques in every day situations or on visits to educational places like museums.

However, it’s important that parents are aware that some home schooling families do not want to follow the National Curriculum or Government learning strategies on subjects like numeracy and literacy, and many commercial lesson plans do integrate these objectives, so that is an important point to consider while looking at paid-for lesson plans.

Tutor Support With Bought Lesson Plans

Buying lesson plans from a tutorial or educational company may also allow parents the opportunity to make use of other services, such as tutor support. This is where if parents or children are having problems teaching, learning or understanding a particular lesson or subject, the parent teacher or the child can speak to one of the company’s teacher advisors to discuss the issue of difficulty, since another point of view can often help. Others offer marking services, usually for an extra fee, where busy parents can send their child’s work into the lesson plan company’s offices to be marked by a tutor or teacher.

The Cost of Buying Lesson Plans

The costs of buying lesson plans and curricula packs will differ according to provider, the child’s age, the subject offered, and a variety of other factors. The fees discussed here correlate with one company’s primary years fees for ease of reference. The cost of a curricula pack for English, maths and science for school years 1-6 at a cost of £510 per term, including lesson plans, worksheets, games, teaching notes, and tutor support. Postage costs extra.

Expect to pay more for secondary lesson plans, but be aware that a more pared down option is to buy lesson plans in a book, without the added support, for around £10. These may also be available free to borrow from the library, and there are also a myriad of free lesson plans available online.