Responsible Homeschooling

I had an unsettling conversation this week with a young woman, a survivor of fundamentalist evangelical religion, who was homeschooled in the US, against her will, in such a way as to severely hamper her life chances due both to the paucity of the education, and the fact that - as anti-government fundamentalists - her …

Archive Post: Schome and Funny Things they Say

Ten years ago, we were involved with a group called Schome, a department of the Open University who were (and undoubtedly still are) researching alternative models of education. For that reason, they were terribly interested in home educators at the time, and invited us to share how and what we were learning. My blog, or …

Half Term catch-up

I don't usually stop and start in line with school terms, but since I have one child in school now, it made sense to take a break while Motorbiker was at home, and also since we moved house! We made a really good start to the year, and got into a pretty good groove, but …

Basic plans Autumn 2016

I thought I would share my basic plans. This is our initial timetable (the times are flexible, just a guideline, and to be honest, the lessons end up being much shorter than the hour I've allowed): The first session is "Morning Time" which includes all of the subjects on the top line, a little each …

Happy new year!

Welcome to September! Another month, another term, another year! Somehow I seem to be starting my 18th year of home education!  This year I'm teaching (or is it facilitating? I still haven't worked that out!) Baba Zonee (B.Z.) who is now 13 and Pony-rider who is now 16. Pony-rider wasn't expecting to be at home …

Birthday Fun

We have a birthday coming up this week, and we're heading out to a second showing of Star Wars as one of the birthday treats. It's always a challenge to organise presents and parties for birthdays so close to Christmas, and it's difficult to make them memorable, as they're normally quiet, family affairs. When birthdays …

2015 in review

Thank-you to all my readers and followers for staying with us in 2015. I know I haven't been terribly consistent, and it probably doesn't look very professional because I rarely manage to include photos, but in my defence, we have had a very disrupted year and, really, this blog has never been some kind of …

How Did We Get Here?

I don't know what happened to November! The last few months seem to have been a blur - less of frenetic activity, and more of illness and confusion. As often happens in a big family, we all take it in turns to get sick, so we can have back-to-back colds and bugs for weeks on …

Stuff we’re using

October isn't over but since I never know when I will have enough energy to get on the laptop, I thought I would write an update now. There are lots of things we're struggling with at the moment, lots of things we would like to do but haven't been able. So instead of dwelling on …

Autumn Plans 2015

Just a quick update and a moan! Our summer has flown by and been filled with a week at Creation Fest (which involved lots of music, skating, and eating doughnuts!) A week with my mum and brother, showing them round north Cornwall, and finally a week in Watford with a few trips and get togethers …