"What do you do all day?"

I was asked this recently when discussing our life with a friend. This was a friend who doesn't quite "get" home education. And who can blame them? I didn't get it either before we started it. Not really. I was interested in it, and I was jealous of the people who did it. No ties to school runs and expensive half term holidays. Time to enjoy their children before they grew up and flew the nest. But I didn't really understand what it involved.

Since we've started home educating, I've realised that there are generally two types of people who don't "get" HE. The first type are the ones who think our children sit at home all day not doing anything constructive and don't see anyone else in the outside world ("but how will they learn how to socialise??" and the second type are the ones who think the children are chained to the dining table spending 6hrs a day writing in exercise books while I stand in front of them "teaching".

Well, maybe there are those extremes in the HE world, but I am yet to meet anyone who's home ed looks like that. Our reality is this:

I have three children aged 4 1/2, 11 and 14.

My 14yr old has decided on the subjects she'd like to take at GCSE level and has always been a bit of a book-work type of person and so she is quite happy working through ks3 text books. In September we will buy the correct text books for the exams she would like to sit. These will be English IGCSE, Maths GCSE, Geography IGCSE, History GCSE and Biology IGCSE. We'll buy the text books and those along with past papers and various online resources and you tube videos she'll hopefully feel prepared enough to sit the exams in 2019. A lot of home educators don't do them all at once. Often they take one or two each year over, maybe, 3 yrs so that there is much less work and pressure to get the work done. However, my daughter is more of a "let's get it all out of the way all at once" type of person - possibly a bit like her mother!! So she's opted to do all 5 at once - but take 2yrs to study for them. She also does 2 sessions a week working alongside a football coach, coaching children aged between 4 and 11 which is what she loves most of all. Although she doesn't see it "education" she also comes along with the rest of us for trips out which I am sure she learns more from than she realises! (See below!)

My 11yr old is much less workbook-y. He learns best by hands on or documentaries. He uses a maths programme called conquermaths which he's really enjoying (considering maths was always his worst subject at school) alongside Prodigy Maths which is a game based mental maths type game. Again, he'll do this voluntarily without protest which is a huge plus in my eyes!  He is a natural writer and although we do use CGP books for English, he also supplements this with his own story writing. Science we cover in various forms such as Mystery Science which is an online lesson with hands on experiments to complete as well as some written work. We also watch endless documentaries which cover a huge variety of topics relating to science, geography and history. He's also just become interested in hiking and so we go for regular walks locally in the countryside and he'll soon be the one reading the OS maps instead of me. What better way to learn geography skills than getting out there and having weekly (or more than weekly) field trips. These trips often involve stopping off at historic places of interest whether it be old churches, English Heritage castles or just for some stone skimming on the beach!  Talking of beaches, in the warmer months he has his swimming lessons here (when I say lessons, I mean he spends hours having fun in the water but over the summer managed to really improve his strength in swimming) but in the cooler weather we go to the local pool which has discounted HE swimming sessions. Also at the beach we do lots of exploring of the shoreline or rockpools and enjoy identifying things we have found along the way.

My son is a keen photographer and artist and so he often will be seen taking endless photographs of the scenery we've come across or the items he has found and then sketching them once he gets home.

On top of this, he has extra curricular groups/lessons that he attends - drama, parkour and football.

My 4yr old would have started school last September if we had sent him, although he is not legal school starting age until September this year. His education is mainly play based. We do have our routines such as bedtime stories every night and a reading programme called pippoplearning most days. He also chooses to go on Teach your monster to read as and when he wants (often a couple of times a week) and has also recently got interested in minecraft. But mainly he plays. He plays with small world toys such as trains and tracks, cars and his road mat, mini people or character figures, construction toys such as lego, zoobs, wooden blocks and wood and nails! He's also following in his brother's footsteps and is very into drawing at the moment which I am encouraging no end as the more he draws, the more he develops his hand muscles ready for writing. He has written a few things when he's asked to copy something but right now I'm not pushing the writing as he loves drawing so much and feel this is enough at age 4 to develop the correct muscles. He watches tv and you tube - he's so interested in things and how they work that he'll do anything in his power to find out the answers to his questions. As I type this he is watching "Britain's Secret Seas" a bbc documentary which he is absolutely glued to right now, but also watches various cbeebies programmes - the ones with "real" information being his favourite such as "Do you know", "I can cook" and "Octonauts". There's also a programme called "Magic School Bus" on Netflix which at first seems like an annoying Scooby Doo style retro cartoon. However, on closer inspection, it has a huge amount of scienctific teaching that goes on there - some things both myself and my 11yr old didn't even know ourselves so often we find ourselves all watching it as a family. You tube favourites also include "Come Outside" with the lovely Pippin and Auntie Mabel.

On top of all of the above, he also obviously joins us in our walks and explorations, swimming and football. He also does his own two dance classes and gymnastics. All of which he adores. We also meet up with friends at least once or twice a week for play dates either outside or in play centres. He mixes with other children most days and so do my older children either through groups or going out with friends and so I can honestly say Home Ed children really don't miss out socially. In fact, in my own children's point of view, they have a more active social life than most school children who have to sit next to whoever they're told to rather than a friend of choice.

At the weekend we do normal family things once their dad is home - zoo trips, country walks, chores such as shopping and DIY.

Would I change my life? Never. It is the best thing we've ever done!! xx

The good things in life...

"When you finally get something good, enjoy it. 

Don't always go looking for something better."

I saw this quote on facebook today and it really struck a chord with me. Many years ago when my eldest, who is now 13, was very tiny. I used to read a cute little book to her. It was about a mouse family who took walks along the sand, swam in the rivers, lived in the country with fields and trees where they made rope swings and went for jogs... you get my drift. When I read it to my little girl, who was then a toddler, I would tell her that one day we'll get to live by the sea and have walks along the sand, be able to climb trees and swim wildly in the sea or rivers. 

A couple of years later, when my daughter was 3 and my, then youngest, was 8mths old, we moved to live near the sea. Unfortunately I had long term postnatal depression that lasted from when my son was born until he was 2 1/2 yrs old so, despite it being exactly what I had wanted for years, it wasn't something that I appreciated fully for a long time.

A lot has changed over the past 10 years that we've been living here. We've had good times and bad times, the last year being one of the worst we've ever had for varying reasons... but all of that has led to something amazing happening. I have felt this on and off for the past few years now, but not as much as I feel it now. I am so so happy in my life right now. So grateful for what I have. I'm approaching 40 and I guess it's a time in my life that I can look at it and see what I've done. I have achieved SO much. Maybe not in the same way that someone else might view achievement. But for me it is all I ever wanted. 

I live in that house by the sea. We have a woodland running along the back of our garden so our view from our decking and our bedroom window is nothing but green trees and an abundance of birds and wildlife. 

We have been lucky enough for a colony of bees to set up a temporary home in our garden 3 years running and a permanent home once. We don't have a lot of flowers in our garden, but we do have lots of green hedges, and I guess that's just something they must like.

 We go for walks along the sand, swim in the sea, the children climb trees and play in the woods. 

We are lucky enough to have made some wonderful friends since we have lived here and my parents and sister also live within walking distance to our house.

I haven't made a huge career for myself but I do what I love. I write. I create. And I surround myself with my beautiful beautiful children. Home educating 2 of them is amazing. In July I will have all 3 of them here with me learning and enjoying life together. We have great plans for the future and we are so excited for what we hope to achieve. Our home, however busy and hectic it gets, is where all our hearts lie. I love my home and have big plans on how to make the spaces within it work better for when we are all here (watch this space).

I was always the one who was "looking for something better". There was always something that I was searching for to make my life complete. But this is it. This is what I dreamed of when I was a child. This is my life. C x

New year, new start

It's funny how in January many people either start a new blog or try and revamp their old one, start a diary, a new fitness regime, a diet, or something else that they will most definitely keep up with... until mid January when it all falls apart! Well, we have a new start in our house.. a few really.

As I've mentioned previously, we decided when my youngest was a baby that we would probably Home Educate him until the age of 7. I'm early years trained with a degree in early childhood and health and I couldn't shift my view that a young child shouldn't be in formal education until at least age 7. Children learn through uninterrupted play. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti - school, but when you've spent all your adult life watching young children learn (including your own), and you've researched the whole subject extensively for various university essays, you pick up the pros and cons of various settings and for me, a school or nursery setting just isn't appropriate for a young child. They need to be able to make their own choices on what to learn, play with and do. They need to have time to get fully immersed in what they are doing without the need to stop for the register or story time, or outdoor play time or because it's assembly or home time. Yes, there is a need to learn how to share and play cooperatively together, but I don't believe that needs to be all day every day from the age of 2 or 3 or 4 or even 5. They can learn those types of social skills from siblings, playing in the park with other children or playing at friend's house. If school was for 2 or 3 sessions a week of a couple of hours at a time of totally free play, I would certainly consider it. But not for 6 hours a day and 5 days a week at such a tiny age. So HE it will be until age 7. And once we get there, we will review the situation.

To add to that, due to various reasons, we have also de-registered our 13 yr old to be HE. This may be a temporary thing, it may be permanent. Who knows. All we know is that is is the right thing to do NOW. For her. If an adult were in a job that they hated, the sensible thing to do would be to start looking for another job. No one would tell you you have to stay there for the next 4 or 6 years. It would be up to you to choose to make a change, and so we decided it was no different for one of our children.

It is very early days and we are all adjusting to this new way of learning, but I know deep in my heart it was the right decision. The start of a new adventure in our lives.

Talking of adventure, after going through a tough time over the past few months, we have decided as a family that life is far too short to put off the kind of life we would love to have.  We also realise that having a family of five ranging in ages from 3 up to 39, we will obviously all have different interests. "Perfectionist" me has always been the one to insist on family time at the weekends but this has got increasingly harder when someone really doesn't enjoy what they others want to do. It's taken me a while, but I have finally accepted that it doesn't matter! We don't ALL have to be together ALL weekend! We always have meals together, we live in the same house and we sit around and talk A LOT, so if we don't go for a walk in the country as a family every weekend - so what!  C (aged 10) and I love swimming but G, N and F aren't keen. So C and I will start going swimming sometimes on our own (shock horror!) A couple of years ago I would NOT have accepted that. I would have made everyone go which meant we only went sporadically as it was too much like hard work to make them go regularly. N (aged 13) and G (aged 39!) love cycling but the rest of us aren't great cyclists really, however much I want to be. So he had she will be having some hacks in the country sometimes without us (or while we're playing in the park!) 

You see, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that everyone is enjoying their own life and not living someone else's.