What’s out there to help parents/guardians who choose to home educate their child or children?
Posted on 31st January 2022 at 15:39
What’s out there to help parents/guardians who choose to home educate their child or children?
With the popularity of Home Education increasing, online resources to assist parents and guardians with what is a massive minefield, are becoming more and more important. As a parent or guardian, where do you begin? Is it right to home educate? Can you academically and emotionally do it? What help, if any, is there out there? I can’t answer the first questions, it is up to you to decide, and some people are more able to cope mentally than others. The answer to the last question though, is easy and it is yes, there is help out there. Personally, I would point you to Course Detective’s website www.coursedetective.co.uk in the first instance – there is a plethora of information and resources on the site that can point you in the right direction (you may even decide to sign up to a course yourself!).
Once you have made the decision to home educate, how do you ascertain what level your child should achieve? Most that choose the route of home education have no teaching experience themselves, so how do you know you are doing the right thing? Are you following the correct curriculum? Should you follow a curriculum at all? What are you trying to achieve for your child? To be honest, the list of questions is endless. They are also difficult to answer but as a close friend of mine is home educating her son, I feel I have some knowledge in the area!
There are various reasons my friend made the decision to home educate and there was a lot of soul searching and questioning before she took the leap. Taking on the role of educator as well as mother has been quite a journey and while it is now going very well for both, it has not always been plain sailing – by any means! I found myself regularly visiting (with chocolates and wine!) trying to convince her that she was doing a good job. The problem was, she had no bench mark, no previous experience, so she had nothing to compare herself to. Almost daily, she was struggling. When her son was doing well, she felt that they should have achieved more; when he was struggling, she blamed herself. It was a vicious cycle. That is when I suggested the use of Rocket Learn Online Learning & Tutoring for children aged 7-16+ | RocketLearn. They offer various packages to assist with home education. By far the most popular is their Launch Package – this includes weekly feedback from an academic coach, personalised work to fill in any gaps in your child’s knowledge and a personal progress report. If you sign up to any of their courses you have access to Steam School, Century and IXL Learning. The staff at Rocket Learn are really helpful so if you have any questions you can contact them at info@rocketlearn.co.uk or call 0113 450 8551.
If you are one of over 81,000 families choosing home education, remember that having made the choice to home educate, you are enough, you can do it and you have resources available to you should you find any areas of home education too complicated, or you just need reassurance. In my experience, most people who choose to home educate lack self-confidence – use Rocket Learn to show you that you can do it and your child is highly likely to thrive!
There is little or no data available to know how home educated children fair in the long term, as compared to school educated children, but as more people make the choice to home educate, the data will become more robust and usable. Until then, keep at it, keep educating, use those resources, be proud of what you are achieving and stand by your choice.
Tagged as: Home education
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