Learning At Home

2018 has been flying by and as a family we have been adjusting to doing life in a very different way.  I have been a little apprehensive about sharing this recent change to our lives, primarily because it can prove to be an emotive subject and I have been somewhat taken aback by the responses I have received from some people.

In September, DH and I started home educating Babygirl.  Babygirl started Reception class in September 2017 and completed a full year of school.  It wasn't a positive experience and many of the fears and worries I had about putting Babygirl into the school system started to surface in her experiences.  In reality I will probably write a whole post about our experiences of her year in school, but for now I will just share that by the end of Easter term, Babygirl was crying daily and increasingly becoming convinced that she was not smart and unable to learn.  By the summer term, it was clear that Babygirl was not flourishing or enjoying the school experience.  The obvious decision would be to look at other schools but I just felt that was not the solution but that we needed to consider something different.

Let me be clear that I am passionate about education and I am not "anti-school" however I have my questions about whether the school system is really educating our children and catering for all types of learners that walk through their doors.  I don't blame the teachers (as an ex-teacher, I know how hard they work), but I do feel that the school system is not able to effectively meet the needs of all their learners.  I have always been interested in home education and always felt that it was something that I would want to do but I felt that it would an option only for those who were very wealthy etc.  As I watched Babygirl become more withdrawn and anxious, I knew that it was time to evaluate our options.  I discussed home education with DH and was astounded to discover that he was totally up for it and actually preferred the idea of us taking over her education fully.

So at the start of year 1 instead of Babygirl putting on her school uniform and heading back to school, we settled down to start learning at home.  We are now in our final term of home education and whilst it has been a steep learning curve for all of us and challenging at times, Babygirl is flourishing! 

This post is really my announcement to the "world" that we are home educating Babygirl but I would like to share much more.  I am thinking that a series of blog posts explaining our detailed journey into home education, how it has affected us as a family, dispelling some common myths about home education and much more.

Please leave questions or topics that you would like me to cover!

Until next time,
Cece