End of Home Ed: A New Adventure

When William entered mainstream education (Year R) he started at the top of his class but by the end of the academic year he was bottom.

Behaviourally Will went from being enthusiastic, engaging and carefree to upset, anxious and emotional. He would have massive emotional outbursts heading to school and subsequently needed dragging in.

Within the schooled environment his behaviour become worse. There were incidents between him and other children and his responses were labelled "abnormally aggressive".

As a teacher (and also working with Ofsted) I knew the school's practices and policies that should have been in place to safeguard and support him. However they became defensive and hostile in response to having their flaws highlighted.

William's mum decided that Home Schooling would be the best option.

A Positive Start

Back to school has pretty much happened for everyone now.

I’ve seen everyone have very mixed feelings about the kids going back.

Me? 

I’m not that bothered. 

Teaching through the Coronavirus

The world has gone a little crazy at the moment with the outbreak of Coronavirus.

I can understand why everyone is worried and panicking a little; this is a new virus and the rate that it is spreading is incredible.

At the moment of writing this the current status from the government is to “stay calm", to self isolate if you have symptoms of a new and persistent cough or if you have a fever at 38° or above. They have advised that all mass gatherings be cancelled so there isn’t a grouped spread of the virus and that adults above 70 and people who are medically vulnerable should isolate from now on (up to 12 weeks)

I’m sure at some point over the next 2 weeks schools will close. This will probably happen when the country or the most severe areas are approaching the peak affected number.

This then would leave a lot of parents “stuck" in a difficult position.

As an ex-teacher and a Home Ed parent I still think children should carry on with some education even if they are at home.

Our Week in Home Ed

Some of you may have noticed that there wasn't a home ed post last week. 

To be honest Home Ed went out the window the last 2 weeks because Will has been unwell. 

He was super tired the first week and looked pale so ended up sleeping a lot. Then this week he ended up with a stomach bug that put him out of action for a few days.

However, we have managed to do a fair bit to catch up. So here's what we managed to do:

Our Week in Home Ed

Home Ed this week has been quite enjoyable. 

We started this week with Hannah's parents here. Although Hannah and her dad went out, Will and I stayed at home with Hannah's mum and did our home ed. It was quite nice to show a little snapshot of what it's like. Even if it was a little difficult at times. 

It was, however, a good excuse to throw ourselves into it first thing Monday.

10 Minute Lessons

We’ve had to change how we teach William.

William is no different to a lot of children I’ve taught over the years.

They get to a certain age and they become defiant with different aspects of schooling.

The most common areas are Literacy and Numeracy.
With Literacy it is usually a combination of writing and reading. By Year 5 and 6 they have hit the point where they’re no longer reading to progress. They’ve passed the Biff and Chip book phase, they’re on to free reading and the books are generally bigger.

A lot of the time it is a combination of finding it tedious and slightly overwhelming. They have to read throughout every lesson in one form or another. They can cope with that. Yet, you give them a book and is suddenly a big ask.

Our Week in Home Ed

Home Ed this week has been really busy. It's also been a bit of a slog at the beginning of the week straight after half term but I often find that the busier we are the easier it is to get over the initial slog. 

This week has also been one of those "less adventurous" weeks where our lessons seem to be in the middle and they're a tad dull compared to other weeks. That said, I still feel like we've achieved a lot.

Our Week in Home Ed

Home Ed this week has been really busy. 

We've had a week were we have had to fit life in around our lessons but we have, in some ways, managed to fit it in.

Our Week in Home Ed

Home Ed is great at the moment. We seem to be covering lots of different topics and importantly Will seems do be learning lots and progressing really well.

Although I usually post photos across social media I know I don't share even half of what we do. Equally, I used to feature any main topic highlights on here but, again, it still didn't show what a week in Home Ed was like for us.

So, I thought I would do a new weekly feature where we show exactly what we've been doing.

The Problem with James

I suppose the title to this post is completely misleading because, quite frankly, there isn’t a problem with James; at least for the people who know him there isn't.

James has always been James; bright, bubbly, fun-loving, sensitive, funny and often at times brutally critical of me (Much to everyone’s enjoyment when I share what he has said)

When he was a baby it was a rough time for both his mum and I as we were in the middle of separating and having to deal with the rubbish that goes with it. Most of my readers will know that through the years we ended up focused and looking forward to having the great co-parenting relationship that we have but at the beginning it was very different.

To add to that upheaval James, at 6 months old, ended up in hospital after an incredibly bad asthma attack; it left him so weak and looked incredibly vulnerable.

Brick History at The Historic Dockyard, Chatham



I often receive emails asking if we are interested in going to one event or another and although I think many would like these events I usually turn them down if they either don’t strike something we would all be interested in as a family or are not educational for Home Ed.

It has always just been something that I have done and never mean it to be a negative to the event we have been invited to.

Recently, The Historic Dockyard, Chatham contacted us regarding “Brick History;” an event that travels through time exploring 13.8 billion years of the world. Now, admittedly, I have always enjoyed the exhibitions that they hold and as we are currently studying Castles and what they were made of, clever clogs over here thought learning about history of bricks that it would fit quite nicely.

Well, as many of you would enjoy, I was wrong; not that learning about how bricks were made wouldn’t be a great exhibition to visit but the truth behind the exhibition itself was surprising and cool…

Back to a Tailor made Education

It has now been a little over a month since James has started school.

I have always believed that every child is an individual. Everything about them can make them unique and their education isn’t any different.

As a class teacher we had to assess each child and within that separate them into groups according to their ability. It works the majority of the time; you end up with 3 or 4 small groups within the class and work is set to that ability. It sounds so seemingly perfect but the truth is that many children don’t fit the groups you produce. These children may show that they have a greater understanding than children in Group B but are quite far behind some of their peers in Group A. You, as a teacher, just have to be continually aware of each and every child and adjust where possible. Yet, as mentioned above, every child is unique and it isn’t always possible to suit THEIR exact needs.

Half Term: Diggerland Kent

We are extremely lucky and have so many great attractions on our doorstep. As many of you know we try and visit as many of these landmarks and attractions throughout the year as possible; from days out to the seaside, visiting castles or just some random exploration of local woods. Kent seems to be full of child related activities. 

One attraction locally has always appealed to us and I don't know why we haven't been before! 

Diggerland Kent is literally 5 minutes away from us but can be found off of the M2 for signs of Rochester. 

It is known for it's great family days out and even won several awards at the Kent Digital awards (Where I was lucky to meet many of their team!)

The lovely Hannah and the two children were with us again this half term trying to integrate the children, and us, into the future of us being a blended family and although the day to day activities and normal activities seems to be going really well we realised that we haven't tried to do the "family day out" experience with all four children!

We thought Diggerland fitted all of this criteria and provide us all with a lovely day out!

*Be warned this is a photo heavy post. But, how else are we meant to show you the great time without showing all the fun stuff we got up to!*

Reading when Ready with Reading Eggs

As a class teacher I would have sworn by our education system; it was clearly allowing children to progress and achieve at whatever cost.

As a Primary school teacher and having responsibilities over KS1 I was often found in learning material and termly tracking charts for not only my own class but for others too. In essence, although quite demanding, the tracking of pupil’s in subjects like Literacy showed not only the child’s ability but also the teacher’s strengths and highlighted key lesson components that were either successful or failing. In the latter scenario you could see that the whole class were struggling with understanding and you could find other plans, techniques and activities to bridge that gap. I always found this great and allowed me as a teacher and overseer of other classes to push children to their maximum capability.

The Summer Space Project - Lava Lamps

Following on with our Summer Space project we have been learning about the Moon and also about our neighbour planet Venus.

It was really interesting learning about our neighbour planet that we wanted to explore the other planets in our solar system too.

On looking a little closer at some planets we found that a few have volcanoes on them and it was something that really interested the children.

I always find volcanoes a really alien part of our planet anyway. They are volatile, explosive and because of the different levels of structure they can be quite alien compared to the rest of the life and structure of planet earth.

Despite this there is a certain element of “they belong on earth” when actually any planet that has or had a molten core would of course have volcanoes too.

Volcanism has played a major part in shaping not only planet Earth, but other places in our universe. Though other planets show signs of volcanic eruptions, most seemed to have erupted in the distant past and are inactive now. Both Mars and Venus have volcanoes much larger than any on Earth, and they have erupted huge amounts of lava onto their surfaces in the past.

The planet Venus has a surface that is 90% basalt, indicating that volcanism played a major role in shaping its surface. The planet may have had a major global resurfacing event about 500 million years ago, from what scientists can tell from the density of impact craters on the surface. Lava flows are widespread and forms of volcanism not present on Earth occur as well. Changes in the planet's atmosphere and observations of lightning have been attributed to ongoing volcanic eruptions, although there is no confirmation of whether or not Venus is still volcanically active.

This is the cool part for children I think. The idea that lava, a hot unstable feature that is known to happen here can happen on other planets is rather cool.

We did create our own papier mache volcanoes (like any part with primary aged children should do) but the lava part was still intriguing. It was because of this that I remembered a science activity on how to make your own lava lamps and thought we could combine the two parts; volcanoes and lava and a cool activity!

The Summer Space Project - Marble Planets

Following on with our Summer Space project  we have been learning about the Moon and also about our neighbour planet Venus.

It was really interesting learning about our neighbour planet that we wanted to explore the other planets in our solar system. We would, of course, have wanted to cover each planet individually but that would have been quite time consuming; instead I decided that we would create our solar system and cover a few different facts about each planet.

Each planet is quite easy to recognise according to the colour. In some cases there are some subtle differences but colour is key. I originally wanted to paint directly to circular discs  but where is the fun in that?

I decided then to make a marble effect using foam and paint to hopefully cover the glossy image that planets have!

Surviving Summer and Keeping Energised

The end of the summer holidays is near and I know many parents are in the same position as me; tired, tired and more tired.

We’ve been having a jammed packed few weeks. Hannah and I have taken advantage of the school holidays and tried to spend as much time together as possible.

As a long distance relationship it can be difficult at times to go long periods without seeing each other. The difficulty lies with having children and when we can actually spend time together.

Having one set of children in full time education and another set with regular committed access times it makes term time visits incredibly difficult. However, the holiday period meant we can have solid time together.

This also allowed us time to see how well the children can blend together. We were both very aware that this could go quite badly but it was, in our opinion, worth finding out and trying.

One thing was clear from the start; there will be a lot of driving from Kent to Cornwall and back and to try and have the energy to manage and entertain 4 similarly aged primary children.

The 300+ miles and 5 hours and 30 minutes of driving can be quite draining. The drive itself isn’t, in my opinion, too bad but the strain of driving, being restricted and concentrating on the road and the cars around you is both mentally and physically demanding.

This, of course, is based upon the best case scenario and not getting caught in traffic, heavy holiday drivers and, the usual, extra busy movement on the A303 around Stonehenge. It has on a couple of occasions meant that a 5 hour journey has turned into 9 hours which, understandably, increases the exhaustion of everyone in the car.

The Summer Space Project - Venus and Creating Co2

Following on with our Summer Space project  and learning about the Moon we also wanted to look at our neighbour planet Venus.

Venus is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the Sun, and bulk composition.

However, it is radically different from Earth in other respects. It has the densest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), consisting of more than 96% carbon dioxide.

The Summer Space Project - The Moon

We have been busy investigating our Summer Space project and it occurred to me that despite me telling you that it was our topic that I haven't posted all of the fun that we have had!

 

We started with the moon.

 

William had been asking lots of questions about the moon, why it is so large and yet smaller than the earth and why it changes shape.

 

After searching on YouTube I found this great video which discusses the phases or the moon.

A Letter to My Children: Stand Up for what you Believe in!

To William and James

We live in a world of darkness, hate, violence and injustice. A world where people will do whatever they can because they believe they are doing the right thing.

They are not completely wrong in doing this. They are passionate about what they are doing even if at times, in my opinion, they are misguided in opinion and actions.

We have spoken about the hurt and violence caused by others where they have bombed innocent people, attacked and abused others in a name of a cause they believe in. We have had to discuss why these people are doing this and why, within this, that they aren’t representing the true nature of the name they fight for.

We have then spoken about God, our church and our faith and how religion can create extremists that don’t represent the love that is the foundation of our faith. We have spoken that although the terrorist extremists will do such horrendous acts in the name of their faith that we too have extremists doing similar acts which we don’t condone either.

However, we have spoken about hope, strength, being brave and standing up for what you believe in. It is OUR strength in these moments that show who we really are and the outpouring of love and community good despite, and especially within, these moments.

Don’t ever feel like you have to compromise what you believe in because others have brought fear, scaremongering and hate towards your view.