EOS Mag Issue 6 Autumn 2012 by Education Outside School Magazine

EOS Home Educating a Child with Aspergers Adventures Away From Home How a residential break can be just the thing!

How is Home Education Perceived in the Media? Work and HE Continuing our series

One Familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Journey to Home Education History by Accident Who needs a curriculum?!

Plus Activities, Cookery, Project Ideas and more!

CONTENTS Welcome

Letters and News

Home Ed Blog Roundup

6-7

Growing Pains Life as a Home Schooled Teen By Kim Hughes

Baking Bread

10-11

Children’s Pages Recipes, activities etc

How is Home Education Perceived in the Media? By Kim Hughes

HE and Working

Reviews and Recommendations

Home Educating a Child with Aspergers - One Parent’s Perspective By Yvonne Frost

Adventures Away from Home By Paula Cleary History by Accident! By Jane Levicki

Home Education Guidance The legal stuff!

Websites and Groups

Our Journey to Home Education By Clare Cole

Internet Links in this Magazine Throughout the online version of this magazine all web addresses and email addresses should be hyperlinked - that is, if you hover the mouse over them the pointer will turn into a hand and you will be able to click to go straight through the the website. Similarly with books on the Reviews pages and in the References at the bottom of articles - you should be able to click them to be taken through to the appropriate page on amazon.co.uk. If any of the links don’t work, please do let us know so we can put it right. Please consider purchasing from Amazon through one of the links here. This will mean that EOS will earn a small commission. This is just one of the ways that we can build up funds to take the magazine into print! Contacting Us: If you’d like to submit an article, please email: articles@educationoutsideschool.co.uk

Why EOS? As well as being the acronym of our title ‘Education Outside School’, Eos was also the name of the Greek goddess of the dawn. We think this is very apt, since often the discovery of home education feels like a new dawn for many families!

If you’d like to advertise, please email: advertising@educationoutsideschool.co.uk To contact the Editors, please email: editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk EDITORIAL POLICY The editors have the final say in deciding if contributions are printed and in which issue. There will sometimes be a need for editing contributions, for reasons of space, clarity, brevity, tone or otherwise. COPYRIGHT All attempts have been made to find copyright owners and are acknowledged if found; if you think yours has been breached please email us. DISCLAIMER Education Outside School is an independent publication, not allied with any home education group or organisation. Any opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the editors. All contributions (including advertisements) have been accepted in good faith and have not been in any way endorsed by EOS, which cannot be held responsible for the consequences of responding to any of them.

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Welcome to Education Outside School Magazine!

A very warm welcome to the Autumn 2012 issue of EOS! Probably warmer than the summer we’ve been having! This issue features appearances from some of our regular writers. Paula Cleary explores the importance of taking time out from the family - only this time she’s talking about it from a child’s point of view as she recounts her experience of sending her son off to a residential holiday on a much needed break from his brothers! A keen blogger herself, Paula also gives a quick roundup of some of her favourite HE blogs. Yvonne Frost tells us about home educating a child with Aspergers and how rewarding it can be. We welcome new writers Clare Cole and Kim Hughes. Clare tells us about her own personal journey to home education. We’re always fascinated to hear how different people come across home ed and we’re sure you are too! Kim was home educated herself and, now 22, she is going to be writing a regular column called ‘Growing Pains’, talking about what it’s like to be home educated as a teenager. In this issue she also writes about home education in the media. We are delighted to have her on board! We also feature activities and recipes which we hope you’ll find inspiring, plus reviews of books, magazines and websites you may want to try. Our next issue will be out in the Winter. If you’d like to make sure you keep informed, the best way is to ‘Like’ our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or pop over to our website and sign up for our email mailing list! Lorena and Jane

Have a great Autumn! @EOSmagazine

EducationOutsideSchool

Meet the Editors Jane has four children currently aged 19, 16, 13 and 11. They been home educating for nearly eleven years. They dip into all approaches from autonomous to structured, depending on the child, the subject and how everyone is feeling! Her eldest has just left college while her youngest decided to give school at go so at the moment they have a foot in both camps. Outside of EOS you can find her on her blog at www.manydifferentdrums.blogspot.com Lorena has been home educating for 4 years as her eldest is now 9. Though her interest in HE has been for all of those 9 years. He is currently interested in building model aeroplanes, will be helping his Dad build a bed and reads constantly, interspersed with a little PS2 time. Lorena's daughter is now 3, and she is a busy child, rarely stopping except to eat something, though that is also often done on the go! You can contact us via the email addresses on page 2!!

Cover photo © Karen Rodgers www’educationchoice.org

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A Note about Photos Pictures are important to us - we know you don’t want a magazine full of just text! We try to use as many genuine home ed photos in the magazine as we possibly can. By that we mean photos of home educated children (or adults!) engaging in activities alone or in groups - either groups that consist solely of home educators or that feature home educated children being part of other groups. Sometimes, though, we don’t have an appropriate home ed photo we can use in which case we’ll use a photo available on a Creative Commons licence which allows us free use and we’ll credit the photographer.

The Front Cover of Issue 1 showed co-editor Jane’s daughter Anya fascinated by a chick they hatched

If you have any photos that you think we could use we’d be very grateful to receive them. They’ll need to be high resolution and, of course, you’ll need to guarantee that anyone featured in the photo has given their permission (or their parent/guardian has). Contact us at editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk.

We have specific criteria for front cover photos - they need to be portrait, very high resolution, and the composition needs to be such that we can overlay text without interfering with the picture. So far we are delighted that every front cover has been a genuine home ed photo!

Meet our Writers! The writers in this issue are: Kim Hughes

Kim was autonomously home educated her entire life, until she attended college at 16. At 22, she now works for Media One Communications, a publishing house where she handles advertising and press releases. Kim will be writing a regular column on life as a home educated teenager!

Paula Cleary

Paula lives in Cambridgeshire where she home educates her four sons! She happily admits she is making it up as she goes along, and is deeply committed to freedom magazine and keeps her own blog at in education. Paula has also written for www.feetonthegroundandheadintheclouds.blogspot.com

Clare Cole

Clare is a home educating mother of three and a freelance writer who has previously written for , magazine and Currently she is also completing an MA in Creative Writing.

Yvonne Frost

Yvonne lives in the Lake District with her husband and three wonderful children. She has given up her job as a lawyer and is living the ‘good life’ writing freelance whilst autonomously home educating Jamie who has Aspergers syndrome. You can find her blog at www.yvonnes-ruralramblings.blogspot.com

If you would like to write for us please get in touch! We are happy to receive articles and features on all topics related to home education and learning, including personal accounts. Have a look at previous copies of the magazine to get an idea and if you have any other queries do contact us at editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk

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Letters and News Here at EOS we are always on the alert for items of news that we think you might want to hear. Whether it’s some new development in the education world, or a big success by a home educated young person, we aim to share it with you. Contact us at editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk

How many children are home educated? It’s not an easy question! Local authorities must be informed of children who are deregistered from school (parents must inform the school, the school informs the LA). But if children have not been to school parents are not obliged to inform anyone that they are home educating. Neither are parents who move into a new authority’s area obliged to inform them that they are there! So there is no definitive way of counting all home educated children. However, at the end of 2011 Fiona Nicholson sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to all Local Authorities in England requesting the number of children they had listed as home educated. Earlier this year she published the results on her website as below. This gives an indication of how many children are known to be home educated in England. Please remember that this is not a definitive number, partly due to the reasons Fiona mentions and also because there will be many more who are not know to the LAs.

2011 Numbers Similar to 2009 April 3rd 2012 total snapshot number of home educated children from all 152 Local Authorities in England is 20,842. The 2009 total was 20,342.

Full set of 2005-2011 Numbers From 48 Local Authorities I now have figures from 2005-2011 inclusive for 48 local authorities. In these authorities, between 2005-6 there was a 15% rise; between 2006-7, a 10% rise; between 2007-8, a 10% rise; between 2008-9, a 3% rise; between 2009-10 a 1% rise, and between 2010-11, a 1% rise.

2011 Statistics 10 Councils have seen home education numbers fall by 70+ since 2009, while 6 Councils saw similar rise. 52% of local authorities have more home educated children than in 2009 while 34% have fewer and 11% have around the same (with "the same" being defined as less than 5% up or down on 2009 number) There may be a tendency for larger LAs to see a reduction in numbers while the smaller LAs see an increase. It should also be remembered that 63% of Local Authorities have fewer than 100 home educated children. Numbers may go up and down considerably throughout the year. Children are taken off the Council list as they reach the end of compulsory education and therefore cease to be counted. Children are also taken off the list if they enter (or reenter) the school system but this may not be picked up or tracked promptly since there is no requirement to inform the authority if a child is no longer home educated. It became clear from the FOI answers that local authorities had many different ways of recording the number of home educated children. Some Councils took a snapshot at a particular time (or multiple times) in the year, while other Councils added each new name to the total list of all children already known to be home educated. Where the local authorities' answer suggested that the number was the running total over the whole year, I sent a supplementary request clarifying my purpose and asking for a recent snapshot number. It is the snapshot numbers which are being used here. The total should not be treated as a census-type figure since the snapshot dates vary from Council to Council. © Fiona Nicholson www.edyourself.org www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk

Home Ed Blog Roundup We would normally feature Patch of Puddles here, the regular column of home educator and blogger Merry Raymond. Merry is taking a break this issue (sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be back soon!) so in her place Paula Cleary, one of our regular writers, tells us about some of the home ed blogs she is enjoying at the moment. Check them out and, if your favourites are missing, let us know!

(Pssst....... Paula also blogs at http://feetonthegroundandheadintheclouds.blogspot.co.uk/ )

Classroom Free is by a mama with five kids whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a bit punky and alternative- I like to read it because it's great to know how mamas with more children than me cope with it! She is an unschooler and so it's good place to learn how it can be done, and the ups and downs of life with five kids.

Blog by a mama in Norfolk who is finding her way with unschooling philosophy and I really enjoy reading about her journey, she is a beautiful writer http://homeednewbies.blogspot.co.uk/

http://classroomfree.blogspot.co.uk/

Because Zoe is a fellow mama of four and she is great at documenting what they all do - she's very creative, which is always inspiring. http://barrasschoolofexcellence.blogspot.co.uk/ Afellow juno friend and home edder, she lives an unusual life, was on a narrowboat, now in a yurt village, very earthy and alternative, always interesting. http://giveanearthly.blogspot.co.uk/

Friends of ours with two sets of twins - lots of inspiring links and interesting observations about life. http://themasterplanandme.blogspot.co.uk/

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Ross is a writer who home educated her two daughters for many years. Her blog, like her books, aim to inspire other home educating parents. http://rossmountney.wordpress.com/

Short, daily thought-provoking posts from well-known unschooler Sandra Dodd to help people understand unschooling philosophy and apply it in their lives. http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.co.uk/

Lovely blog about home edding, great resources. http://the-chicken-shed.blogspot.co.uk/ A friend's home ed blog, she is following her dreams and raising her kids in a yurt in a gorgeous woodland, and unfolding as a creative writer which is really great.

What is a blog?

http://abisnailtrail.blogspot.co.uk/

Blogging about natural parenting and homeschooling among other things! http://phoebedot.blogspot.co.uk/

The word ‘blog’ is a combination of the words ‘web log’. It is a kind of online diary, a record of thoughts, discussions etc known as posts and displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent is always displayed first. Anyone can start and run a blog for free. You can search for ‘blog providers’ on the internet. Two popular ones are www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com Blogs are run by all kinds of people on all kinds of subjects. Sometimes they just want a record of what they’ve been doing, perhaps for distant family members to keep in touch. Sometimes they blog to make money, perhaps from sponsorship or advertising. Companies might blog as part of their marketing strategy. Sometimes blogging is a way to be part of a community, to give support and advice - this is usually where home ed blogging fits in!

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Growing Pains: Life as a Home Schooled Teen By Kim Hughes In this issue we are very pleased to introduce Kim Hughes. Kim was autonomously home educated her entire life, until she attended college at 16. An untraditional early noughties teenager, she grew up with teen vampire novels (before they became movies), knitting, dancing and martial arts. At 22, Kim now works for Media One Communications, a publishing house where she handles advertising and press releases. Kim will be writing a regular column for us in which she’ll be talking about her experiences of being home educated as a teenager. Welcome Kim!

ome education in your teens is a vast and complex journey. Concerns that weren’t apparent in your childhood seem to pop up and expose challenges that can add to an already troubling and changing time. Having been autonomously home educated my entire life, I found that sometimes it seemed like I looked at the world in a completely differently way to my peers. Worrying about the latest fashion trend, who was in the charts or who had the coolest hair was far from my concerns – I was too busy writing my own book. The wonderful thing about being autonomously educated is that you don’t have the restrictions of the class room schedule; you can learn what you want, when you want. Plus I was lucky enough to grow up with the

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rise of the internet, all that information at your finger tips, even if I did often struggle with distraction from social networking, which was Myspace at the time. Before reaching my teens I remember my childhood being filled with lots of questions, ones that I asked and ones that people asked me – about my education! HE is less of a taboo subject now than it was in the 90s. Then it was often judged, ridiculed and stereotyped by those that didn't really know or understand it, however I know now that my peers who teased me were actually envious of my freedom. This isn’t to say that home schooling is the be all and end all of education, that there isn’t a better way. We all do things we don’t like sometimes, simply because we have to, and I do know for a fact that some home educated youths grew up disliking it for multiple reasons. My main reason for sometimes disliking my way of life came from sometimes feeling like the weirdo of the group. Friends would go on about their week at school, joking about how

they annoyed their teacher in RE, and I didn’t have grounds for conversation. It’s most likely that you’ll be the last to know about the latest craze and I can almost guarantee that at some point one of your mates will ask you what level you’re at for English and maths, automatically making you think that you need to be at the same level as them for every single subject; even though, in fact, you’re higher in some. Be careful with competing against others as, like me, you may wake up one day realising that you’ve spent far too long trying to prove a point to the world. The only person you should be competing with is yourself and that’s only because you’re a passionate individual that loves expanding their mind and skills. HE as a teen is never dull; there are always dilemmas and problems that appear, with no one to really speak to because they just don’t understand. Every following article of Growing Pains will tackle issues that I personally faced (believe me there were many), detailing where possible solutions to help you on your journey. w

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Baking Bread Bread. A staple in many a diet. You can pick it up at every supermarket, corner shop and farmers’ market in a huge variety of forms, yet we so often take it for granted. Perhaps next time you’re buying bread you could stop with your children and look at the ingredients. This could be the incentive to try your hand at making your own, thus avoiding the emulsifier and ‘flour treatment agent’! And it’s a wonderfully educational process. From the mathematics of weights and measures, to the chemistry of yeast; the skill of patience as you leave the dough to rise and the art of shaping it. And that’s not to mention the reward at the end - a taste that’s so different from the shop bought product it’s almost a different food entirely! Your children are bound to take lots from the whole experience. Many people think that bread making is complex and difficult. But it need not be at all. One of my favourite recipes at the moment is this one for bread rolls, taken from a book called ‘Home-baked Breads and Scones’ which was published back in 1977 - I think I must have inherited it from my mother! It’s a straight forward method that has never failed me. As it was published 35 years ago the measurements are in imperial and I make no apology for leaving them so! You can choose to set your scales to pounds and ounces for a bit of history, or do some converting to grams first. I choose the former for nostalgia! Jane

Step 1

Ingredients

Mix the salt into the flour in a large bowl.

1 lb flour 2 tsps salt 2 oz butter, margarine or lard, cold 1 tsp sugar

Cut the fat into chunks and add to the flour and salt. Rub the fat in thoroughly.

½ pint milk, warmed

Step 2 - Activate the Yeast

½ oz dried yeast

Yeast is a living organism; in dried format it is dormant and needs to be activated or ‘proofed’. Warm the milk until it’s about 100°-110°F or 37° - 43°C. That’s slightly higher than body temperature so the milk should feel warm to the touch. Too cold and the yeast won’t activate properly; too hot and it will die. Whisk the yeast into the warm milk, add the milk and whisk again. Leave until it froths - this should take about 10 minutes. Use bread flour for preference but I’ve used ordinary plain flour if that’s all I have in the cupboard and it’s worked. Alternatively use a mixture of bread and plain, white and wholemeal - whatever you have to hand 10

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Step 3 Make a well in the flour mixture and add the frothy yeast liquid. Mix to a dough and knead until it is elastic - about 10-15 minutes. You may need to add a little more flour if the dough is too sticky. You’ll know when it’s elastic when you push the centre in with the heel of your hand and can see it spring slowly back. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover with a cloth and put in a warm place - an airing cupboard is great, but any warm place will do - even a sunny windowsill, especially if you are using a metal bowl which conducts the heat well. Leave the dough until it doubles in size. This can take an hour or maybe more.

Step 4 When risen, knead again for a few minutes, then shape into rolls. The recipe says these quantities should make 16 round rolls, but you can make more or less. Be creative too - we like to make plaits! Place the rolls on a greased baking tray, cover with a cloth and leave in a draught-free place until they have once more doubled in size (about 15 minutes, depending on the temperature of your kitchen)

Step 5 Bake in an oven pre-heated to 425°F (220°C, Gas Mark 7) for 10-15 minutes. Cool on a wire tray. For maximum enjoyment, eat while warm!

Yeast There’s a great page on the Planet Science website on the science and history of yeast, with an experiment to try. http://tinyurl.com/planetscienceyeast

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Adventures Away from Home By Paula Cleary

We all need our space. Home educated children with siblings perhaps even more so! Home ed can be great for family bonding. I love the fact that my boys are growing up together, that they aren't strangers to one another as so many schooled siblings seem to be. Generally they get on famously, but every now and then, this closeness can become a little claustrophobic. Last year there were several occasions when my oldest boy Finn got mighty frustrated with being the oldest of our four boys. His youngest brother was going through some typical two year old tantrumming. His five year old brother was all about poo, wee, and bums. His eight year old brother was bugging him with his bedtime routine of listening to the same audiobooks on repeat play, late into the night, for months on end. I could see he was getting moody and fed up, and he kept saying "I need a break from my brothers - they're driving me nuts!!!"

could he go to spread his wings, have fun, and most of all, be safe? By chance we received our (at the time, current) issue of Aquila1 magazine, and with it was a leaflet for an Aquila Eco-adventure holiday with an educational charity called ATE2. Since Aquila is a trusted and sensible highbrow sort of mag for kids, we figured that their judgement must equally be, well, pretty sensible. We checked out the programme. It looked really great but whilst looking on ATE's website we noticed something that looked even more up Finn's street : Young Inventor's Week. Wow! Could this be the chance Finn has been asking for, I thought? We talked it all over, gulped at the price (ÂŁ500 odd quid ouch!) and discussed it fully with Finn. Did he think he could cope with seven whole days and nights away from home? Away from everything and everyone that was familiar to him? If we booked it, he would have to commit. Privately, we had different concerns. How can we guarantee he will be safe from harm? What if he finds it too much? What if he backs out and refuses to go at the last minute? Lots of what if's. And then I had a quiet word with myself. "He needs an opportunity like this. He is asking for independence. Trust in people. Have faith instead of doubting and thinking the worst. "

I sympathised. It must be hard sometimes being the eldest, having the burden of being more able than the others, more mature, wanting to hang out with older kids, or at least, kids of his own age. And I guess having so little privacy gets stressful after a while. And as much as he loves us dearly - we parents must get annoying too! He had already been on holiday to Florida with his brother Herbie, accompanied by granny and grandpa, for a three week break the previous autumn. He'd been on sleepovers at friends houses before. I knew he was crying out for a break away from all of us, but where

I did a bit more research before committing, and found this: http://tinyurl.com/cvsefbq and felt really reassured about the ethos and reputation of the charity. I liked that they had a strong focus on nurturing friendships and helping to provide genuine happy childhood memories. No computers or TV. Just good old fashioned fun. So I booked him on the Superweek. Once I'd done it though, I went through so many emotions. Excitement. Dread. Guilt. Fear.

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Worry. Excitement again! Part of me thought it was really irresponsible and a terrible thing to have done. But on the other hand I kept coming back to this thought 'Oh come on, Paula. Look at places like Summerhill - no parents and the kids thrive because of that! Look at boarding school - kids go there for 35+ weeks of the year. One week is hardly abandonment!' But as the time approached I still felt nervous. Finn seemed unworried, and was really excited. I kept my fears from him. A week before I was really panicking, thinking my friends secretly thought me selfish and

irresponsible for sending him off. Who was I really doing this for, I thought? And yet he remained excited! And then the big day came. We arrived at the train-station and looked for the person with the badge. I prayed and prayed they would look normal. That they would not be a pervert, or dodgy looking, or inbred. What a relief to see a breezy blonde-haired teenage flower girl, with smiley kind eyes, wearing the reps badge phew! Not creepy or weird at all! Finn kissed and hugged us without embarrassment whilst the other kids gave a more muted goodbye to

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their parents. Awww, bless him, I thought. He is nine and giving his mama such a sweet and tender goodbye. And off they went. No big fanfare. No big deal. And I wanted to cry! So how did it go? Well, when we picked him up he was relaxed and had a new air about him. He seemed to have grown an inch or two and had gained a new kind of confidence unlike the old one, a quiet inner confidence. ! I met his He actually kind of mentor for the week, who had personally written him a note to say what a great week it had been, how much he had liked Finn's company. He had hugs with his new friends and happily jumped in the van telling us stories non-stop, teaching us new songs. We still sing one of them sometimes, and it makes me smile... "Black socks, they never get dirty, the longer you wear them, the stronger they get! Sometimes - I think I should wash them but something inside me tells me not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet..." This year his brother Herbie wants to try a holiday away from home too, so they are both going on a PGL3 muli-activity week (2 children for the price of 1) together, nearer to home only 40 minutes away. I'm full of all the same worries and what if's but to a lesser degree.... and am open to the possibility of "What if.... it's the most liberating, most fun, most enjoyable holiday... ever?" Maybe next year we'll have the courage to send them on the 2 week (gulp!) eco forest adventure we chickened out of this summer.....either way, they must start to spread their wings somewhere..... they can't live at home under my wing forever! w 1

Aquila Magazine www.aquila.co.uk ATE www.ate.org.uk 3 PGL www.pgl.co.uk 2

History by Accident! By Jane Levicki

e all have our concerns when we start to home educate. Often these can centre around those things we feel less confident about ourselves and yet we fell we “must” cover. One of mine was History. I’ve never liked the subject. As it was taught to me in school it seemed boring and irrelevant. And, despite having an A Level in it (a choice forced on me by my headmistress at the time - it’s a long story!) I have become quite well known for being a bit of a History dunce. Guess which category I always avoid in family games of Trivial Pursuit?! So when I took the children out of school I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to tackle it. Obviously they couldn’t possibly learn ALL of History, but which bits were important and, more crucially, how was I going to include it in their home ed experience without making them end up with my dreadfully negative attitude towards it? As the children were quite young when we started (the eldest was 8) I felt justified in letting it be for a while. There was no rush. But as we went on I found that History crept into our lives anyway. Over time, our approach to learning has been a mix of autonomous education combined with some structure from time to time, tailored to the children’s aptitudes. When they were younger this structure often took the form of projects which I created, but which were very flexible according to the children’s interests and which usually ended up going in very different directions! One of the first projects we did was the Chinese New Year which began as very hands on involving making Chinese dragons and paper lamps, but soon expanded into other areas. We watched ‘Mulan’ and played the PC game ‘Emperor’ and, lo and behold, we were learning about ancient China - the customs, religion, inventions and so on. A later project on the Solar System included talking about when the planets were discovered and by whom. Hold on, that’s History again!

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And so it went on - without really planning for it History just carried on popping up. There was the odd occasion when I introduced something on purpose, such as a project on World War II. This came about because I had pretty much decided that the answer to my question ‘Which areas of History should we cover?’ could for the time being be answered in that most carefully considered way ‘Anything that they would feel stupid not knowing!!’ The project wasn’t very structured though; it was more like a series of activities that took place over a period of time, such as decorating the kitchen with pictures and posters, painting roundels, making ration books and cooking WWII food while listening to ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’. We read our Horrible Histories magazines, went to the Horrible Histories stage shows of both WWI and WWII and visited the Imperial War Museum. When I was trying to recall what we’d done to learn about the wars I asked the children. They couldn’t remember much specifically - they said they thought they’d just absorbed a lot of knowledge over time. And this seems to have been a common theme over the years. Despite my never having come up with a curriculum or plan, History has ended up being something we’ve just absorbed through all kinds of activities, through living life.

Public events and re-enactments have been fun. Ones we have particularly enjoyed locally have been Romans vs Anglo-Saxons and the American Civil War. Many towns and cities hold free events such as Medieval Weekends. I just keep my eyes open for what’s going on and off we go. Museums are also, of course, great ways to absorb many periods of history. Not at all dry and boring as they used to be, most of them are lively and include hands-on activities, organised events and so on. We’ve often been to Peterborough Museum as a family or with home education groups. I’ve had to be careful not to try and push anything at the children or they just turn off. Neither have they ever been keen to do any follow up work, so we don’t. We just take it as a day out and leave it there.

Timelines Several years ago I found out that many home educators made timelines for History. Arranged wherever was most convenient in their house they would extend the line as far as they wished and place historical events along it. I thought this was a great idea, especially as one of my problems was knowing when everything happened in relation to

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Our Journey to Home Education By Clare Cole

f you had said to me a decade ago that at age 32, I would be living in a rural village, spending my days spotting butterflies, planting seeds, baking bread and home educating three children, I would have thought you’d got the wrong person. As a city-loving, allergic-to-nature, career-focused twenty something, I had a very different future planned out for myself. But that was before I had children, and just about everything changed.

Almost as soon as I became pregnant - and long before we needed to weigh up our education options – school started to feature in my thoughts. Memories started flooding back of my own school days; of seemingly endless years stretched out in front of me in an institution that neither respected the type of young person I was, nor had any desire to make it less unpleasant for me. I was haunted by flashbacks of crying on the school bus every morning, of faking illnesses just to avoid going in, and of picking out my favourite clothes on a Non-Uniform Day, only to be mercilessly teased for wearing the ‘wrong’ thing. I decided early on that I would never, ever make my children go through what I had in the quest for ‘a good education’. My decision was helped along by the fact that I had worked in schools before having children, and had a good understanding of the realities of modern school life. Constant pressure to achieve and conform, in schools too big for every child to feel valued and nurtured, with disillusioned teachers, left me in no doubt – I would find a better way for my children to spend their formative years. My husband shared many of the same concerns about the direction education was heading in and together we investigated our options.

independent midwife to a community of families who were also making alternative choices for their children, and all of a sudden a whole world of possibilities opened up for us. I began to attend a Steiner Parent and Toddler Group, as well as Home Education groups, and saw how freely and joyously the children there played, and how organically ‘learning’ came about. It was incredible to realise just how much education can go on without any adult needing to set a curriculum or design a lesson plan. But although my husband and I were convinced of the benefits of home education, we were struggling to juggle the daily demands of two small children, living a long way away from close family, and with my husband working long hours and irregular shifts. I lost confidence that I would be able to cope and that I could provide the children with what they needed, and with some family members expressing scepticism about our plans, it started to feel like an unachievable ideal. I wondered if I was being selfish, it was actually my dream that I was imposing on the family and whether I was setting my sights too high. As the time came for us to make a decision, we went to visit the Foundation Unit of our local Primary School and we were quickly reminded why it had mattered so much to us. The teachers were nice enough and their ambitions for the children were admirable, but the walls were cluttered with target-orientated charts, and the focus was almost entirely on academic achievements rather than the individual, holistic development of the children. The three year olds wore tiny uniforms which hung off their wrists and they were already being forced to sit at desks and practice letters. I wanted to cry when I thought about my son, then just three, forced to conform to such a rigid regime. I had no doubt he would have been labelled a trouble-maker, instead of the free-spirited, intelligent, compassionate and creative child I knew he was. And as for the idea that he could, or should, be sitting

We didn’t know anyone who home educated but we were introduced through our wonderful 16

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Cont’d on page 21

A quick clever trick.... You will need: Ÿ a bowl, Ÿ a piece of string about 20cm long Ÿ a handful of salt (in another bowl or it's really messy and sticky!) Ÿ a few icecubes Ÿ and a teaspoon. Fill the bowl with cold water, float an icecube on it. Lay the string on and sprinkle a half teaspoon of salt on; wait for a minute. (An actual minute - count to 60, using a big word in between the numbers - what word do you use? Mississippi?!) Then try and lift the ice cube by only using the string! Can you do it? We tried this, with an eight year old and a two year old and the two year old grabbed the cube :( So try to get two year olds out of the way before you do this experiment!

Lorena

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Make Your Own Beads I recently rediscovered a necklace that I think came from my grandmother, a long time ago. It was made from some kind of sparkly paper, with lots of varnish. I thought I'd have a go at making paper beads myself. I'm sure there's a much more professional tutorial out there, and on googling I found some lovely hand made paper beads from all over the world! Here's how I did it. Take some attractive magazine papers - these are from the Waitrose magazine, I think - try and use ones where the colour goes right to the edge. This example shows dark pages, with parts in brighter colours. I've done some lovely white beads, from a Christmas issue, and a bright blue set from a summer holiday advert! Using a guillotine, cut each slice at an angle - the thick end is about 3/4" in this example - the thin end, about a third the size of the thick. You can see that the thick end is the eventual width of your bead, so alter this if you like, just make the other end about a third the width. Making the other end wider simply changes what you can see in the gradient of colour across the bead. Make a few, and you'll see what I mean and can experiment. I used a wooden skewer to wrap the beads around. Start with the thick end, keep it tight for the first couple of wraps, then loosen a touch so you can slide it off when done. Keep the edge parallel - the edge that was the bottom of the page - and steadily curl the paper around, keeping it even to each side. Glue the end when the strip is finished. I did try gluing all the way along, but found it too sticky and a bit lumpy. Keep them all on another skewer. Do a few at a time, so you can see how they match each other. As you can see from the photos, I decided to undo one partially as I preferred the gold pattern finish to the darker finish. If it's not too much to unroll, then it still works as a bead, and won't look out of place with others that are slightly thicker. Once you've done a selection, use plain clear nail varnish to varnish them, I keep them on the skewers and dry them laid across a box. I have also used floor varnish, which gives a lovely brown tone to the beads, a bit vintage. Lorena 18

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A Day in the Life of an Archaeologist Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an archaeologist? It sounds glamorous and exciting, but what’s it like every day? Archaeologist Katie Davenport-Mackey, from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, gives us a glimpse into her life!

e dig 2.00pm: Th

message 9.00am: The The brilliant monitor dazzles her eyes; a minute diamond materializes on the screen, the symbol of a new message. ‘Who could this be from?’ Her eyes scrutinize the message – Could you have a look at some archaeological material in Sawtry, Cambridgeshire? ‘Well, this looks interesting!’

lage loc 12 noon: The vil

k-up

The door is formidable. Blackness leaks through iron bars that appear to have been branded onto a slab of rotting oak. This building was formally a lock-up for local miscreants, mostly overenthusiastic drinkers, who often ended their drinking sessions by spending the night in a cell! A kindly gentleman from the Sawtry History Society lurches the oaken door ajar. Once inside, they pick their way through the cobwebs, dust and leaves. Amongst the detritus, secreted in draws, boxes, pallets are wonderful things – hulking chunks of carved masonry, finely decorated medieval pottery, beautifully carved bone and antler objects. In a gloomy recess plastic bags of dirt have been carefully stacked, in the darkness they appear to contain soil samples but on closer inspection they turn out to be human cremations! With no documentation in sight the archaeologist is somewhat baffled. ‘How did all this end up here?’

After much research it turns out that the material comes from the monastic site of Sawtry St Judith. A rescue excavation was undertaken in 1979-80 prior to the land being ploughed by the landowner. Archaeological excavations had revealed two buildings with a cobbled surface between them. Building one is thought to have been an aisled barn and building two is believed to have been a more complex building. Large quantities of pottery dating between the 14th and 16th centuries had been recovered, plus a silver groat of Henry VII in very good condition. On the completion of the archaeological project, the archaeological archive (the collection of finds, records and documentation) should normally have been transferred to a museum for maintenance and security. This process was evidently interrupted and the project team were unable to complete the task of marking, packing and indexing the archive. The material never arrived at a museum and instead ended up in the storage facility of the Sawtry History Society, at the village lock-up.

posal 4.00pm: The pro The computer screen dwindles to a gloomy oblong and a chilly blue light fades away. She had just received a email from Cambridgeshire City Council, the Sawtry History Society and Cambridgeshire Archaeology have joined forces to create an archaeological archive for the material from the Sawtry St Judiths excavation. They are going to begin by cleaning, labelling, and repackaging all the archaeological finds from the village lock-up. A warm smile extends across her pastel features – ‘Well, that was a positive response!’

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Crumblies with Jam! This is from a Waitrose card picked up in store. Their website is www.waitrose.com/recipes I used wholemeal flour, although it specified just "plain flour"

Ingredients: 4. Roll pieces into small balls - I went for about 1" diameter.

225g soft butter 100g caster sugar 1tsp vanilla extract 274g plain flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 8 tbsp jam

1. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy (I don't always wait that long...)

5. Place on the baking tray, and push your finger in the top to make a dent big enough for a teeny bit of jam. It does need to be quite a small bit of jam (unfortunately!) as otherwise it overflows and burns on the tray.

2. Add the vanilla extract and beat again

6. Add the jam to each ball, and bake at 180째C for about 15 minutes.

3. Fold in the flour and baking powder until the mixture forms a soft dough (not so easy to "fold" with a mixer but it still works) It says in the recipe cool completely before eating - that is wise advice when dealing with hot jam! Take care, and enjoy! Lorena

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Our Journey to Home Education Contâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d from page 16 still learning to read and write at that age - it was ludicrous. My concerns for my daughter were different. She probably would have sat obediently at her desk doing as she was asked, but she would have been left a jabbering wreck by what I saw in playground. When we enquired as to how the teachers would help our very timid four year old integrate in the playground, we were told that they found it best to leave the children to it and not molly-coddle them. We were more convinced children than ever that our children deserved a more gentle and thoughtful start in life.

I realised that all the best things about school (lots of time with their friends, dedicated teachers, small pupil-to-teacher ratios and a lovely environment) could be provided or improved upon at home (who more dedicated than their parents to teach them, and what better pupil-to-teacher ratio than one-to-one!). Whatsmore, for every good thing they were getting at school, there was something equally important they were missing out on by being there. The most important one being quality, unhurried time together as a family. Living such a distance from the school, I had never learned to like the school run. The manic rush that took place before we left the house

ÂŠ www.flickr.com/people/riverofgod/

We looked at another alternative, and visited the Kindergarten of a Steiner school twelve miles away. It was a fantastic environment and the support offered by the teaching staff and other parents seemed just the thing we needed at that point in our lives. Our daughter settled in beautifully and she loved her days baking bread, painting, playing in the home

corner, running in the garden and making friends. We spent three years at the school, during which time our eldest daughter and subsequently our son, blossomed. But due to a change in our finances, we were unable to keep them there. I was dreading having to tell the children that they would not be going back after the holidays, but to my amazement, they greeted the news with excitement and enthusiasm.

Even the most caring of schools can be far too rigid and structured for many small children www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk

each day - which usually consisted of me shaking the children out of bed before they were ready to wake, shoving a breakfast in front of them before they were ready to eat, and barking at them for not having their shoes on / hair brushed / lunch box in their bag – had turned mornings into a miserable experience. I hated feeling like I had to compromise our time together to beat the clock, and I hated the fact that some days when I dropped my children off at the school gates, I felt like all I had done was shout at them. The other end of the school day wasn’t much better and it was having a big effect. My eldest daughter had been coming home from school and begging me to spend time with her – usually only to be met with delaying tactics from me: There was dinner to get on with, washing to get on the line, the bath to be run, etc. I realised that sometimes I could go for days on end without having an extended period of ‘play’ with my eldest two. Whatsmore, they were exhausted for much of the time and by the end of the weekends and holidays, they were usually only just beginning to relax and feel rested, before school started up again.. The things they wanted to do, like spend time practising on their rollerskates in the park, or go swimming, all had to wait, because there were never enough hours in the day. And then there were the financial pressures. There could be no family trips, no holidays, no celebratory meals or extracurricular activities, because every spare penny we had went into school fees. We do not regret the years the children spent at a Steiner School and we are so grateful for everything they gained there, but having to leave has made me realise what a wonderful opportunity we now have.

dining room table, read long books from cover to cover, taken whole afternoons to prepare a meal, and hosted dozens of sleepovers for their friends! There is no great hurry when we go out for a walk. It doesn’t matter if dinnertime is pushed back because we were so busy learning a tune on the piano, or if we decide to read an extra bedtime story – we don’t have to get up for school in the morning! We can have lunch together – a luxury I always missed during term time. I don’t worry that they’re not getting enough to eat in the day (a regular occurrence when they were at school as lunch boxes often returned barely touched). And on top of this, I get to see the little miracles happen again. It was amazing when my eldest daughter suddenly start to read words on street signs after she started learning to write at school. But it is even more amazing to witness how those leaps happen, and know that sometimes I have had something to do with it. I love the fact that because I know my children so well, I know exactly what kinds of activities and ideas will get them excited, suit their temperaments and boost their confidence.

There are lots of things I am yet to work out: How much structure we need to have in our day, and how best to juggle the differing needs of all our children (my eldest wants a blackboard, separate lessons, and work books. My youngest daughter, aged two, wants something completely different!) And I am yet to fathom how I keep sibling fights to a minimum and how to stop the house looking like a Jumble Sale by the end of each day, but all of these things seem like a part of our journey, and working these things outs feels like an equally important life lesson for the children. By sharing this path together, I hope we will all grow in different ways, but that we will also grow closer together. w

Already, just a few weeks in, I can see the differences. We have all relaxed into a slower pace, a less burdeoned state and we seem to have gained a greater realisation of what we can all (individually and as a family) achieve. We have spent time making things on the

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How is Home Education Perceived in the Media? Kim Hughes

Home schooling has been legal in the UK for over 50 years, yet even in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liberal minded society there is still a grey area where this lifestyle is concerned.

accepted because the magazine or newspaper is trusted by the reader, not because the reader trusts the writer. This means that extreme biases coming through the media could result in a nation believing that home schooling is only something for the creepy and weird.

Newspapers and Magazines

The Graham Badman fiasco of 2009 showed how quickly some national newspapers can take sides in a very negative way, without actually undertaking any independent case studies. A member of the government began campaigning for a change in the law, due to one isolated and misunderstood case, and within the coming months HE saw a vast wave of media coverage never experienced before.

When reading an article, the mass public donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t often think of who wrote it, as opposed to who published it. A story is more likely to be

From 2009-2010 The Daily Mail played a large part in producing tragic stories to support the

Looking back over the past five years of home schooling in the media, it seems that following a rise in coverage of the subject, differing journalistic opinions have contributed to a lot of confusion.

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angle of the ‘negative effects’ of home schooling. One particular case was the Riggi murders in Scotland, where a troubled mother killed her three children and attempted to kill herself. The children were taught by their mother and were rarely allowed to leave the house, as she believed her estranged husband would take them away. Further articles were published on this case, but they managed to hide the pertinent quotes at the end. For example, a psychiatrist was quoted as saying that the mother clearly had mental problems that had been overlooked, yet the overall body of the story suggested that lack of socialization was to blame for the tragedy, whilst also backing Badman on his quest for a change in the law. Graham Badman is a conservative MP, the Daily Mail is a conservative newspaper and naturally a paper will back their government’s political views. On the other hand, in June 2011, the paper did publish the story about Angelina Jolie and why she prefers to have home tutors teach her children, as opposed to private schooling which in her mind doesn’t work, this way she gets to spend more time with them. Despite the growing amount of negative coverage, The Guardian newspaper published a total of fifteen articles from 2009-2010 that were all informative and positive about the subject. Many of these came from ex or current teachers and others from HE parents; some articles featured statistics that compared state and home educated children’s achievements, favouring HE.

Overseas Across the seas, The New York Times online has published numerous articles this year about home education, mostly from practitioners. There are varied comments within the archives with multiple case studies that show the styles and stories from different eras, some during the times when educating at home was illegal. 24

Technology means we are no longer passive consumers of limited news

Television Recent televised coverage on the subject is scarce, aside from video casts or posts on Youtube, there isn’t anything available in the UK. According to my independent research Channel 4 is the most viewed channel by those that source news, this channel is also rife with alternative documentaries, yet there are no future plans to cover this alternative education lifestyle. It is common knowledge that in recent years newspapers are in decline, in comparison to the titans of television and of course the internet.

The Internet Home schooling blogs are numerous to mention, some delving into the bare bones of autonomous and structured learners, alternative tutoring styles for the individual child, methods of dealing with (or avoiding!) the LA and so on. Searching the web opens up a wide window of knowledge, understanding and explanation, that has effectively broadened the minds of the public in recent years. It is evident that it is no longer the case of biased journalists in the tabloids being the sole influence and ‘educator’ of an ignorant public! Instead people now have the option to source for themselves, meaning that we have moved a long way since the 1900s. There is still limited information in the UK print and televised media, but thankfully the internet has saved the public from minimal information. From the rise of the cyber media comes plenty of case studies, blogs and video casts to satisfy the curious. w

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History by Accident

of those doing the interpreting. Take the Victorians for example!

Cont’d from page 15

This article would not be complete without a tribute to Terry Deary’s ‘Horrible Histories’. I mentioned the magazines and stage shows when I talked about our World War II project. We also have the CD stories, although oddly we’ve never got into the original books. But what has really made a mark in our house is the TV series. Aimed primarily at 6-11 year olds, it takes a humorous and somewhat irreverent look at the past. Taking Monty Python and Blackadder as its comedic influences, it is hugely entertaining for any age - not for nothing has the series won several Children’s BAFTAs and been named Best Sketch Show at the British Comedy Awards, beating the other adult shows. It’s had me laughing until I cried many a time, the sketches and punchlines are now established in our house and the songs .... well, you’ll just have to find out for yourself! What’s more impressive is the amount of knowledge we have all absorbed without trying. As a whole family we are so much looking forward to Series 5 which is currently being written. Last Autumn we also followed a few of the actors and the producer on Twitter while they were filming, which gave some fascinating glimpses into the whole production process and added a whole new dimension. Their enthusiasm is infectious!

everything else! There’s a lot to hold in your head - a visual would be great! We created our timeline by sticking pieces of A4 lengthwise on the wall going up the stairs. I marked the paper with dates - mostly going up in 100 year jumps, although we did extend down to 2000BC and then make a big jump to 5000BC to include neolithic times. I then spent ages finding pictures of people or events which I printed along with a name or brief description and laminated. The children helped me place them on the appropriate place on the line. I had planned that we would add to it as the months and even years went by. This didn’t happen so much, but we did refer to it often and, being in such a prominent place, it was viewed a lot. It eventually got so tatty we had to take it down and I didn’t get around to replacing it, but I think we all have a better idea of the scale of history now. The children especially remember the suffragette Emily Davison because she kept falling off!

The Big and Small Screen And then there’s television and film. With no plan in mind I’ve found that just by watching programmes that interest us we have covered an amazing amount of History. Sometimes they’re factual documentaries, but mostly we enjoy fiction. No, they might not be terribly accurate but we make that part of our learning, to understand what ‘based on fact’ means. There are way too many to name all, but series like Downton Abbey, Roots, Mary Bryant and Lark Rise to Candleford have provided us with so many discussion topics and given us a sense of the times. Similarly films, from Miss Potter to Braveheart, age appropriate of course! Of course they’re over dramatised,...but to me that’s part of the learning experience. Not just to appreciate how Hollywood may present things, but the understanding that the presentation of history has always been subject to the point of view

After eleven years of home educating I’ve now shelved the idea of a history curriculum. With the evidence of how well life learning has worked in front of me there hardly seems any point! w

If you’re interested in using film and TV to bring history into your home education these websites may be useful: www.historythroughfilm.net/movie_list www.perioddramas.com/timeline.php

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HE and Working Contrary to common belief, home educators are not all wealthy families with one parent (normally assumed to be the father) earning a healthy wage packet while the other (the mother!) has the luxury of a huge bank balance to spend on educational resources and trips! Here at EOS we know different. We know that there are a great many families out there who budget carefully to exist on one modest income, who downsize, or who both work to make ends meet. That’s us at EOS for a start! Working while home educating has its challenges, mostly practical, but it has its benefits too. This series looks at how different people balance the demands of work and family. Last time I (Lorena) talked to Jane! This time I’m going to give you a bit of an insight into how my family juggles our work and home education. Up to now we’ve been thinking quite theoretically about work and HE. In the next issue we’re going to get practical as we start to look at particular jobs that some home educators do and how their work fits in with their family life. Lorena My husband and I had a small business when we first heard about home educating, soon after our first child was born, I think. I’d assumed I’d drop the baby off at daycare on the way in to work, probably from about 6 months old, just like everyone else. But having the baby in my arms I just couldn’t see how people did that to be honest. I realised I wasn’t sure I’d want to give him up to school at 4, either, but knew it was something I’d have to do. When I found out I didn’t have to, well, that was a big relief! That made me realise how confident I felt about his welfare, his education, everything about bringing him up was our responsibility, and I was happy about that. As we had our own business, I could work when I was able; if I was in work, the baby slept under the office table for his nap! (A very comfortable rocker seat, I’d like to add!) But I also did some work out of office hours, when he was asleep in the evenings. As he got older, he still came to work, and had his own play area. Even visiting the accountant one time, I brought toys and managed a meeting with him on the floor. Now, the second child is much more boisterous! I’m not sure she would have managed the accountant’s meeting, and she gave up naps pretty early. I can completely understand now how parents can see the benefits to all concerned about using childcare, but I still believe very strongly in the benefits of home education. Simply using our time effectively means they are learning while growing; they have more time to spend on learning than if they were in school; they can complete projects without being moved on to the next lesson, etc etc With the collapse of that earlier business when the whole economy started failing, we are now both working from home. We now share care; some days I’m out at meetings, or running events (craft fairs); I do occasional training sessions in IT, sometimes daytime or evening; so these times my husband has the children. Some days, he needs time off from them! He is fixing up the house, and sorting out some vehicles from the old business, and also is planning a new business to do with biofuel. So we are gradually working out how to work together, at home, on different businesses. We worked well together when it was the same business, but this way needs more thought; we don’t have each other to talk to, as one is always looking after the children! As the youngest grows older, she is becoming 26

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Sharing a work space can be challenging! slightly more manageable, and is starting to do small projects of her own, so I can see a time when we can all work together. I get the impression that many HE families are like this – all together working when they can; I think many have foregone what others would call essential to save money, so less work is needed. I wonder if it is so unusual? I know people (non-HE) often say how “brave” I am; and sometimes how “lucky” I am that my husband will look after the children (I’m certainly “lucky” that my family don’t do this, though I know many families who have this hurdle to get over!) It would be interesting to hear from families out there – are the majority of HE families time-sharing their work like this? Or do they have one partner who works and the other does the majority of the housework and childcare? These are the models I’ve seen so far, of those families that have two parents of course. Much of our work is online; researching, writing, programming; so can be done at any time. Sometimes we need to work office hours, but not all day. Is this at all unusual? Or is this a model for the future – the family existing together in one space; everyone doing projects, sometimes together, sometimes not. It is perhaps a symptom of the collapse of the economy that some families are forced to be together all day while one partner is looking for new work; perhaps some will consider working for themselves, setting their own working hours, which will allow children to stay home, always in the care of one parent. I do hope so. I didn’t see why I needed to hand over a large part of my first child’s life to school, and then over the next few years I could see him learning by himself, with support and encouragement from me. He then learned to read by himself - that was the biggest and best indicator that home education, for us, was the right thing. It worked, he taught himself, we just read to him and has some posters with the alphabet on, and I may have sung an alphabet song once, but he somehow became a reader, and a very good one pretty quickly. I have no idea how our daughter, 3, will learn to read, but I have no doubts she will find a way. She’s a determined little soul. I’m just very lucky to be able to be there with her as she discovers life and learning, just as her brother has done. Lorena www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk

Reviews & Recommendations Enjoyed Something Recently? Here at EOS we are always interested in hearing about your favourite books, websites, computer games, DVDs, TV programmes, places to visit, shops and online stores........anything that you think other readers might want to hear about! Please do send them to editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk. Don’t forget to let us know if you have a website, blog etc that we can mention as a thank-you!

Mission Explore www.missionexplore.net A website that declares ‘It’s an adventure...but not as you know it!’ They describe it as having two aims - to collect points which unlock rewards and to take part in challenges. I created a login for my son, and I really like the way they talk to the parents/guardian. It's a fun site and has a good attitude towards online safety (making the new user go through some questions first). My nine year old said it was "fun", "cool" and "interesting" as it "has some silly questions but some good ones too. It's good to see your name on the front page when you do something. It's easy too". He's only done about 8 challenges, but whizzed around the site quite easily and could see there's plenty more to do if he wants to. It is a site to get children doing things offline as well as on, and I think it would be great to get some HE families involved where we can set our own teams and challenges. Lorena

“More Interesting Than Your Teacher” by Stuart Wright Describing itself as ‘an accessible take on many of the important lessons about the world around us’, this book is a collection of fascinating facts about many of the things that we often wonder about such as ‘The smelliest plant in the world’, ‘tickling’ and ‘Are dogs colour blind’. The book tries hard not to be a boring textbook and succeeds, with concise explanations on a variet of topics and quirky illustrations. My children (16, 13 and 11) liked the fact that the subjects aren’t ordered into subject matter but are jumbled up in a ‘pick and mix’ style. They said the content was interesting and they liked that it was presented in an uncomplicated fashion so was easy to understand. They especially liked that the entries were ‘short, sweet and to the point’ which made it a book they could pick up and dip into even if they just had five minutes to spare.

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I think it might be one I leave on the coffee table then! www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk

Jane

"Haunted Peterborough" by Stuart Orme Fantastic - it really is. A great blend of history and scariness. The author is well-known locally for his knowledge of the history of Peterborough; at a job interview at the Peterborough Museum he suggested the Ghost Walks, and when they called him up to say he'd got the job, they asked him when he could start the walks! They are very popular, and each is tailored to the audience and the weather. So having done all that research creating the walks and then being the storyteller, Stuart was well-placed to be the one to write this Peterborough book. The descriptions of the buildings, their history, and their place in Peterborough's history is really impressive. We then get on to the ghostly part, which is, I admit, scary! But Stuart then finishes many of the stories with a flourish to amuse and entertain the reader. I still have the ghost stories in my head as I visit these buildings though, but I also have Stuart's practical explanations, as much as one can explain, to make me slightly more comfortable with the idea of the supernatural. I will not however be going on an overnight ghost hunt at the museum! I highly recommend the book for a brief history of the area, as well as good stories to tell around a campfire! However, one story in particular references a subject I wouldn't broach with my young children just yet, so perhaps make sure you read it yourself (if you dare!) before letting your children have a read. Lorena

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Iris and Iota Magazines Iris and Iota are two magazines that are sent to inner city schools as part of the Iris project - here's their mission statement: We believe that all children are entitled to the opportunity of learning about the languages and cultures of the ancient world, and that these subjects are wonderful tools for enhancing literacy, social awareness and analytical skills. Through a range of initiatives in UK state schools, we work to enrich the curriculum by promoting learning about the ancient world. The magazines are available to buy online and there's often special offers to buy back issues. I have got the first 12 of Iris, and a couple of issues of the magazine for younger readers, Iota and I highly recommend them! They have a good mix of articles by well regarded Classics professors; reports on the projects' activities with schools and games and puzzles. They are often roughly themed, one I particularly enjoyed was poetry and crafts. I think just one issue would certainly give young people an insight into the ancient world to see if they felt an affinity for it before going ahead with Latin courses, for example. Also, for anyone interested in the theatre, poetry, democracy, languages, ok just about anything! Reading anything to do with Classical Studies does show what we've got from those societies, and makes fascinating reading.

ISSN 2046

Find out more at www.irisonline.org.uk Lorena www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk

Home Educating a Child with Aspergers One Parent’s Perspective By Yvonne Frost

ne evening, having watched the film ‘The Madness of King George’ with me earlier in the day, my eleven year old son, who has Aspergers syndrome, told my husband that the restraint chair used to ‘cure’ King George the Third of his madness reminded him of school. My son then explained, for the first time, that he ran away from school at the age of 6 because school hurt him when they tried to restrain him. Whilst his recollections brought a lump to my throat, my son is by no means alone in his experiences. There are many autistic children suffering at school.

Alex, mum to an eight year old boy told me: “We have home schooled my son since he was six so roughly two years now. He was excluded from school and was suffering from a near nervous breakdown. He has since been diagnosed with ADHD and Aspergers, although we are told now that is more likely is PDA1.” Most parents are initially unaware that it is legal to educate their children anywhere other than at school. In fact, home education often becomes an act of desperation for parents who see that school has become too much for

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their autistic children and that no alternative is available. In her book “Does Your Child Have a Hidden Disability” by Jill Curtis2, one parent told her: “I woke up one morning and wondered why I was spending all my time clashing with authorities to “provide” for my daughter when we could do it better ourselves. We have never looked back.”

If you are teetering on the brink of home education it can be a frightening prospect, but with the support of forums like www.hespecial.org.uk, you soon discover that there are many parents out there, just like you, where the school system has let their children down. It can be such a relief to find out that you are not alone and that in itself can help you to take the leap of faith. In ‘Home Educating our Autistic Spectrum Children’ by Terri Dowty and Kit Cowlishaw3 , twelve parents share their stories of how they came to home educate their children. Each child is different and has a different experience but in ‘Robert’s story- Square pegs don’t fit in round holes’ the little boy is quoted as saying “Thanks, Mum, for taking me out of school. I can honestly say I now enjoy living.” Trish, who lives in Northamptonshire says that she decided to home educate when her son was due to start secondary school. “Home education was prompted due to my child having to go to a high school which was in different area at least 20 miles away. My child would have been dropped off by the side of the road, which would have not been safe for him ,as I could not be there to collect him, due to collecting my other child from a school in the opposite direction.” By contrast, the decision to home educate our son was clinched after I read a book called “Martian in the Playground” by Claire Sainsbury4 in which she describes her experience of school. I remember her saying that she would have learned more if she had

been left in a quiet corner with a book. I noted how often our son was spending more time outside of the classroom rather than in it learning and I realised that in fact the whole school environment of noisy children, inability to have quiet time, etc. was not conducive to him learning at all. Having realised this, the choice was easy and we withdrew him from school and have been home educating fully since Year 4.

Once the decision has been made then there is the question of “how to teach”. The key to success is to keep exploring new ways of teaching and not to give up. If something isn’t working then try something different. You may even find that your methods change from year to year as your child gets older. “Homeschooling the Child with Asperger Syndrome - Real Help for Parents Anywhere and on any Budget” by Lisa Pyles5 is a good book to start your journey into home education as it deals specifically with the education of an autistic child. Home educating autistic children can be very different from the neurotypical child. Just getting out of the house can be murder at times! Many autistic children crave the security of home, but the beauty of home education is that at least you don’t have to drag your child out the door in time for school. Neither do you have to worry about school uniform. As may parents of autistic children know, clothing can be a big issue, especially school uniform. My son used to refuse black shoes, another parent I met at a seminar on sensory issues told me that her son cut up his school polo shirt because he hated yellow. If on top of that, you have a headmaster or mistress who doggedly sticks to the rules and insists on correct uniform it can pile heaps of stress on a family who are already having enough trouble getting their child out the door. With home education it doesn’t matter. I have come across many autistic children who prefer to work in their pyjamas. Who is to say their way is wrong! Often the rigid thinking of an autistic child can make it very difficult, if not impossible, to

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negotiate or cajole children on the autistic spectrum to do what you want. In my son’s case I soon learned that whenever I used the word ‘work’ it just led to melt- down. My son associated it with something he was unable to do. No wonder he found school hard! How many times a day must the teacher say the word “work” at school? With careful use of words I learned to tailor my language to suit my son. We now never do any “work” in our house. Instead we concentrate on his “special interests” (in his case, history, the natural world and animation). It’s amazing how we can use these subjects in a cross curricular way to encompass English, maths, music, science, and art. It just takes imagination and creativity!

Don’t expect home education to be easy. Some days can be soul destroying when you seem to get nowhere and feel like you’re hitting your 32

head against a brick wall. I’ve learned that that’s when it’s time to stop. With autism, stress can often cause children to withdraw into themselves and nothing gets learned. Better to stop, relax and then often things begin to happen naturally. The beauty of home education is that your child is getting one to one help and you have the flexibility to go with the flow. You can concentrate on spending time together watching a documentary or a movie but don’t for a moment imagine that because you haven’t sat down and ‘taught’ your child that they haven’t learned anything. If you are able to go out then sometimes, going to the park or for a walk can blow away the cobwebs and help you look at things from a different perspective. Simply talking to your children leads to questions you wouldn’t think about. My son asked why cats had fur balls and dogs didn’t the other day. The question led to research about cats which apparently have ‘small barbs on their tongues “just like Velcro” according to my son. Another question was “Why is the sky blue?” a rather more

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technical question! You have to be on your toes! When you don’t know an answer it’s OK to say “I don’t know but we can find out together!” You are no longer simply a teacher but a facilitator providing resources for learning and encouraging your children to be inquisitive. After a while you adapt to this new view of learning and it can become fun and a way of life. The national news often leads to philosophical debates in our household. In a recent discussion on assisted suicide on the news, it was argued that it should be allowed if a doctor felt someone had less than 6 months to live. My son piped up, “Well Stephen Hawkings wouldn’t have been very happy. He was given 2 years and he has just turned 70!” I had to point out that the person DID have a choice in the matter!

Home education forums can be especially supportive and I have found Home Education Special UK particularly full of practical and sensible advice. The experiences of many parents on the HE Special UK forum is that their child’s symptoms have disappeared or visibly improved when their surroundings have been tailored to suit their needs. Home education is not a cure but it can remove so much stress from families drowning in the education system. In Greg’s story (Home Educating our Autistic Spectrum Children) his mother says, “I do not have any regrets about taking Greg out of school. My only regret is that I should have taken him out of school much earlier. If I could have my time again, I would have home educated from the beginning.” I have to say I agree whole heartedly! w

References: As with any family choosing to home educate there will invariably be the question of socialisation. What most people don’t appreciate is that many autistic children don’t want to socialise and that’s why school was such a problem. In fact it often dawns on parents of children with behavioural problems that gradually their children stop getting invited to things and parents are isolated in any case. One way of combating this is to find a group of like minded parents who understand your difficulties. For me it was our local National Autistic society which provided swimming sessions, trips out and parental support. No one blinked at the sight of a parent running round the pool after their child when the pool session finished or at the child licking pebbles on the trip to the animal farm!

PDA - Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome

“Does Your Child Have a Hidden Disability?” by Jill Curtis, ISBN 978-0340786796

‘Home Educating our Autistic Spectrum Children’ by Terri Dowty and Kit Cowlishaw, ISBN 978-1843100379 4

“Martian in the Playground” by Claire Sainsbury, ISBN 978-1849200004 5

“Homeschooling the Child with Asperger Syndrome - Real Help for Parents Anywhere and on any Budget” by Lisa Pyles, ISBN 978-1843107613

Alex said of her eight year old son that with home education “We can hand pick the children he plays and associates with and the situations that we put him in. He has made friends with people of all ages and two years on is part of two sports clubs.”

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Education is Compulsory, Schooling is Not The specific legalities of home educating in the UK differ somewhat between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as much as they do in countries throughout the rest of the world. The national organisations listed to the right go into this in detail and are a good place to go if you are unsure or have specific queries. However, some things are clear: YOU DO NOT need to be a qualified teacher to educate your child at home YOU ARE NOT obliged to follow the National Curriculum or take national tests YOU DO NOT need to observe school hours, days or terms YOU DO NOT need to have a fixed timetable, nor give formal lessons THERE IS NO FUNDING directly available from central government for parents who decide to educate their children THERE IS NO WRONG WAY to home educate. There are many different approaches, from the autonomous or child-led to the highly structured, through a myriad of hybrids in between. In fact it has been said that there are as many different approaches to home education as there are families doing it.

The above is a swift ‘FAQ’ style list; basically, if you’re thinking of HE, and your children aren’t registered at a school, just keep them home. Talk to them. Research what they could do, and discuss with them how they’d like to learn. Then just do it. Go out, enjoy. (Museums, playgrounds, everywhere, are much quieter in school time!) If they are at school, send a letter to the head teacher, use recorded delivery; say you will be home educating, and that’s it. Nothing else is required of you. You are the parent, you are responsible for your child’s education, as you are responsible for other aspects of their life. If you do your research, you will find yourself impressed and maybe amazed at what children can do outside of school. They really can learn very successfully! Don’t Panic. Research, and enjoy. Local Authority information and actions differ wildly, but the facts remain as above. If they wish to speak with you, check out the websites of HE organisations for suggestions on how to do this first. LAs are interested in making sure your children are receiving a good enough education, they are allowed to check if it seems they’re not.

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Home Education Websites and Groups There are many home education groups, national and local, all over the UK. Most websites and lists are full of very valuable free information provided by other home educators. A few charge a subscription. EOS Magazine is not affiliated to and does not recommend any particular group over another and they have been listed in no particular order - please use your own discretion and follow your own home ed path! Any omissions are purely due to our own human fallibility! If you run a website or a group that you would like to see featured here, or if you know of one that you feel should be here, please contact us and tell us.

National

Regional

AHEd Action for Home Education www.ahed.org.uk PO Box 7324, Derby, DE1 0GT

North East

South West

North Yorkshire www.nyhe.co.uk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/henn ey/ (Home Education Network North East Yorkshire). A monthly meeting in a local village hall and a montly meeting out and about somewhere in the local area

Bristol www.bristolhomeeducation.org.uk Dorset www.he-ed.org.uk Somerset www.homeeducationcentre.org.uk Wiltshire www.nwilts-he.org.uk

Education Otherwise www.education-otherwise.org PO Box 325, Kings Lynn, PE34 3XW Freedom In Education www.freedom-in-education.co.uk HE-Special Home Education in the UK - Special Educational Needs www.he-special.org.uk

West Yorkshire wyheal.wordpress.com East Midlands

HE-UK Home Education UK www.home-education.org.uk

Leicestershire www.he-al.org.uk

HEdNI Home Education in Northern Ireland www.hedni.org

Northamptonshire www.iflow.org.uk www.northantshe.org.uk

Home Education Advisory Service www.heas.org.uk

West Midlands

Home Education in the UK www.home-ed.info Home Educated Youth Council An independent voice for home educated young people heyc.org.uk MuddlePuddle A site aimed particularly at the 0-8 age range. www.muddlepuddle.co.uk Schoolhouse For home education in Scotland www.schoolhouse.org.uk PO Box 18044, Glenrothes, Fife KY7 9AD Tel: 01307 463120 THEN UK The Home Education Network www.thenuk.com PO Box 388, St Helens, WA10 9BS admin@thenuk.com

Wales

North West www.creativelearningandsupport.co .uk

Worcestershire www.worcestershire-homeeducators.co.uk East

Cambridgeshire www.cambridgehomeeducators.org .uk

Home Ed Gymnastics Group Mansfield, Nottinghamshire

South East

Berkshire www.heroesberkshire.co.uk Isle of Wight www.iwlearningzone.co.uk Kent www.flags-education.org.uk www.ukhome-educators.co.uk Surrey www.pact-he.org.uk www.swsurrey-home-ed.co.uk

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The group is open to all home educated children aged between 4-16 years old, subject to the availability of places. We meet on Friday afternoons during term time and half term holidays (but not during Easter, summer and Christmas holidays) from 3pm-4pm. For further details, contact Alexandra or Martin at martin.gray6@ntlworld.com or on 01623 477922 or 07923 496701. 35

Education Outside School Magazine ‘Home Education in Action’