EOS Mag Issue 3 - Dec 2010

EOS

Issue 3 December 2010

Education Outside School

What Is And Might Be How schools could be good again!

You Sing A Song.....

Music is essential to our learning experience...

Christmas and Winter Crafts Plus Activities, Reviews and more!

To Read, or Not To Read?

Could Shakespeare be a good addition to your curriculum?

GCSEs at home....

Can it be done?

CONTENTS

Contact Details: Education Outside School Magazine Miller's Rest, High Road, Gorefield, PE13 4PJ If you’d like to submit an article, please email: articles@educationoutsideschool.co.uk If you’d like to advertise, please email: advertising@educationoutsideschool.co.uk To contact the Editors, please email: editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk

Welcome

3

Letters and News

4

The BIG Question

5

What Is And Might Be

By Sue Gerrard How schools could be reclaimed

6

Winter Fun - a Big Project

8

UKHEMarket

10

The Works of William Shakespeare as Unschooling “Curriculum”

By Kelly Green

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You’ll Sing a Song and I’ll Sing a Song

by Paula Cleary Children’s Pages

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 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.

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15 - 18

Stonehenge: Astronomy and Ritual

By Katie Davenport-Mackey

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Real Life Education

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Home Education and GCSEs

20

Christianity in Roman and Medieval Britain

By Richard L.Jones

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For Reading Out Loud: Holiday Stories

By Marty Lane

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Reviews

27

Creating Memories in December

By Marty Layne

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Home Education Guidance The legal stuff!

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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.

Websites and Groups

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Welcome to Education Outside School Magazine!

Meet the Editors has four children aged from nine to 17 and has been home educating for nine years.

She will happily talk about home education to anyone who’ll listen!

She swings from an autonomous approach to structure, depending on the child, the subject and how everyone is feeling. She is now getting used to mainstream education again, supporting her youngest daughter in her decision to give school a try.

Welcome Welcome to our third issue! It's been great working with our contributors, including some new ones this issue.

While the magazine is British, there are of course many experienced Home Educators across the world, including the USA and Canada. We are therefore very pleased to have Kelly Green and Marty Layne contribute this month. Kelly is possibly well known to many of you for her help in counteracting the Badman review, with her eminently sensible and well-written replies to anything the government and other detractors threw at us. We have already recommended her book of essays, and it is available from our Amazon store if you wish to get Amazon to contribute a little to our fund!

Talking of which, you may have noticed a "donate" button on the front page of the website. We are, as all of our contributors are, working for the love of it! We are keen for this magazine to grow to reach anyone who has an interest in helping their children learn, whether they are home educating, thinking of it, or just enjoying being with their children after school. To this end, we would like to move on to a print version and be able to distribute it widely, including to LAs and other official bodies to help them realise what we actually do! We will therefore be charging a small fee to download future PDFs to build up a fund towards this. All the first three issues will remain available for free on the website to read again and again!

We're already looking forward to our next issue, and will be active on Facebook and Twitter in the new year, so make sure you follow us for new ideas and news and views.

has a son aged seven and a daughter aged one.

She decided to home educate from the start, and so has spent a few years researching different methods and is now unschooling.

Lorena is currently thinking about crochet and her son is currently thinking about snow.

@EOSmagazine

You can contact us via the email addresses on page 2!!

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Letters and News

Dear EOS...

We have received lots of enquiries from people wanting to know whether they can buy a printed version of EOS. From the start it has been our aim to publish in print, to produce a magazine for you to read over a cup of coffee, and to be available for people who might want to find out what home education is all about.

We are putting plans in place to build up a fund to achieve our aim of a printed magazine. Please do continue to read our issues, and let others know we’re here, and we can be closer to that goal!

Cambridge Home Education Numbers and Patterns Group greets their MP

By Karen Rodgers

Our MP for Cambridge City, Julian Huppert, came to join in with our hands-on maths "Numbers and Patterns" session this week.

It was interesting to hear what Julian is doing to try and raise the profile of evidence-based science amongst MPs at Westminster and he entered the spirit of the occasion by challenging us to work out a number problem involving some lateral thinking and some cocktail sticks.

The children were delighted to meet Julian and he fielded several questions including how he gets to work and whether he has a pet.

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THE BIG QUESTION...

Q

uestions. They just come with the territory when you home educate! We’ve all been there, from the family gatherings when you’ve been gearing yourself up to tell everyone that you’re taking your children out of school, or that you won’t be sending them in the first place, through to those ‘at-the-supermarket-checkout’ moments when you find yourself so interrogated you’re looking around for the Mastermind black chair!

These questions are sometimes born of disbelief and horror that you could even consider such a strange idea, occasionally they are honestly curious and interested, but almost always demonstrate that the questioner has pretty much no comprehension of what home education is, is entrenched in a system and believes that this system must be ‘the right way’.

We’re featuring those common questions to find out how you answer them! What do you say? Does it depend on the questioner, or their attitude? Does it depend on why you chose to home educate in the first place? Does it depend on how long you’ve been home educating? Have you answered these questions so many times that you have a quick one-liner all prepared!

In the last issue we asked:

But how will they do their GCSEs?

And here are some replies!

GCSEs aren’t compulsory.

We’ll do them if we want to, at a time that suits us.

Lots of home educated children sit GCSEs. The only difference is that for them, all subjects are optional. They get to really tailor them to their interests and future plans.

Why do people assume that you HAVE to do GCSEs to get an education and be successful? Thousands of schooled children are churned out of the system at age 16 with a bunch of qualifications, only to find themselves unemployed. Isn’t it more attractive to potential employers to have life skills, maturity, experience? All of which home educated youngsters have the chance to get because they’re not wasting time getting useless bits of paper!

EOS says: If you’ve decided that you do want to take GCSEs as a home educator, you could start by taking a look at our article on page 20!

Our next question is going to be:

But how will they do sport?

What do you have to say about this? Please email editor@educationoutsideschool.co.uk

by February 15th www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 5

framework, autonomous learning was fostered from the outset. It’s impossible for a large class to have the same degree of autonomy as two or three children at home, but it’s surprising what can be done with the right approach. We worked at our own pace, individually or in groups, which

By Sue Gerrard freed up the teacher to give extra support to children who needed it. By the time we reached the ‘top’ class - 35 children in what would now be vividly remember my first day at school; years 4, 5 and 6 – we were essentially in charge leaning against the wall of the infants’ of our own learning, with the teacher as facilitator. temporary classroom at playtime, watching the Not only that, but we ran the school on a day-toother children and feeling overwhelmed. My first day basis; ringing bells, distributing milk, ordering few weeks at school were not a success. The school dinners, and even stoking the boiler. By infant class not only had a temporary classroom, the time we left, most of us could have held down but a temporary teacher as well, and she didn’t a job. Exactly what was reported by Edmond like duplicate first names. There were three Holmes, former chief inspector of schools in Susans in the class so we two younger ones had (1911), about children to use our middle names. Except that my middle educated using similar approaches. And, to the name had already been taken, so I was told to surprise of the sceptics, for the choose a name. I said the first time ever, children from first name that came into the school began to pass the my head. It happened to Although I agree that schools can be 11 plus. be the name of my intensely stressful environments, schools favourite doll - the one I was one of them, and the also vary enormously. At one extreme they whose eyes had been traditional girls’ grammar can be education factories that batchpoked out by my cousin school I moved to came as so even the name I was process children; end product - ‘good’ something of a shock. known by in school (if I exam results. At the other extreme they can Dividing the curriculum into remembered to respond be safe, nurturing communities in which subject areas and having to it) had dark undertones. children and adults learn together. different teachers for each was Experiences like this can something I could cope with. get a kid off to a bad start.

Copying chunks of text from My dad, I discovered years the board, teachers reading from textbooks and later, had gone to see the head teacher about it. waiting for everyone else to finish their work, (or She was sympathetic, but told him that everyone having to wait for me to finish) was not. unfortunately they had to ‘make do with what they Quality of teaching ranged from teachers who read were sent’ by the local education authority (LEA). from textbooks and yawned continually, through teachers who screamed and threw board rubbers, A few weeks later, the LEA sent a diminutive, to teachers who were amongst the first women delightful infant teacher who changed my life. All graduates and who were inspirational. University our lives. By the time she and the new head came as a huge relief, and felt remarkably similar teacher had finished with us, we had the selfto primary school. confidence to deal with anything else the LEA cared to send in our direction. The head teacher had Which brings me, in a rather roundabout fashion, joined the tiny rural primary school a year before to Imran Shah’s article “The Futility of School” in I did. She was viewed by the locals with some the September edition of suspicion. Not only was she young and single, but Although I agree that schools can be intensely was reputed to be in favour of ‘modern methods’. stressful environments, schools also vary Most dubious of all, she hailed from Yorkshire, enormously.

At one extreme they can be which might as well have been Timbuktu as far as education factories that batch-process children; the natives of a Fenland hamlet were concerned. end product - ‘good’ exam results. At the other extreme they can be safe, nurturing communities Her ‘modern methods’ had been heavily influenced in which children and adults learn together. In

by Maria Montessori. The head teacher put in short, there is nothing inherently stressful about place what most schools would recognise as a , any more than there is anything school broad, rich, highly structured but highly flexible inherently beneficial about a family What curriculum. Skills and knowledge were acquired produces an environment stressful to the child is largely through integrated class projects the philosophy, systems and methods implemented originating in our own areas of interest. Within a

What Is And Might Be

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by the school - or the family.

Take the scenario described by Francis Spufford in . Francis was taken ill one day at school. His teacher carried him home on her shoulders. He had mumps, and whilst recovering, learned to read and (using celebrated his sixth birthday. His class assembled in his front to garden to sing him. This is unlikely to happen nowadays, but would not have been thought untoward in many schools during the pre- and postwar periods.

State schooling in the UK has undergone many transformations in the last 150 years. Initially, it was assumed that a significant proportion of the population couldn’t read, write or do arithmetic simply because no one had ever taught them how. It became clear that, in spite of incentives like performance-related pay for teachers and edicts from school boards, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Children learned at different rates. They learned in different ways, and had different abilities and interests. Often children who were obviously not stupid or lazy had difficulties acquiring some skills but not others.

What also became clear was that child-centred, integrated, multi-sensory approaches to education were often more effective than curriculum-driven, rote-learning, disciplinarian methods, and gradually the educational ethos changed. For many years, teachers had complete professional discretion over what and how they taught, enabling them to tailor education to each child’s needs. Unfortunately, educational practice has always been driven as much by ideology as evidence of efficacy. By the late 1970s, when I trained as a primary teacher, ‘child-centred education’ had reached a point where the ‘education’ aspect was in danger of disappearing completely, any intervention in the child’s exploration of the world being seen as a violation of his or her autonomy as a learner.

After the Education Reform Act of 1988, test results became more important than education

Not surprisingly, this state of affairs precipitated the Education Reform Act of 1988, although arguably central government wanting to wrest control of education from local authorities was also a factor. The Act introduced, amongst other things, a national curriculum and standardised testing. These might have had a beneficial effect, but for the fact that the national curriculum was made compulsory and standardized test results were used as a performance indicator for schools.

As had been widely predicted, test results became more important than education, and many schools began to ‘teach to the test’. It is the systems pressures brought about by these measures that are responsible, in my view, for much of the stress in schools that Imran talks about.

Instead of the form and content of learning being determined by the needs of the child, teachers are now required to ‘deliver the curriculum’. Instead of supporting children to learn at their own pace in the way that works best for them, there is pressure on schools to optimize the performance of children at KS2 and GCSE levels, because these are the results that determine the school’s place in league tables. The focus on test results has had an impact on the education of any child likely to perform well above the test standard or likely to fall well below it. So ‘gifted and talented’ children are bored and children with special needs find school stressful and there is pressure on all other children to excel in a narrow range of skills and knowledge – for the school’s benefit as much as for their own.

Cont’d on Page 24

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Winter Fun - A Big Project Idea from EOS The History of Festivals

Jam Jar Lanterns A beautiful and simple idea. Take any jam jar, some tissue paper and some glue, and let the children tear shapes and stick on whatever they want. If you have glass paint, then that's great, but the tissue paper is very effective. Flower arranging wire is fine for using as hanging wire, offset the "handle" slightly so the lantern can be held without the slight heat of the tealight reaching little fingers. Please take all sensible precautions, they are just as lovely as static tealight holders on a windowsill.

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Introduce some Latin I first introduced my linguistically minded daughter to Latin through the Christmas Song ‘Gaudete’, made famous by Steeleye Span.

You can see the band singing the song on stage here: www.youtube.com/watch?V=EDc2FD-vy8M If you’d like to have a look at the lyrics in Latin and find out what they mean there are many websites to choose from, for example: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete

White Christmas Tree For a Chirstmas decoration a little different, try this White Tree.

Print it out, cut it to shape, laminate it and punch a hold in the top. Use ribbon, string, tinsel etc to hang.

Use a smaller size to make home made Christmas cards.

A PDF of the tree in two different sizes is available free of charge on our website, www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk.

Winter Solstice and Astronomy In the northern hemisphere, the Winter Solstice occurs on 21st or 22nd December. This year it’s on 21st. The Winter Solstice is that time of year when the earth’s axis is tilted as far away from the sun as it can possibly be, resulting in fewer hours of daylight than at any other time of the year.

Help your child investigate how the solstice occurs. You can use the same methods as we used for investigating the equinox in September’s issue. We make no apology for simply repeating them here as they are equally relevant! www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/earth/Seasons.shtml A brief explanation of seasons with activities for younger children www.neok12.com/Seasons.htm A couple of interesting videos and some quizzes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9hawBb3wbk&feature=related A short video explaining seasons and putting the solstice in context Or get hold of a globe (or just a ball would do) to be the Earth, a bright lamp to be the sun and act out the videos in a dark room to investigate how the seasons work together! If you’re not sure how to do this, take a look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pleipisn3q0 It’s quite detailed at around 8 minutes long, so if you have younger children, or children with short attention spans, it’s probably a good idea for you to watch beforehand so you have a good idea of what you’re going to do! http://www.crystalinks.com/wintersolstice.html A lovely site with tons of information about the Winter Solstice, its importance in different cultures and its significance in all kinds of megolithic structures around the world. www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 9

UKHEMarket: A Yahoo group for buying and selling within the HE Community http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UKHEMarket/

Have you splashed out for books and other resources in the past without thinking, only to find that you don’t use them that much? I know I have! Or as your children grow older, you inevitably find that you have things gathering dust on shelves and at the same time are running out of space to store new purchases!

Or perhaps you’re looking to buy something, but finding it a bit pricey. It’s no news to say that home educating can be an expensive business and buying second hand can alleviate the cost.

I was looking to sell some items we’d grown out of but found that there was no interest on the usual websites I use. The market was too big and my small list got swallowed up. I realised that I needed to be selling specifically to the home educating community, so I was really pleased to come across the Yahoo group ‘UKHEMarket’, which does exactly that - provides a space for home edders to buy and sell to each other.

The group was set up in July 2010 by HE mum Laura, who told me ‘I have a 3 and 4 year old and am just starting out on my HE journey. My two love visual stimulation, they learn a lot by playing on the computer and from the TV, so I decided to look at games and educational items that needed to be touched and held to help them learn. I have a set of brightly coloured wooden letters that they love, so I went on to the internet with the hope of finding more items like this, but everything seemed quite expensive. In this credit crunch time like many we are struggling financially but I really wanted my children to have the things that will help them enjoy learning.

I saw some blogs doing a curriculum give away which i thought was a fantastic idea! It struck me that there must be many home educators out there that had different books, games, toys, etc that they no longer needed or used and that having a group specifically for our community would be a great way of helping people out, by having somewhere they could advertise their items without any fees, and by hitting a target market. Sellers could make a bit of money in the process and pass on useful items to those who would use them, so it would be win win for everyone.’

Laura set up her group and publicised it via Facebook at first. She was amazed at how quickly it grew. The group is simple to use. Firstly, you become a member as with other Yahoo groups. If you have something to sell, go to the group via the Yahoo website and use the ‘For Sale’ Application. Once you’ve added your item, remembering to include details about its condition, price and postage cost, an automatic email will be sent to the group letting everyone know that something has been added. From then on it’s down to individuals to make their own arrangements. If someone wants to buy your item, they contact you offlist and you make mutually agreeable arrangements to complete the purchase and delivery.

As with other selling or swapping sites, there is an element of trust, but the list doesn’t seem to have had any problems so far. It may be the sense of community! And as for me, I sold a few things so I’m happy!

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The Works of William Shakespeare as Unschooling “Curriculum”

By Kelly Green

I

t wasn’t a conscious decision to let my own personal obsession with Shakespeare dominate our home-educating life. In the beginning, I discouraged my sons from approaching Shakespeare “too early.” Having almost been turned off Shakespeare for life by a disastrous grade ten encounter with Julius Caesar, I wanted to make sure my own kids enjoyed their first encounters with the bard. But, as so often happens in unschooling families, my four sons’ involvement with Shakespeare was not necessarily under my control.

It started 14 years ago, when my older sons were , eight and six. I got a video copy of my all-time favourite play, the version starring Helena Bonham Carter with Ben Kingsley as the world’s most heartbreaking clown Feste. Brian and John wanted to watch it with me, but I said, no, you wouldn’t understand it, and you wouldn’t like it.

“Yes, we would,” they said.

“Well, you would need to be prepared for it to understand it.”

“Prepare us,” they said.

“I’d have to read it to you, and it’s a play. You wouldn’t be able to follow it,” I said.

“Yes, we would,” they said.

So, I read it to them. There were times that it was slow and tough going, but they wouldn’t give up. They were determined, for some strange reason, to watch that movie, and I, for some stranger reason that makes no sense to me now, didn’t want them to watch it unless they “knew” the play.

That was the beginning. They were hooked. Later in the that spring, I took them to park – a modernized, almost completely female version with a minimal cast. This time, I read them the Leon Garfield story version from his . That was good enough.

From that point on we started seeing Shakespeare

every chance we got, and we just read a “story version” ahead of time. As they got a little older, we started reading the plays together, taking parts.

Their little brother started listening and going to the plays when he was three.

Last year son number three “completed the canon” the same day I did, the day before his fourteenth at the birthday, with a production of Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon.

As a family we had seen live productions of all 37 of Shakespeare’s complete dramatic works and ) in (excluding 13 years.

So how did this affect our sons’ home-based education?

I don’t know that I can answer that question completely, as I’m sure there have been many effects that I will never, can never, be fully aware of. But I’ll take a stab at explaining how I perceive our engagement with Shakespeare has enriched our lives and my children’s learning.

All my boys have been late readers, starting to read for themselves somewhere between ages eight and ten. But I read to them, and they listened to audio books, every day of their lives. Because Shakespeare was a part of that from a young age, they developed vocabularies way beyond the norm. They all also have an instinctive grasp of poetry and meter. All three older boys completed university-level English studies through the U.S. College Board’s Advanced Placement program before they were 17, and all are excellent writers.

All four boys became fascinated with drama. They have all participated in the Young Shakespeareans program at the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival in Vancouver, Canada. This year will be our seventh year. Through this program, they have participated in putting on one-hour versions of many of the plays. They have enjoyed being on stage, and have made life-long friends in the program.

The older two boys are now headed toward making theatre a part of their professional lives. Our oldest son is now completing his BFA as a directing specialist at the University of Victoria department of theatre. Son two is completing his BFA in Cont’d on page 26

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You’ll sing a song and I’ll sing a song

By Paula Cleary

J

ane and Lorena are extremely patient. Many months ago I told them I was writing an article for EOS about mnemonics. Which I started.

Along the way it turned into an article about learning through audio - a kind of eulogy to the spoken word and joy of learning through songs and ditties. I scanned every book I owned and looked all over the internet. It seemed very natural as my kids absolutely love their audio collection.

There is something rather captivating about a story read aloud by a character like David Tennant or Stephen Fry or Terry Jones, and counting in Spanish doesn’t seem too much like a chore when it’s sung in a catchy pop song - (even better if you have the same song on dvd as an animated music video). It is so much more fun to listen to horrible histories with a few raps or songs thrown in than simply read the books. Songs somehow make things stick in your mind more easily. And yet this has not simply turned out to be an article praising audio learning as a educational tool....it evolved into something much deeper - it became an argument for music and movement as absolutely fundamental to our children’s whole development full stop.

found on dreadful children’s cd’s. Joh Linnell of They Might Be Giants is quite clear about what he thinks kids need to hear to really connect with what they’re listening to: “ We didn’t want to be medicine...we were really thinking, you know, kids deserve actual entertainment...the same thing that we would try to create for adults”. In other words learning comes more easily and naturally when you have catered for children’s need for music that is genuinely well written, catchy and fun to sing out loud.

But must all children’s music be consciously ‘educational’ to actually be educational? By educational do we simply mean delivering facts with a song and dance? Must it even necessarily be pitched as a cd specifically for children? No, no Now don’t get me wrong. I love and am a big fan and no. It’s even simpler than that. The folk singer of a number of “edu-cd’s”. I have invested in a Woody Guthrie spoke some whole bunch of them. Grammy wise words to parents in his winners They Might Be Giants 1956 album notes for “Songs are particularly good at this to Grow on for mother and Music and movement is genre and my own children child”....” Please, please, absolutely fundamental to have absorbed with great ease please, don’t read nor sing my our children’s whole and delight such concepts as songs like no lesson book, like the sun being a “miasma of development full stop. no text for today. But, let them incandescent plasma” or that “a be a little key to sort of unlock shooting star is not a star, it’s or let down all of your old bars. not a star at all, a shooting I’m not trying to trick the little fellers into tearing star’s a meteor that’s heading for a fall” (sung through all of their fun to my songs”. He goes on acapella as a ‘round’) from their 2009 album Here to say ”Watch the kids. Do like they do. Act like Comes Science. Before we discovered them we they act. Yell like they yell. Dance the ways you were bopping away on YouTube to Bob Dorough’s see them dance. Sing like they sing. Work and rest 3 is a Magic Number and the like from Schoolhouse the way the kids do. You’ll be healthier. You’ll talk Rock, and any other educational songs we could wiser. You’ll go higher, do better, and live longer find in an audio visual format that we could bear here among us if you’ll just only jump in here and to listen to. (Its not always easy - there’s a lot of swim around in these songs and do like the kids dreadful so-called ‘educational’ junk out there). do. I don’t want the kids to be grown up. I want The success of an educational musical adventure to see the grown folks be kids”. He is making an lies in its authenticity. It has to entertain. It cannot important and powerful point and in this instance, simply be a collection of flat or patronisingly the only directly educational message in the album delivered songs in a tone of voice so often to be is actually aimed at parents - the songs themselves www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 12

are free of any messages or morals, although they can often be thought provoking and funny in their observations.

A playful attitude to music is also a key component

For music education to be most meaningful there has to be active participation and enjoyment and not simply a passive relationship with it.

in the life work of the artist Ella Jenkins. She has been touring the world, collecting songs and chants and rhythms for over 50 years, and could possibly be dubbed the first interactive children’s performer.

Her style is not exactly simply a performance however, it’s more a collaboration, a democratic musical happening. A musical socialism if you like.

Her album “You’ll sing a song, and I’ll sing a song” remains one of the best-selling on the Smithsonian Folkways label, and many children’s artists credit her with being an inspiration in their formative years. Her success may be that she plays the simplest of songs, often using just a couple of chords, and frequently employs the call-andresponse method that she learnt from the streets, gospel churches and listening booths she frequented in her youth. The children she sings with are taken on a ‘journey’ of some kind or another- to lift them out of their own cultural outlook for a moment and help them see the world through another’s eyes. Her work concentrates on our interconnectedness, on everyone pitching in, on teaching children other languages and cultures through song. Ella teaches folks that its not as important to be technically accomplished in music or note perfect so much as be willing to be playful and experimental in ones approach. You have to put yourself in it to get the most out.

is no harm in these and they have their purpose.

But music as a whole seems too important and fundamental to be used only for such contrived educational ends. Music-making and enjoying seems in fact to be absolutely vital to one’s very health and ability to thrive. What other thing do you know besides love and friendship that can perform so many basic functions?

Music can divide or unite. Help you feel like someone else understands. Make you want to dance, or laugh or cry. It can heal and comfort.

Inspire. Be cathartic. Cross barriers of language or age or sex or belief or race or geography or culture.

It can move a person to think and behave differently. Keep you company. Give you courage.

Make you challenge or question ideas. Break the ice. Influence. Trigger or create memories. Help you focus. Help you lose your inhibitions. You can fall in love to it. Forget yourself, your troubles, your plight . It can annoy or excite or motivate. It can define an era, a person, a group. It can bring people closer together. It can open doors and create new friendships. It can turn you on. It can help you give birth more easily. Give a safe avenue for rage and frustration. It can help you say more eloquently what words alone cannot express. It can nourish your soul and help your spirit grow.

Thinking of music as a pleasant pastime which is not absolutely essential to child development is a mistake that no educator can afford to make. So

When I sat and thought about what these artists had to say it struck me that for music education to be most meaningful there had to be active participation and enjoyment and not simply a passive relationship with it. There must be an element of surrender, a melting pot where everyone can enjoy the space created by music being made together. A call-and-response in the heart of all the participants.

There is no denying that listening to Mozart can help you concentrate and learn maths more easily.

I can see that songs and ditties can help you remember the order of Henry VIII’s wives, or memorize the periodic table, or learn French. There www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 13

Dance around and enjoy your family time together.

Make up and invent songs and rhymes both serious and silly, with words real and made up. Improvise if you have no instruments to hand. We were born with bodies that lend themselves well to music making - hands for clapping and slapping, feet for tapping, the human body is of itself an amazing instrument! Use some spoons. Blow through bottles. Use whatever’s nearby. Maybe you could learn an instrument together? It needn’t be top of the range and its not about achieving grade such and such (though this is great if someone is doing it for the right reasons). Its more important to practise and play joyfully. Maybe Christmas would be a good time to buy an instrument as a gift?

Second hand can be just as good as new.

We were conceived in rhythm. We were rocked in the womb and in our mothers arms and in our cradles. Share and carry music around in your souls and you will all be happier, brighter learners! n ************************************

Paula’s totally biased selection of musical links for families what does this mean for you as your child’s teacher and co-learner? Do you need to dash out and buy stacks and stacks of music cd’s especially designed for children? No, not necessarily. They can be nice to own and sing along to but your Beatles Cd’s are just as valuable. There’s some wonderful morals and lessons to be learnt from simple songs providing the sentiment is sincere. It doesn’t matter if its Ella Fitzgerald, Simon and Garfunkel or Bach, whoever your bag is. Borrow from the library if you can’t afford to buy some albums yourself. Experiment with new artists you’ve never heard before. Push your boundaries and if you aren’t mad on scat jazz then a jazz compilation with one scat song on it would do. Try to listen to as many different types of music with your children as you can. Try to expose them to music from all over the world - its a great way to learn about other people and cultures. Youtube has so many wonderful music videos from Ladysmith Black Mumbazo to Star Wars orchestral performances to Japanese drumming to beatboxing. Stop and speak to buskers and street performers. Take the kids to concerts or festivals if you can.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/ http://www.putumayo.com/en/putumayo_kids.

php http://kidsmusicthatrocks.blogspot.com/search?u pdated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A0005%3A00&updated-max=2011-0101T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=22 http://www.youaremyflower.org/poster.html http://www.classicfm.co.uk/onair/programmes/afternoons-classic-fm/kids-call/ http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/19/theymight-be-giants-3.html http://worldmusic.about.com/od/worldmusic101/ tp/Songs-For-Mothers.htm http://www.natgeomusicmixer.com/mixmaster/

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Children’s Pages BOTTLE TOP CHRISTMAS TREE From www.ourbigearth.com/2007/11/15/homespun-holidays-bottle-cap-christmas-trees

Make a template for the tree then use it to roighly outline the rest of them - no need to be too accurate.

Cut all of the tress out.

Glue the bottle caps to the trees Fill up the caps with white glue, then fill the caps with beads, bird seed, rice, pebbles or whatever.

Spread the trees out on a flat surface and let them dry overnight.

The next day, if you want, cut enough wool to outline each tree and then glue it around the edge of the tree for an added accent.

Then, use the hole punch to make a hole in the top of the tree, string a lovely ribbon (or wool or string) and the bottle cap Christmas tree is ready for display.

I have been saving plastic bottle tops for some time, thinking they were nice colours and must be good for making something! Then I spotted this idea. It does look good with metal bottle tops, and this website has nice wool around the edge etc, but I wanted my son to do this pretty much by himself and he stopped after sticking the tops on! I thought adding the Hama beads would look good, and I'm sure we all have plenty of them! Or fancy beads would work well too.

Arrange the tops on the table first, and work out the Christmas tree shape from there. We used all different kinds of tops, and fitted them into the same size tree shape, I think the different ones are particularly effective. www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 15

Trying out a book from our store, Lorena has a go at making gingerbread houses from ‘Gingerbread’ by Joanna Farrow, ISBN 1-85967-491-7

GINGERBREAD HOUSE

Two 20 x 11cm/8 x 4¼ inch rectangles for the roof Two 19 x 9cm/7½ x 3½ inch rectangles for the front and back Two sides - draw a 9cm/3½ inch square, then add a pointed gable that measures 7.5cm/3 inches from the point to the base of the roof (so, find the centre of one side of the square, and draw a line upwards 3 inches, then draw lines from that point out to each corner.

175g/6oz plain flour 1.5ml/ 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda pinch of salt 5ml/1tsp ground ginger 5ml/1tsp ground cinnamon 65g/2 1/2 oz unsalted butter, cut into pieces 75g/3oz caster sugar 30ml/2 tbsp maple or golden syrup 1 egg yolk, beaten

Sift together the the dry ingredients, except the sugar. Rub the butter into the flour mix, until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, syrup and egg yolk and mix to a firm dough. Wrap lightly and chill for 30 minutes before using.

Roll out the dough, to about 1/4", I suggest, and cut out the templates carefully, making extra just in case of breakages. Bake at 180°C/350°F/Gas 4 for 15 minutes until they are just beginning to brown around the edges. Leave them on the baking sheet for 3 minutes (it says - pretty specific, but I did leave some cookies on too long and it was difficult to get them off!). Cool on a wire rack.

TIP: If you need to trim the shapes, don’t let them cool completely before you do it or they are likely to break

Basically you now build it. Take a deep breath, and try to stop small children talking to you.

Pipe icing down a short side of the front, sticking it to a side piece at right angles (I put the side pieces inside the other pieces) and sticking to a board at the same time. Pipe inside the house along the bottom of these walls. Add the other walls. Then pipe icing over the top parts of the walls and add the roof pieces. I filled in gaps and piped icing at every join.

Using bought white sugar paste, roll it out and make the snow covering for the roof, and little trees, stepping stones, logs perhaps. Add the icicles with the piping bag. www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 16

Making a gingerbread house seemed like a great idea - mixing the mix was easy enough, even the cutting out and baking I got right.

But the building? Infuriating! My son wanted to help, and should have been able to help at all stages. But balancing the walls to get them to stick together long enough to pipe the extra icing as instructed was really difficult! For children, I would suggest you do the mixing, cutting and baking as that takes time. You have to leave the mix to cool in the fridge; then you have to cook it for just the right time and remove it from the baking tray at the right time so it doesn't stick - oh and maybe make more than one wall/roof just in case one breaks when you move it!

! t c i d r e v s Lorena’

The instructions call for cutting door and window gaps, and using royal icing to make little crisscrosses in rectangles to look like lattice windows and fitting them. I'm afraid I didn't manage to do that for this demonstration, so can't say how easy or not that might be! They should be left to dry for a couple of days, so bear that in mind when planning your house building!

It tasted just fine, and I enjoyed the idea, but I think that's the way to go about it - look forward to the taste, enjoy making it, but it will take time and patience if you want it to look like the photos!

Maybe it's just me, but I wish you all the best of luck if you attempt any house building this week!

PINEAPPLE CAKE 2 cups self-raising flour 1 cup sugar 1 large tin (about 400g) crushed pineapple Throw in a bowl and stir lots! So easy a baby could do it!

Bake in a loaf tin at a medium heat for about 45 minutes check with the poke and wiggle method mentioned last issue...

Taken from the "Four Ingredients" cookbook by Kim McCosker & Rachael Bermingham, available on the web: www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/10281/easy-pineapple-cake

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Winter Festivals Crossword This crossword is for older children, secondary school aged really. It’s quite challenging and will probably require some internet research!

Across 2

In Christianity, the arrival of the Three Magi on 6th January (6) 6 The Roman winter solstice festival (10) 8 Mother’s Night, the Saxon winter solstice festival (8) 10 In Terry Pratchett’s fiction world “Discworld”, this celebration is very similar to Christmas (9) 11 Epiphany Eve (6,5) 12 More common name for St.Stephen’s Day (6,3)

Down 1 3 4 5 7

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The Celtic Midwinter (6,8) Hindu Festival of Lights (6) Germanic winter solstice festival (4) First day of the Celtic winter, falls on 31st October (7) American celebration of the early settler colonisation and the comradery with the native Americans (12) The Buddhist Day of Enlightenment, 8th December (5,3)

a commemorative monument or as a tribute to the power and influence of time and the seasons that to the prehistoric mind would have been controlled and ordered by the ancestors.

Whatever the exact function of Stonehenge, it seems heavily connected to profound changes occurring at the time of the Bronze Age. There was a new emphasis on the control of the landscape and therefore the control of people but there was also a deep connection with what had gone before.

Real Life Education

Stonehenge: Astronomy and Ritual

By Katie Davenport-Mackey, Archaeologist & Prehistorian

Many of the ancient monuments of Britain and Ireland incorporate solar and lunar observations into their layout. This is believed to indicate the passage of seasonal time and time counted in years from a point of origin but it also shows an obsession with the sun and the moon as part of a complex cosmology that governed the human world. This can be seen in the layout of the land and the activities of the people.

The points of the year most clearly marked by the old stone circles are the solstices and equinoxes.

Of particular interest to these early builders was the 21st December, the time of the winter solstice.

This is most clearly illustrated at Stonehenge that contains a variety of sightlines for the movements of the sun and moon, besides anyone approaching Stonehenge enters the site through a causeway on the north east; in doing so they faced south west, in the direction of the midwinter sunset.

The astronomical sophistication to be found in Stonehenge is a widespread phenomenon found in the Prehistoric cultures of the British Isles long before its construction on Salisbury Plain.

Fantastically accurate calendrical observations based on the movements of the sun and moon had probably been performed in Britain for over a thousand years before the building of Stonehenge in the early Bronze Age.

Those magical moments when education just ‘happens’. You didn’t plan them, they just crop up in normal everyday life, but can be some of the most memorable learning experiences and can really affirm what this whole Home Ed thing is all about!

A tea towel. That's what started it off. I have a tea towel that has breeds of sheep on it. Rare breeds are something I'm interested in (that'll be another article another day!) so I sometimes buy things like T-towels with such things on them. We have all the classic T-towels, if you know what I mean.

None matching, usually have recipes or adverts on them.

Anyway, the sheep one started a conversation about, well, sheep. Then: why they're different; we were reminded of a recent Countryfile program we watched (highly recommended program); what "Rare Breeds" means, why it's important to preserve them (http://www.save-foundation.net/) and then we talked about the fleece we have and how it could be turned into a jumper. Wow. It's amazing what conversations come from not doing the washing up. I really didn't realise just how much we do or can do before I started writing it all down.

If you're thinking about what you're going to do to educate your children next year, maybe just think about what you've actually done this week!

It might save some planning time, unless you or your children like that sort of thing, of course!

While Stonehenge seems to represent an axis mundi, or the centre of the world, it may also have been viewed as an experiment in architecture, as www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 19

Why take GCSEs at all?

Home Education and GCSEs? ‘How will they sit their GCSEs?’ It’s a very common question when you announce that you home educate, and something that, if we’re honest, we can worry about ourselves in those preteen years, or even earlier!

Underlying the question are usually some misconceptions and it is worth clearing these up first. As schooled children are passed along the academic conveyor belt, their choice at 14 consists only of which subjects to sit, so it is easy to see why so many people assume that GCSEs are mandatory. In fact, there is no such legal requirement and, even if young people outside of school do choose to study for GCSEs, there is nothing that determines when they do so. So it is perfectly possible to take them much younger than 16, or not to consider starting until much older.

Freed from the constrictions of school, home educators are able tailor their package of qualifications to meet their own talents and future plans, considering such things as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Arts Award, adult education courses and the Open University as well as the standard GCSEs. Or they can choose not to follow that route at all. Many people have had great success in life despite having few or no formal qualifications - Richard Branson is a well known case, others include Robert Braithwaite who started the Sunseeker luxury yacht building company, Laurence Graff, founder of Graff Diamonds, and Charlie Mullins, who started his own plumbing business now worth millions.

1

Still, GCSEs are seen as the standard and many home educated youngsters do take them, so let’s see what they’re all about.

Why indeed? Sometimes home educated children do so simply because they enjoy the challenge, sometimes because they don’t have a specific plan for the future and feel that getting a few qualifications might be useful. But more often the decision to take GCSEs is more thought out than that.

Sometimes GCSEs are required to gain a place on a college course or a sixth form. Depending on the course there can be alternative ways of gaining entrance without qualifications, such as an interview, aptitude tests, experience, portfolios etc., but a GCSEs are the standard way in.

For some subjects, study at GCSE, or at least to GCSE level, is needed before you can progress to an A Level.

This is true for subjects in which the skills and knowledge required are cumulative in nature, such as languages and mathematics.

Hmm, very much a matter of opinion!

Nonetheless, having some GCSEs may well help in the search for a job.

The advantage of being home educated is that you can work out your aims for the future and plan your GCSEs as stepping stones towards this aim.

A much more efficient way of approaching them!

OK, But How Do We Do Them?

Whatever the reason for choosing to take GCSEs, the big question really is how to go about it. While home educated young people do not have an automatic right to access public exams, it is perfectly possible to take them independently. This is known as being a Private Candidate and it involves making your own arrangements and paying the costs involved. Depending on how you go about tackling GCSEs, costs can vary from a few tens of pounds per subject to a few hundred!

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‘Making your own arrangements’ means doing absolutely everything yourself; including researching what GCSEs are available and what they involve, buying any necessary resources such as books, and doing whatever organising your child needs to enable him or her to learn the stuff! You also need to find somewhere to sit the exam (known as an ‘Exam Centre’ - usually a school or college), make contact with them and make all the arrangements, complying with any deadline dates.

Sitting Exams GCSE and IGCSE examinations are offered in two ‘sittings’ each year - summer and winter.

The actual dates vary depending on what subject and board you have chosen, but the winter sitting takes place in November or January and the summer sitting in May or June. You will need to plan well in advance as candidates need to be entered for their exams months beforehand and deadlines apply.

This seems like a good point to introduce IGCSEs, Short for International GCSEs, these are internationally recognised qualifications considered as equivalent to GCSEs and accepted as such by colleges, universities and employers.

Distance Learning Providers have already stopped offering GCSEs affected by this requirement, although they may offer IGCSEs as an alternative.

The major advantage of IGCSEs for home educators is that most of them are assessed on examination only, no coursework or controlled assessment which most standard GCSEs include.

This makes IGCSEs a lot easier to do, from a practical point of view.

Another option is to study the material independently. While this may seem daunting at first, if you go about it systematically it can be quite straight forward.

So, down to the nitty gritty - how to study the course.

Distance Learning Providers There are many of these around - just type ‘distance learning’ into your internet browser. They offer a wide variety of courses, including GCSEs and IGCSEs. When you purchase a course the package typically includes the home study materials, a series of assigments to monitor your progress and a dedicated tutor to mark them and help with queries and problems. If the subject involves coursework they will prganise and authenticae this, but you will still need to find an exam centre, book your child to sit the exam and pay the fees.

* From September 2010 the coursework element of many GCSEs has been replaced with something called controlled assessment. This is a little like completing coursework under exam conditions at a centre which may well prove very difficult for private candidates to organise. Some of the

‘Do It Yourself’ Study

Since it can be tricky to find a centre to sit the exam, it’s probably a good idea to make sure there is one you can access BEFORE your child embarks on months of study. You may be lucky to find one local to you or you may have to travel. Either way, it is important to identify one that will take private candidates. You will need to check which boards they offer and which subjects.

You will also need to find out what the centre’s deadline is for entering the exam and what they charge.

You can go to the Examination Board’s website and download the specification for your chosen subject (in my day we used to call it the syllabus!).

This details everything you need to learn for the exam. From this, you and your child can decide which subjects to take, taking into consideration the exam boards and subjects available at your exam centre.

Arm your child with the resources needed - books, websites etc. The specification will have a list of recommended resources. Ask other home educators for advice, either those you know locally or on internet forums and lists.

Plan when your child would like to sit the exam and make up a timetable, aiming to complete the

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tutoring with DIY study, doing the bulk of the work yourselves and using a tutor for just a few sessions, to practice exam technique or to iron out problem areas.

It all sounds so complicated!

It can be a bit daunting to start with! But don’t be put off. Many home educated youngsters have successfully taken GCSEs of all sorts and many more are studying towards them as you read this.

course a couple of months before the exam to enable time for revision. Don’t forget to try some past papers for practice in exam technique - the exam board will have some on their website, or try one of the websites that have comprehensive collections - just search for ‘past exam papers’ in your browser.

If you and your child decide that GCSEs are the way to go, then don’t panic, start researching exam centres and subjects and take one step at a time.

And remember, as always with the home educating community, there is lots of advice and support around, you just need to ask! n

PROS: The cost. This can be as little as the price of a couple of textbooks, plus the exam fees.

CONS: You’re on your own! This may not be a problem, particularly if it’s a subject you’re familiar with or your child is especially motivated in, but if you hit a sticky patch you may need some help.

The home education community will often come up trumps (there is even a dedicated Yahoo group for home educators tackling qualifications and exams), or you may have a friend or family member who can help, but it worth considering in advance.

People’s approaches to DIY exams vary widely.

Some home educated young people are very driven and will be prefectly happy to take the lead and teach themselves. Others may want you to help plan a weekly workload and keep an eye on how much gets done. Others again may want you with them every step of the way and you may find yourself in the role of teacher if you know the subject, or learning alongside your child and wondering if you should sit the GCSE too! But it’s a sliding scale and the amount of input from you can sit anywhere along it, differing from child to child or from subject to subject.

Private Tutors Another alternative, but at a typical rate of £20 per hour, this could be a very expensive way to study for a GCSE! However, you might be able to organise tutor groups for home educators in your area, reducing the cost per person. Or you could combine private

References and Further Information 1

The Vocational Rich List http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_ar ticle_id=447433&in_page_id=2 The home educators’ exam information wiki: www.home-education-exams.org.uk The Independent Schools’ Council

www.isc.co.uk

The main exam boards: AQA OCR Edexcel Cambridge International

www.aqa.org.uk www.ocr.org.uk www.edexcel.com www.cie.org.uk

A Source of Advice and Support There is a Yahoo Group especially for home educators taking exams of all types. Find it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HE-ExamsGCSE-A_AS_Levels-OU-Others This is a tremendous source of support and advice from others who have been, or are still going through the whole process.

Please remember that as with all Yahoo groups this is a public forum. Essentially the list is full of people who are starngers to each other and, as with all email lists, no-one should ever write anything that they would be concerned about getting into the public arena.

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Christianity in Roman and Medieval Britain

By Richard L.Jones, Roman Historian

It seems that as long as history has been written down in whatever script or language, different peoples and civilisations have seen the equinoxes, solstices and division of the seasons around what we call December as having a special meaning.

These unique times of the year have had a significant religious impact, and even a magical theme in the stories and practices of virtually all civilisations.

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Long before the rise of Christianity the 25th December was celebrated in Pagan ceremonies all over Britain and Europe - for example the Romans had the Saturnalia Festival. This was a special time for feasting and the giving of gifts. Another Christian Festival that also has Pagan origins is the Easter Festival. The Easter festival is a corruption of the celebration of the Roman feast of Astarte who was a Goddess of fertility and war. The Church after the time of Constantine merely adapted in order to swallow up the old Pagan beliefs within a new Christian context.

Another interesting historical fact concerns the modern tradition of the April Fool. In the middle ages the saying ‘April Fool’ was derived from the fact that time as we know it was not followed accurately by every village and town – and so dates were uncertain. It was not unusual to find people celebrating New Year as late as April, hence the name.

Also 28th December, though not now in use was known in the medieval church as the date of Herod’s execution of the Children of Israel in order to eliminate the future King or Christ, commonly termed the ‘massacre of the innocents’.

Yes, to look back in History shows very clearly a catalogue of intrigue and beliefs as diverse and apocryphal as time itself – which have been changed and manipulated in order to accommodate every ruling religion and ideology.

This is merely one thing that makes the study of the past so interesting, and even exciting! n

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Schools first came into being when groups of parents pooled their resources and hired a tutor.

The difference between a state school and a group of parents hiring a tutor is, of course, who is in control. Historically, state schools in the UK have been funded by, controlled by and accountable to, the local community. The Education Reform Act made schools less dependent on local authorities and more dependent on central government, even though this was badged as increasing the school’s independence. I have no doubt that the steady increase in the number of families electing to home educate is a direct result of a shift in focus in state education from the needs of the learner to the needs of the system.

Schools do not have to be educational factory farms. They could be - and indeed have been very different. I think it’s time to reclaim them.

Or to re-invent them. Schools could operate along similar lines to the traditional further education college, but for all age groups. They could provide an educational resource for the local community.

Learning could be facilitated by professionally trained teachers and by community members.

Children and adults could learn at home or at school, or both, and could learn from each other.

We need a resource designed to meet the educational needs of the individual and the community, not the needs of the education system.

I feel the distinction between school and home education, although understandable, is an artificial one. At their best, schools have advantages and disadvantages. At its best, so does home education. But both have enormous potential to benefit learners. n

By Marty Layne

The month December bring holidays that celebrate the importance of love, family, and the rebirth of light. When my children were small, a big part of our holiday tradition was to read Christmas stories out loud. The magic, the warmth, and the reaffirmation of love that fill these seasonal stories were part of our celebration of the birth of new hope in the midst of darkness. The ritual of reading these stories at the same time each year added a sense of predictability and comfort to the holiday season.

I liked to read stories that had positive images of family life, positive images of children, positive humour, and/or illustrations that I found attractive and beautiful. Let me tell you about some of our favorites.

by Shirley Hughes fits all of my criteria. There is something so inviting and cozy about Shirley Hughes’ illustrations. Her stories are so real and down to earth. Reading one of her picture books to my children would remind me to slow down and see the world from my toddler’s point of view. I found it very helpful to have those kind of reminders in the books I read aloud. That wasn’t the point of the story but it was one of the benefits of this book by Shirley Hughes. In this story, we see the preparations Lucy and Tom’s family makes for Christmas. It is all very low-key yet from a toddler’s point of view very exciting and different.

A memorable illustration for me is one where the extended family is playing a game together. An old aunt is just as engaged as Lucy and Tom. If you’ve never read Shirley Hughes, you’re in for a treat. If you have, revisit this book and enjoy a family Christmas that you don’t have to prepare.

References and Further Reading .

Holmes, Edmond (1911).

Out of print but available from Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20555 and from the British Library via inter-library loan.

Spufford, Francis (2003) Faber and Faber. ISBN: 0571214673

For Reading Out Loud: Holiday Stories

by Alison Utttley is another favourite. This collection of short stories by this prolific author is a treasure. As I reread through this collection of Alison Uttley’s stories in the last few days, I was reminded of the magic of a simple country Christmas. This collection of stories ranges from one about Sam Pig and his brothers and sister to ones about the forgotten dolls in a dollhouse to the story of timothy a woodcutter, his wife Jenny

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illustrations. The mice decide to have a Christmas party. They need to have money so they try to raffle off Samson, the church cat. This fails, so they try other ways to make money. After a number of near disasters, they finally put on a party. This picture book and the other church mice books by Graham Oakley intrigued my sons in particular. It was fun to look at all of the details in the illustrations and the humour made us all laugh and smile.

by Jill Barklem is one of four books in the seasons series of the Brambly Hedge books. This story is a feast for the eyes. I love the details and soft colours Jill Barklem used. The story is filled with the anticipation and excitement of the mice children preparing for the ball that will be held in the ice palace.

Wren, their infant son Timothy, Old Holly and three magic holly berries. I read these stories to my children starting when they were about 4 –5.

It is hard to determine ages for stories. The youngest child in a family may be able to listen to stories at a younger age than their older siblings just because he or she has been listening to stories as mom or dad reads to the older ones. You are the best judge of what is a good age for any particular book. If you or your children are not enjoying the story you’re reading, stop reading it.

You don’t have to finish a book that no one wants to hear.

If I am uncertain about a book, I read it to myself first before reading it outloud to my children. That way I have a better idea of whether or not it will suit them. Each person has different likes and dislikes. The main thing in reading to children is to have an enjoyable experience with the world of words in the land of the imagination.

Another family favourite was

by Rumer Godden about a little orphan girl (Ivy) who decides that she’s going to find her grandmother this Christmas, and a doll (Holly) who is looking for a girl for Christmas. It’s lovely story of both the little doll and the little girl and how they find each other with a number of misadventures that all lead to a very positive resolution. This story is for children 4 and up. I love all of the books Rumer Godden has written about dolls and children. Characteristic of her writing is the way she keeps at least two story lines going – one from the dolls’ point of view and one from the people’s point of view.

I noticed that this book is in the collection that includes all four seasonal stories. It a new reprint by Harper Collins Children's Books (28 Oct 2010) 978-0007371662 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Brambly Hedge.

Hurray!!! I live in Canada. It is hard to find this or any of the Brambly Hedge books in print in North America. I hope that this 30th anniversary edition will also be released in Canada and the US. If you are looking for a book to give as present a for a little girl, I can’t think of a better one than this collection of Brambly Hedge stories. The Brambly Hedge website has been redesigned.

You can visit it here: http://www.bramblyhedge.co.uk/ and have a look at the delightful world Jill Barklem created.

Libraries often have a holiday stories shelved in one place. I’m sure you’ll find many other books and stories there that you will enjoy. Second hand shops, garage sales, and even library discard sales can be great places to find holiday and other children’s books at very reasonable prices. And of course, new books from bookstores make great presents.

Enjoy! Happy holiday reading! n

by Graham Oakley is a rich story in both words and detailed www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 25

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theatre/writing. They often collaborate on writing and stage projects and films. Both have appeared in professional Shakespeare productions here in Victoria. Sons three and four are going in the same direction. Our little guy, age nine, has already had a couple of “professional” acting gigs with one of the companies his older brother is a part of.

But can you learn more than just literature, poetry, and theatre from engagement with the works with Shakespeare?

Oh, yes, you most certainly can.

Many books have been written about the breadth of Shakespeare’s knowledge and influence. I’ll just touch on some of the aspects that have influenced our lives.

History. Shakespeare leads us to history in so many ways. The obvious ways are through his historical plays – you can start with the Romans, , , and .

Then the Plantagenet history plays are a wonderful and rich way to approach medieval European history. Combining a study of Shakespeare’s saga to with modern from historical studies of this 350-year period gives you perspective you can’t get just by approaching the period from our twentieth/twenty-first century point of view. Shakespeare, writing from an early modern period, acts very much as a bridge between us and the medieval/Renaissance period.

We can look at Shakespeare as a guide and interpreter. His history plays lead us through the Middle Ages as Dante’s Virgil led him through the Inferno and Purgatory, with the perspective of another age. We relate to it, but are not part of it.

And speaking of Dante, through his plays Shakespeare also introduces us to the world of medieval France, Italy, Austria and the Baltic region. Through his sonnets, he leads us to the poet Petrarch. He introduces us to the medieval ) and writers Chaucer ( Boccaccio ( ). We are educated in ancient myth, drama and philosophy.

We can visit ancient Athens in , experience the drama of the Roman author Plautus in , hear a story from the Iliad in , and can even compare Shakespeare’s philosophy of drama to that expressed by Aristotle in his .

Southampton, but also Paris, Normandy, Vienna, Verona, Carthage, Athens, Rome and Albania came from their exposure to the works of Shakespeare.

Music. Not only do many of Shakespeare’s plays have musical interludes and song lyrics, which have been set to every musical genre from early medieval to Dixieland, but his work and lyrics have inspired composers ranging from Thomas Morley (during his life) to Ralph Vaughn Williams in the twentieth century. Many others have reworked his stories in their own ways, including Beethoven ), Samuel Barber ( ( ), Bernstein ( ), Verdi ( , ), Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky ( ).

Shakespeare engages us in moral and ethical questions. How should women be treated, and what rights should they have ( )? How do we deal with racism and ethnic hatred ( )? Are people intrinsically evil or good ( , )? Does one country have the right to invade another ( )? What duties do , family members owe each other ( , , , , , )?

But Shakespeare even takes us beyond these things. What holidays did people celebrate in the Middle Ages and Renaissance? What plants were important to them? How have his works affected our legal system? Our spirituality? Our conception of time? Our individual and group psychological development? Many writers have examined these issues at length.

I am now getting past the point of mid-life, so I think it is safe to say that one of the constant themes of my entire life will have been the study of the works of Shakespeare. I think that will be true for my sons as well. I honestly can’t imagine a more pleasurable way to learn about the world than to study it through the eyes, mind, and heart of the greatest writer our language has ever produced. n

Geography. My children have become familiar with the geography of England, France, Italy, Austria, Greece and Africa through Shakespeare. Their first encounters with, not just London, York and www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 26

Reviews

:

Books

¾

:

Websites

» Radio

ü

Places

³ DVDs

&

http://cache.lionbrand.com/

This site has plenty of free patterns for knitting and crochet. It is American, like so many, so you'll need to make sure you use American stitches if you usually knit/crochet in a British way! I'll be doing a feature on this in forthcoming issues.

TV

I get the newsletter, which is free, and there's always a pattern or two that looks interesting and you can email them to yourself or friends as well as save them in a library on their website.

¯ Music

I particularly liked the snowflake pattern, as it shows how to do the pointed, open, shape that could be used for edging anything, rather than always having a completed edge.

:

www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

&

‘Snowflake Bentley’ by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Mary Azarian

I really like this. It's full of games, and you can of course track Santa on the 24th - even on your phone!

The site explains how it all began: “The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations "hotline." The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.

Since that time, NORAD men, women, family and friends have selflessly volunteered their time to personally respond to phone calls and emails from children all around the world. In addition, we now track Santa using the internet. Millions of people who want to know Santa’s whereabouts now visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website.”

This is a lovely history of a man trying to photograph snowflakes. He is why we know all snowflakes are different, for example.

"Nicely written - beautifully illustrated."

“What a fascinating story. One man dedicated to one thing.

It's just when photography was starting out, so not as easy as today! Nicely illustrated too."

On the EOS Amazon store, ISBN 978-0547248295

:

http://m.sciencedump.com/content/oldestcomputer-made-lego-antikythera-mechanism

Out and about on the net we found another EOS (www.eosmagazine.eu/language/nl-BE/home.aspx). It’s a science magazine, and look at what they found!

Click the link above - fascinating, and has enthused me to find out more about gears.

Fantastic! www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 27

Creating Memories in December

By Marty Layne

A

t this time of year, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of seasonal activities and forget to take time to enjoy the things that make this season special.

When one of my sons turned 3, his birthday is at the end of November, he noticed all the decorations in the stores. “Oh Mama, that’s so beautiful! Did they do all this just for us?” I think of his 3-year-old delight each year as the lights and decorations go up. It reminds me to stop, look, and enjoy the efforts that everyone makes to create a festive atmosphere for the various celebrations that take place at the time of the winter solstice.

The word solstice comes from the Latin meaning sun and meaning standing still – During the three or four days around the winter solstice, the nights

stay long and the days stay short. Then suddenly, the sun rises a little bit earlier and sets a little bit later.

Many people around the world celebrate this time of year with a festival that recognizes the importance of light for our life on earth. It is also a time of when people celebrate the rebirth of the spirit and the awareness that in the midst of death, life is reborn.

Here are some suggestions for making this time of year special.

1. Eat by candlelight at mealtimes.

No matter what age child you have, the flames of the candlelight add a magical touch to any meal.

Just keep in mind that you’ll need to supervise your children as accidents can happen when candles are involved. Never leave a child unattended with a lit candle.

If appropriate for the age of your children, you might ask them to tell you what they think life would be like if you only had candles to light up the evenings.

2. Look at the Christmas Lights If you live somewhere where people light up their houses and decorate their gardens, go for walks around your neighbourhood at dusk and look at the house decorations. Hold your child’s hand or push him/her in a stroller. Take the time to stop and describe what you see. Name the colors, the way the lights are hung, and if you child can talk, ask your child to tell you what he or she especially likes.

Make it a short excursion. One parent prepares supper, the other parent takes the children for a short walk to look at the lights. Switch the next time you go, giving both parents a chance to have an opportunity to share the lights and decorations with your child.

If you have older children, you can go for a longer excursion after supper and give them practice reading maps while you explore the neighborhood for the decorations you like the most. Download a neighborhood map from the internet. Let your child plot a route and mark down the houses that everyone likes the best. It’s a great way to help a child become familiar with maps.

3. On your way to do errands in the evening, take one child with you and take 15 minutes for a detour drive by streets that have lots of lights. This is a special treat for both parent and child and can become a family tradition.

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4. Light candles in your living room and turn off the electric lights. Sit on the couch with your child and look at the flames together. Describe the colors you see. Ask your child to tell you what he or she sees.

Tell your children something you remember from this time of year when you were a child. As your children grow older, they will have memories to share as well. And don’t forget to read to your children. Reading by candle and/or firelight makes it especially warm and cozy.

If star groupings fascinate your child, use constellation guides to locate various constellations in the sky. www.skymaps.com has free maps of the nighttime sky that you can download. n

5. Sing together by candlelight.

Babies and children are soothed by their parents’ voices. Sing seasonal songs or any song that you enjoy as you sit together curled up next to each other on the couch or in a chair.

6. Look at the nighttime sky.

Because it gets dark so early at this time of year, a clear night offers very young children an opportunity to see a sky filled with stars and the moon at a time that they are still awake.

Go to a park or somewhere away from street lights to see the sky even more clearly Point out how the moon changes from night to night.

Point out the Big Dipper.

www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 29

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.

You may have seen in the media various references to a report and subsequent proposed changes to the law.

These were lost in the “washup” - the bargaining between political parties as to what bills will pass/fail in the days after the election was announced. Many Home Educators breathed a sigh of relief when they heard that the HE part of the CSF Bill had been cut. The hard work of many parents to inform and educate MPs and others enabled those in power to see that the proposed changes would not help those they wanted to help, and would in fact alienate many families.

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 responsibile 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.

www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 30

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 North Yorkshire www.nyhe.co.uk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/henney/ (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

Education Otherwise www.education-otherwise.org PO Box 325, Kings Lynn, PE34 3XW Freedom In Education www.freedom-in-education.co.uk

West Yorkshire wyheal.wordpress.com

HE-Special Home Education in the UK - Special Educational Needs www.he-special.org.uk

East Midlands Leicestershire www.he-al.org.uk

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

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

HEdNI Home Education in Northern Ireland www.hedni.org Home Education Advisory Service www.heas.org.uk 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

West Midlands Worcestershire www.worcestershire-homeeducators.co.uk East Cambridgeshire www.cambridgehomeeducators.org.uk 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 South West Bristol www.bristolhomeeducation.org.uk Dorset www.he-ed.org.uk Somerset www.homeeducationcentre.org.uk Wiltshire www.nwilts-he.org.uk Wales North West www.creativelearningandsupport.co.uk

www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 31

Home Ed Gymnastics Group Mansfield, Nottinghamshire 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.

www.schoolhouse.org.uk www.thenuk.com

www.educationeverywhere.co.uk

Season’s Greetings from all at EOS! www.muddlepuddle.co.uk www.hedni.org

www.heas.org.uk www.education-otherwise.org

www.ahed.org.uk