Documenting

We did a very quick but straight to the point home school today.

Mainly because tomorrow we have our first home school inspection from our local council.

By law, when you decide to home educate there is one simple rule that you stick by; Deregister your child from the school  or LEA formally. This is the only thing that you have to do. Within laws regarding children and educating it clearly states that a child, under individual rights, have the option to be educated. It doesn't matter how but they should legally be given the right and chance to be educated. No where does it say how. It clearly specifies that: "4 37. - (1) If it appears to a local education authority that a child of compulsory school age in their area is not receiving suitable education, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise, they shall serve a notice in writing on the parent requiring him to satisfy them within the period specified in the notice that the child is receiving such education."

How you educate though is entirely up to you. You could structure it or have no structure or formal education. You don't even have to allow a home school visit or inspection.
The boys mum and I decided that we would allow it. We mainly feel that, if anything, it would be beneficial to see if we are meeting with expected regulations.



As a trained teacher it was drummed into us to document every activity that the individual child within your class makes through experiences and achievements.

It was a good habit to keep.

As a parent I continued to do this. At the beginning it was a good way to prove that I was doing the best as a single parent and that I was active in the boys lives. Always having a constant back up of support when access through courts were being met.

In an earlier post this week I spoke about doing projects either at home or within a home school environment. These documents, photos and packs offer more than just creating memories. It shows that week on week you are doing the best for your children.

When my mum passed away my brother and I found several folders with our names on. They contained a lot of basic stuff like paper work etc but they also had our childhood scape books in.

It was a tradition that every holiday from school or every family holiday we would make and create a scrape book. Seeing all these together made me realise how much my mum did with us. They were beautiful to see and made me in a time of darkness feel loved by the person I was missing.

So what do you do with your kids? If you're like me and you do projects do you do more than document with photos that you later either upload to Facebook  or that just stay on your camera or phone? Do you do things that provide a hard evidence of what you do for your children?

With me, I have no doubt or worry about tomorrow. I know whole heartedly that I am a good teacher, that I organise and prepare to meet my child individually for their educational needs. I also know that through my project planning that I have more than enough evidence to show that, not only is William educated to a high standard, he is working higher than children in mainstream schools. Ultimately that aside, formatting my evidence for the inspection I know that one day, both my boys,  will see what their Daddy did for them.