Parenting James: Five Months Later and Facing a New Battle

I last wrote about James in May. As expected, it’s taken three weeks into the school term and I’m writing about him again. That’s not surprising considering the last five posts have mostly centred around his school life.

Parenting James: Learning Again, Living With Trauma, and What the Diagnosis Really Means

James has been with his new tutor for three weeks. We didn’t know how it would go. He spent the weekend before the first session begging me to cancel it. His anxiety was through the roof. He didn’t want to go back to anything that looked or sounded like school.

We didn’t cancel. We adjusted. We started at 10am instead of 9.30am so he had space to breathe. That shift made the difference. He met G. They talked. They found a rhythm and lesson interests. She explained that learning didn’t have to be at a table, actively involving worksheets, or be the rigid routine that broke him. They could go out, explore, and learn in the world. Whatever sparked his interest. Lessons, resources, and routines all built around him. 

End of Home Ed: A New Adventure

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

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

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

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

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

The End of Home Ed

 

For the last 6 years I feel like I’ve become a champion for home education. I feel I have shown that home ed is and can be the right decision for thousands of children up and down the country.

I hope somewhere that I’ve shown that it is more than a lifestyle choice like many assume and that it’s actually more a parenting choice; a choice that suits the child’s individuality.

When I first started Home Education I have to admit that I wasn’t keen on doing it. As a primary teacher I’ve seen home educated children enter my class and need some extensive support. I instantly, and wrongly, assumed it was poor education. The only thing that made me feel better about doing it was knowing my own ability as a teacher, the resources I knew how to get and use and that I would follow appropriate guidelines and curriculum.

Ignorantly I wouldn’t be “one of those parents".

Home Education opened my eyes to the idea of child led learning. The concepts of extra curricular learning that go beyond standard curriculum set up. It showed me that children can learn by living and learning an experience first hand rather than from a whiteboard and textbook. We spent time in environments like Fruit and Vegetable shops to discover healthy living, visited drinks manufacturers to see how everything is made and experienced first-hand animal care at vets; all experiences that wouldn’t have happened in classroom environments.

Timing, Routine and Free Learning for Home Learning

With the school closures happening as we predicted the thought of teaching the children at home has hit many hard.

For those who have read my previous post I hope that it’s useful and filled you with some encouragement.
However, I’m aware that it wasn’t as clear cut as I initially thought. Some parents have raised a few questions that I need to address.

Teaching through the Coronavirus

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Week in Home Ed

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

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

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

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

Our Week in Home Ed

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

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

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

Reading when Ready with Reading Eggs

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

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

Egyptian Poster

We have started our new history topic Egyptians this term and after creating our homemade scrolls and learning about hieroglyphs and with all our different pieces we haven't had a central point to display the work!

We decided that we would make a poster designed around a sarcophagus and, of course, we wanted to show you how we made it!

I started off with 4 A3 pieces of plain paper and taped them together and then drew an outline of a sarcophagus.

Home School - Invstigate Dissolving- Part 2

A couple of weeks ago the boys and I undertook the experiment where they were discovering which materials would dissolve and which wouldn't.

I wanted to spend a couple of lessons looking at the concept of dissolving and then if temperature would effect the rate of change. So we repeated the experiment but with Hot water!

That some substances can dissolve in water.

That temperature affects the rate of dissolving.

That some substances dissolve and others are suspended.

 

To select and explore activities and resources independently

To use basic vocabulary as well as extend to learning new sounds, words and meanings

To explore, record and summarise the different changes

To ask questions about why things happen and how things work

Materials

1.       Hot Water

2.       Sand

4.       Salt

5.       Soil

6.     Flour

7.     Coffee

8.     Small bowls/See through glasses

9.       Spoons

We started off by recapping the previous lesson and discussing the difference between the substances provided. Both of the boys could distinguish the difference and could recall each substance carefully and what reaction happened. 

I started by boiling the kettle and pouring small amounts into see through glasses.

7 Autumnal Activities for Children

We are in the middle of autumn and we are ploughing through Home Ed and our Geography topic of exploring autumn locally.

As you have seen on this blog and across social media that we have been enjoying doing different activities but we have also loved hearing from everyone who is using our lessons and making their own versions so I thought I would do a post to assemble all the different activities together.

Here are 7 Autumnal Activities you can do with your children:

Home School - 5 Simple Steps to make a Conker Snake

We are trying to cover as many crafts and activities at the moment to match our autumnal geography topic. 

When we took ourselves off on our autumn hunt and collected lots of different autumnal objects but at the same time we discussed the changing of season and the colour change that trees present with it.

One thing that stood out after our activity was that we had lots of left over autumnal objects! We decided then to make use of them in some craft!

I searched Pinterest and saw several ways to use conkers like this and all under a different name! So here is our 5 simple steps to how to make a conker snake/caterpillar/worm.

Home School - Autumn Potato Leaf Prints

We are trying to cover as many crafts and activities at the moment to match our autumnal geography topic. 

When we took ourselves off on our autumn hunt and collected lots of different autumnal objects but at the same time we discussed the changing of season and the colour change that trees present with it.

One thing that stood out for me is that the boys seemed really interested in the changing of colour and I thought it would be good to explore this in a craft!

We haven't done potato printing in such a long time that I thought this would work well in making leaf prints.

I am sure we all know what to do but will give a 5 step run through anyway!

Home School - Hieroglyphic Scrolls

We have started our history topic this term on the Egyptians and thought we would start with making "ancient scrolls" and writing and learning about hieroglyphics.

Understand how writing was used in Ancient Egypt.

  

Discussions about characteristic features of the period, including the ideas, beliefs, attitudes through designing a sentence with hieroglyphics.

Materials

• Paper
• Tea
• Coffee

• Hieroglyphic template

• Hair dryer/Oven

I started the lesson off by showing the boys this picture.

Hunting and Sorting for Autumn

If you remember that at the end of the summer holidays I promised that I would spend more time in allowing the boys to be out in nature exploring and be wild and free more. With this in mind I decided to do exactly that and plan some of this into our learning.

I decided that to be able to do this more that I can craft several lessons around autumn.

Earlier this week there was some minor change around due to James being poorly where the temperature change was affecting his asthma. This meant that William and I had extended one to one day hunting and collecting autumnal nature objects.

This activity had no real objectives other than to recognise something of nature that we only really find in autumn. (We did have a chat on the way to discuss the different things we might find)

Home School - Investigate Dissolving

Summer holidays are over and we are now back in the swing of Home Education.

With this in mind I thought that there is no better way than kicking off with a science experiment.

I wanted to spend a couple of lessons looking at the concept of dissolving and specifically which substances dissolve and the ones that don't.

That some substances can dissolve in water.

 

To select and explore activities and resources independently

To use basic vocabulary as well as extend to learning new sounds, words and meanings

To explore, record and summarise the different changes

To ask questions about why things happen and how things work

Home School - The Puppet Project - Finger Puppets

If you've been following our blog recently you will know that the boys and I have started our summer topic all about Puppets.

The idea is great, explore, investigate and make a variety of different puppets; perfect for all ages and all abilities!

With this is mind we decided to start the project with simple finger puppets.

Here's our guide to making them!

A Day ay Reculver Towers

As part of our current Home Ed topic about Rivers and Beaches, we have been exploring the different beaches that are local to us. We are incredibly lucky to live on the South East coast and have plenty of different places around us.

Numeracy - Telling Time

One of the Numeracy topics this year for William is being able to tell the time.

This is a difficult activity to learn and only up to a couple of years ago it wasn’t taught fully until the second half of primary in Key Stage 2.

Recent changes however have meant that it is being taught earlier.

It is expected then that: