Issue 13 Winter 2014
Education Outside School Home Education In Action!
School Is Normal by Jai Daniels-Freestone
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Fostering Independence in Your Home Educated Child by Ross Mountney
Home Educating Our Twins by Lara Pinder
Home Education from Birth to University by Andrew Green
Joining the Dots - How to Ensure Your Children are Making Connections Katie Pybus talks to EOS Learning to Sew with Your Children
Home Education & EOS Magazine Education is compulsory in the UK for children but school is not. Many families choose to home educate instead, enjoying the freedom to create a personalised education experience, with no constraints of time, place or curriculum. Education Outside School Magazine is here to support those families, celebrating the myriad wonderful methods they use and providing a window into this community that chooses an Education Outside School.
Who We Are EOS was founded by Lorena and Jane, two home educating mothers from the East of England, to be the kind of magazine they would have loved to read when they first started home educating.
There is no one way to home educate, no ‘set of instructions’. Families forge their own paths, using different approaches and resources as they go along. Their greatest resource is often the home educating community - questions are asked and ideas shared daily. This magazine comes from the community, being run by home educators with contributions from the community.
Lorena is home educating a son aged 11 and a daughter aged 5.
If you are a home educator, or thinking about it, you’ll find among these pages encouragement, support and ideas. If you don’t home educate, perhaps by reading EOS you’ll enjoy a glimpse into a different way of living and learning, leaving with a better understanding of what home education is and how it works.
Jane is home educating a daughter aged 13 and a son aged 16; she also has a 21 year old son and 18 year old daughter who were home educated; her son is now in full time work and her daughter is studying for A Levels at college.
We hope you enjoy it!
Education Outside School C.I.C. Education Outside School is a Community Interest Company (CIC). A CIC is a special type of limited company which exists to benefit the community rather than private shareholders. We work for the benefit of the home educating community in the UK; supporting, encouraging and providing resources. Any surplus generated will be invested back into the company to further support the home educating community in whatever ways are viable and practical. For more information, please see our website.
Lorena and Jane run EOS together, with the help of the many wonderful contributors who write for them - see more about this issue’s writers on page 6.
Get In Touch Content Editor Lorena Hodgson lorena@educationoutsideschool.co.uk Managing Editor Jane Levicki jane@educationoutsideschool.co.uk Advertising advertising@educationoutsideschool.co.uk
Education Outside School is an independent organisation, not allied with any other home education group or organisation. We do not purport to represent home educators in the UK or elsewhere. Any opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the editors. Registered in England, No. 08824730. Registered Office: 26 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1WG (not to be used for correspondence) www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk
@EOSMagazine EducationOutsideSchool www.pinterest.com/eoscic 3
Submissions We are delighted to receive original articles about all aspects of home education. Under normal circumstances we will only publish articles that have not previously been published elsewhere. If you have an idea for an article, please check with us first regarding its suitability - email Content Editor Lorena: lorena@educationoutsideschool.co.uk The editors have the final say in deciding if contributions are printed and in which issue. There will sometimes be a need for editing contributions, for reasons of space, clarity, brevity, tone or otherwise.
Photos We use genuine home ed photos when possible, ie ones displaying home educating families in action! Sometimes, though, we don’t have one that’s appropriate in which case we’ll find a photo available on a Creative Commons licence which allows us free use and we’ll credit the photographer.
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If you are sending in an article or an activity and would like to include photos they’ll need to be at least 300dpi Please only submit photos you have taken yourself, or those which you have permission to use. By submitting a photo you are guaranteeing that you have obtained the permission of any persons portrayed in the photo, or in the case of children, the permission of their parent/ guardian, for the photo to be featured in the magazine. If you have any questions regarding photos please email jane@educationoutsideschool.co.uk
Advertising We are delighted to feature adverts for products and services relevant to UK home educators. In the first instance, please see our website to download our Media Pack. www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk
Download Previous Issues Issues 1-10 available to download free of charge at www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk 4
Please direct any advertising queries to: advertising@educationoutsideschool.co.uk The appearance of an advert does not imply endorsement by EOS Magazine. As with anything, please make your own checks to ensure suitability for your own family 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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This Issue’s Contributors Ross Mountney Ross home educated her two daughters, both now grown. She is the author of: ‘Learning Without School: Home Education’, ‘A Funny Kind of Education’ and ‘Mumhood’, all of which are available via her website www.rossmountney.wordpress.com You can also find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RossMountneyAuthor
Jai Daniels-Freestone Jai was home educated herself and now home educates her own children. She also runs the Facebook group The Freedom Journey, which is for “Home Educators, Parents, Teachers and Others who in general are interested in the Care and Freedom of children and alternative ways of Parenting and Educating.”
Katie Pybus Katie describes herself as ‘Totally married, loves gallivanting, raising a Too Cool For School Trio in West Sussex, England. Living very happily outside the box I never quite fitted in.’ You can find her on her blog http://thegallivanters.blogspot.co.uk/
Lara Pinder Lara says she is mum to “a couple of very awesome 3 year olds and step mum to 2 more gorgeous children thanks to my lovely hubby”. She works from home and has a fondness for dyeing her hair, eating chocolate and rescuing cats!
Andrew Green As well as being a home educator, Andrew writes about “birth, parenting, education, health, nutrition, organic growing, social justice ... and really whatever comes between and around all of these ...”. You can find him at www.andrewgreen.tk
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Contents A Few Words from... Katie Pybus
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The Education Outside School Survey 2014
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Getting Together on Twitter
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Learning to Sew with Your Children
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Fostering Independence in your Home Educated Child by Ross Mountney
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Joining The Dots How to Ensure Your Children are Making Connections
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Home Educating Our Twins by Lara Pinder
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Home Education - from Birth to University! by Andrew Green
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School Is Normal by Jai Daniels-Freestone
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Reviews
Websites and Groups
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A Few Words From... Katie Pybus
A former economist in the City of London, Katie now lives in West Sussex and home educates her three children. You can find her on her blog ‘The Gallivanters’ in which she impressively manages to post every single day! We caught up with her to ask her about her fa mily’s home education experiences. 8
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When did you first hear about Home Education? Back in 2000, in my late twenties before my own marriage and children, I was a bridesmaid at a wedding in Cornwall and the two younger bridesmaids were American Home Schooled girls. They were being home schooled for religious reasons though and very different to us as we are atheists but it was my first insight and, although I didn’t realise it at the time, it must have stuck with me somewhere in my subconscious. Then, in 2004, when Sapphire was born our independent midwife had just removed her eldest child, who must have been around 7, from school and I became interested in the possibility of learning outside school.
What was your first reaction? The home schooled girls I first met were so free – I remember as soon as we left the church they took their bridesmaid dresses off before any of the official photographs were taken and didn’t put them back on.
Why did you decide to home educate your children? I was on maternity leave from my job in the city as an Economist when we decided to home educate Sapphire. She was around 6 months old and I had just read several John Holt books and School’s Out by Jean Bendell. The choice was either for me to return to work and send her to a private school or to home educate. I couldn’t have given up my satisfying and challenging career to be a mum taxi and do the school run and home education covered that. Even at such a young age people were asking us which school Sapphire would go to and would we move to be in the catchment for a better school. We have three children now and for each of them but for completely personal individual unique reasons home education is still the right option. I write a daily blog about our adventures which helps me see all the great learning that is going on.
What has been your biggest wobble to date? My biggest wobble remains my 8 year old son who is not reading yet. His elder sister was a fully independent reader at 4 and it is incredibly difficult not to worry about him. I take comfort from the fact he’d be covered in sticky labels were he in the school system and that home education allows children to learn when they are ready.
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Fostering Independence in your Home Educated Child by Ross Mountney
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ne of the criticisms aimed at home education is that it denies children the opportunity to become independent. And that children will be forever ‘tied to their parent’s apron strings’ and never be able to make the break into the independent world.
These opportunities, and the chance to mentally engage with the thought processes behind education, helps them understand why and what it’s all for and this helps make it relevant and meaningful. This in turn makes them motivated to engage with education. And personal motivation encourages independence by its very nature.
This seems a rather bizarre view as it tends to suggest that those children who go to school will become independent just through being there.
I noticed that when we were home educating our children took a valuable leap in their maturity towards independence when they suddenly began to understand that education was not something ‘done to’ them by others as they’d experience in school, but was something they had some say over, could eventually take charge of and that it was of benefit to them.
Yet I would argue that school itself, rather than encouraging independence, does in fact institutionalise children and make them dependent on the controlled and prescriptive life they become used to within it, where they rarely have the opportunity to make independent choices, or be part of the decision making process where their education is concerned.
It’s this taking charge, taking some of the responsibility for their own education, which helps to foster the independence I’m talking about. Not something that most school children have the chance to do. Many also fail to see what value it is.
Fostering independence is about empowering our children to feel that they have some control over their lives and their learning.
With complete contrast to this, in most home educating households children are given the opportunity to do exactly that. And as many home educated children are now progressing towards higher education or a working life, most have proved that they have the life skills needed for that independence.
It generally seems that home educating develops independence rather than inhibits it. This happens because families often use approaches to their home educating life, whether autonomous or structured, which allows some opportunity for the children to be involved with the educational and decision making processes. They also have the chance to engage with a broad range of diverse activities and life rich experiences.
Fostering independence is about empowering our children to feel that they have some control over their lives and their learning.
Obviously as parents we want to keep them safe and are going to exercise any amount of control to keep them from running out into the road for example. So empowering them or encouraging independence is never about us not ever having control at times, especially when very young. But if our control – if that’s the word; maybe guidance is a better one – is qualified by an explanation, children quickly understand why things need to happen and it is this understanding that helps them begin to take on responsibilities for themselves and act independently. By fostering responsibility in them, through guidance,
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The Education Outside School Survey 2014 Please help us shape the magazine for the future! As a Community Interest Company (CIC) it is a requirement that we consult with our community (home educators!). Besides that, we want to hear your opinions, what support you need and what you’d like the magazine to be! We’d be very appreciative if you could take the time to complete our short survey to help us shape the magazine in the future. None of the questions are mandatory. If you don’t feel they apply to you or you don’t have an answer, please feel free to skip them.
Free Prize Draw as a Thank You! As a way of saying thank you we have a selection of free gifts from home educator run businesses to give away in a prize draw. These include:
A £15 Gift Card from Earth Conscious (www.earthconscious.co.uk) A £15 Gift Card from Home Ed Hoodies (www.home-ed-hoodies.co.uk) A £15 Gift Card from Merrily Toys & Crafts (www.merrilytoysandcrafts.ltd.uk) Two one year subscriptions to Education Outside School Magazine If you’d like to enter the draw to receive these, please give us your name and email address at the end of the survey. There is, however, no obligation and you are welcome to remain anonymous if you prefer.
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CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY
The survey will close at midnight on Thursday 11th December www.educationoutsideschool.co.uk
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