Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Poll

I've just created a poll on the side over there ---->

I'm 99% certain we're going ahead with homeschooling, but I want to talk to my mum & sister first. (Yep almost 37 and still need my mum's approval! lol) If I'm blogging about homeschooling stuff (what we get up to etc maybe on a day-to-day basis), would you prefer that to be in a separate blog so that if you're not interested you don't have to read it?

It makes no difference to me, just interested in "my readers" (lol) want..

6 comments:

lightening said...

I have answered your poll but adding my 2c here as well. :-) Personally I love blogs that encompass the whole of a person's life. You get to know the person so much better that way.

Congratulations on your "almost decision" too. :-) I'm sure you'll do very well.

Anonymous said...

I live in a abroad and am not familiar with home schooling. From what I am reading on Blogs it is something which is quite popular in Australia. I look forward to hearing more about it all in your main blog which just for you information I access via Rhonda's at Down-to-Earth.

Do you home school all the way to final school exams for example ? Or is it just up until age 11 ?

What are the benefits of home schooling ?

How do you access exams and how do home school children fair over all are some of the questions that I would be interested in learning more about.

Do you bring in private teachers for certain lessons ? ie. Physics, Chemistry, Latin etc.

Also I admire any Mum who chooses to home school as bringing up a family itself without home schooling is hard enough. I have 3.

Karen, Switzerland.

Kez said...

Hi Karen, Thanks for dropping by!

Homeschooling is still fairly uncommon here, but seems to be on the increase as people find out it is a legal option. Making a generalisation, there are a large number of Christian families who homeschool for religious reasons, as well as people who do it for academic reasons - eg kids can't fit into the mainstream school for whatever reason - either learning difficulties, or more advanced than normal, or simply different learning styles.

You can homeschool all the way through their education if you want, or people often send their kids back to school in high-school. I know in our state, homeschooled kids can't sit the same final exams as schooled kids, but they can still find alternate routes into university or other further education.

The main advantage is that you can direct what the child learns and how they learn - you can customise the learning to suit your child far more than a teacher with 29 other kids in the classroom to deal with as well.

From my experience, homeschooled kids are generally more mature and often more advanced academically than schooled kids. They certainly don't all grow up to be weirdos :)

You don't have to be the primary educator and in fact a lot of learning is done outside the home anyway. My oldest niece has maths & art lessons with private tutors, my younger niece has ballet & violin lessons privately. I'm thinking while Billy is in early years I'll be able to do much of the teaching, but I'll probably put him in say drama classes or whatever he shows an interest in.

I admire any who has 3 kids - 1 is more than enough for me :)

I hope that's answered some of your questions.

emma.jean said...

I would love to hear about the homeschooling, it's something I'm interested in but my 6yo isn't keen and I have doubts about my ability to do it.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for you very informative answer to some of my questions. I shall look forward to following your blog more and more. Some say that teenage problems are exacerbated because all teenagers are grouped together and that is not right.

We are very fortunate here to have an excellent non religious education system which although it was alien to me when I first came here ( I am British ) more and more I believe in it. ie. the children come home to lunch each day until 11 because Mums stay at home and religion is taught at home not at school.

The system is allocated for each child and their individual needs. To a Mum at home that means that your child goes off to school just for the lessons they do.

My eldest will go in often just for one lesson of physics at school-she is now 16 but she is not there at school all day. A lot of the work is done at home and via computer. I shall truly look forward to hearing more about your home schooling system.

If you feel in your heart it is right then it will work out for you. There is no right or wrong just like there is no such thing as a normal child - something I learnt when mine were about 4 years old - what is best for you and your family and at the end of the day that is what matters not following the crowd.

All the best, Karen.

Kez said...

Karen, thanks for explaining your school system - it sounds wonderful. A good mix of home & school. Maybe Australia should follow your system?!