One word? When seven would do…

Davies would be wrapping up his second year at school about now and Scarlett would be preparing to start in September. Suddenly I am mere months away from having a seven and a five year old, which is proper children rather than babies and toddlers. I never really got my head round Davies being five, I kept thinking he was still four for ages until suddenly he was six, I can’t quite believe Scarlett is about to be five, but it seems a lot more real with her, actually I forget she is *only* four quite often :lol:.

The last six months has been good for them. Childcare wobbles (as in, not having any :lol:) aside it has done them good to have some time away from me in the care of other people. I am getting more relaxed about not being with them every second and am no longer convinced that dreadful things are bound to happen to them just because I have gone out to work instead of ‘doing my job and being at home looking after them’ – yep, even I have my moments of utter irrational fears too ;). They are spending a whole afternoon every week in the company of my Dad which I think has been a wonderful thing for all of them. The three of them have their own unique relationship now and while he would never ever say it (and has more than once assured me he will never say it!) and I don’t think he is utterly won over with Home Education by any means he is coming round to the idea that my children are nice people to be around and are not being harmed in some dreadful way by not being in school. The most recent activity here has been Davies and Scarlett selling lavender sprigs over the garden wall (mostly to our neighbours who they appear to be fleecing of their pension each week in exchange for handfuls of a shrub that they grow plenty of in their own garden :lol:) which Dad helps with by making signs to Davies’ directions and, hopefully supervises that they don’t get abducted over the wall while touting their wares. I suspect he might just be dozing on the garden bench in the sun though :lol:. Anyway, he’s been feeding back to my Mum that he is very impressed with Davies’ maturity, ability to talk to people, imagination and entrepreneurialism. I’ve always known that it wouldn’t be me who convinced my Dad that Home Education was the right thing for us to do, it would be Davies and Scarlett and little by little they seem to be doing just that. 🙂

I was hoping they’d get equal amounts of time spent with my Mum as a result of me working but that simply hasn’t happened. She is about to reduce her working days to 4 a week which she tells me will mean she can help out more with childcare but whether it happens or not remains to be seen. If it does then hopefully it will mean a similar exclusive relationship will develop for them with her too, which would be nice. My brother has done occassional childcare stints too and also has an excellent way with them, doing all the sorts of things a textbook doting, childless uncle should.

Julie has them at least once a month and both Davies and Scarlett have always adored (yes, adored 🙂 ) Julie. She is a real natural with children anyway and her and Davies have always had quite a connection. The last time she had them she said such lovely things about them to me that I am still glowing with pride now. They are very close to Jack and Maisie, their cousins and as neither Ady or I grew up with masses of family around it makes us very happy to see Davies and Scarlett with such close connections to grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. Precious, priceless relationships which have nothing to do with Education, but the fact they are at home means are being allowed to flourish all the more from time spent together that wouldn’t be there if they were at school for six hours a day.

The other regular childcare arrangement is Lucy and the Rs one morning a week. Scarlett and Rebecca are now firm friends, talking about each other regularly when not together and doing the classic little girls best friend thing of disappearing off to play with dolls and make up, holding hands and giggling. Davies spent a long while struggling with the dynamic in that situation, which is probably why it took the girls so long to settle into it but he has now found his role of adopted big brother to Richard. I was watching him yesterday employing all his best tricks to entertain and amuse Richard and thinking that he would have done well as biggest brother to a tribe of siblings. I think Scarlett might have systematically picked off any younger children one by one of course but Davies would have been just fine 😆

Home Education for me has never really been seperate from parenting. Our initial introduction to it came about as a result of a parenting issue (seperation anxiety on Davies’ part) rather than anything to do with education. As we’ve continued with it and I’ve become more and more evangelical about HE and along with it autonomy. With the recent and ongoing murmerings about whether our level of freedom to HE as we please might change, coupled with me being about to be a Home Educator of two school age children I have been thinking recently about Educational Provision quite specifically and aside from general parenting and life however. I’m not going to write an Educational Philosophy, quite frankly it would need to become a monthly exercise as I often debate and reconsider my stance on such things and unless I am required to provide one, which as yet is unlikely for a while as we remain unknown to the LEA, it would seem a pointless exercise.

My educational provision has always been very reactive rather than proactive – we live life, with me constantly talking to the children and answering their questions, listening to their ideas, experienting with things, finding out answers together as we go along and seeking as many experiences along the way as we can squeeze in. I have watched the way they learn things since birth and realised that babies and children are just like adults – some things go in effortlessly while others are trickier but worth putting the effort in for. I have seen how their learning is a combination of mimicry of those around them, trial and error and experimentation, soaking up some things which grab them or incite their passion and excitement and showing tremendous ability for recall and memory. I’ve watched them put their all into something that they have found difficult too – one of my mantras is ‘if you try hard enough you can do anything’ which they have both taken on board and providing it is something they want they demonstrate great perseverance and effort to achieve results. Scarlett has her own, very definite expectations on herself which motivate her to achieve her own goals. She is competitive with herself, always wanting to be better than the last time she tried and is relentless in her attempts to manage this. Davies is more of a crowd pleaser and will do anything for praise or reward. This worries me slightly as at the moment he is in pretty safe hands aiming to please me mostly – in later years I hope the keeper of his self esteem loves him as much as I do. He has come on in managing to be proud of himself and in that being enough for him so hopefully that will continue.

I try and provide a rich and varied wealth of experiences for them, we are out and about all the time with slices of real life; the supermarket, the bank, work interspersed with fun; days out at the beach, the park, seaonsal walks, visits to family and friends and everything inbetween; fruit picking, our recent chicken rearing experiences. Realistically any sort of sit down work or curriculum would interfere or take away from what we are out and about doing. Any time we spend at home is time the children spend playing, or snuggled up watching films or drawing, or making things, or listening to me read aloud to them, or digging holes in the garden… well you get the idea. 🙂

I am confident that we cover everything and more than they would dream of managing in a classroom just by being out and about. I have placed faith in the process with Davies and seen the payoff come true. He can count, add and subtract and multiply – true in small numbers and he wouldn’t know what a number bond or a times table is, but we have posters up about them and one day I guess he’ll just look at them and realise. He is getting good with money and telling the time, and from this ideas like fractions or decimals are being learnt, again without them being named, but if and when the day comes when he does need to have all these concepts explained alongside a syllabus I am utterly confident he will be able to relate them so much better than if he’d been talked to about ‘Johnny’s apples and Rosie’s apples’ while sat at a desk. He is reading bits and pieces and writing as and when he needs to. He often copies words out he finds in odd places and then works out what they say, he recognises all sorts of words from random places like X box games or film credits. His vocabulary is very large and again I’m confident that it will be a small leap one day from speaking those words to reading and writing them when he’s ready. Scarlett follows along a step or three behind, probably more willing that he was at a similar age but under rather less pressure from me so taking several huge leaps forward and then doing seemingly very little for ages. It’s all there though.

All other ‘subjects’ are just in there as part of life, I don’t seperate them or be consciously aware of them but Science, History, Religion, Sociology, Geography etc are all there along with Home Economics, Physical Education and Music and of course healthy doses of socialising. Davies is thriving in his Beavers and Badgers activities and doing well at swimming lessons, Scarlett is already lined up to join Badgers and swimming lessons alongside him aswell as starting Rainbows as soon as she turns five and I imagine will similarly enjoy it.

Autonomy for me is about following their passions and interests, at their speed with as much introductions to ideas, concepts and experiences as I can manage. I attempt to level no pressure on them about how they spend their time, measure them against noone other than themselves and nurture, protect and support anything they choose to put energy into. I try to respect them as individuals and as people and believe that even at their tender ages there is noone better placed than them to decide what they should learn and focus on. I constantly reevaluate and consider this though as without my introductions there are indeed things which would not have entered their sphere of consciousness yet and whilst I think too much stimulus can be as limiting as not enough I don’t want to look back and see gaping holes in my provision. Most recently as a result of a chat with a work colleague and listening to others at camp I realised that languages are something we have done very little ‘introducing’ to. They are both aware that different countries have different languages. They know smatterings of phrases in French and Spanish (thanks Dora! :lol:). In an ideal world we’d whisk them off for a six month tour of Europe and spend time ordering our breakfasts, soaking up the culture and conversing with people to get a real flavour of the languages. Not really an option currently, so I’ve ordered a children’s dvd in French and one in German from work to stick on and see whether they are interested or not. If they are and it grabs their attention then I have access to plenty of resources to take it further, if not then at least I will know I offered the chance and it will be something we can come back to as and when they feel the need.

Another area that we don’t cover and seems to be a popular one in both home ed and schooled circles is musical instruments. Davies loves to plink about on the piano at my parents’ house and can often be found sitting with his toy keyboard playing with the buttons to create sad or happy sounds, but I’ve offered lessons, either with me or my Dad or even an outside tutor (realistically without a piano at home to practise on I think it would be a waste anyway, but I offered) and he is not interested at the moment, but says he might be one day. Which would suggest to me that any coersion on my part would simply result in resentment and angst so wouldn’t be the right thing to do. They both like percussion more than music anyway so in the next couple of years I think joining some sort of music group or sessions like local music school Squeezebox offers would be the way forward as and when they are ready.

I know that my own personal barometer for success is me being happy deep inside. I can have all the outside trappings of achievement but unless I have the right feelings in my tummy, in my heart and in my head then all is not right. I have watched Davies and Scarlett go through various incarnations and struggled already in their short lives and whilst I don’t think we get it right 100% of the time and I am constantly tweaking and readjusting what we do in the main I see two children who are utterly happy, free and enjoying their lives. If we’re managing to pull that off and I can still spot very clearly the ‘educational progress’ being made daily, weekly, monthly, yearly when I have my worried about whether it’s all working head on, then I guess we’re doing exactly what we set out to do and our educational provision is therefore appropriate to their age, aptitude and ability and is most certainly efficient allowing them to live while they learn while they live.