T-39.5 hours to Home Educating

In two days time, a new journey begins in our household. I've officially deregistered the children from school, and lessons begin in T-39.5 hours.

I've been preparing for weeks now, and that's no exaggeration. I know some parents unschool and kind of go with the flow, more child based learning and so on, but I have a sneaky suspicion that if I tried that approach, nothing would be done. 

So I've been hard at work making timetables. Timetables, timetables, TIMETABLES. I've revised them, tweaked them, printed them out about 90 times before changing them again, and they're now stuck to the living room wall with blu-tac. Maybe I'm being a little rigid, but I don't want to mess this up.

The eldest (L) has been signed on for IGCSE courses with Absorb Online Learning, but I'm also going to be teaching her GCSE Classical Civilisation. The plan is that she's going to study IGCSE Maths, History, Physics, and Biology (and the aforementioned Class Civ) this year, and take the exams in summer 2021. That is... if the government ever gets their act together and decides what's happening with those exams next year. Will they be delayed? Will they be online? Nobody seems to know. Strange times we're living in. 

Then during the academic year 2021-2022, L will be studying IGCSE Computer Science, English Lit, English Lang, Psychology, and Chemistry, and taking those exams in summer 2022.

The second eldest (A) will be starting Year 9 at InterHigh. He'll be studying Maths, Science, History, STEM, Creative Pursuits, English, and Computer Science. L was at InterHigh (Year 8) in 2018-2019 and enjoyed it, so I have an idea of what it's like. I think A is a bit nervous, but he'll get into the swing of it. He'll be in classes with children both locally and from countries all around the world - I reckon it'll broaden his horizons a bit. The teaching quality was excellent when L was enrolled in their classes, so I'm not concerned there.

The Year 6 kid (J) and the Year 3 kid (N) are going to be parentally taught, and believe me I've been prepping for this like you wouldn't believe. Monday is going to consist of Reading, Maths, History, Spanish (for J), Literacy (for N), and Exercise. I don't really want to call it P.E. so we'll roll with "Exercise". The History topic for this half term will be the ancient Egyptians, as requested by J.

I've signed up to Twinkl. for worksheet resources for both J and N, and Skoolbo for more games based subject activities for N.

Today we had a little socialisation, as J's friend from school came round for a visit. We kept it socially distanced in the garden gazebo, but to be honest it didn't go as smoothly as I'd have liked for a variety of reasons. J and L had friends from school round for a visit 4 days ago and that was much more successful. 

I'd like to do a "not back to school" photo on Monday morning. It may or may not involve the front door. I can't see the point of the door really if they're not going out of it, but as far as parody pictures go it might be a nice touch.

Time to go and prepare some more...