Educational Philosophy (Ed Phil)

As promised last post - our Educational Philosophy.

Educational Philosophy 2013

 

Re: Children's names and DoB

Our educational approach is based on our belief that each child deserves an education specifically tailored to their strengths, weaknesses and interests. To be of any real use this needs to be flexible, responsive, and supportive, taking direct account of how those points change and develop over time, and aware of where the child is educationally at that moment.  This means that we do not plan our education months in advance, because to do so would ignore the individual child’s response to their education.  Where the child has difficulty, work is at a slower pace, where the child excels work is faster, to attempt to predict this would undermine the child’s innate motivation, and potentially instil either insecurity (“they think this is easy?”) or overconfidence (“they think this is hard?”), neither of which is desirable.    We use a mixture of directed learning - primarily using workbooks and worksheets covering Math. Science and English skills - and discovery based learning, following an interest expressed by the child and exploring the subject as far as they wish. 

Our primary objective remains to enable each of our children to investigate their own fields of interest, thereby encouraging them to discover innate aptitudes, abilities and strengths, whilst supporting the development of literacy and numeracy skills, and knowledge of the world around them.

As stated previously, we use a balance of directed learning - using workbooks, worksheets and CD-ROMs primarily covering English and Maths and science – and discovery based learning, following an interest expressed by one of our children as far as they wish, nurturing it by using books, the internet, DVD’s, television documentaries and educational visits to extend our knowledge of the subject, and using activities to consolidate the learning.  We continue to find that what starts as an interest expressed by one child soon becomes an interest shared by all, and they work together well.  We also find that projects soon expand well beyond the initial parameters and are far broader and deeper than envisaged at their inception.

 

All of our children have access to a wide range of resources including a computer with internet access and interest specific software; the public library; a wide range of books at home; TV programmes; audio equipment; visits and outings that support their interests; continuous support, positive interest and encouragement both from us and members of our extended families. 

We attend various home education groups, including a ranger led park group, book club, roller-skating, multi-sports and hall based meetings.

We continue to network with other Home Educators in the Northamptonshire area, as well as offering other social opportunities to our children with a broad range of school-educated children, home educated children and family members.

Overall we intend to encourage their interests by providing a varied and stimulating environment, whilst maintaining a degree of directive input  - in order to maintain a balance of learning - by ensuring that attractive opportunities are presented across an appropriate range of areas.

We believe that we are providing a personalised education that will ensure our children gain attitudes, skills and knowledge that fit them to live in, and adapt to the challenges of, a rapidly changing world. This broad education introduces our children to skills relating to, and knowledge of, both a wide range of subjects and varied types of subject and therefore ensures an opening of the mind, without compartmentalising learning by breaking it up into artificially narrow areas.  This balanced education aims to ensure that no one “subject area” takes up so much time that there is no room for others by incorporating cross curricular projects, along side a variety of approaches to specific subjects.

 

We also believe that by ensuring our children see us (their parents) learning about the world around us as an on going process that we enjoy, they will understand that learning is a life-long process to be valued and enjoyed, rather than a race to be endured whilst they are young.  Equally we hope that by seeing that we, their parents, do not know everything but are willing and able to find out, they will learn that it is OK to not know, and they will learn how to find out.  Part of this process is teaching them to use reference books and the internet to find information, and then evaluate it for accuracy and bias.  As use of the internet continues to evolve we believe that the ability to evaluate information critically is enormously important.

 

 

Thoughts on oversight

When we started to home educate we had no idea how we would make it work.  I had a vague idea about workbooks, sticking to the national curriculum in case L wanted to go to school, but we learnt on the job - as we went along.  In a lot of ways we are learning still.

About once a year our Local Authority (LA) write to us asking to visit us.  Often they over step their powers and say they will be visiting on X date, or they want to see samples of work, or they want to meet the children.  Some years I have let them visit - when I wanted to talk to someone about specific things - most years I write back saying that no, they won't be visiting, or seeing work, or meeting the children. 

It is important to remember that the responsibility for my children's education rests with my husband and I, not the LA.  They don't get to inspect what we do, nor dictate to us how we should do it and we certainly don't need their approval.  All they are needed for is a quick check that we are still providing an education.

Lots of people get confused because LA's and the government / OFSTED are responsible for making sure schools are doing an OK job.  The reason that outside agencies (LA / OFSTED) are involved there is three fold :

•  because schools are acting "in loco parentis" - legally in place of the parents - parents need to  know it is all going well on a general level.

• because schools spend government money, raised by taxes, taxpayers have a right to know the money is being spent well.

• because teachers are government employees they need to be accountable to the government.

At no point in our home education journey have any of those applied to us, thus we do not need that oversight and in fact it is intrusive.  As we get no funding or support, the oversight takes our time and energy away from our children.  We get nothing back, but are being asked to present our family and our ways for judgement.

As we've been at this for ten years now, we have refined our way of dealing with the intrusion.  The Human rights act 1998 says" the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions." With that in mind we set out our Educational Philosophy - after all the LA cannot respect our right to follow our convictions if they don't know what they are!  Our Ed Phil (as they are often called in home ed circles) has evolved a bit over the years, but really hasn't changed all that much.  So, when we get the letter, I write a covering letter refusing the visit and anything else they asked for, and enclose our Ed Phil and a very brief run down on what the children have achieved over the year.  We make a point of saying that we do not plan ahead very far, so a retrospective view is all they can have :) We do, however, include any imminent plans - such as trips or courses in the next month.  This year the statement for each child was about 2/3 of a page, and we've had the grudging "that looks OK, see you in 12 months" letter.

So, just in case it helps anyone the next post is our Ed Phil - feel free to use it as inspiration :) But if you're in Northampton be a bit creative about rewording it ;)

That time of year again . . .

On Friday we got our annual "are you still home educating" letter from our LA local authority).  We have never really managed to be "hidden", "under the radar" or "unknown" - when we took L out of nursery they informed the LA, and when we asked for an assessment of J not too long after we moved here that seems to have alerted our new LA too.

The letter was, however, asking for far too much from us.  I know the LA feel the need to make sure we're home educating "properly", but the government guidance is quite clear that they have no duty to monitor us, and no powers to insist on visiting or seeing the children.  The letter informed us that an "Education Entitlement Officer" would be visiting on Tuesday, would like to meet the children, and would like to see our "Planned programme of education" covering the next 12 months.  Enclosed was also a very silly form for us to fill in if we chose . . .

The form has some rather specific subject areas, and asks for planned learning outcomes and how we intend to measure them.  Bearing in mind it lists three subjects (with space for four more) and asks for twelve months worth of plans, that part fits on one side of A4 paper . . . if we *did* plan that far ahead how on Earth would we fit that all in there?

As it happens, we really *don't* work that way.  At the moment L is working out which IGCSE's he wants to take this year then we will buy the course books and work through them.  If we need to supplement the information we will look for sources at the time.

I have plans for the next few weeks with the other three - we found some cool workbooks that they all like the look of, and I have an handwriting book to work through with each of them.  That's as far as our plans go . . . once we get into the work books we'll see if they are pitched at the right level, look at whether any of the kids have got stuck at one point or another and find resources to help.  We'll also look at what they enjoyed or excelled at and go for more of that, and if they express an interest in a particular topic we'll go find resources and do that.  There wasn't a space on the form for random vague plans  . . .

We needed to respond though, so after a quick think I wrote a covering letter telling them the form was "inappropriate and intrusive" and giving them a list of points as to why we were cancelling the visit and not rescheduling.  Then I updated our educational philosophy, and wrote about half a side of A4 about each child - it was a round up of major achievements that had happened in the past year, a list of the types of socialising they each do, and a very vague idea of where we intend to go from here.  There were no concrete plans, no examples of work or lists of workbooks completed, no lists of groups attended or outings experienced. 

Yesterday (Monday) I got an email from the letter writers superior talking about reviewing the form - our report seems to have been accepted, although they haven't explicitly said that yet - so all that's left is to work out if I have the energy and time to try and fix the LA's policies and procedures with them . . .