Homeschooling, a thing of the past or part of the future?
In today’s episode Rachael and Sarah discuss home schooling. This is something many of us didn’t ever consider doing or wanting to experience, but have been forced to do over the past 12 months! They give their unique perspectives, experiences and delve into both the positives and the negatives of home schooling your children. They also discuss the revelations they had and what they believe may happen in the future in the world of education. KEY TAKEAWAYS Sarah’s biggest revelation of homeschooling was that it really put into perspective how much children take from school and how much it has changed since was in education herself. Education has come a long way in the past decade or so and many of us adults are out of the loop. People now gaining a real understanding of what the curriculum is and what their children are doing at school has highlighted that perhaps things need to change, how can we as parents and childcare givers support school age children if we don’t know what it is they are doing? Many of the changes in the curriculum are based on an understanding that everyone learns and processes differently. There is such a variety of techniques in something like maths, which seems complicated when Sarah and Rachel compare it to how they learnt to do things but it is actually a really positive thing for children and education. Rachael recognised early on that when you are schooling at home it isn’t realistic to expect the children to do school work all day. She found that breaking up the schoolwork across the day was better, especially when she gave her daughter timeframes and deadlines; it gave her child motivation and also meant she as a parent could focus for that time on just homeschooling which was much more effective and efficient. Before the pandemic, school dates and times were very regimented. It will be interesting to see if this changes going forward. We now know that home learning and virtual learning works, can we incorporate this somehow, particularly around family time and holidays? There are things that aren’t taught in school that are key for our children’s future. As parents and caregivers it is our responsibility to teach these things to our children in their time outside of school. Homeschooling sharpened Rachael’s focus on this and she has a renewed passion to teach the things she wants her children to know. BEST MOMENTS “How is my child doing this and I have no idea” “In school there are a lot of breaks…the actual time that is spent doing the activity isn’t as long as the parents expected it to be” “Is there a role for flexibility?” “What are we teaching and showing our children in those hours?” ABOUT THE HOSTS Sarah Heward has an early years degree and then became a professional nanny. From her successes she went on to publish fist children's book and launched a nanny agency with a difference (built for modern day nannies and families) with her business partner Dr Rachael Coates. Rachael is an entrepreneur, general surgeon and mum of three who has lived the chaos, tears and fleeting victories of early parenthood. Together they are looking to empower more families to make the empowered choices towards being a happy family. CONTACT METHOD [email protected] show was brought to you by Progressive Media