First Steps to Home Schooling

As a parent, the Law in the United Kingdom says that you must make sure your child receives a full-time education from the age of 5 years until the age of 18 years but you don’t have to register them into a school nor follow the ‘National Curriculum‘.

Stay Organised and checklist these first simple steps to homeschooling:

1. Know your Duties and Rights to Home School your Children, Citizens Advice
2. School Leaving Age
3. ‘Education Otherwise’ Frequently Asked Questions
4. All your Questions and Answers about Home School
5. Find out what your local borough says about homeschooling
6. Homeschooling Intentions and Reasons
7. Research, write/plan your home ed goals for your own prep and understanding.
8. School Withdrawal Letter, Other Sample Letters
9. Local Education Authorities (LEA) Duties and Roles
10. Written Report: Education Philosophies and Education Reports
11. Build Links with other Home School Parents/Guardians, Tutors, Social clubs etc
12. Educate family members about your decision to homeschool
13. Get full support from your loved ones
14. Explore your style of homeschooling: Traditional (School-at-home), The Way of the Salaf,  Classical, Unschooling, Eclectic, Unit Studies, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Multiple Intelligence, Leadership, Waldorf
15. Begin your search for your personal Curriculum Planning
16. Homeschool Planners and Student Planners: Plan your personal Timetable
17. Log Book (Assessment Forms) (including Field Trip Planning) and Reward Charts
18. Exam Entries
19. Decide on a suitable space in the home for homeschool storage
20. Build your own home library
21. Be patient, persevere and make lots of Dua to Allah Taala

Useful tips to stay Organised:

• ‘It’s Never Too Late to Get Organized’
• ‘Organize Your Life’ (Tons of Free Printables)

Useful Facts about School and Education:

• Changing Education Paradigms
• More coming soon inshAllah…

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‘Key stages’

According to the national curriculum, Key Stages (KS) are organised into blocks of years. At the end of each key stage, a child’s teacher formally assesses their students performance to measure his/her progress. Other types of school like Academies (Higher Education), Private Schools and Home Education don’t have to follow the national curriculum. The Law clearly States that Education is compulsory by the time a child reaches the age of 5 years, but attending a school or studying the national curriculum is optional. Academies must teach a broad and balanced curriculum including English, maths and science. They must also teach religious education. Here are what the Key Stage years look like:

• Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (Ages 0-5) – Children Centre, Preschool, Nursery etc
• Key Stage 1 (Ages 5-7) – Year 1 and Year 2
• Key Stage 2 (Ages 7-11) – Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6
• Key Stage 3 (Ages 11-14) – Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9
• Key Stage 4 (Ages 14-16) – Year 10, Year 11, Year 12 (6th Form/A-Levels)

‘Development needs’

To satisfy an individuals development needs, remember to include the following when selecting activities, neglecting these needs may result in poor development:

Sensory Play:	Include activities that stimulate the 5 Senses: Touch, Smell, Taste, Sight and Hearing
Gross Motor Skills:	These are large movements we make with arms, legs, feet, or entire body such as crawling, running, and jumping. Fine motor skills are smaller actions.
Fine Motor Skills:	The coordination of small muscle movement, involving the synchronization of hands and fingers with the eyes. Involve tasks controlled by the nervous system.
Social/Mental:	This includes how we interact with others at different stages with different types of people in terms of age, ethnicity and gender and so on. Also how we learn to cope and control our feelings and manners.
Communication and Intellectual:	There are a range of ways in which we all learn to communicate and understand one another. For younger children and babies, they communicate more through body language and gestures, sometimes babbling or crying, others learn to talk and write faster than others. We use our language to think and make sense of things and so our intellect is linked to communication.
Spiritual:	This is the most important need for us all. Without it we are lost. Include consciousness of Allah throughout the day in all activities. Correct Islamic teachings from the Quran, authentic hadith and sayings of the Salaf. The soul yearns for true belief, speech and action, this is food for the soul.

Learning Styles:

The FOUR main learning styles are:

• Visual (learning by seeing).
• Auditory (learning by hearing)
• Read/Write
• Kinesthetic (learning by doing)

Visit the ‘Vark‘ website for more details. This is a good guide to discovering and understanding you and your childs learning and teaching styles. You can also take quizzes and find out your different learning styles for different subjects.

Also, check out ‘GetSussed‘ by BBC.co.uk to understand more about learning styles and what careers they lead to.

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What Next?

Visit our other beneficial Pages:

• Resources and Links
• My Printables
• Day in The Life of

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Jazaakom Allahu khair!