Skip to content 
What do Florence Nightingale, Jane Austen, Taylor Swift and Serena Williams all have in common? Apart from being women who achieved great things – they were all home educated.
When my husband first mentioned the possibility of home educating our children, I wasn’t very keen on the idea. It seemed an odd thing to do, and I wasn’t sure I was up to the task. But our first child was just a baby, so I had a lot of time to research and think about it.
The more research I did, the better home education looked. Academically, socially, spiritually and emotionally, the statistics show home educated children often fare better than their schooled peers, in all these areas.
I knew it would mean giving up my own career aspirations. At the time I had just finished law school. We also knew it would mean raising the family on one salary. But for so many reasons, it looked like it was the best thing we could do for our children, and we decided to give it a go. Twelve years later and I’m still giving it a go!
I say I’m still giving it a go, because how home education looks for us keeps changing as the family has grown in both size and age. I am constantly reassessing and adapting what we do. We now have five children. Our youngest is six and our oldest is twelve. Finding ways to teach them at a level they can all engage with, and grow through, has been one of the biggest challenges.
However, being able to choose exactly what curriculum and resources we use has also been one of the great joys of home educating. There are a lot of curriculums specifically designed for family learning, so we can all study the same topics together, with the children doing related activities at their own level.
One of my favourite ways to teach them is through quality books. You can learn so much about a culture through reading folk tales. History comes to life while flicking through the pages of a beautifully illustrated picture book. Even science and grammar can be taught through stories. And the family bonds built while sharing a good book together is priceless.
Unfortunately, a lot of the books we use can’t be accessed at the local library. This has led to a love for second hand book shops. My children still laugh about the time I came out of the shop in Tredegar House with 31 books! Our home has become a bit of a library and we lend out a lot of our books to other home educating families. Last year I set up a WhatsApp book share, to make it easier for parents to request books on specific subjects.
It sounds blissful, a large family, quietly sat around a beautiful book, listening intently, engaged and smiling. The reality is often far from the ideal though. There are days the children seem to bicker endlessly, complain about boredom, or need reminding 20 times to finish a sum in their maths book. Being stuck inside the house together for so much of the day can make you feel a bit stir crazy too. That is why I’ve always made it a priority to meet with other home educators, to get out the house and socialise.
Six years ago, two friends and I set up a Christian Home Education group for Newport, where families can meet together and support and encourage each-other. We started meeting socially in a church building once a week. As parents came together, more social groups were made. But just as the groups were growing and thriving, COVID hit. Even while other children could go back to school, we were not allowed to meet. We had to turn the group into an official club, to jump through legal barriers, just to meet for a walk in the woods!
When we could finally meet indoors we started our first co-op, studying nature together through science, poetry and art. However, one of the other big challenges of home education is how quickly you can become burnt out. There are endless good things one could do, but there are only 24 hours in each day. Organising the group proved too much to balance with the rest of my children’s educational needs, plus cleaning, cooking and night-time wake ups. We ended the group after the first term and went back to social meet ups only!
I’ve found organising groups where other people do most of the planning works well. I spoke to one of the instructors at our local tennis club and he agreed to put on weekly tennis lessons for home educated children. These have been running for a few years now. Most recently, I contacted Newport County’s community outreach programme, who have started running regular football sessions for us.
We’ve hit a lot of walls on our journey, but with patience, perseverance and prayer, we’ve found a way around them. Home education and motherhood in general have been steep learning curves that don’t seem to stop. It’s been the most challenging and rewarding journey I’ve ever been on, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. If you’re interested in seeing more of what we get up to check out my blog at spoonsandcrayons.com
