Are you in need of a restoring tonic when it comes to your home education? If so, then chapter 4 of “Another Way to Learn?” written by the lovely Sian is the one for you right now. With a career as a secondary school teacher behind her, Sian is now a home educating mum of three delightful girls. She and her husband and the girls live in rural Wales surrounded by green hills, a plentiful supply of rain and a characterful dog just in case there are not enough challenges in the day! Sian writes candidly and with warm humour about their journey from school education to home education. Listen in to ..read more

What do you reckon are the top ten most asked home ed questions? It would be interesting to do a poll. However, queries around the socialisation of our children must be right up there at the top. In the third chapter of "Another Way to Learn?", Juliet English dives straight into this topic. A social worker by training, Juliet is a mother of seven, grandmother, foster mum, director of Streams and co-ordinator of the Learn Free conference. She is a woman of extraordinary capacity and great depth of wisdom and experience. There could not be a better placed home educator to talk us through this ho ..read more

I wonder what springs to your mind when someone mentions teens? And then home education and teens in the same sentence. Maybe it’s lengthy conversations as you discuss life, values, ideas, current affairs and faith around the dinner table, accompanied by good food, music and candle light. Maybe it’s standing for hours on a cold sports pitch showing up while your teen gets caked in mud; maybe it’s trying to block out loud and jarring music; maybe it’s a houseful of laughing young people, overflowing with interesting concepts, deep questions and quick quips. Or, maybe it’s battling with mental h ..read more

I love the long summer holidays, and they are usually heralded by various annual events such as sports day, a home ed camping trip, end of term celebrations and bar-b-q’s. All these mark the end of our academic year. They feel like mini rites of passage, allowing us to move from one season to the next and have some well-earned time off. This year we are without any of these, but I would suggest we are just as much in need of rest and restoration; maybe even more so. In the next two episodes we will offer some thoughts and suggestions on how we can make the most of the summer holidays, with ple ..read more

Ah yes. The great outdoors. What a beautiful and inspirational place it can be. Many home educators love to incorporate Nature Study into their family learning, but perhaps you find it a bit daunting to launch into. In this episode, Molly and Helen have a chat about how they've encouraged their children to enjoy the world around them - although neither of them have been particularly formal about it ..read more

Do you have any special traditions to mark the end of term? Or to mark specific days in your home ed year? Whatever your rhythms are, celebrations are the order of the day here. We’d love you to join us for this last episode of the academic year as we share how we celebrate our families’ achievements big and small. We hope you have a very good summer break, with times of rest and refreshment, fun and celebration ..read more

Join us for an episode in our occasional series on the great and the good of the home ed world... Those that have gone before us, who have challenged conventional thinking and whose influence still lives on. John Holt was an American educator, writing such classics as “How Children Fail” and “How Children Learn” in the 1960s. After hoping for reform in the public school system, but seeing none, he became a leading advocate for the homeschool movement, and is arguably a founder of the unschooling approach. Listen in on our conversation and see if you can spot any of his ideas in your home ed ph ..read more

A fun few minutes in which we both share our enthusiasm for reading aloud to our kids. We could have gone on for much longer, but we didn’t! Come and join our conversation and then continue it at home ..read more

Teaching a child to read can seem daunting; some take to it like a duck to water, most fly when the time is right, but for a few it is an uphill struggle. One of the joys of home ed is that we can follow our child’s lead. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join us as we share some practical, fun tips we and others have used to help our kids learn to read and write. If it’s not an easy journey for you, we hope you’ll be encouraged and reassured as we share honestly about our journeys to reach this milestone ..read more

At a time when each day rolls into the next with very little difference, we can easily feel overwhelmed and lacking in purpose. In this episode we suggest a few ways in which we can establish a gentle rhythm to our days and weeks and thus add meaning to this home season ..read more