After Cypress had an unfortunate head injury, due to her running quickly in to a lamp post whilst playing, that required a trip to A&E, I received a letter the Administrator for Elective Home Education, who were advised by 'Children Missing Education' to contact me. The letter requested me to fill out forms with details about Cypress and also Zephyr. I decided, instead, to send this letter in response.
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Dear Mrs Banks,
Thank you for providing the information pack for Elective Home Education. As we have been home educating for 8 years now, we did have access to all of this information, and more. Your gracious offer to have an Advisory Teacher contact me to discuss my child’s education is appreciated, but is not necessary.
In meantime, I am happy to advise on our educational philosophy and some of our activities that support our home education.
Our children’s education is nurtured and supported through what is typically called ‘child led learning’. Our 17 year old son has been thoroughly successful with our education approach and entered college a year early at age 16, and is continuously receiving superior reports from his teachers and job-placement supervisors, suggesting that our son move above many levels at college beyond what is typical for his age. Therefore, we are confident our approach to home education is suitable for our children.
We initially chose to home educate, because our son, when he was age 9 years old, and I became his step-mum, had no ability to read, write, or speak. Upon discovering that the school system was failing in their commitments to teach our son, we were encouraged to try home education. We let our son choose for himself, and he did not hesitate to leave the school system. Besides being consistently bullied at school, neglected by his teachers for his special needs (hearing impairment dependent on hearing aids and special classroom devices combined with Aspergers Syndrome diagnosis), our son found school lunches to look and taste equivalent to ‘muck’. You would have to know our son to understand that good nutrition is top priority for him, and in his self studies of organic gardening and edible wild foods, he has managed to teach us good habits versus us teaching him.
Within a year of our son beginning home education, he managed to teach himself how to read, write and speak. This success was due to my husband and I being actively involved, and by providing many supportive resources. Cleverly, our son tells us now that he also took it upon himself to watch movies with subtitles, which he says is one of the best methods for him for learning to read. Because it was our son who chose to become the intelligent man he is today, and who chose the subjects he wanted to study, there has never been a requirement for us to test his abilities. He tested himself, and instead of doubt from his parents, he received unconditional trust and support. Yet, despite that we never personally tested our son, he has consistently passed his GCSE’s and college entrance exams with no problems.
When Cypress was born, there was never any intention to go backwards in our educational philosophy by putting her in the school system, when we can provide much more via home education. Personally, I believe the term ‘home education’ does not warrant what is truly involved, because, by no means, do we stay at home to learn. But I digress.
Cypress does not have any ‘special education needs’ in regards to a disability. We give all of our children unique, one-on-one individual considerations for how they approach learning. The way one child learns to read may not necessarily be the way another child learns. Some respond well to Phonics, others (often with dyslexia) require different approach. I am well aware of the many nuances involved with learning how to read, and can assure you that Cypress is doing fantastic with her desire to read, write and also with her maths.
I read every day to my children, and focus on good literature versus the drabble that most children’s books are today. We currently are reading ‘Swiss Family Robinson’, and look forward to moving on to ‘The Legend of King Arthur’ next. Over the past years we have read numerous classics, but my children also enjoy trips to the local library where they pick up any stories they wish to read. Cypress is drawn to the fairy story books and loves cookbooks.
We spend time in the kitchen daily to cook and bake together. My husband and I take top priority with teaching our children safety first. Our time cooking and baking together presents many opportunities for learning maths and science and reading. We bake our own bread, which also teaches patience. We grow our own garden, which, as you can imagine, provides much more hands on learning than any child could ever learn from a book.
We belong to numerous home educator social groups and meet up regularly with other families for field trips, events and play dates. We have family living near by to us, and our children interact often with their Grandmother, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, learning much history from the elders. Cypress also takes gymnastic classes on Saturdays that she thoroughly enjoys and progresses with. Cypress also attends Badgers on Thursday evenings, and consistently confirms that she thoroughly enjoys belonging to this club. Cypress’ next adventure she has expressed interest to join up is Football, so we are actively looking for a local team.
Cypress also receives adequate time to simply play and use her imagination. At her age, this is very important to nurture the creative side of processing the world around you. Cypress is starting to now merge in to a more constructive approach to expressing her imagination, and is often producing her own storybooks with vivid illustrations, or singing songs she makes up that capture a poetic intellect. She makes up her own recipes that we bake together and she is encouraged to create her own menu’s and ‘café’ to serve her baked goods. We have several types of construction toys available to Cypress that she regularly combines in ways to create pretend shops and foods, or forests, farms, etc.
Arts and Crafts are part of our daily routine. We keep a well stocked craft room with many supplies that Cypress can access to do colouring, painting gluing. Our children recycle absolutely everything imaginable from cereal boxes to milk jug lids to coffee cans and egg cartons. These items are always turned in to decorative creations our children either use for play or provide as gifts to friends and family, or simply to display proudly in our home. We feel it is important to not just give children art projects with limited instruction, but to give them the resources and freedom to create from their own imagination.
In addition to child led art projects, I also spend time with my children showing them instructions for life-long ‘craft skills’; such as, hand knitting, sewing, embroidery, beading, weaving, paper making. I find craft projects we can do together that support the subjects Cypress is learning about at any given time, or to celebrate a holiday.
Our education philosophy is that children do not learn the most from sitting in a desk, in a room, looking at a board or a book. Some children learn this way, but Cypress is learning better from being involved in her studies. When Cypress expresses a desire to learn about a particular topic, I will research every possible resource available to support the learning experience of that topic. These resources often include field trips, library books, film documentaries, internet games and resources combined with doing crafts and art projects supporting the topic, or cooking foods that may relate to a topic, visiting establishments and sometimes by going to local shops and talking to the ‘experts’ in the real world. If the topic of choice could benefit from having a group of children involved in a project together, I reach out to our home education community asking if others would like to join in the project.
Appreciating nature and spending time outdoors is also important to our Education philosophy. We take advantage of the fields, forests and beaches nearby to us and explore them frequently. Whilst some days it’s simply to run about and have fun, other days we bring paper, pencils and rulers in our project to map out the area surrounding our home. Cypress enjoys counting the fence posts and then the feet between the posts to calculate how long the field behind our house is. She can’t wait to draw all this on paper, and then decorate our ‘map’ with all the daisies and buttercups she counted as well.
‘Community Giveback’ is also important to our education philosophy. Often this is by coordinating with other home educating communities to raise funds and awareness for a particular charity or important environmental cause. Cypress has also previously participated in a Christmas holiday event at a children’s home that allowed Cypress to give to children in need. ‘Community Giveback’ does not just involve special events either. Cypress is learning how important it is to support her local community by shopping at the local shops, where we talk to our local community shop owners and residents in the process, and by buying local seasonal goods versus driving miles to large superstores to support non-local economy.
Cypress has expressed many times that she enjoys home educating. She has many interactions with other schooled children via family relations, gymnastics and Badgers, and if Cypress were to express an interest in attending school, we would support this transition.
Home education is important to us on many other levels as well. Cypress has the freedom to regulate her own body functions by going to the loo whenever she needs to versus waiting or asking permission. Cypress is not at risk of peer pressure or has to feel at risk of getting teased or bullied for any reason whatsoever. Cypress has asthma and always feels safe knowing that we, her parents, are always nearby to ensure she has her breathing device if ever needed. Cypress is allowed to spend whatever time she wishes to study subjects she is interested in, versus only spending a few minutes each day skimming the surface. Home education also offers the benefit of allowing us, as a family, to celebrate our own culture and heritage and to learn of others culture and heritage by naturally mixing with others outside of our home. Cypress also spends more time with her siblings, which is important to our family values, versus our children getting separated from them for hours each day. We have sufficient time and space to ensure Cypress gets quality one-on-one time with each parent, and time to herself when she needs it, and she makes her own friends in social settings. Yet, she and her siblings have much time together to bond as a family, and with their unconditional love for each other, even if they have a squabble they always work it out.
I believe the information provided above is sufficient to assist in your requirement to know that Cypress is not missing out in her education.
Our education philosophy is also our intentions for our youngest son, Zephyr, whom you refer to by his first name of ‘Graham’ in your letter and documents. (he does not go by his first name but by his middle). I would like to ask that you kindly update your records to reflect Zephyr’s proper birth date. On the letter you sent, you identify 22.03.04, which would be just several days after Cypress was born. Zephyr was born on the 22nd of September in 2005.
Best regards,
Louise Howard
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