Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / Get Your Head Straight to Home Ed – Ep 1: Mindset Shifts, De-Schooling & Deregistering (Practical Tips for UK Families)

Transcript

Get Your Head Straight to Home Ed – Ep 1: Mindset Shifts, De-Schooling & Deregistering (Practical Tips for UK Families) · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

0:16
Hello everybody, welcome to this bonus episode of the Big Home Ed
0:20
Conversations. You are here this week with just
0:22
me, Kelly. I am a home educating mom of two
0:25
and essentially A qualified mindset coach that works with
0:28
families who are well, working with the kids who are not doing
0:32
so great at a school or a kind of starting home education and
0:35
feeling a little bit out of sorts.
0:36
Don't you know where to start? And I basically support them
0:39
with the massive mindset shifts that come with shifting from
0:42
what is essentially a a school going education headsets into
0:48
one that actually allows us to embrace more tentative education
0:51
provisions for our children. Now this week we're going to be
0:56
starting essentially a series that is all about getting your
0:59
head straight to home educate. Now, the reason why I put it
1:03
that way is because actually there is a huge amount of work
1:06
that goes into mentally shifting from the way we've been raised.
1:10
And this has got absolutely nothing to do with anybody's
1:12
faults. This is everything to do with
1:13
the fact that as a society in the UK, we are raised typically
1:18
by going to school, learning. That school is where you learn.
1:21
That is where we get our good education.
1:23
From that allows. Us to go on to be really
1:24
successful now, despite the fact that most people when you speak
1:28
to them will say that actually a lot of what they learned in
1:30
school maybe set some foundations, but it certainly
1:32
didn't allow them to become the most successful version of
1:34
themselves that they have evolved into in their adult
1:36
life. And they maybe also will be
1:39
quite disillusioned with the life that they lead in terms of
1:42
having a full time job, paying all your bills, maintaining a
1:44
house. Like a lot of us are starting to
1:45
feel the real pinch with the cost of living crisis and
1:48
starting to really find ourselves feeling quite
1:49
demoralised with this whole concept of going to school,
1:54
going to work, paying our bills, living until retirement.
1:57
Where our cortisol levels have been so high for so long that
2:00
frankly, many of us are not well enough to really enjoy anymore.
2:05
And we may even be at the stage in our lives where we're seeing
2:08
our parents and our parents in law who are.
2:11
Miserable, who haven't had the life that they maybe wanted to
2:14
have. They've been super stressed.
2:15
And worked really hard most of their lives and have basically
2:18
are now struggling to enjoy their retirement too.
2:23
And we're starting to think to ourselves, actually, is this
2:24
really how I want to live my life?
2:26
Is this how I want my kids? To live their lives.
2:28
Is this what I want for us as a family?
2:30
And I kind of just wanted to meet you wherever you're at.
2:33
And that's really hard because I know that the reason why you
2:36
might be considering home education could be one of many,
2:39
many, many different avenues. It could be that you were raised
2:42
in quite an alternative household and you may be
2:45
yourself or even home educated and, and want to go on to do
2:47
that for your kids. But just feeling a bit
2:49
overwhelmed about starting. It might be you just.
2:50
Want a bit of light support and encouragement?
2:53
It could be that you've got a child at the moment that's super
2:55
dysregulated, not happy at school, you're having hell to
2:59
pay on the evenings and weekends and as a family are really
3:02
starting to feel like you're crumbling.
3:05
And things aren't actually going so well.
3:07
It could be that you. Apologies, my voice has decided
3:10
I doesn't want to play today. It could be that you are dealing
3:14
with a child who is OK at school but actually as a family you
3:17
just really want to change up the ethos and you think that
3:19
actually home education could be a great opportunity.
3:21
For them, but maybe they're hesitant.
3:23
They they like their friends, they like going to school and
3:26
you're feeling a little bit. Unsettled by the thought of.
3:30
Upending their life and changing things up.
3:35
Now what? I wanted to talk to you today
3:37
was a little bit about me and my journey and how I found myself
3:41
in home education to empathize with you on kind of wherever
3:45
you're at and where you're coming from.
3:47
To demonstrate to you that there is some work that needs to be
3:49
done if you want to try and get your head ready to home educate.
3:52
And you don't want to be stuck in old mindsets trying to redo
3:57
school at home, putting extra pressure on your kids as
4:01
essentially ending up resenting your home education journey.
4:03
If you are worried in some way about your home education
4:07
journey, this series should help.
4:09
But also, I really want to give you some of the practical advice
4:11
as well. The, the, the nitty gritty that
4:13
what you are responsible for doing, where to go and get some
4:16
great advice like where these tools are, the deregistration
4:19
letter templates, the report templates, the people who can
4:22
check these things for you. Like I want to make sure that
4:24
you know where to go and how to get that help.
4:27
And and also to kind of. Start to establish your home
4:30
education life as well. So with no further ado, that is
4:33
the point of this series and I won't keep labouring on it on
4:36
the start of every episode. I will just be prompting you to
4:38
go back and listen to the first one and start there.
4:41
So for now, we're going to get into.
4:43
The point of why we're here and. 1.
4:46
Of the things which I want to say you've got available to you
4:49
to work through as we're doing this is my get your head
4:52
straight to home Ed kind of workbook that I've put together
4:54
to accompany this series of podcast episodes.
4:57
You can get it from my website, which is off
4:59
roadingmotherhood.co.uk/work with me.
5:02
So it's on that page. So go and grab it if you want to
5:05
use that to kind of do. It's basically going to help you
5:08
to have all the big conversations with your partner,
5:10
with the grandparents, with your friends, with your kids.
5:13
It's going to help you to think about how you kind of take a
5:17
place in this as well, that this isn't just about them and their
5:19
education. This is a whole family ethos.
5:21
It's going to help you to really think and plan about kind of how
5:24
you're going to retain what matters to you as a person and
5:29
as a family, as a unit as you take this step.
5:33
So that's going to help kind of accompany the conversations
5:35
we're going to be having here. I will be bringing up some of
5:38
the stuff that's in it on here, but there's going to be loads of
5:40
other extra kind of conversations and prompts and
5:43
journaling prompts and other stuff in there as well.
5:44
So do go and grab that right now if you want it because you can
5:48
sit and have a look at it whilst you listen to the Restless
5:50
episode if you like. So cracking on with the point, I
5:57
as a home educating parent I basically decided never to send
6:00
my son to school. Now he was three years old when
6:06
COVID first hit and I had a 5 month old baby girl and
6:10
essentially. I was terrified.
6:12
My husband was a first responder.
6:14
I had post dated depression. I had absolutely.
6:16
Zero idea that I had ADHD back then or that my.
6:18
Children were both neurodivergent as well, so I was
6:22
just at home with a child who had been going to nursery three
6:25
days a week and. All of the days around it, he
6:29
was unable to eat properly, sleep properly, was super off
6:33
the charts behavior wise and honestly I was scared.
6:35
I was so upset and worried about what that was going to look like
6:40
for me, that I was going to be alone, trapped in my house, and
6:44
I really didn't know where it was going to go.
6:46
And of course, it was a superbly anxious time for every single
6:50
person on the planet back then. But actually within two or three
6:54
weeks of him being off of nursery, I started to notice
6:57
that I had a very different child.
6:58
He was. But all of us were able to eat,
7:01
sleep, drink. Move, play, get creative, do
7:06
some crafts, do some gardening. Play on the trampoline.
7:10
Yes, we could go out for a little walk that we're allowed
7:11
to do, et cetera, but we were able to actually just meet our
7:15
needs. Suddenly everybody else's
7:17
expectations, demands and outside influences were no
7:20
longer actually especially important.
7:22
We could actually but go very insular and this allowed us to
7:26
meet everyone's needs and to actually enjoy learning together
7:30
again. And I had a completely different
7:31
child. He was suddenly that much more
7:34
engaged with me and it blew me away and truly helped me to
7:39
almost fall back in love with him.
7:40
I was feeling very detached from him back then and feeling very
7:43
stressed about raising him. I didn't feel like I really had
7:47
the capabilities. I thought I was really in for
7:49
like a real slog of parenting journey and allowing me to
7:55
reconnect with him in that way was such a gift because it was
7:59
definitely around then that I heard that home schooling as
8:02
people were referring to it was a thing now.
8:06
I we have done an. Episode on this recently, so
8:08
very quick touchpoint this if you had to home school during
8:12
COVID where you had Zoom calls and worksheets and you had to
8:16
force them to sit there and do five hours of school whilst you
8:18
were also trying to do your work and deal with all the anxiety of
8:22
everybody all suddenly being locked at home together.
8:24
Yes, that is not what home education looks like.
8:27
So there's a whole episode on this to really stress that
8:31
because we get quite stressed out and upset as home educators
8:35
with the vision of what people had of what home schooling was
8:38
during COVID and how that does not at all relate to what home
8:41
educating life looks like as a full time thing.
8:44
But anyway, sliding past that as we have got something for you to
8:47
go back and listen to entirely on that if you want to.
8:50
The conversation around, like having them home in that
8:53
situation was not fun. But there were.
8:57
People in that window of time who were choosing to home
9:00
educate their kids, who actually then deregister them completely
9:03
and to pull them out of school entirely, partly because they
9:06
were obviously trying to isolate because they were medically
9:08
unwell, etcetera. But I guess it must have just
9:11
filtered into my awareness that you were allowed to do that,
9:14
that you could choose not to send them to school.
9:17
And I must have just been curious and started to look into
9:19
it. I wish I could remember the
9:21
moment that I found out that it was real, that you could do it,
9:23
but I honestly had no idea. I did not know that it was
9:26
allowed. That legally you could educate
9:29
your children at home and. I asked all of the questions.
9:33
Of Google that you probably have, is it legal?
9:36
Does there need to be a good reason?
9:37
Is it just a fall back option? Are there other people doing it?
9:40
Do they still get to have friends?
9:41
Like all of the things right? Just really like I've done all
9:44
the Googling myself back in those days when I was terrified
9:47
and like, is this actually a thing?
9:49
Could I do this? And I started talking to my
9:52
partner about it. Now I get very strong instincts
9:55
around kind of what I want to do with my life.
9:57
And I can really get onto 1. And my husband refers to the
10:00
sort of like little midlife crises where I just see
10:03
something that needs changing and I will just be hell bent on
10:06
making that happen. And I think that back then he
10:08
thought that I. Just, I was just going through a
10:10
phase and I'd probably let it go, but.
10:13
I through the course of that next year or so, I worked with a
10:16
coach who helped me to start to recognize that I mattered, that
10:20
I was allowed to choose things that made me happy and that I
10:24
think would be fun and great and exciting.
10:26
Just because they're fun and great and exciting, they don't
10:29
have to be perfect. They don't have to be what
10:31
everybody. Else wants they don't have to
10:33
look any way that. That people expect to be a good
10:36
thing. They can genuinely just be what
10:38
works for us and what makes us happy.
10:40
And my reservations about school and my fears that putting him
10:44
back into like even just a couple of days at nursery after
10:47
Covid's times had lifted, the thought of putting him into five
10:50
days a week of school just filled me with horror at the
10:53
behaviours and the experience that we'd have with him around
10:56
it and how stressful that would be for us as a family.
10:58
And yeah, all of the expectations that come with it
11:01
as well. And thankfully I was just very
11:03
lucky that in the period of time when I was starting to think
11:06
about it, that I came across as a coach.
11:09
I did and I worked with someone who was able to help me to
11:12
recognise that it was OK for me to make this decision.
11:15
Now, since then I've obviously gone on to train to be a coach
11:17
myself because it just mattered to me so much that I supported
11:21
other people and especially parents who are thinking about
11:25
home educating their children because this is a massive
11:28
transition and it's essentially the same one that I went through
11:31
about four or five years ago now.
11:33
And we were so scared of home education, we had absolutely no
11:39
idea if this was going to work. My husband's words were, well,
11:42
let's just try it for reception. If it doesn't work, then we can
11:44
always put him back in for year one, right?
11:46
So let's just give it a go and like.
11:48
Turning down his. School place was one of the
11:50
biggest like, Oh my goodness, am I actually doing this kind of
11:53
moments of my life. And I happened to have come
11:57
across a lady who was like, honestly, jumped 2 feet in the
12:00
water is lovely. Please distrust your instincts.
12:03
And I will be forever grateful for that woman who said that to
12:06
me at one of these home Ed meetups that I'd gone along with
12:08
with my kids. Just like just to suss it out
12:10
and to start to see if I liked the kind of people who did it
12:13
and all the rest of it. See if we could kind of get
12:16
along. And since then, I've not only
12:19
witnessed my kids thrive. In terms of just their
12:23
education, their relationships, their confidence in the world,
12:27
their excitement for learning, but also for myself, I have seen
12:32
my career. Change and shift and flourish.
12:34
I've seen me change and shift and flourish.
12:37
I feel so much happier in myself.
12:40
I'm far more stable and relaxed and I meet my own needs on a
12:42
regular basis. I still earn plenty of money
12:44
doing all the things I have to do with my business to make sure
12:46
that we can afford this lifestyle.
12:48
But essentially, I get to balance it up with a really
12:51
lovely dose of, of proper quality time with my kids and
12:54
getting out and spending time with really great people too.
12:57
So from a perspective of someone who's been there, has moved
13:01
through the fears and is now at the other side, I kind of wanted
13:03
to reassure you that even if you're coming at this completely
13:06
cold with no understanding of what home education is
13:09
whatsoever, you can get there and you can embrace this
13:13
lifestyle and it can 100% be for you.
13:15
So bear with the feeling. Now what we wanted to kind of
13:19
work on today in your kind of homework that's going to be for
13:22
the next few days until you listen to the next episode.
13:25
I would love for you to stick a piece of paper in your fridge.
13:27
And I want you to every single time you think about home
13:30
education as an option for your family and you get the pushback,
13:35
whatever it is that your brain or body says to you in
13:38
retaliation to the thought of it, I want you to write it down.
13:41
Now that could be. You won't be able to cope.
13:44
Or having them home full time. When am I ever going to get any
13:47
time to do anything? Like what about my career?
13:50
What if I wanted to go do this? What about childcare?
13:53
Is there any options for me to actually put them into a some
13:56
sort of structured thing during the week so I do get one or two
13:59
days to myself? Like any questions, any worries,
14:02
any fears, any judgments as well?
14:05
Like I don't think this is going to serve my kids.
14:07
I don't think I'm I'm going to think I'm going to fail them.
14:09
I don't think they're going to be able to get GCCS and go on to
14:11
be really successful. Whatever fear comes up, any.
14:15
Thought you have. Whatsoever.
14:18
Just pop it on there without judgement.
14:20
You don't have to dwell on it too heavily, but just try and
14:22
notice all of the little messages that are coming at you.
14:25
And especially if you're already at the stage of talking to
14:27
family or friends who are going, oh, I'm not sure that's such a
14:29
great idea. And don't you want to just?
14:31
Have a bit of time to yourself or.
14:32
School's a gift like. It gives you time back or
14:35
whatever it is. Any messaging that you were
14:37
getting that's making you feel uncertain is earwelling you, is
14:40
making you worry. I want you to take a note of it
14:42
and just to think about it a little bit because.
14:45
What really happened to me during that window of time, and
14:48
I was thinking about it and deciding to do it, is you kind
14:50
of test the waters. You, you go and visit a couple
14:52
of home Med groups, you talk to some people, you talk to your
14:55
friends, you talk to your family.
14:57
And I really did start to get a lot of pushback.
14:59
I've got an awful lot of people making me feel uncertain and I
15:02
already was had my brain filled with uncertainties myself.
15:05
And So what that did is it if if I'd allowed it to, it could have
15:08
stopped me from making that decision.
15:10
It would have stopped me from saying, do you know what?
15:12
This is right for me and my family and what we want like.
15:17
If you want something, if you want to make a change, if you
15:20
wanted to quit your job and start a business, if you wanted
15:23
to go travel the world, you were going to get people who are
15:26
scared of that and have absolutely no idea how that
15:30
would work. Basically saying to you, oh, no,
15:32
that's scary. Don't do that.
15:34
And that's what your brain is doing too, right?
15:36
It's just trying to protect you. It's just trying to say, oh, no,
15:38
this is steady. This is stable.
15:39
We know this. We've been taught this.
15:41
Like we should just stick within what we know.
15:43
And we need to start actually breaking those thoughts down and
15:46
pushing those away and empowering ourselves to say,
15:49
actually, I think I know what's best, I feel what's best and a
15:54
great way of doing. This actually from a mindset
15:56
coach perspective is to hear whatever your brain is saying.
16:00
But then ask the same question of your heart and feel into the
16:02
feeling that you get, like is it a warm one?
16:05
Is it a scared? One is it whatever.
16:07
And start to notice like do you, does your heart feel differently
16:09
about it though like that maybe kind of asking yourself the
16:12
straight up question? Do you want to home educate your
16:15
kids? Your brain fills you with fears
16:18
and worries and expectations and all the things, but your heart
16:21
goes, oh God, I'd so love to spend more time with them.
16:24
I really think it will help them so much.
16:26
I really do imagine that they're going to have such a lovely
16:28
time. I'd love to do that so much
16:30
more. It just makes me so excited and
16:32
happy, the thought of doing that.
16:34
And your gut is saying, well, it's going to be challenging,
16:37
but I think we could do it. I think we could make it work.
16:40
Like we just need to do some work on it.
16:42
Then you've got to start basically taking some of the
16:45
power away from your your head, from your brain.
16:48
It doesn't always have the right answers.
16:50
Sometimes it is just pulling from the knowledge it's
16:52
currently got. And we are allowed to give it
16:55
new knowledge. We're allowed to give it new
16:57
examples and ideas and thoughts. And hopefully that will start to
17:00
make it feel a little bit less scared and a little bit more
17:03
empowered to actually make a decision that feels good for you
17:05
guys as a family now. So moving past that essentially
17:11
and saying, OK, so we're recognizing the fears.
17:14
We're noticing what's actually coming up.
17:15
We're seeing. What?
17:16
The fears are there. How did I move past it?
17:20
How do I see people moving past it?
17:23
Partly it's down to a process called deschooling.
17:27
Now this is something which will happen as you kind of are
17:30
gearing up to home education and something which will happen as
17:33
you actually do start as well for your child.
17:36
And that is to essentially eradicate the concept of what
17:40
school education looks like, how we have been trained to behave
17:46
and look and feel and be now a great example of this.
17:50
Is we get taught from a young age to that school is where
17:56
learning happens. That's where we get a good
17:58
education that allows us to go on, to get a good career that
18:00
allows us to then go on and buy a nice car and to buy a nice
18:03
house and to find a good partner who also has exactly those
18:07
values. I mean, we both steady and
18:08
sturdy and want to make sure we have lots of cash and maintained
18:12
roof over our heads and blah blah blah.
18:15
And then we have our kids and then we raise them the same way.
18:18
To be super, super professional and to do all of their stuff
18:20
right and to care a lot and to not ask silly questions and to
18:23
focus on the goal and to constantly be moving forward and
18:26
growing and developing and all the rest of.
18:28
It right, so this kind of concept comes with an awful lot
18:32
of other subtle expectations as well.
18:35
Sitting down to learn. Making eye contact with someone
18:39
when they're talking, which can be very uncomfortable.
18:41
For a lot of people, holding in, needing to go to the toilet or
18:44
eating or drinking because you're in a meeting or because
18:47
you've got to wait until the set time that you're allowed to go
18:50
right. We have sucked humanness out.
18:54
Of day-to-day life, we have taken away our connection to
18:58
movement, our connection to each other.
19:01
We're way more isolated than we ever used to be.
19:04
We're so much more honed and focused in on A1 track path.
19:08
We're not supposed to look up, we're not supposed to ask
19:10
questions. We're supposed to focus on the
19:13
goals that somebody else has set for us and essentially the whole
19:16
concept of off roading. Motherhood.
19:17
The whole reason why I came up with that title in the first
19:19
place in my business was simply because I really found myself
19:23
feeling like. What I needed to do was off
19:25
road. I needed to get off the
19:26
motorway. That we get told, this is the
19:29
path, this is what you do. Get on with it.
19:30
Don't look up. No, no, don't question it.
19:32
Focus, stay on that path. Do what you're supposed to do.
19:35
And for so many of us, we then forget to smell the roses.
19:38
We don't notice the beauty. And we spend most of our life
19:41
feeling quite resentful and exhausted and frustrated and fed
19:44
up. And then once in a while, once
19:46
in a while, we give ourselves the gift of a holiday and we
19:50
down tools and we go off. And we eat great.
19:53
Food. And we see something beautiful
19:55
and we experience the sun on our face, and we cut our toes in the
19:58
sand and we play in the ocean. And we experience cool things
20:01
and we notice something. We learn something new.
20:03
We connect with our kids. We have these amazing moments.
20:06
And then we go back and it just within days, it feels like you
20:10
never went in the 1st place because that was just a holiday.
20:12
We're putting that down now. None of that's important.
20:15
That was just a holiday. We're now back to what's
20:17
important, which is our job and making money and getting to the
20:20
goals. And we never feel satisfied.
20:23
We never feel like we've actually managed to achieve
20:25
anything. We always feel like we've got to
20:27
do the next thing. Even when we do like achieve
20:29
some massive project at work, we feel really good at the outcome
20:32
of something. We sit back at our desk, we go,
20:34
right, OK, what's the next task? And that is the way we've been
20:37
raised. That is, that is how we look at
20:40
education and it's how we look at work and it's how we look at
20:42
our lives. And we have to start questioning
20:47
these things at their foundational levels.
20:49
And sometimes that can be a layering process.
20:51
We might notice some of the really glaringly obvious stuff,
20:54
but then we may have to like it may take time to really go back
20:58
and question some of that really foundational behaviour.
21:02
Behavioural training and indoctrination, essentially,
21:04
that we've had into how our society functions and how we
21:08
should behave in order to be considered good.
21:11
Now you can look at so many examples.
21:14
There are so, so many. Sitting down to learn is a great
21:18
one. Why?
21:19
Why do we need to be sat still, listening to a teacher in
21:22
silence, not fidgeting, making eye contact, demonstrating that
21:27
we're listening well, and then sitting and working
21:30
independently on something that's on paper with a pen for
21:34
it to be considered learning? Now, I think most of us can
21:37
quite easily say, well, it's not the only kind of learning we do
21:40
like. We learn by building and
21:42
constructing and discussing and playing and looking around a
21:45
place and climbing a mountain and right, we know this.
21:50
We Internet research. We talk to other people, we
21:52
collaborate, we do things as teams.
21:54
We don't just do things singularly in that way.
21:56
That's not the only way we learn, but.
21:59
We are taught that that is that when we first start home
22:01
educating, a lot of the time we will find ourselves almost
22:03
recreating school at home. We will find ourselves saying
22:05
Mike, come on then come sit down, let's come and do some
22:07
maths and we'll sit down with a workbook, with a pen at a table
22:11
and try and for want of a better word, lecture our children.
22:15
In the educational sense, teach them.
22:17
About a conceptual subject and we may find ourselves getting a
22:21
ton of pushback and resistance and misery and fidgeting and
22:24
getting up and wanting a snack and wanting to go for a wee and
22:27
having a tantrum or a meltdown or wanting to go outside and
22:30
you're sat there pulling your hair up.
22:31
And I just want to get the maths done.
22:32
Guys, we need to get this done. This is important.
22:34
Like if we don't do some sit down maths then we're not going
22:37
to be able to be successful. You're not going to be able to.
22:39
Get a good job you're going to. Your whole life.
22:40
Is going to be falling apart. And you find yourself spiralling
22:44
because it massively triggers that.
22:46
Well, I had to do it. This is how I learn and this is
22:48
how we got to where I am today. And if I hadn't done that, then
22:50
would I have been successful? And then we go, wait, hang on.
22:53
Maybe maybe I don't actually love maths that much and maybe
22:57
actually I'm not that successful.
22:59
And maybe actually I don't enjoy budgeting.
23:01
I don't do any investing of my money.
23:02
I don't really enjoy looking at my bank account.
23:04
It confuses me. I pay packet if my pay salary
23:07
thing just confuses me. I don't really understand my
23:09
tax. I don't really understand why
23:12
things are costing where they are.
23:13
What does economy even mean? Like what is the economy?
23:15
I don't even know what that is. And we start to go, actually,
23:20
maybe this wasn't the best way to teach maths.
23:23
Maybe this wasn't the most engaging or functional or useful
23:27
way for me to embrace mathematics.
23:29
And actually teachers teaching maths used to make me feel
23:31
rubbish. I hated getting on the back with
23:33
like, no, you've got that wrong. No, you've got it wrong.
23:34
No, you've got it wrong. And not really getting that much
23:36
guidance as to why sometimes and having to then just like keep
23:39
trying again, keep trying again, right?
23:41
And so many of us ended up having like a real block to
23:45
maths, not enjoying maths, not getting great grades at GCSEs in
23:48
maths because actually it was being taught in one set way
23:52
which didn't necessarily suit us.
23:54
Now the act of. Deschooling is one example,
23:56
right? That is one example of one type
24:00
of thing which needs to be shifted and changed in a
24:04
different attitude that will extrapolate out to so many other
24:07
subjects, so many other different avenues of
24:09
conversations. But.
24:10
The point is that if you aren't taking your time to notice these
24:14
things and ask yourself the questions, you will keep meeting
24:17
pushback with your kids. You will keep feeling frustrated
24:19
and stressed. You will start to worry about
24:21
where you're going wrong. You will worry about their
24:23
future and what's going to come next.
24:25
And you will be constantly in a state of triggered and.
24:29
Anxiety so you yourself have got to work on deschooling.
24:33
You have got to notice and just this is a long process.
24:36
It's never going to be done. I still do it every single day.
24:39
I notice myself doing it all the time, spotting things and then
24:43
going. Oh.
24:44
Interesting. And just getting curious.
24:46
So the act of noticing, recognizing that.
24:50
When we first start home educating, we are going to have.
24:54
A lot of hang ups. A lot.
24:55
Of things that we are worried about and a lot of things that
24:57
we have been taught and maybe even.
24:59
Truly believe as facts that we have got to stop and go.
25:02
Is that a fact? Do we have to sit?
25:05
Down and do a workbook to learn maths No obviously we know this
25:09
as soon as we ask the question we're like well no of course not
25:11
there must be other ways of actually grasping the concepts
25:14
Yes there are and so. You can then get curious and
25:18
have some fun and play with it and to try some different things
25:20
with them and see what works for them.
25:22
And in the process, if they've been in school, they may also
25:26
therefore be going through a period of.
25:27
Deschooling, which is essentially them in re embracing
25:31
their own like authenticity, their own individuality, their
25:35
own curiosities. You're giving them more
25:37
permission and freedom to actually explore things that
25:40
they want to do and what they want to learn about.
25:42
And they may not. Want to do a lot of focus on
25:44
very academic subjects for a little while because they may
25:47
have such hang ups around how it was taught.
25:49
And you're going to have to be demonstrating to them that it
25:52
can be done in ways that are way more interactive and fun and
25:55
engaging and will teach them a lot more skills to help them to
25:58
really cement that learning without it necessarily having to
26:01
be a worksheet or being like a massive pressure thing.
26:03
And like, maybe you're not marking their maths, you're not
26:06
giving them like those of red crosses on their maths if
26:09
they're doing it, but you're just having a bit of a chat
26:11
about how how they got to some of the answers and you're
26:15
talking about the concepts a bit more or watching a fun YouTube
26:18
video about that concept or whatever it might be.
26:19
I use quite a lot of like AI maths Tutory things which are
26:22
really fun, like gamey, gamey kind of tutors online.
26:26
But the point is that there's in every single thing, there are
26:29
ways of doing it slightly differently that might then
26:31
really make your child excited and happy and engaged in that
26:34
subject. But it just takes a bit of play
26:36
and a bit of working through it and also reassuring them that
26:40
the expectations are different now and that they aren't
26:42
necessarily going to have to be an absolute like a star at maths
26:46
in order to be successful. There's loads of other things
26:48
that they can be doing. So there's a lot here.
26:51
It's a lot and I can't talk. About all of them, because.
26:53
You'll be so bored out of your mind you'd be like please stop
26:55
giving us. Examples.
26:56
So I'm going to move on, but just really take some time as
27:00
you say. Think about your fears, think
27:01
about the stuff that's coming up for you and start to question
27:04
the influences. And then also start to can
27:06
factor in this concept of descoring.
27:08
This act of recognizing that some of these fears and thoughts
27:12
and criticisms you may have of what you think home education
27:16
looks like or school looks like, etcetera.
27:19
We need to start asking some real questions.
27:22
This is the act of critical thinking.
27:24
We are going to be giving you permission to ask why.
27:27
Again, really, really ask why a lot?
27:30
Why do I believe this? What is worrying me about it?
27:33
Like, where is this thought coming from?
27:34
Who is it that's put it in my head?
27:37
Does it actually serve me? Did it actually make me good at
27:40
that? Do I actually think it's
27:41
necessary? Or am I just doing it because
27:44
that's just the way that it's always been done?
27:46
Whatever, right? I want you to really be critical
27:48
and think it over and ask why a lot.
27:51
And this is exhausting at first, so have some faith in some
27:54
compassion in yourself. You don't have to dig into every
27:56
single thing right now, but pick a thing.
27:58
Pick a thing. And observe and notice and then
28:01
work your way through that thought.
28:02
And again, if you feel like you need a coach, you feel like you
28:05
need someone to support your family through this, my coaching
28:07
is always with like if you're single parent, fair enough.
28:10
But if you're, if you want to work as a partnership or with a
28:13
grandparent or with somebody else who's in part of the home
28:15
Ed journey, who you want to actually have that conversation
28:17
with and you want to really get into this stuff, like you've got
28:19
a lot coming up that you need to work through.
28:21
I as a coach, work with the family.
28:23
So I don't just focus on one element of it.
28:26
We're not just talking about the kids, we're talking about you,
28:29
each other, your relationship. How are we going to make this
28:31
work and making sure that you transition as smoothly as you
28:34
possibly can. So onto the practical elements
28:39
before I tire myself out. It's very hard doing a podcast
28:41
episode all to yourself. I feel like I want someone to
28:44
interject and take over for a minute.
28:46
We're going to get onto the practical side of it.
28:49
So step one for actually home educating.
28:52
So if you are actually getting to the point of saying we are
28:56
actually going to deregister, now this is kind of like step
28:58
one element is the deregistration.
29:01
It is ridiculously easy, but it's also a massive mindset
29:05
hurdle in and of itself. Like it's a big like hoe Bony,
29:08
Bony. I'm actually going to do this.
29:09
OK, all right, I'm taking a big deep breath and we're jumping
29:11
straight in. But the deregistration letter is
29:14
essentially if your child is in a mainstream school.
29:16
It's. All you have to do the main the
29:19
deregistration letter templates are available on things like
29:22
home education. For All's Facebook.
29:23
Group that was HEFA, HEFA, you've also got Education
29:29
otherwise who've got a fantastic helpline.
29:32
They will give you any legal advice you need if you're having
29:34
any pushback or difficulties with the school.
29:37
So essentially choosing to home educate and wanting to do so,
29:42
all you have to do is send a written letter or by e-mail.
29:47
So probably do both physically hand in a letter and send an
29:50
e-mail to the head teacher of the school your child goes to at
29:53
telling them that you are going to deregister them and asking
29:56
them to remove them from the school.
29:57
Roll now. The school's responsibility
30:00
then, once received, is to simply confirm acceptance
30:04
they've received it. They will do it to immediately
30:07
offer all them and to notify the local authority that you have
30:10
chosen to offer all them from their school and that you are
30:12
now home educating them. They are very likely to push
30:17
back and to ask you to come in for a meeting to say you have to
30:20
discuss it, that you need their permission.
30:22
Unless your child is in Ascend school, you do not need their
30:27
permission, so you will have to have.
30:29
Further discussions and there is more advice on send placements.
30:32
If if your child is at Ascend school again chat to education.
30:36
Otherwise, the helpline is really, really helpful for this
30:38
sort of thing. But get the right advice.
30:41
But essentially this slightly different process if you have
30:43
got a child in the SEND placement.
30:44
But if they're a mainstream school, obviously private
30:47
education as well, you absolutely can just deregister
30:50
them, pull them out, that's it, end of discussion.
30:53
Like they don't have any right to convince you otherwise.
30:57
You will then very likely get a response.
30:59
From the local authority within a few weeks, if they've done
31:02
their job and they've offrolled them properly and they may ask
31:05
you to do your initial report. Now again, at this stage, you're
31:08
not really going to have an. Awful lot to.
31:10
Say, and the temptation will be to have a meeting with them or
31:14
to discuss it with them and to kind of maybe have them come to
31:16
your house and have an appointment.
31:17
They may ask for those things as well or insinuate that they have
31:20
a right to do those things. They do not.
31:22
You can keep everything in writing.
31:24
And at this stage, you can go back to them and actually ask to
31:27
say, look, we've just registered them.
31:29
We're taking a period of observation and starting to
31:32
trial some clubs as trying, we're trialing some local
31:35
homemade groups where like we've tried, we're getting a few
31:38
different workbook options and apps and things to try.
31:41
But right now we're just trying to actually observe and
31:44
understand where they're at in terms of their education.
31:46
And so please give us a little bit of space.
31:47
Can we please submit a report in say, six months or a year and
31:50
give us a time to actually adjust and and settle in?
31:53
Don't ignore them. Do reply politely but firmly set
31:57
your boundaries in terms of keeping things in writing.
32:00
And you don't necessarily have to fill out any forms or
32:02
templates they give you. There are ones created by home
32:06
educators who obviously have our legal rights as home educators
32:10
in mind that you can use. So again, home education for all
32:13
education otherwise are two great places to get those use.
32:17
Them. Read through them, make sure
32:19
that you're feeling confident with what you're saying.
32:22
Get someone to check it before you send it back if you want to
32:24
as well. Again, education otherwise can
32:26
check reports before you send them back.
32:28
But essentially, just don't talk too much about the future.
32:32
Talk about the right now, talk about where you're at and then
32:35
tell them that you will report back and like give them more
32:38
information when things evolve and you know a bit more, you're
32:40
a bit more established and you know what's going on.
32:42
So literally that is it in terms of what your responsibility will
32:47
be to the school and to the local authority at that stage,
32:51
that is all you have to do. You're sending a letter and then
32:56
you're probably sending a short report to the local authority
32:58
when they request it, which could be weeks, could be months,
33:01
could be goodness knows how long down the line.
33:04
Realistically, that means you were then at home on your own
33:08
with your child. Nobody else is now dictating to
33:11
you the curriculum. They're not dictating to how you
33:14
should be doing it. You don't have to meet any
33:16
specific demands. You are now in a period of time
33:20
getting to know your child a bit deeper, understanding their
33:23
educational priorities, understanding what's going on
33:27
for you and as a as a family, reestablishing a new routine,
33:31
taking a meet, taking a beat. You're taking a beat.
33:33
You're taking a moment to really take your time to get to know
33:35
them again and to know where you want to go next.
33:37
Now, you are always responsible legally wise.
33:41
You have always been and will always be responsible for your
33:43
child's education. So the feeling of responsibility
33:47
that may come with this period of time you suddenly feel like
33:48
you've got to just get stuck straight in is going to be
33:51
really strong. What I really want to emphasise
33:54
is this period of deschooling, this period of adjustment and
33:56
observation and just just settling in with yourselves.
34:00
And again, I've got this like a little kind of calendar thing
34:02
you can get for fun. 30 days of home Ed calendar that you can
34:06
grab, which just gives you a first 30 days of like
34:08
reconnecting tasks and just like getting to know each other and
34:11
asking some questions and understanding what it is they
34:14
want to do, etcetera, etcetera. But of course, education in the
34:18
form that we all know it, your maths, your English, your
34:21
science progress, future careers, this stuff does matter
34:26
and it's not something which we're just going to put down and
34:28
forget all about. It does matter.
34:31
But what matters more than anything is establishing which
34:35
bits of those and what the goal is for those, for your family.
34:42
And we're not interested in simply producing a cut and copy
34:46
of what school is. There's no point to registering
34:48
them if at home it's going to be exactly the same.
34:52
And your child may still. Want some element of structure
34:54
because that's what they're used to.
34:55
And actually it'll feel a bit weird for a while not having any
34:58
structure. They might get a bit bored or a
34:59
bit uncertain or like not really know what to do with themselves
35:02
or maybe even asked to go back to school because they feel a
35:04
bit untethered and a bit out of. Sorts.
35:07
But essentially you need to work through kind of like, OK, This
35:11
is why we've done it. These are the values.
35:13
And that's why having a good plan and going through this
35:14
process is really good as well. Because you'll feel really like,
35:17
I know why we're doing this before you actually jump in and
35:20
do it. Because those first few months
35:22
can feel quite unsettling for everybody, like you're all going
35:25
to be feeling a bit. Out of sorts and essentially
35:27
that that. Process of getting to know the
35:30
process of home education of what it's going to look like for
35:32
you is is something which will evolve constantly.
35:34
I've gone through so many iterations of what it looks like
35:36
for us as a family. We are now sort of fairly
35:39
settled in a I had unstructured, unschooly but project based home
35:44
education where the kids choose a subject.
35:46
I helped to facilitate some strewing and ideas that kind of
35:50
cover all of the things like maths, English, science and all
35:52
of this, all the fun stuff, art and like music and religious
35:56
studies and all the things. Like I try and come up with some
35:58
activities that touch base into these different things and give
36:00
them inspiration. And then I should just suggest
36:03
like, oh, we could do this today if you fancy it, or we could do
36:05
this and they would typically then choose what they fancy
36:07
doing out of those things and we do it together.
36:10
So it's still very much child LED, but not strictly
36:13
unschooling. We can touch on the different
36:16
ones. Later, we'll probably do an
36:17
episode. On that scene anyway about what
36:18
will the different terms mean in terms of Charlotte Mason and
36:22
unschooling and all the things. But essentially we followed
36:25
essentially what is a child LED project based kind of home
36:28
education. But that has been iteration
36:30
after iteration after iteration. We went full on school
36:33
beginning, which was fine whilst he was little, but as time went
36:36
on we noticed that he was struggling to kind of grasp
36:38
actually picking up a subject or doing something or getting
36:41
interested in anything. So we kind of started just
36:43
planting ideas and it's just sort of old from there.
36:46
And that is what will happen. You will go through so many
36:48
iterations and settle into a way that works for you as a family,
36:50
makes you feel relaxed, makes them feel relaxed and makes you
36:54
will feel like sort of progress is gently happening and they're
36:59
enjoying their learning. And yeah, you'll start to notice
37:02
that actually you can 100% see how this develops into a really
37:05
strong passionate future. But it just takes time.
37:08
And faith really more than a thing is one of those faith
37:11
moments. It's 2nd.
37:12
And see, just try, just try stuff and see what happens and
37:16
see how they respond to it. And trying not to get too hung
37:19
up on them not wanting to do certain things because they are
37:23
not going to want to do some of the things that you suggest.
37:25
And it's going to make you feel really quite out of sorts in
37:28
those moments and not really knowing if you've made the right
37:30
decision, etcetera. And I want to just reassure you
37:32
that those moments are an opportunity to be curious again,
37:35
take a pause, really think about why they're pushing back.
37:39
Would learning it a different way be possible?
37:42
How can you make that work with the time constraints and the
37:45
money constraints, whatever you might have and, and working on
37:48
that with them, helping them to suggest and come up with ideas
37:51
and overcome those hurdles together.
37:54
But the point is that practicality wise, all you have
37:57
to do in order to start home educating is to send that
37:59
deregistration letter. If your child is part of a
38:01
mainstream school, if they have not yet started school, you
38:05
haven't requested a place or whatever, then you just.
38:09
Don't need to do anything. You don't need to tell the local
38:10
authority, you don't have to deregister them from anywhere,
38:13
you don't have to tell the nursery absolutely nothing.
38:18
You can literally just carry on being a parent.
38:23
Raising a child, no interruptions necessary.
38:26
You don't have to notify the local authority that you are
38:28
home educating yourself. That's not a legal requirement.
38:31
It may become a legal requirement with some of the
38:33
changes that are happening with in government at the moment, but
38:36
we are fighting it. But essentially, you don't need
38:39
to actually tell anybody that you're doing.
38:41
It and then later also if you have requested.
38:44
A school place and actually you want to turn it down.
38:47
Then simply when you get offered one, you just reply and say
38:50
thank you, but no thank you. We don't want the place.
38:52
And if you do that straight away before they would have started
38:55
school, that essentially you are again, not you.
38:58
You're not going to have any issues.
39:00
You don't need to deregister. You don't have to send a letter
39:02
to the school, nothing like that.
39:03
You just literally reply to that initial like here's your school
39:06
place with no thank you. And that's that, that's the end
39:10
of the discussion. They just don't, they just don't
39:12
offer them that place anymore. They take them off the list.
39:14
So it's, um, it's actually a relatively simple process and I
39:18
think that can sometimes feel quite like, oh, really?
39:20
Um, which I know that I found quite shocking as well that that
39:23
realistically this is 100% of equitable legal, right?
39:28
Um, sending a child to school, choosing to home educate them,
39:32
choosing to send them to an alternative provision of some
39:33
description, choosing online school, There are actually a lot
39:36
more options than we are possibly aware of right now.
39:39
And so many of us have been raised to believe that school is
39:42
the only option that they they call it compulsory school age,
39:45
which is something we're campaigning to change, as well
39:47
as compulsory education age where a child needs to be
39:50
receiving a full time education. But essentially, school in and
39:55
of itself is not compulsory. Like you do not have to send
39:58
your child to school in order for them to be successful.
40:01
School is not the only way for a child to receive an education.
40:04
And ultimately your decision to home educate is yours alone as a
40:09
family. Nobody else has a right to
40:11
muscle into this conversation. You know your child and you know
40:15
what will work for you as a family unit.
40:18
So I hope that this initial conversation has been helpful.
40:23
We are going to be doing a series on this, so there's going
40:25
to be a couple more that will be attached to this that will help
40:27
to kind of dive even further into the mindset shifting that's
40:29
going to go on and essentially making sure that you don't lose
40:33
you in the process. Because so much time and energy
40:37
is going to be spent considering a child's future and their
40:39
education that you may forget to factor in you enough into that
40:43
process as a family unit and as an individual.
40:46
So we're going to be talking about kind of your perfect day
40:49
and what you want it to actually look like and what you're
40:53
actually dreaming of. Like what is it that you're
40:55
actually? What are the goals?
40:56
What are you hoping, what it will change for your family?
40:59
We're going to talk about the resistance, the defensiveness,
41:01
the people who might want to earworm you and how to deal with
41:04
those tricky conversations where we're going to dive into all of
41:07
it, hopefully over the summer with a few of these little
41:10
episodes, little bonus episodes for me directly whilst we wait
41:14
for Season 4 to officially commence again with myself and
41:17
Ashley. But I hope that this has been
41:19
helpful and I really hope that you guys are sitting feeling
41:21
that little bit more empowered. And honestly, if you are
41:24
listening, thinking that actually you need some help with
41:26
this right now and you would love to get some support, then
41:29
please do reach out. I have got a few slots coming
41:31
open over the summer, so I can absolutely be working with you
41:35
as you get your head around the concept of deregistering your
41:37
child. The last thing I will say before
41:40
I wrap up is if you are planning to deregister at the end of this
41:43
term, just hold off until the end of the summer holidays.
41:47
Don't do it before. The reason being that as soon as
41:50
you send that to your registration letter, they take
41:52
them off the register and your home education journey
41:54
officially begins. And that means that the local
41:57
authority will expect to start seeing evidence of what you are
42:00
doing as a home educator. So if I were you, I would buy
42:03
yourself that first six weeks of the summer holidays to enjoy
42:07
starting home education officially, start in your own
42:10
family and be working on the mindsets and be doing all the
42:14
stuff. But don't send that
42:16
deregistration letter until they're due back at school in
42:18
September. Give yourself the gift of an
42:20
extra couple of months of getting into the the zone and
42:24
doing that de schooling work and establishing that reconnection
42:26
with the children, like getting their coldest levels down,
42:30
getting them really happy and focused again, playing and
42:33
enjoying being free, playing outside lots more, etcetera,
42:36
etcetera. Like do all the fun stuff doing
42:37
do that enjoyable connection work so that you can kind of
42:41
start back in September with your home education and start to
42:46
establish some routines around that as it suits you as a
42:49
family, but just gives you just that little window of peace, I
42:53
guess, before you have to start answering to anybody.
42:57
So I hope that this has helped and I will speak to you all
42:59
again next week. But in the meantime, do your
43:01
homework. Oh, bless you, but do be
43:04
thinking about this. Do stick them up on your board.
43:06
And if you have any questions or any worries at all, then reach
43:09
out to me. I'm on Instagram and Tiktok.
43:11
So at Big Homage Podcast, come find me and come just say hello
43:16
because I can absolutely support you.
43:18
Or you can message me on WhatsApp through my website as
43:21
well, which is off roadingmotherhood.co.uk/work
43:23
with me. All right guys, speak to you
43:25
guys soon. Bye.
43:33
You've been listening to the Big Home Ed Conversations podcast.
43:37
Thanks so much for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe, leave
43:40
a review, and share with a friend.
43:43
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Big Home Ed Podcast
43:48
for updates. Join us next week when we talk
43:51
about knowing when to outsource. See you then.