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Beyond the Classroom: Could Home Education Work for Your Family? · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:01
  Elizabeth Willetts: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm a working mom with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
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• 0:29
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• 1:07
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• 1:10
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• 1:52
  Elizabeth Willetts: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like A Mom podcast.
• 1:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: And today is a really special episode because we're going to be talking about something a little bit different.
• 2:06
  Elizabeth Willetts: We're going to be talking about homeschooling and I'm going to be chatting with leadership coach Jen Smollett.
• 2:12
  Elizabeth Willetts: but we're not going to be talking, obviously, about leadership we're going to be talking about Jen's experience of homeschooling her two primary school aged daughters, and if you're interested in potentially homeschooling your children or you've got any questions about it, then this episode is for you.
• 2:31
  Jen Smollett: Thank you so much, jen, for joining me today and talking about something completely different to what we usually talk about, because it's a really interesting topic yeah, thank you so much for having me, and I love talking about all kinds of different things, but this is a part of my life that, yeah, I don't talk about publicly so much.
• 2:48
  Jen Smollett: So, yeah, I'm quite excited to see where this conversation goes.
• 2:51
  Jen Smollett: How long have you been homeschooling for?
• 2:53
  Jen Smollett: So we started.
• 2:55
  Jen Smollett: We tend to refer to it as home education rather than homeschooling, and there's a very specific reason why, and it's because we're not trying to do school at home, we're trying to provide an education.
• 3:09
  Jen Smollett: So we refer to it as home education rather than homeschooling.
• 3:12
  Jen Smollett: Because we're not doing school.
• 3:13
  Jen Smollett: So we started.
• 3:15
  Jen Smollett: The girls left school this time last year, so they we told them before the end of term and then we gave them we gave them two weeks left at school to know that they were leaving and to kind of say their goodbyes and also just have it at the end of the school year felt like the right time for us to do that transition with them.
• 3:35
  Elizabeth Willetts: So, yeah, a year we've been doing it and did they welcome the idea of home education?
• 3:40
  Jen Smollett: yes, they did.
• 3:41
  Jen Smollett: It was obviously, you know, I think, for kids in particular, they don't know what to expect, like they have no idea.
• 3:48
  Jen Smollett: I mean, obviously our, like one of them had had it, had homeschool, literally homeschooled during lockdown, and so that was her reference point and, you know, obviously we were saying it was not going to be the same, it's not going to be like that, but we, I guess we, we didn't really fully know how it was going to be, so it was quite hard to you know, we couldn't give her the specifics of what it was going to look like, it was just going to be mostly, you know, I was providing my education and, you know, going out on trips.
• 4:14
  Jen Smollett: I suppose was how we, how we let know that in the beginning.
• 4:17
  Jen Smollett: But yeah, they were sad to leave school, sad to leave their friends, and that was.
• 4:22
  Jen Smollett: That was a tough thing for them and obviously we made the decision quite a bit of time before and then we told them and then when they were having those wobbles at school, that was kind of for us it was another moment of like oh gosh, is this, you know, is this the right decision?
• 4:37
  Jen Smollett: And so that was pretty tough.
• 4:38
  Jen Smollett: But the school were absolutely amazing.
• 4:42
  Jen Smollett: My eldest in particular, her school teacher was just so behind it when we told her she was like I want to cry.
• 4:48
  Jen Smollett: This is amazing, it's exactly what she needs.
• 4:50
  Jen Smollett: And that was just wonderful.
• 4:52
  Jen Smollett: And then the school were brilliant.
• 4:55
  Jen Smollett: They put in some extra time for the girls with their best friends.
• 4:59
  Jen Smollett: So they did little things, like they made each other photo frames like them and their best friends and then they had took a photo of them at school.
• 5:06
  Jen Smollett: So they've got each got a photo of them with their best friends, but then decorated by their best friends, and then they made these like jars with notes in about like what they love about them and they they did it for each other, for their friends and for the girls, so that the school really, really supported that transition period, which felt amazing.
• 5:26
  Jen Smollett: I mean, the school know that the girls are adopted, so they already have, you know, some extra input for us as a family to make sure that the girls were as cared for as they could be at school.
• 5:35
  Jen Smollett: But that was, you know, I felt like they went the extra mile.
• 5:38
  Jen Smollett: That was just a really magical experience for the girls to just transition out of being at school.
• 5:44
  Jen Smollett: So, yeah, they took it pretty well actually and what are some of the reasons.
• 5:48
  Elizabeth Willetts: I know obviously you'll have your own reasons.
• 5:50
  Elizabeth Willetts: What are the typical reasons, then, why people might decide to home educate?
• 5:55
  Jen Smollett: I think there are lots of different reasons, honestly, and some people do it because they don't feel that school can meet their own needs or their child's needs, for example.
• 6:04
  Jen Smollett: So specifically, a lot of families, their children, have extra needs.
• 6:08
  Jen Smollett: They don't often, or not.
• 6:11
  Jen Smollett: That's not even speaking about all people with children who have extra needs.
• 6:15
  Jen Smollett: Of course schools do try their best to meet those needs and often they can or they do.
• 6:19
  Jen Smollett: There are a lot of families in the home ed kind of community.
• 6:23
  Jen Smollett: Their experience is that the school hasn't been able to meet their needs in that regard.
• 6:28
  Jen Smollett: And then there are other reasons, just people not agreeing with the kind of I'm trying to think of the right terminology, what like the curriculum.
• 6:37
  Jen Smollett: No, not necessarily the curriculum, but like the authoritarian kind of view to life, you know, and actually churning out children to be working adults.
• 6:47
  Jen Smollett: So you know, like actually the world is that you step into the world of work, you work Monday to Friday, nine till five, you wear a uniform or, you know, you wear a work gear.
• 6:58
  Jen Smollett: That kind of setting children up to live in life in a certain way is something that a lot of people in the home ed communities kind of rally against that a little bit.
• 7:10
  Jen Smollett: So that might be one and another reason I often hear is is freedom, and actually freedom to kind of show your children the world as much as you know.
• 7:20
  Jen Smollett: Yes, being at home and home educating, but actually being able to have the freedom to take them away and go different places, actually being able to have the freedom to take them away and go different places and explore the world or the country that you live in.
• 7:30
  Jen Smollett: They're the three main reasons that I've heard of.
• 7:32
  Jen Smollett: Obviously we've talked about the fact that I didn't want to specifically talk about me in particular in this, because it's a really personal thing and so of course I'll you know.
• 7:40
  Jen Smollett: But yeah, it's, and I think it's one of those things.
• 7:43
  Jen Smollett: A lot of people say that they don't want to necessarily share their particular's, and I think it's one of those things.
• 7:45
  Jen Smollett: A lot of people say that they don't want to necessarily share their particular view, and I think that feels important to keep that close to my chest.
• 7:51
  Jen Smollett: But they're the three main reasons that I've heard of.
• 7:53
  Jen Smollett: There's not to say that they're the only few reasons.
• 7:55
  Jen Smollett: There are obviously more, and maybe some of your readers you know your listeners could share some of their, their stories as well, if they.
• 8:03
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you think it's worth?
• 8:04
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you've got a child and maybe your child has come and gone to reception, you're not sure if you want to home educate them or not.
• 8:09
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you think it's worth trying them at school first?
• 8:13
  Jen Smollett: I think that's an interesting question.
• 8:15
  Jen Smollett: I don't know, honestly.
• 8:17
  Jen Smollett: I don't know, I think.
• 8:19
  Jen Smollett: Are you pleased you tried school first?
• 8:21
  Jen Smollett: Not necessarily, but I think circumstance meant that what has happened for you know, our girls being at school and then continuing at school and then coming out I think that just is what it is.
• 8:32
  Jen Smollett: But I don't.
• 8:34
  Jen Smollett: I neither regret it nor think it was right.
• 8:36
  Jen Smollett: You know, I don't think it was wrong and I don't necessarily think it was right.
• 8:40
  Jen Smollett: It's a strange, a strange feeling that I have.
• 8:43
  Jen Smollett: I think you know I'm not going to have another child, because that's not where I'm at.
• 8:46
  Jen Smollett: But if I was going to have another child, I don't know that I would necessarily, I wouldn't send them to school, based on what I think and feel right now.
• 8:54
  Jen Smollett: And I think, if you're not sure, I think that's a really tough place to be because, just like with anything in life, when you're not sure about something, but it's something that's such a huge commitment, you know, like yeah, either way, commitment, isn't it?
• 9:08
  Jen Smollett: yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 9:10
  Jen Smollett: And I think committing to home education if you're not 100% sure, I think is a really difficult thing to do because actually once you do it you realize you know lots of people have opinions, lots of people you know you might have family and friends around you that don't agree with it.
• 9:22
  Jen Smollett: You might have, you know, lots of people have opinions, lots of people you know.
• 9:24
  Jen Smollett: You might have family and friends around you that don't agree with it.
• 9:26
  Jen Smollett: You might have, you know, I don't know, maybe not even friends and family, but just people around you that don't agree with it.
• 9:33
  Jen Smollett: Or you know, often people will kind of ask you out and about oh you know how come they're not at school?
• 9:39
  Jen Smollett: Or they'll ask the girls directly often why are you not at school?
• 9:43
  Jen Smollett: Which I just think is.
• 9:44
  Jen Smollett: It kind of blows my mind a little bit like you don't ask children personal questions in any other way, but apparently all is okay.
• 9:50
  Jen Smollett: But anyway, that's, I suppose, a point to the side.
• 9:52
  Jen Smollett: But often people ask the girls why they're not at school.
• 9:54
  Jen Smollett: So then they'll answer or I'll step in and kind of answer for them.
• 9:59
  Jen Smollett: But a lot in home education, especially when you're transitioning to starting to do it yourself, and there's a lot of doubt and uncertainty that comes out of that because it's not the norm.
• 10:10
  Jen Smollett: You know.
• 10:15
  Jen Smollett: I mean the numbers of people that are doing it are increasing massively.
• 10:17
  Jen Smollett: I think I saw an article the other day that was something like 60,000 more people people notify the local authority of home education last year than the previous year like it's a phenomenal amount yeah, I mean.
• 10:26
  Jen Smollett: I'd want.
• 10:27
  Jen Smollett: I can't completely fact check that because I'm saying it from memory, and it was, you know, an article that I read online.
• 10:32
  Jen Smollett: I'm pretty sure it's BBC, but it could have been.
• 10:34
  Jen Smollett: It could have been anything, but the feeling is definitely that there are lots more people.
• 10:38
  Jen Smollett: However, it is still not the norm, and so that brings with it some opportunity for doubt.
• 10:45
  Elizabeth Willetts: Of course it does so if you've decided that it is for you and your family, what is the process then?
• 10:51
  Elizabeth Willetts: How do you notify the school, the council?
• 10:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm guessing you don't one day not send your child or they don't not go to reception yeah.
• 11:01
  Jen Smollett: So there's an amazing facebook group that I would recommend everybody join if you're interested in home education, and that is hefa, which stands for home education for all, and they have a.
• 11:13
  Jen Smollett: There's a massive facebook group.
• 11:15
  Jen Smollett: There's so many people in there but basically the guy.
• 11:18
  Jen Smollett: They have so much guidance in there in terms of what the right thing to do is, so they have template letter templates to send to school.
• 11:24
  Jen Smollett: So you basically need to send a letter to your school, to your head teacher, to say we've chosen to home educate and so, as of this date, my child won't be coming to school and if they don't have an EHCP, so an EHCP is an education and health I've forgotten what the acronym stands for now but basically a plan for your child that if they have extra needs, they often have an EHCP in place.
• 11:47
  Jen Smollett: If you don't have that, then it is more simple.
• 11:50
  Jen Smollett: If you do have that, I think that there are some extra steps involved, but it's still.
• 11:54
  Jen Smollett: It's still possible, but that Facebook group will tell you exactly how to do that.
• 11:58
  Jen Smollett: You don't have to notify the local authority, but the school will, so you'll tell the school and then the school will tell the local authority, but the school will.
• 12:02
  Jen Smollett: So you'll tell the school and then the school will tell the local authority.
• 12:06
  Jen Smollett: Now, if you've never been to school, you don't have to notify anybody.
• 12:09
  Jen Smollett: You just don't send your child, you just don't register your child for a place at school and that's that really.
• 12:15
  Jen Smollett: Of course, as thing you know, your children go to appointments at the doctors and things like that.
• 12:19
  Jen Smollett: People potentially will get notified at some point, but you don't legally have to notify the local authority that that's what you're doing.
• 12:26
  Jen Smollett: But most people, local authority does find out in some way and when they do, they then write to you and ask you for information.
• 12:34
  Jen Smollett: Now, this is all.
• 12:35
  Jen Smollett: Local authorities will do it differently.
• 12:37
  Jen Smollett: The guidance for all of them is the same, but they will all do it differently and of course it's individual.
• 12:41
  Jen Smollett: You know you might have a person that's in post for the home education team that is really pro-home ed, but you also might have somebody that's not very pro-home ed at all.
• 12:49
  Jen Smollett: So it really depends on that.
• 12:51
  Jen Smollett: So that's what that HEFA group on Facebook will support you with as well, because they'll kind of say you know, keep everything in writing, say this, don't say that you know, and kind of give you some why would they be asking?
• 13:04
  Elizabeth Willetts: Is it not a parental right to home educate their child?
• 13:16
  Jen Smollett: It is a parental right to home educate, but the local authority have a responsibility to ensure that all children are receiving adequate education.
• 13:20
  Jen Smollett: Of course, adequate education is relatively subjective.
• 13:23
  Jen Smollett: That's their remit.
• 13:24
  Jen Smollett: So, for example, if they contacted me and said you know, can you tell me how you're home educating and I said, oh yeah, basically we don't do anything with them, for example, then they would then be able to put steps into place to order me to take the girls back to school.
• 13:42
  Jen Smollett: So it's, you don't have to notify them.
• 13:46
  Jen Smollett: But once they know, you do then kind of have to play ball, because they need to be sure that you are providing an education.
• 13:52
  Jen Smollett: So you have to, I guess, communicate with them.
• 13:56
  Jen Smollett: So what I did so once, basically what Heifer recommended I did this was they wrote to me and said you know, we'd like to have a meeting about you know your home education plan and we want to know why you're doing it, etc.
• 14:09
  Jen Smollett: Etc.
• 14:10
  Jen Smollett: They don't actually need to know why.
• 14:11
  Jen Smollett: So Heifer's guidance was to send this email back basically saying thank you for your email, I'll provide a report within 10 days or within so much time, and then I basically wrote a report.
• 14:22
  Jen Smollett: So I wrote a full education report which is basically saying this is progress, and I wrote them individually for both girls, so this is the progress that my daughter has made.
• 14:33
  Jen Smollett: At the beginning of the year, this was what she was able to do, and now this is what she's able to do more than that, yeah like a school report, really, yeah, yeah, exactly like a school report.
• 14:44
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, but documenting progress, that's the key, the key thing.
• 14:48
  Jen Smollett: So I sent that off to them and then they responded I don't know 10 days later and said thank you, we'll contact you in a year again.
• 14:53
  Jen Smollett: So that's kind of the process now, that once a year I'll send another report, in kind of saying this is what we're doing and if they are satisfied that they think that that's an adequate education, then that will just continue, or just kind of continue that contact once a year.
• 15:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: How do you ensure, then, that you are providing an adequate education, because you know, I mean, it doesn't sound easy to pull them out of school, but you know, in a way, that is the easy bit, and then it's actually educating them.
• 16:12
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 16:13
  Jen Smollett: It's really interesting the approaches that you can take.
• 16:16
  Jen Smollett: So many people, there's so many different approaches, but one approach is literally called unschooling.
• 16:21
  Jen Smollett: So you literally do absolutely no official learning at all and you basically just let kids be kids.
• 16:31
  Jen Smollett: Essentially, and the premise behind it is that if you let kids be kids, they will get curious and they will learn, but it will be coming from a different place.
• 16:40
  Jen Smollett: It'll be not because I told them to do it, but because that's what they want to learn.
• 16:44
  Jen Smollett: And then, of course, there's the other end of the extra scale, where you have literally a weekly planner and you set out your day from morning till afternoon or kind of early evening of scheduled learning that you're going to put in place.
• 16:59
  Jen Smollett: And we're definitely closer to the unschooling at the minute, especially than the structured routine teaching learning.
• 17:08
  Jen Smollett: And I know we were talking just before we came on, so this is probably going to answer a question that you're going to ask me later.
• 17:14
  Jen Smollett: But one of the things I found through that is really seeing an intrinsic motivation from both of my girls to learn, which wasn't there before, and so actually having the opportunity to follow what they're really interested in.
• 17:30
  Jen Smollett: It's amazing, you know, like I never would have.
• 17:33
  Jen Smollett: You know, like you were talking about homework or even reading or correcting mistakes, anything like that.
• 17:37
  Jen Smollett: Pre this year, that was just like yeah, really, really difficult, not that easy, whereas now we're in a position where actually, that's just what we do, it's just how we do it, and so if I kind of correct one of them, I'm like, oh no, it's not like this, it's like this, it's like okay, yeah, sure, like we'll do it a different way, and the kind of the whole relationship between us as parents and them is very different, I think, to what it was before, and in a positive way, and especially following their learning.
• 18:06
  Jen Smollett: So my youngest is really, really passionate about cheetahs.
• 18:11
  Jen Smollett: She's obsessed with cheetahs.
• 18:12
  Jen Smollett: She has been for a long time.
• 18:14
  Jen Smollett: She just loves them and they're an endangered species, and so she's been really keen to learn about what she can do to save the cheetahs.
• 18:24
  Jen Smollett: So on the back of that, we've then been reading all things about climate change, and the other day we literally spent a whole day together.
• 18:31
  Jen Smollett: My eldest was doing something different.
• 18:32
  Jen Smollett: So me and my youngest, we literally spent the whole day reading about, watching videos, about learning about climate change, and then she made a poster that she wants to put up in our local shop like basically, like, let's save the cheaters, this is why we need to save them.
• 18:46
  Jen Smollett: This is what's happening and this is what you can do, and like that for me, was just like one of the most magical days, because it all came from her, like, of course, I read it, you know, I guided where we were going to learn about it, because I needed to, because she's not able to do that for herself yet, but she wanted to learn about it.
• 19:02
  Jen Smollett: You know, like she really really wanted to do that and actually I think we spent something like 10 till 5 like with breaks for like food, but literally like that amount of time, which I was just like you, never, I would never have expected to spend that amount of time doing that.
• 19:15
  Jen Smollett: That sounds amazing.
• 19:17
  Jen Smollett: Stop now, you know, should we have a break?
• 19:18
  Elizabeth Willetts: and she's like no, mummy, no, I don't want to stop how do you give them like the round, because that sounds brilliant, but you know, like maths, how do you make sure they're covering everything?
• 19:30
  Jen Smollett: yeah.
• 19:30
  Jen Smollett: So I don't.
• 19:32
  Jen Smollett: I really try not to obsess about it because I think you could go down like a real hole.
• 19:39
  Jen Smollett: There's so much I don't know, you know.
• 19:41
  Jen Smollett: So it's just like, ah, scary.
• 19:42
  Jen Smollett: But at the same time there's um, there's a website called twinkle.
• 19:46
  Jen Smollett: You've probably got oh yeah, yeah, I've heard of that.
• 19:49
  Jen Smollett: So twinkle do worksheets for school, so schools use them, but they also do home education plans.
• 19:55
  Jen Smollett: So you basically sign up.
• 19:56
  Jen Smollett: I think we pay I don't know £9.99 a month, something like that, and we basically have access to everything that they have.
• 20:02
  Jen Smollett: So they have teaching plans, they have lessons, they have like PowerPoint ready for you to read out and teach to your children, they have like live lessons.
• 20:09
  Jen Smollett: They have all sorts on there and they have the guide for the national curriculum, so you don't have to follow the curriculum.
• 20:16
  Elizabeth Willetts: That was going to be one of my questions.
• 20:18
  Jen Smollett: You don't have to follow it.
• 20:19
  Jen Smollett: No, you, my questions, you don't have to follow it.
• 20:24
  Jen Smollett: No, you don't have to, and we don't strictly, but at the same time we do frequently go back and have a look and be like so where, where should we be, what kind of things would we be doing?
• 20:29
  Jen Smollett: So, for example, I don't know, depends on their age.
• 20:32
  Jen Smollett: It might be that they need to start learning their being able to read numbers, so in the units tens, hundreds, thousands, for example and knowing where they should be at that.
• 20:42
  Jen Smollett: And then when I know that, then I just kind of take opportunities.
• 20:46
  Jen Smollett: So you know, like, if we're out and about and I see a sign for something and it's got numbers on it, I'll be like oh, what's that?
• 20:51
  Jen Smollett: One, you know.
• 20:52
  Jen Smollett: And a big thing that we do a lot of, which is it's quite common in the homemade community as well, is baking, because in baking you can double up, you can quadruple up recipes.
• 21:01
  Jen Smollett: You have to read in, you know, grams or mils, you have to read the units, that tens or hundreds, not often the thousands, but sometimes I'll like, really, you know, increase the recipe.
• 21:10
  Jen Smollett: So they have to go up into a thousand spaghetti bolognese I quite enjoy, because then I can get them up into a thousand and oh yeah, exactly often they don't actually do the the bolognese cooking.
• 21:23
  Jen Smollett: But I have asked them to kind of just can you just like write me a shopping list?
• 21:26
  Jen Smollett: Because so that I know, you know, or I'll take my girls shopping and they write their own list and then they have to work out how much it's going to cost and then they do their own scanning at the till and they pay for it themselves, obviously with my money.
• 21:36
  Jen Smollett: I don't mean they pay, just in case I get misquoted on that.
• 21:40
  Jen Smollett: But yeah, so it's kind of I don't structure, I don't say, right, we've got to sit down and learn these numbers today, but I do know in my head, kind of, where they're supposed to be.
• 21:50
  Jen Smollett: So the another thing is, you know, like I'll play a little, I'll play games with them, so like I've got two dice or quite a few actually, and I'll like we'll throw them and we'll race to add them up and things like that.
• 22:00
  Jen Smollett: So I try to bring playful games in as much as possible.
• 22:03
  Jen Smollett: But all of that is just having the curriculum in the back of my mind.
• 22:07
  Jen Smollett: I don't follow it strictly because I think that that will cause me too much stress.
• 22:11
  Jen Smollett: I need to kind of let go of having to do that, because yeah, Thinking ahead to that.
• 22:16
  Elizabeth Willetts: I know they're at primary school now, but do they do GCSEs?
• 22:24
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, so they can and they don't have to.
• 22:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: They're self-funded if they do do them.
• 22:26
  Jen Smollett: So we obviously need to start saving now.
• 22:27
  Jen Smollett: Um no, I say that I can't remember the latest that I heard about how much they are they're like.
• 22:32
  Jen Smollett: I literally can't remember.
• 22:34
  Jen Smollett: I can't remember to quote how much they are, but basically, you know, like to do a whole suite of them would would be a significant amount of money, but that I guess that's just a small price to pay and we know now so we can quite literally start to save for them.
• 22:45
  Jen Smollett: But, yeah, so they can just sit them.
• 22:47
  Jen Smollett: They can just go to a local place and sit them and we can just do, you know, get a tutor or use BBC Bite Size or you know a host of other different ways of learning that.
• 22:59
  Jen Smollett: And honestly, I think right now we're open to it but we're not committed to it.
• 23:04
  Jen Smollett: You know, we'll kind of wait and see what they want to do and what they're driven to do and where they think they're going later on in life, you know, and kind of just let that evolve for them, and then we'll make a decision nearer the time around around doing them, you know, whether we do them all at the same time or whether we spread them out a little bit, or whether we don't do them whatever.
• 23:23
  Jen Smollett: Whatever we decide later on.
• 23:25
  Jen Smollett: But yeah, you can decide, you don't have to.
• 23:27
  Jen Smollett: But obviously it's recognizing that there's a knock-on impact to what comes next, because you know, if you want to go on to further education or if you want, you know, university, things like that there are restrictions based on the qualifications that we have at certain points.
• 23:41
  Jen Smollett: Having said that, there are other ways of doing it.
• 23:45
  Jen Smollett: Like you can, I'm pretty sure you can do a degree with the Open University without having formal qualifications prior to that, but obviously evidence of being able to write academically perhaps, but not necessarily in exam results.
• 23:56
  Jen Smollett: So there are routes and there are lots of successful people that have done home education and haven't done GCSEs.
• 24:01
  Jen Smollett: So I think it just depends on which route they want to go later.
• 24:05
  Jen Smollett: You know, at the moment my youngest wants to be a space scientist and a horse rider and a circus girl, and that's all just in a spare time, you know.
• 24:16
  Jen Smollett: So who knows?
• 24:17
  Jen Smollett: Probably GCSEs are on the cards there.
• 24:20
  Jen Smollett: But yeah, we'll be open to it.
• 24:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: So how much time do you spend like planning?
• 24:24
  Jen Smollett: intermittently, none and more so I.
• 24:29
  Jen Smollett: It's funny because I always thought that I was a routine structure kind of girl, but I actually really resist it.
• 24:36
  Jen Smollett: I really push back against it.
• 24:38
  Jen Smollett: So if I have planned something for myself, when I come to do it I really like I don't want to do it.
• 24:44
  Jen Smollett: So I'm pretty sure that like they feel the same.
• 24:46
  Jen Smollett: Or I'll print off you know five different things and then I'm like I don't, I'm not interested in three of them anymore.
• 24:51
  Jen Smollett: You know, like I've kind of gone off it so if I do plan, often it's kind of just having something in my back pocket.
• 24:56
  Jen Smollett: I'm like I could if I wanted to, but I don't necessarily have to.
• 24:59
  Jen Smollett: But a lot of what I do is I just wing it.
• 25:03
  Jen Smollett: You know, which sounds ridiculous, and even as I'm saying it I'm like, oh gosh really but it just, it works.
• 25:11
  Jen Smollett: It works for us and for my girls.
• 25:14
  Jen Smollett: I really want to follow where they're at, and on the days when I've had a plan for what I want to achieve with them, it literally never goes to plan, like it doesn't happen.
• 25:26
  Jen Smollett: You know, it might be a day where one of them has a meltdown, or like just things just don't seem to go to plan, whereas there's been other days where I haven't planned anything and yet we've done loads.
• 25:39
  Jen Smollett: So one morning after breakfast, the girls didn't want to get out of their pajamas and so, jokingly, I was like that's fine, we'll go and sit on the sofa and we'll do some maths you know, because I bought some maths books for them, even though we don't necessarily do it and they were like, really, I was like, um, I didn't think you were gonna be excited by this.
• 25:57
  Jen Smollett: I was like, yeah, anyway, they literally sat on the sofa and when we started saying we were doing PJ masks have you heard PJ masks?
• 26:03
  Jen Smollett: Oh, yeah, so then that was literally like for the next two weeks.
• 26:07
  Jen Smollett: Every morning they're like please, can we do PJ masks this morning?
• 26:09
  Jen Smollett: I'm like yeah, sure, of course you can.
• 26:11
  Jen Smollett: You know, but that just evolved and it came from them wanting to.
• 26:15
  Jen Smollett: But if I had said like this is what I want to do today or this is what we're going to do, they would have been like no, I don't want to do that.
• 26:22
  Jen Smollett: I was like no, how do you stop them?
• 26:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: mine's a bit older.
• 26:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: Now they can turn the tv on how do you stop them?
• 26:29
  Jen Smollett: well, I mean, I personally.
• 26:32
  Jen Smollett: So this is where I don't fit into that unschooling camp.
• 26:35
  Jen Smollett: Well, I suppose we're all unique and individual anyway, aren't we?
• 26:38
  Jen Smollett: But a lot of people are relatively free with their children, doing kind of making their choices, and although I'm flexible around the education part of it, I'm not as flexible with telly.
• 26:49
  Jen Smollett: I'm really, and so they know what the expectation is.
• 26:52
  Jen Smollett: On a Friday afternoon they can watch telly, but most of the rest of the week they don't.
• 26:57
  Jen Smollett: You know, if we're going on a long car journey, then they'll have their iPads, which is actually a Kindle, but we call iPads.
• 27:02
  Jen Smollett: I've got that and I call it an iPad.
• 27:05
  Jen Smollett: It's funny, isn't it?
• 27:06
  Jen Smollett: It's like a.
• 27:06
  Jen Smollett: You know, it's just a generalized word now that we have it's like the Hoover, isn't it?
• 27:11
  Elizabeth Willetts: there's not actually a Hoover?
• 27:13
  Jen Smollett: exactly, exactly.
• 27:14
  Jen Smollett: So yeah, their iPads are actually Kindles.
• 27:16
  Jen Smollett: They'll have in the car.
• 27:17
  Jen Smollett: We do have a general expectation.
• 27:19
  Jen Smollett: That's not a thing.
• 27:20
  Jen Smollett: So I think because we have that, they don't ask yeah seems like boundaries.
• 27:26
  Jen Smollett: I'll say they don't ask.
• 27:27
  Jen Smollett: They do occasionally ask, but I'm like that's not really the plan, is it?
• 27:30
  Jen Smollett: We did start, you know, over lunch.
• 27:32
  Jen Smollett: Sometimes I mean, I never.
• 27:33
  Jen Smollett: I thought I'd never be the person to watch tv whilst we're having lunch or a meal, but actually sometimes I know that really helps for lunchtime.
• 27:40
  Jen Smollett: So we'd started doing like watching blue peter or you know, like watching something like that, but then I found that then that was kind of eking it out and we were ending up having like an hour of telly in the day doing something like that, which obviously is amazing.
• 27:51
  Jen Smollett: It's still really good for them to learn.
• 27:53
  Jen Smollett: But it was just yeah, I'm talking to myself, this is me when I'm like bringing myself into this now but I just didn't enjoy the space we got into, like from sitting and watching something, even though it was something that would be relatively educational.
• 28:06
  Jen Smollett: So, yeah, we don't often do that as much.
• 28:08
  Jen Smollett: I'm saying this and I'm like, oh gosh, I'm so tight, I'm so tight with telly because I know obviously you've got a business.
• 28:16
  Elizabeth Willetts: How do you find time like for you and your business when you're home educating full-time?
• 28:22
  Jen Smollett: yeah, it's hard, it's hard.
• 28:24
  Jen Smollett: And I think, yeah, I mean obviously we're here recording this in the evening.
• 28:28
  Jen Smollett: I suggested it to you and you think, yeah, I mean obviously we're here recording this in the evening.
• 28:29
  Jen Smollett: I suggested it to you and you were like, yeah, sure, I work evenings.
• 28:32
  Jen Smollett: So yeah, I do work evenings, some evenings, but I kind of I'm sure a lot of parents get this as well but there's a point in the evening where I'm like, no, I need time for me.
• 28:40
  Jen Smollett: Like this, I have to be allowed time for me.
• 28:42
  Jen Smollett: So I can't work every evening because that's just that's not okay.
• 28:45
  Jen Smollett: So I work some evenings.
• 28:47
  Jen Smollett: And then I'm very fortunate that my sister is also home educating and so we share childcare.
• 28:54
  Jen Smollett: On a Tuesday we literally share half a day, so in the morning I have her kids and mine and in the afternoon she has mine and hers.
• 29:01
  Jen Smollett: So I'll have that as my.
• 29:02
  Jen Smollett: That's my working calls at least.
• 29:04
  Jen Smollett: And on a Wednesday my other half has.
• 29:07
  Jen Smollett: She works a nine day fortnight, so once every two weeks she gets a day off.
• 29:11
  Jen Smollett: So she has that Wednesday every other Wednesday.
• 29:13
  Jen Smollett: So she has the kids and I do my coaching calls on that day and the alternate Wednesday my mum.
• 29:19
  Jen Smollett: I'm very, very lucky that my mum and dad yeah, and my mum and dad are really supportive of us home educating as well.
• 29:26
  Jen Smollett: So my mum has the girls on that alternate Wednesday as well.
• 29:30
  Jen Smollett: So I have Wednesdays and Tuesday afternoons and my calls time, and then I have kind of Friday afternoons when the girls know that there's no expectation on them.
• 29:40
  Jen Smollett: It's kind of a free afternoon for them, is a work time for me.
• 29:44
  Jen Smollett: So I will often work, but not always on calls.
• 29:46
  Jen Smollett: I might do shorter calls on those days, but mostly it's kind of just, you know, my marketing or or catching up and contacting people and things like that.
• 29:54
  Jen Smollett: So, yeah, and then sometimes at weekend I take myself to the coffee shop.
• 29:58
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, that's how I balance it, but actually it feels intense like we're also buying a house at the minute and there's a lot going on with that, and then you know just housework and you know I've it's that mental load of everything, isn't it?
• 30:13
  Jen Smollett: But I feel like there's so many fingers that I've got in so many pies.
• 30:16
  Jen Smollett: I'm just kind of constantly like right now I've got to do this and I've got to do that and I've got to do the other and then which I think is probably why I resist other structure, because I'm like there's so much that I'm kind of I have to do that.
• 30:27
  Jen Smollett: Outside of that, I try and try a bit more flexible.
• 30:31
  Elizabeth Willetts: It sounds quite intense, but I mean, what's been the best thing?
• 30:34
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you think about home educating?
• 30:36
  Jen Smollett: I think the change in both of my daughter's approaches to learning and just watching them be able to be curious and learn about things that really interested in.
• 30:47
  Jen Smollett: I've absolutely loved that journey of kind of following that and being with them.
• 30:52
  Jen Smollett: And the other thing is freedom.
• 30:54
  Jen Smollett: I had, like it is, there's a lot of freedom.
• 30:56
  Jen Smollett: So we went this week on Monday and Tuesday we all went, with my sister as well and my sister-in-law.
• 31:01
  Jen Smollett: We went and had a couple of days in London with the kids.
• 31:04
  Jen Smollett: You know we went to the Natural History Museum and then we went to the Young V&A Museum and, you know, just did London things, which you know I used to live in London.
• 31:13
  Jen Smollett: So I love that anyway.
• 31:14
  Jen Smollett: But also just an opportunity for them to, you know, learn things and knowing what they're learning means that, like I can just take so many opportunities to scaffold what they've already learned and like it into what we're learning at that moment.
• 31:28
  Jen Smollett: You know they learned about landmarks my sister a little while ago and then London, all of a sudden it was like that's a landmark and that's a landmark, you know, like they were kind of tapping into things that they already knew.
• 31:37
  Jen Smollett: So, yeah, I love that.
• 31:38
  Jen Smollett: That's kind of yeah, because I love learning myself.
• 31:41
  Jen Smollett: So seeing their love of learning, growing and developing has been, yeah, really lovely.
• 31:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: I've really enjoyed that so if anyone's listening to it and is curious about home educating, remind us where some of the resources are that are really helpful.
• 31:56
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, so Twinkle is definitely a website that I mean you can sign up for free as well.
• 32:01
  Jen Smollett: You don't have to go for the full things, you can sign up for free and get loads from there.
• 32:05
  Jen Smollett: There's also I haven't mentioned it yet, but there's Oak Academy, which, if you google them, there's loads of free lessons on there, which is amazing, and they're broken down into kind of which you know which part of the syllabus they are curriculum I mean.
• 32:17
  Jen Smollett: And then facebook.
• 32:18
  Jen Smollett: If you, there are literally so many different home education groups, so if you put home education and your local area into facebook, there will be a group pretty much, and HEFA.
• 32:31
  Jen Smollett: So H-E-F-A on Facebook is the group and actually the place to go, I think, to get information about kind of your legal rights and the steps to take.
• 32:42
  Jen Smollett: They're definitely the right place to go for that kind of information.
• 32:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: And before we up um, have you met other families, local families at home, educating and had?
• 32:52
  Jen Smollett: yeah, we have.
• 32:53
  Jen Smollett: So there's loads, like I say, with those groups there's loads.
• 32:56
  Jen Smollett: There's a really great feeling among home ed community in particular that people just do things like people just organize things that other people can go to.
• 33:04
  Jen Smollett: So I'm in one group and the woman who runs.
• 33:06
  Jen Smollett: It is just phenomenal, like she does it all for free but she just like organizes school trips because we can go on, you know, school trips places, and it reduces the cost down for us individually and she just she runs.
• 33:18
  Jen Smollett: I'm pretty sure she'd like run something every single week but she's like she's not taking any money for that, she's just doing it because she's just another home-ed mom who wants to help out other home-ed moms and parents.
• 33:29
  Jen Smollett: It's obviously not only moms, it is definitely parents.
• 33:31
  Jen Smollett: So yeah, I have and yeah, it's just this real sense of lots of people kind of feeling like we're in it together.
• 33:37
  Jen Smollett: And so you know we recently there was a group of us that just hired a local hall just to go skating.
• 33:42
  Jen Smollett: So we just went, you know, took the roller skates, but we all paid.
• 33:45
  Jen Smollett: We just split the cost of the hall between whoever was there.
• 33:48
  Jen Smollett: So like sometimes it was two pounds, sometimes it was three pound sixty.
• 33:51
  Jen Smollett: Like you know, it was ridiculous really, but just so that the the kids could all get together and do something together.
• 33:57
  Jen Smollett: And then there's loads of different.
• 33:58
  Jen Smollett: There's like forest schools, there's home ed pony groups, there's home ed dance groups.
• 34:03
  Jen Smollett: There's like literally so many different home ed groups that you kids can do during the week and we're moving house.
• 34:10
  Jen Smollett: So we're kind of tentative on that front so far, because we haven't wanted to make a whole new group of friends to then move to a new area.
• 34:18
  Jen Smollett: So we tend to see people in the new area, but then we're not there as much so you know, that's something that, as soon as we move, I'm kind of getting on that a bit more.
• 34:26
  Jen Smollett: But yeah, I have there's loads of people.
• 34:29
  Jen Smollett: It feels like there's plenty out there, so yeah, nice, brilliant, well, thank you so much.
• 34:34
  Elizabeth Willetts: I've learned a lot about home education and I hope this has helped anybody listening that's maybe considered it for themselves, for a friend, and just remind people as well what you do, you know on the Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday and Friday afternoon and how you can help them.
• 34:51
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, absolutely so.
• 34:52
  Jen Smollett: I'm a leadership coach.
• 34:53
  Jen Smollett: I support people who don't necessarily fit the mould of leadership to be the best leaders that they can be, and in the most authentic, resilient and confident way for them.
• 35:03
  Jen Smollett: And that's how I support people on their journey, in their leadership journey.
• 35:07
  Jen Smollett: So if they don't fit the mould but they want to be an amazing leader, I coach them to get there.
• 35:13
  Elizabeth Willetts: Brilliant and remind people how they can connect with you.
• 35:15
  Jen Smollett: Yeah, so connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 35:17
  Jen Smollett: If you search for Jen Smollett Coach, then you can find me on there.
• 35:21
  Jen Smollett: My website is wwwjensmollettcom.
• 35:24
  Jen Smollett: That's double L and double T in my surname.
• 35:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: Brilliant Well.
• 35:28
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you ever so much, jen.
• 35:29
  Elizabeth Willetts: It was always a pleasure to chat with you.
• 35:31
  Elizabeth Willetts: You too, thank you.
• 35:35
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 35:39
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 35:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 35:53
  Elizabeth Willetts: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 35:58
  Elizabeth Willetts: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.