You've decided to homeschool. Now what?
If you have decided to start home education and you're wondering what course and materials are available to home educators this article is for you. We will explain the different options for home educators and the typical costs involved of the various approaches.
Home education options
Online Schools
Online schools are a full-service provider. Your child will learn online in a class of children. Lessons will be taught by qualified teachers employed by the school. They will create and manage the curriculum, timetable and lessons. These providers do have SENCOs as well and can provide some adaptation for SEND children. In addition to lessons they can provide extra-curricular activities online and residential camps for the children to meet up in the holidays.
These providers manage all aspects of your child's education and therefore are the most expensive option for home education. You should expect to to be paying in the region of £5,000 to £7,500 per year with Primary children being at the lower end and GCSES students at the top end. You can either pay annually or on a monthly rolling contract.
The benefit with these providers is that they cover everything and you don't need to worry about planning lessons or exam accreditation. You child will just need to turn on a computer and log in.
Example providers:
Self-paced learning
Self-paced learning is where a provider creates a sequence of lessons on a subject and you teach it yourself at your own pace. Some providers also offer marking, feedback or tutor support.
The main advantage with this approach is that you have a clear curriculum to follow and don't have to spend as much time researching what to teach. The trade-off is that you have less freedom to choose the content and approach. The costs for these can range from free to hundreds of pounds per subject with tutor support.
Tutoring
This option is where you do some or most teaching yourself but then supplement that with tutors for specific subjects. The tutoring can either be online or in person. Online can be group sessions or one on one. The group sessions are the cheapest option, with online one on one costing more. In-person would be the most expensive option. Costs range from
There is a lot of choice in this space. There are online marketplaces for finding tutors. Also check your local homeschool group or Facebook home education groups for recommendations and providers. Often tutors are either full-time qualified teachers or teachers who have left the profession to tutor full-time. Costs range from under £10 per session for online groups up to around £50 for one-on-one in-person.
A lot of planning homeschool lessons is about knowing what to teach and how to teach it. Using some subject-matter experts for some subjects will lighten the load for you. It will also give you some free time back for you to rest or get lessons prepped.
Do it yourself
With this option you choose the subjects your child will learn and plan the curriculum and lessons yourself. This gives you complete freedom to shape learning around your child’s interests, abilities and needs, rather than following a pre-designed curriculum. It can also be a very rewarding approach, as you have the flexibility to try different resources and change direction when something isn’t working.
This is a particularly good option if you want to try and try an alternative approach to mainstream teaching or if your child has special needs. You can use existing curriculum as inspiration and there are plenty of resources online such as worksheets you can incorporate into your lessons. Homeschool planning apps exist to help you with the admin of planning your lessons and managing your prep and timetable. Most of these are designed for the US school system but School Happy is designed for UK families.
School Happy is a homeschool planning tool that makes planning easy and stress-free. Spend less time worrying about planning and more time enjoying learning together.
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