After a chat with Will's Occupational Therapist last week about her findings from Will's in-class observation we made the very easy decision to take him out of school and home-school him for the foreseeable future. Maybe only six months, maybe 2016 as well (with Tama) or maybe longer- we'll evaluate as we go along.
I should say from the outset we don't have a problem with our primary school at all, in fact I rather like it and will miss the people quite a bit. But what we believe is that Will's educational needs are not best met in a busy classroom full of children, noise and distraction. And because he has a mum at home who is a teacher- we may as well take advantage of that. The added bonus is that if we are homeschooling next year then Tama can join us which will be great as I don't think at four and a half he is ready for the full on academic programme in the West Australian pre-primary programme.
In comparison to New Zealand starting to home school in Western Australia is a breeze. We gave the Homeschool office a call and they emailed the registration form to me as well as the Curriculum documents I requested. I filled in the form (2 pages of basic details like address, birthday etc) and posted it back to them with a copy of Will's birth certificate.
In three months we can expect a visit from the homeschool moderator for our area. She will check out our programme and our progress.
The people I spoke to on the phone were positive and encouraging and they are available to help should I need it. The stark contrast to the New Zealand way of doing things is quite something!
That said it hasn't been without it's challenges. I have set up a skeleton curriculum in the space of 5 days and am working on fleshing it out now that I have done some assessments on Will and have a feel for where he is at. I gave away or sold all my very 'teachery' resources when we moved to WA something I am regretting a bit now- what I would give for the learning objective cheat sheets that I had- or even better the WA equivalent. I said last week that teaching is like riding a bike- I was wrong!! It's like trying to relearn a second language that I haven't spoken in quite a while. I am also trying to adapt my teaching style as I develop our curriculum as well. My personal views on education have changed a lot and I'd prefer to be quite unstructured in our days- but I can see that wouldn't be a good approach for Will.
Probably the biggest challenge will be the constant companionship- I was very much enjoying the 'kindy days' and will miss that space from the constant chatter!
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