6 Key Steps to Homeschooling Success: A Guide for Parents

According to the BBC, more and more parents are choosing to homeschool their children across the UK. In fact, homeschooling numbers have risen by an astounding 75%. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents are increasingly switching from conventional (in-person) schooling to hybrid or online schooling.

While the UK was gearing up to achieve herd immunity, the new variants have reversed a lot of progress that was made. Presently, the risk of the pandemic is steadily increasing, which is prompting parents to look into the benefits of long-term homeschooling.

This blog will walk you through six key steps to achieving homeschooling success. Continue reading, take notes, and feel free to ask us any questions you may have towards the end of the blog. Let’s get started.

1. Choose an Online Homeschool

As a parent, you may feel tempted to homeschool your children yourself. While this may sound like a good idea on paper, it can easily backfire in practice.

Homeschooling your children yourself is not recommended if you’re a working parent. It’s important to understand that schooling isn’t a secondary task that can be handled with other core responsibilities like work, childcare, etc. If you want your children to receive a quality education, you will have to invest a lot of time and energy into creating and following a good homeschooling schedule.

This can be extremely challenging for working parents who are already short on time. You’ll struggle to give your child the individualised, attentive, and quality education they deserve. Even if you have past teaching experience, you’ll still struggle to utilise the strategies that qualified teachers use today.

At best, you’ll manage to provide your children with a fair-to-middling education. At worst, you’ll fail to pay attention to work and fulfil household responsibilities.

Instead of taking on more than you can handle, be realistic. We strongly encourage parents to choose the online homeschooling UK model instead of going the DIY homeschooling route.

At Cambridge Home School, we provide a quality British online education across four homeschooling programs: Primary Prep/Key Stage 2 (ages 8 to 10), Lower School/Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 13), Upper School/IGCSEs (ages 14 to 16), and Sixth Form/AS & A-Levels (ages 17 to 19).

As an online homeschool UK, we’re committed to helping our students grow academically, personally, socially, ethically, and morally. Let’s break this down.

To ensure excellent academic growth, we provide quality teaching. We have a team of MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers on board. Moreover, we teach an independent, interdisciplinary, and well-rounded curriculum to help students gain an academic edge.

Since our classrooms comprise 8–10 students, our teachers can provide individualised attention to every child. As a result, our students absorb and retain more knowledge, which helps them secure excellent grades.

To achieve personal growth in students, we help them maintain a healthy school-life balance. While students must focus on their studies, they’re also encouraged to try new hobbies, develop new skills, play sports, and explore their interests. Our focus on personal enrichment helps our students become curious, critical thinkers.

By offering greater flexibility to students, we also help them enjoy a good social life. This is extremely important for students of all ages. They must interact with their friends and develop strong social skills to enjoy good social growth. Our students interact with their peers during their online classes. We also encourage them to strengthen these friendships and sustain non-academic friendships after school.

Let’s come to moral and ethical growth. At Cambridge Home School, we have a razor-sharp focus on helping students develop core soft skills like honesty, responsibility, time management, empathy, respect, communication, self-assurance, and teamwork, among others. We want our students to understand their moral and ethical responsibilities and become good members of society.

At Cambridge Home School, our teachers set up in-class activities and games to help children develop these skills. We foster holistic growth by focusing on every aspect of a child’s personality.

If you want your child to have an enriching homeschooling experience, make sure you take the load off your hands and trust an institution that specialises in homeschooling children. This measure will cut your work in half and help you heave a big sigh of relief.

Recommended Read: A Closer Look at the Art of Making Schooling Engaging and Fun for Young Children

2. Become a Scheduling Master

At Cambridge Home School, we often emphasise the importance of scheduling, and it’s easy to see why. As you send your children to an online homeschool, you will be required to shoulder certain responsibilities.

While we take care of most of the legwork, we cannot paint an unrealistic picture and claim that you will not have to play an active role in the process. You will. While it will be a simpler role, it will still be important.

Parents who enrol their children in our institution must set up their children’s online classes, help them with homework and revision after school, and keep everything else on track. Unless you have help available at home, you will shoulder these responsibilities.

Make sure you create a schedule and update it regularly. We recommend combining your personal schedule with your children’s homeschooling schedule. This is a great way to avoid conflicts and keep things more organised.

The last thing you want is to accidentally miss overlap between an important work meeting and your children’s homeschool setup. These oversights can throw a wrench in an otherwise smooth, systematic, and streamlined system.

Become a pro at scheduling to keep everything on track: homeschool, work, household chores, afterschool activities, and additional errands. You can use a physical calendar schedule or opt for a digital version. We recommend going the digital route as you can easily make changes while you’re on the go. Make sure you sync it with your computer/laptop and fridge screen.

3. Don’t Hesitate to Ask for Help

If you choose online homeschooling over DIY homeschooling, you’ll take a lot of stress and turbulence out of the mix. However, you may still struggle to keep everything on track, especially if you’re a single working parent.

If you’re struggling, feel free to ask for help. Many parents consider this a parenting flaw. They think that asking for help indicates that they’re falling short of their responsibilities. This isn’t the case at all. It’s completely okay for parents to ask for help. In fact, this is considered a sign of immense strength as you can put your ego aside and take measures for the betterment of your children.

Asking for help will give you the breather you need. This will positively affect your life and your children’s lives. As parents, we try to do everything for our children. However, if we’re stretched too thin, we may be doing more harm than good.

If you feel too tired, distracted, overwhelmed, or overworked, you’ll fail to spend quality time with your children. A distracted parent can make children feel unloved, unsupported, and neglected.

Asking for help is extremely important in this case. You’ll get a lot of burden off your shoulders, which will improve your quality of life. As a result, you’ll manage to give your children the focused and uninterrupted attention you deserve.

Whether you have to hire house help or turn to a family member for help, don’t hesitate to do so. Self-care is extremely important. If you’re struggling as an individual, you’ll also struggle as a parent. Your children will pick up on this and bear the consequences.

Make sure you avoid taking on more than you can handle. This small but extremely important measure will reap its benefits in the short run and especially in the long run.

Recommended Read: Will My Children Eventually Lose Interest in Online School?

4. Utilise Online Educational Resources

As you help your children with homework or revision, make sure you’re fully prepared. This is a great way to provide quality academic support to your children.

At Cambridge Home School, we provide an online library of quality educational resources, including videos, presentations, past papers, study guides, worksheets, educational activities, skill-building games, and so much more. These resources help students polish their academic skills after school when our teachers aren’t available.

As a parent, you can utilise these resources to help your children learn better. You don’t have to start from scratch and do your own research. We understand that finding new resources can be extremely time-consuming for parents. We’ve collected and created the most helpful resources to help you get a much-needed helping hand. If you require additional resources, feel free to reach out to our teachers.

At Cambridge Home School, our teachers use an individualised teaching strategy for each student. They understand each student’s unique learning curve, including their academic weaknesses and strengths. As you speak with our teachers, you’ll understand which areas you should focus on as a parent. This system of collaboration goes a long way in benefiting students and enhancing their academic growth.

5. Set Up a Distraction-Free Study Station

Successful homeschooling is contingent on a distraction-free study space. Make sure you find a quiet room in your home. This shouldn’t be your child’s bedroom. Why? Well, the bedroom is filled with a lot of distractions by default. No matter how hard you try to put them away during your child’s classes, you’ll fail to make the room completely distraction-free.

If there’s a gadget, game, or any other distractive element within reach, your child will easily get up from their chair and pull it out during their online class. This is especially common among younger children.

At Cambridge Home School, our teachers train students to pay optimal attention to their lessons. However, these slip-ups can still occur during the first two weeks and much later if distractions are still present.

Choosing a separate room (i.e., guest room or study room) is a great way to ensure that your child will stay on track through and through. Make sure their computer is set at eye level, and their chair is comfortable. Moreover, all the essentials should be within reach. These include your children’s coursebooks, stationery, and any other tools and accessories needed for group projects, activities, presentations, etc.

As you take care of all of this, you’ll reduce the chances of being required to intervene during your child’s classes. Since everything will be set up accordingly, they will not require your assistance during their classes. This will help you focus on your work or complete household chores without any interruptions.

Recommended Read: The Importance of Incorporating Audio-Visual Elements Into Online Lessons for Young Children

6. Maintain Close Communication with the Teachers and Your Children

If you want to circumvent any obstacles you face during the homeschooling stage, make sure you prioritise communication. For starters, maintain close communication with the teachers. They’ll help you understand how your child responds to their classes and performs in school. This insight will go a long way in helping you keep everything on track.

Moreover, make sure you actively ask your children about their respective online homeschooling experiences every day. You should have a good grasp of how each child’s day went. Ask them if they’re happy with their experience. Additionally, inquire into whether they enjoyed their classes and struggled with anything for the day.

This is a great way to stay in the loop. You’ll understand how your children feel about their classes. You’ll also gain insight into their academic, personal, and social strengths and weaknesses. Utilise this insight to plan the right afterschool activities for them.

At Cambridge Home School, we prioritise transparency. We provide parents with 24/7 access to their children’s coursework. Additionally, we hold three parent-teacher consultations each year, one in every term.

Our MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers are committed to academic growth and student mental health. This approach helps us ensure that our students secure excellent grades and have an enjoyable schooling experience.

Our online schooling counsellors work closely with students to address any academic or non-academic problems they may be experiencing, e.g., stress, anxiety, etc. We help students overcome these and enjoy excellent academic, personal, and social growth.

If you’re interested in making the switch to Cambridge Home School, start exploring the following resources:

• Admissions Process
• Term Dates
• Application Form
• Scholarships & Bursaries
• Grades & Fees
• Online Reviews

We’re excited to have you on board!

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