What Are We Preparing Homeschooled Children For?

When children are small, it is very easy to concentrate on the next thing.

• Learning to read.

• Remembering number bonds.

• Writing a sentence that somebody else can actually read.

Then suddenly they are twelve. Then fourteen. Then before we quite know how it happened, conversations begin to include college, apprenticeships, qualifications, jobs and what they might like to do with their lives.

So what are we actually preparing our homeschooled children for?

We are preparing them for their next step

That next step will not be the same for every child.

• Some will want to take GCSEs and continue into academic study.

• Some will choose Functional Skills and move towards college or an apprenticeship.

• Some will already know they want to work with animals, cars, children, computers, food, construction or something entirely different.

Others will be fifteen and have absolutely no idea. That's all right too!

Our job isn't to decide a child's entire future when they are ten. It is to make sure that, as doors begin to appear, we haven't unnecessarily closed them.

Qualifications can open doors, but they do not define a person's worth.

We are preparing them to work

Whatever route a young person eventually chooses, somebody is going to expect things from them.

• Turn up.

• Be on time.

• Listen.

• Ask when you don't understand.

• Finish what you have agreed to do.

• Get along with people who aren't necessarily your friends.

• Make a mistake, own it and put it right.

• Try again when something doesn't work.

Those things aren't learnt from one careers lesson at sixteen. We practise them gradually.

Completing your homeschool work when you would rather be doing something else is part of that. Taking responsibility for your weekly plan is part of it. Learning that “I forgot” doesn't make the task disappear is part of it too.

We are preparing them to manage ordinary life

One day, nobody is going to give them a worksheet entitled: Today's lesson: Being an Adult or The Art of Adulting

They will simply have things to deal with:

• Money coming in and bills going out.

• Food to buy.

• Meals to prepare.

• Appointments to make.

• Forms to complete.

• Journeys to plan.

• Information to understand.

• A home to look after.

• Technology to manage.

• Decisions about their health.

• Things that break at inconvenient moments.

• And an alarming number of official Apps that seem to require a password you can't remember.

  
  

That is why Orchard learning doesn't stop at academic subjects.

• Maths needs to become useful.

• English needs to help you communicate.

• Science should help you make sensible decisions.

• Digital Life should help you use technology wisely.

• Health Education should help you look after yourself.

Education needs to travel with you into ordinary life.

We are preparing them to deal with other people

Homeschooling doesn't remove the need to learn how to live alongside people. Quite the opposite.

• Our children need to be able to speak to people of different ages and backgrounds.

• They need to listen.

• They need to disagree without becoming unpleasant.

• They need to know when to compromise and when something matters enough to stand their ground.

• They need to ask for help.

• They need to offer it.

• They need to recognise that sometimes another person knows more than they do.

• And occasionally they need to work successfully alongside somebody they wouldn't personally have chosen!

Those skills matter in families, friendships, colleges, workplaces and communities.

We are preparing them for things we cannot predict

This may be the most important part. We don't know exactly what our children will need to know in twenty years' time.

• Jobs will change.

• Technology will change.

• The world will change.

So alongside everything we teach them now, there is another skill we need to protect:

the ability to learn something new.

• Can you find reliable information?

• Can you follow instructions?

• Can you ask a sensible question?

• Can you recognise that you don't know something?

• Can you make a mistake without giving up?

• Can you change your mind when the evidence changes?

• Can you teach yourself something when there isn't a teacher standing beside you?

That is why independence matters so much at Orchard.

And we are preparing them to have a life

Education is important. Work is important. Qualifications can be important.

But our children are not simply future employees. We also want them to discover books they love, music they enjoy, places they want to visit, things they like making, food they can cook, interests they can pursue and people they care about. We want them to notice the world around them.

• To be curious.

• To contribute.

• To have enough confidence to try something they haven't done before.

Education should help someone earn a living. It should also help them build a life worth living.

So what is the Orchard destination?

There isn't one. There are many.

• College.

• An apprenticeship.

• University.

• Employment.

• A family business.

• Self-employment.

• Volunteering.

• Perhaps something none of us has thought of yet.

Our job is not to produce identical young people heading towards identical futures. It is to give each child strong enough foundations to begin finding their own way.

At the beginning of homeschooling, a child may need us beside them saying: “This is what you need to do next.”

Gradually, we step further away. Until one day we hear: “I know what I need to do next.”

That might be one of the most important signs that their home education has done its job.