But, before I continue, first let me give you a little background info. We are foreigners living in India. We live in a beautiful and heart-melting place on the bank of the Ganges. It's a small village and has a number of schools close by. The school Mr. R was enrolled in, and that I felt was the best for him, was the international Cambridge affiliated school next door. This school starts from Nursery and continues up to the end of high-school. There are some amazing teachers in this school who are dedicated to teaching. But, perhaps because we live in an isolated place, because India is not always the easiest of places to live and perhaps because the pay is very little, it's difficult to get enough experienced and dedicated teachers to cover all the classes.
This year, we didn't have luck finding an experienced teacher for Year 1 and after having a quick look at the teaching of a couple of lessons by the young girl that was employed to teach this class, doubts did rise. I did want to support this school, which has great potential, but not at the cost of my son's education. I gave myself until the end of the week to decide what to do.
I took to the Internet and did as much research as i could on homeschooling, or as i soon learnt "home education." I joined home education groups on Facebook and tried to get acquainted with the UK curriculum for KS1.
Now, there is one thing I haven't mentioned. Something I should probably mention about now. I have a bachelor degree in teaching. So what's the problem you are thinking? The problem was, I still felt like I had no idea how to tackle home education. I had so many questions and doubts. Like what do I cover? What are the laws? How do I do household chores and teach? How do I entertain and give attention to Miss S (2.5 years old)? What do i do if Mr. R doesn't want to listen to me? What about socialising? What if Mr. R turns out odd? and on and on...
Still, I just wasn't sure if he'd grow and learn as he can if i left him at school, so by Friday after discussing it over with everyone in the family, our minds were made up and I unregistered Mr. R from school.
Luckily the following weekend was a long weekend. Over the next four days I ran around like crazy collecting, stationery, purchasing a printer, downloading QCA documents, bookmarking relevant websites, registering with teaching sites, creating planning templates for lessons and for meals, organising the house, cleaning and food shopping.
By Tuesday i was exhausted but pretty much ready to go.
So what's the deal with the blog? I guess this blog is, at the moment, about our home education journey that has recently sprung upon us. It's a place where I can record what Mr. R and eventually Miss. S and I are learning and how we are growing. I guess, just in case in the future, I need to prove I have in fact been home educating and not home neglecting, and also to hopefully share with others my experiences as well as learn from other's experiences relating to growing beautiful children.
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