homeschooling

[ArranP]

had lots of problems with schools in thailand, mostly due to my son not conforming, now they are 9 and 6 years old.

 

through a matter a necessity I started looking for options, and came across home schooling, many articles on youtube, so with my son slowly slipping behind in his education year by year due to being tossed around amongst the schools, I thought I can do a better job myself, I got the time.

 

after a couple of weeks of searching i found a home schooling college, "Wosley Hall Oxford" that provides the curriculum content step by step together with monthly assignments to guage the students progress.

 

at sixten and eighteen they will sit the IGSCE and A-LEVELS here in phuket at an accredited cambridge school i.e. British Int School, HeadStart etc. as private student.

 

between now and then I work daily with my children on their math, english, geography, schience and history.  I understand as they get older the support they need from me will get less and less.

 

but I am delighted, my children get my full attention, working one on one with my children, I see there are gaps in their knowledge and work on that to bring them up to speed,  i have control where as before i was receiving complaint from the school but had no control during school time to do anything about it and was very frustrated, children got telling offs, told to behave, left for a unhappy family environment, now they are free to grow develop as they please, I as their father ensure they stay on track academically, the rest is for them to choose.

 

and a fraction  of the cost, with four children over their academic life the family will save just over half a million pounds, which will instead be invested into the family business which they will inherit.

 

an alternative for a british cambridge education, no need to live near an international school.

 

final note its important to keep your children mixing with others, the home schooling takes less time than a mainstream school, so in those hours, go to clubs, events etc.

 

 

 

[pearciderman]

Are you teaching them English too?

[ArranP]

they were both born in UK, we moved to Thailand when they were 4 and 1, english is their first language.  They have a Thai instructor every day monday to friday for 1 hour so they will able to read speak and write thai.

 

I am teaching the youngest to read ready for when he will start the homeschool at age 7.

 

but both will take english as a subject, english is a necessity to sit cambridge IGSCE and A-Levels.

[wwest5829]

Good luck. Certainly having a Thai language instructor 1 hour a day will see them advancing more than I have over my 6 years here. On the other hand, no I do not accept that home schooling will equate with a competent international school. As I say, good luck.

[lucjoker]

very good.

I do also a lot of home schooling , though i speak English as my fourth language ,my 2 sons (8 and 9) speak Flemish ,English and of course Thai.

The problem was to teach then Thai-reading and writing , so i had to learn it first and so now i can learn them how to write and read it .( although they speak Thai more fluently than me) In five months we go live in Spain , so the kids will go to a Spanish school and learn their fourth and fifth language ( Spanish and French) .I will have a lot more time for myself and i welcome this . We traveled a lot last years ,spend more than half year in European countries .So the kids saw already half the globe. My hope is they will find a good job (or open a business ) and their language skill will be of great help. 

I'm well over 60 and this is my biggest wish. 

[Baerboxer]

2 minutes ago, lucjoker said:

very good.

I do also a lot of home schooling , though i speak English as my fourth language ,my 2 sons (8 and 9) speak Flemish ,English and of course Thai.

The problem was to teach then Thai-reading and writing , so i had to learn it first and so now i can learn them how to write and read it .( although they speak Thai more fluently than me) In five months we go live in Spain , so the kids will go to a Spanish school and learn their fourth and fifth language ( Spanish and French) .I will have a lot more time for myself and i welcome this . We traveled a lot last years ,spend more than half year in European countries .So the kids saw already half the globe. My hope is they will find a good job (or open a business ) and their language skill will be of great help. 

I'm well over 60 and this is my biggest wish. 

 

Many Educationalists support the idea that learning languages helps in mind development and helps facilitate learning in other subjects. 

People in the UK laughed at me when I took the language options over science at grammar school. But I didn't want to be a scientist, medical doctor, dentist etc. I wanted a career in business. Having English, German and French was a massive help in my career and allowed my to work, travel and live confidently in other countries. Later I learnt Chinese.

My eldest is doing her Master's in Criminology and Forensic Science. Most of her schooling was in Malaysia. She speaks English, Malay, Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Spanish and Welsh. My other two are fluent in English and Thai - including my son whose severely disabled. Become proficient in the Thai language is my next project.

 

You're doing your children a great service with the international exposure supported by the learning of other languages.

 

I wish you and your family well and every success in Spain. A loss for Thailand that you're leaving!

[lucjoker]

Just now, Baerboxer said:

 

Many Educationalists support the idea that learning languages helps in mind development and helps facilitate learning in other subjects. 

People in the UK laughed at me when I took the language options over science at grammar school. But I didn't want to be a scientist, medical doctor, dentist etc. I wanted a career in business. Having English, German and French was a massive help in my career and allowed my to work, travel and live confidently in other countries. Later I learnt Chinese.

My eldest is doing her Master's in Criminology and Forensic Science. Most of her schooling was in Malaysia. She speaks English, Malay, Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Spanish and Welsh. My other two are fluent in English and Thai - including my son whose severely disabled. Become proficient in the Thai language is my next project.

 

You're doing your children a great service with the international exposure supported by the learning of other languages.

 

I wish you and your family well and every success in Spain. A loss for Thailand that you're leaving!

thanks for the kind words, i applaud you too.

I had a 6 fold bypass on my hart ,so it is too hot for me here, thus middle Spain will be perfect , and i like the people and the food is ideal for me .

Good luck

[1FinickyOne]

Well, I certainly take my hat off to you... I cannot imagine a better or more thought out approach and I expect it will work well for your family. 

 

I would say it would not have worked for me for various reasons, mostly time and patience, but fortunately my kid loves school and is doing well and I do think part of her love for school came about through looking forward to being with her friends. 

 

Periodically let us know how it is going. Best of luck and good for your family. 

 

 

[AgMech Cowboy]

I wish you the best. A dear friend of mine in the USA home schooled all her children (6). They all went to university without any problems. As long as you have the discipline to manage it, I think it's great. I'd love to home school my Son, but I know I'm not up to it. 

[timewilltell]

I also homeschool my three boys.  I am not using Wolsey but bought a plethora of course books, both Study and Workbooks, in the core subjects: English, Science, Maths, History, Geography, D & T, R.E. and Citizenship.  We also do a BBC News report in which they precis an item of news for the day that sparks their interest, add a map to show where it happened relative to Thailand and then add a paragraph on their opinion on the piece - that takes about 20 mins a day for them but its a great exercise.

 

I use Google Classroom to schedule and organise the work with about 20% personal teaching, 10% marking work with them and going over errors and the rest of the time they work together or alone.

 

English needs the most attention as there is a lot to pick up when you are not immersed in the language all day with your mates.  Maths they find pretty easy, science OK and Geography the least liked because the books require a lot of writing - which is good because they need to practice handwriting.

 

I see improvement vastly better than them being at school and avoid the brainwashing and travel times.  It is quite time-consuming though and they need to do more social activities which are the main loss.  The course is the IGCSE as the OP and with A Levels after that.  IGCSE specialisation next year for the older two.

[HHTel]

I assume you submitted the application for home schooling and had it approved to make it legal. If indeed you have jumped through the legalities, are you aware that you're entitled to the government subsidies that they pay to the schools.  Not a lot but it's 'free money'.

[TKDfella]

Well, like others here, the OP has my vote too. When I was working back in England my children often came home from school having all sorts of questions, basically maths & science. At that time time there were two math syllabuses for 'O' level, old traditional and what was then called New Math. The NM had topics brought 'down' from higher education such as Logic and Set Theory (as an introduction to 1,0 circuits). Fortunately I had studied these and was able to 'home teach' my children on these and other topics. So I have some appreciation of what home teaching can entail. One good advantage is that each of your children can get individual treatment depending on their personal inclinations which, of course, is difficult to achieve in a normal school class. Best of luck and I hope your children do well in future.

[ArranP]

Sir Ken Robinson

 

https://youtu.be/_RumyGvl-vk  Why I Homeschool? Sir Ken Robinson - multiple intelligences

 

https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U  RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGp4KFLuQNc  Are home-schooled children smarter?

 

[davidst01]

No offense to OP but your grammar is not that great. If you are teaching English to your kids they will only be as bad as you. You should try to be more careful with your grammar when teaching your little ones. 

[pearciderman]

10 hours ago, TKDfella said:

One good advantage is

 

What, as opposed to a bad advantage?

[ArranP]

53 minutes ago, davidst01 said:

No offense to OP but your grammar is not that great. If you are teaching English to your kids they will only be as bad as you. You should try to be more careful with your grammar when teaching your little ones. 

 plenty of things are bad about my me.

 

I am from a poor background, I mean very poor, in North Wales, I had no interest in school, only play, at the age of 11 I saw my first computer, I rose from th bottom set to the top set in everything.

 

I got only 3 O'Levels 1 B and 2 Cs.

 

I taught myself computers, past my citfy and guilds in coding and programming at the age of 14. Went straight into employment. at 17 moved to london worked  started working for news international, a year later tried for a job in unix, which is where I saw my career going, they turned me down, this went back and forth 5 or 6 times but still the answer was no,  so I asked the recruitment agency for the telephone number and said I would phone to company myself, on answering the phone I apologised for my intrusion but explained regardless of whether I get this job or not, this is where I see my carreer going, he said well then you better come in and show us what you got. I got the job.

 

I rose to the top of my feld earning £500 to £600 per day, with over times some months I took home 30k per month, which I spent only 1k per month driving round in my  R reg rover 214.  Anyway saved half a million invested into property and at 40 was able to replace my100k salary with my own business now I earn 180k per year, am a million air, the business will go on to appreciate, mortgages will get paid off, and the business will pass down to the kids, its probably they won't need to work at all.  Not sure though if this is a good thing ?  I've always had to work for my money, if your simply given a golden ticket, you may take money for granted ??  

 

I am a single father, and my latest venture now is to educate my kids, I usually find a way around obstacles and to settle on a vialble way forward. Whichs is what has happened here.

 

So its not so much what I or my children now, its the DRIVE I'm hoping will rubb off on them,  I can teach them enough until the are independant enough to take over teaching and researching themselves, anything they don't know they or I find out.  Nothing has to be perfect so long as they are happy and develop their way to survive in this world. 

 

Nothings perfect, it doesn't need to be. but you can get on and do things regardless, only thing that might hold you back is if you listen to people who midght say negative things about you, trying to oppose you or pull you down.  I suppose thats what I saw in computers, it didn't matter to the computer who was sat in front of it, wether the person was working / middle / upper class, it would give the same answer, which is why I choose it, and not people.

 

I find I diss-agree with alot of people, I do agree with some, I suppose in some way this depends on wether it fits with where I am going.

 

I find things of help I use them. If not I pay them no more thought.

 

I've scored between 132 to 142 on IQ tests on the net, not sure how credible they are, I took the mensa workset on their website, and scored 100% (18 out of 18 correct) which basically means there is some potiential to move forward onto their next tier of tests.

 

I'm in the top 2% IQ wise, and top 1% salary wise, so I gues whatever is in me, I'm hoping will rubb off on them, I'm not sure I am too concerned about a specific part of things for example a few mistakes in english grammer....

[ArranP]

children are happier, talk alot more about subject matter at home, and know more than before.

 

I've taken tham back to basics.

 

taken my 9 year old back to learning her 12 times table as mental arithmetic is essential when working more complex equations.

 

my 6 year old am teaching phonics and how to blend words, he needs to read by 7 to start the home school curriculum.

 

The content of the course work is provided by and marked by the tutors at Wosley Hall not I.

 

It is a curriculum they have devised to lead the children upto and prepare them for the cambridge IGSCE and A-Level exams.

 

but they will do it at home, more relaxed, take it in their stride and have fun.

[TKDfella]

17 hours ago, pearciderman said:

 

What, as opposed to a bad advantage?

Yeah, sorry about that, Ha! Not necessary eh?

[pearciderman]

23 hours ago, ArranP said:

taken my 9 year old back to learning her 12 times table as mental arithmetic

 

Learning times tables is not mental arithmetic, it is memorizing the answers.

[TKDfella]

18 hours ago, pearciderman said:

 

Learning times tables is not mental arithmetic, it is memorizing the answers.

It's also an introduction to a more advanced topic.

[ArranP]

19 hours ago, pearciderman said:

 

Learning times tables is not mental arithmetic, it is memorizing the answers.

 

when doing the mulitplicaiton of 10s or 100s via the grid method, or additiona via the column method , she spends alot of time doing each column on her fingers.

 

 

[BTB1977]

I got kicked out of school for having sex with my teacher. I was home schooled up until than. 

[ArranP]

how did your mom feel about that ?

[utalkin2me]

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind I could home school much better than even the best schools in Thailand. It’s not even a competition. The only possible missing ingredient would be the missed opportunity with interactions with other children. 

 

Good, accredited teachers are not Gods. Yes, they have degrees and are generally more adept at covering topics and different ways of learning. But in the end, people jumping in there and doing it themselves will learn fast. You’ve got an accredited, experienced teacher handling 30 students or a parent handling one and there’s just not going to be any competition in the end in my estimation. 

 

I think the home schooler has to have reached a certain certain education level themselves to be effective, but that’s the only requirement I would say. I’ve worked in Thai schools and even the halfway decent ones are loaded with “so much crap you need wings to fly above it all” as Captain Willard puts it. 

[BuddyDean]

On 11/4/2017 at 8:17 PM, pearciderman said:

 

Learning times tables is not mental arithmetic, it is memorizing the answers.

It is a priceless tool for solving problems in everyday life.  Educrats dismissing the need for Math fundamentals (and even Phonics) has been right about when things went to Hell.

[ArranP]

Its taken some time but I've found where my daughter and son are at in their math education.

 

My Daughter (age 9) is currently practising 

• subtraction with regrouping
• multiplication grid method
• 12 times table
• cursive writing tracing sheets

 

My Son (age 6) is currently practising

• number grid to 100 ( fill in the missing numbers )
• letter and number tracing
• flash cards - simple words
• Oxford Owl Reading Books

 

In addition my daughter has just started at her distance learning college Wosely Hall Oxford , subjects Maths, English, Science, History, Geography.  Her first set of assignments are due mid december.

 

[BuddyDean]

That's good.  Using Dollar amounts is a good intro to decimal points.  Play a "how much change" game (they will be impressed, when she catches them at 711).  When I was 8, we got certificates for doing 100 math facts in five minutes, with 100% accuracy.  Only through 9 x 9.  

 

 

[ArranP]

On 11/3/2017 at 7:40 PM, davidst01 said:

No offense to OP but your grammar is not that great. If you are teaching English to your kids they will only be as bad as you. You should try to be more careful with your grammar when teaching your little ones. 

 

Yesterday and today, my daughter and I covered an English excercise to re-write a short story from the 3rd to 1st Person Point Of View (POV).  From this we came across the changing of nouns, between the POVs, which led me to recall the comment above.

 

To re-write the story we learn't about writing short stories using an outline, characters, list of short phrases to sequence events in the story, choosing a title for the story and then developing the story into sentences choosing either 1st 2nd or 3rd POV.

 

It was an interesting excercise for BOTH my daughter and I, and one that we can now build on going forward, to improve our story writing skills.

[Scott]

An inflammatory post has been reported and removed.  

[pearciderman]

On 11/22/2017 at 6:37 PM, ArranP said:

 

Yesterday and today, my daughter and I covered an English excercise to re-write a short story from the 3rd to 1st Person Point Of View (POV).  From this we came across the changing of nouns, between the POVs, which led me to recall the comment above.

 

To re-write the story we learn't about writing short stories using an outline, characters, list of short phrases to sequence events in the story, choosing a title for the story and then developing the story into sentences choosing either 1st 2nd or 3rd POV.

 

It was an interesting excercise for BOTH my daughter and I, and one that we can now build on going forward, to improve our story writing skills.

 

I am guessing you meant using different pronouns as opposed to "changing of nouns"?

 

If all you had to do was re-write the story, how did you learn about "writing short stories using an outline, characters, list of short phrases to sequence events in the story, choosing a title for the story and then developing the story into sentences choosing either 1st 2nd or 3rd POV."?

 

Lastly, you said that you had to re-write it from the 1st to 3rd person, so why would you even consider using the 2nd person?