Parents new to homeschooling (or ‘elective home education’, which is the preferred term in the UK) will often ask if there is a homeschooling curriculum that they should be following. The short answer is ‘no’. As a home educating parent you are free to deviate from the National Curriculum which is taught in schools. Even schools have a fair amount of flexibility to teach different topics at different times – especially in Wales and Scotland.
There are a few reasons why you might want to follow the National Curriculum, and I have a comprehensive post here which details why the National Curriculum might be a good option for your child.
What are my legal responsibilities?
In the UK, parents have the legal right to educate their children at home, as outlined in Section 7 of the Education Act 1996. The law states that parents are responsible for ensuring their child receives a “full-time education suitable to their age, ability, and aptitude,” as well as any special educational needs they may have. This education can be provided either through regular school attendance or by other means, such as home educating.
What constitutes a “full-time education?”
The concept of “full-time education” in home education is often a source of confusion for new home educating parents. Interestingly, there is no legal definition of “full-time” in terms of home education. While children in school typically receive about five hours of tuition per day for 190 days a year (spread over about 38 weeks), you do not have to mirror this schedule.
In practice, what constitutes full-time education for a home educated child will depend on the individual circumstances. The key is that parents should be able to demonstrate that education is taking place for a significant portion of their child’s life. This doesn’t necessarily mean adhering to traditional school hours or terms – in fact, in my opinion, schooling all year round prevents what’s known as the ‘Summer slide’ and integrating educational opportunities within regular daily life sets children up better to be lifelong learners.
Home educating often involves almost continuous one-to-one contact, and education may sometimes take place outside normal “school hours”. Many home educating families find that learning happens throughout the day in various forms, making it difficult to separate from everyday life.
How many hours of homeschooling are required per day?
There is no set number of hours required for homeschooling per day in the UK. The law does not specify a minimum number of hours, and home educating parents are not required to follow school hours, days, or terms. Some home ed families find that the equivalent of 2-3 hours of focused learning per day can be sufficient, as one-on-one instruction is often more efficient than classroom teaching. However, this can vary greatly depending on the child’s age, attention span, and the educational approach used and the only way to know for sure what suits your child is a little experimentation. It’s important to remember that learning in a home educating environment often happens continuously throughout the day, not just during designated “school” hours. Activities like reading, discussions, field trips, and hands-on projects all contribute to a child’s education.
The guidance from the Department of Education does, however, state “parents should at least be able to quantify and demonstrate the amount of time for which your child is being educated”. By maintaining a brief learning journal of what activities you do in each day, along with time spent, you can keep track of things and families often find it adds up to more than expected.
So, if there’s no set homeschooling curriculum in the UK, where do I start?
If you’ve only recently deregistered your child, you might want to consider a period of deschooling. I have two posts here to help you get started:
During this period, it’s essential that you are doing educational activities with your child in order to satisfy the legal requirement of a ‘suitable education from Day 1’, but you should really see this period of less-structured learning as an opportunity for you and your child to discover their interests and ascertain where they are academically.
As previously suggested, I’d recommend keeping a learning journal of the things that you’re doing detailing what they’ve learnt from each experience, with the focus being on progress – i.e. what do they know after the activity that they didn’t know before? Or indeed, what do you as a parent now know about how your child likes to learn? Everything you discover during this phase you can use to design a suitable curriculum for your child.
Next, you might want to utilise a diagnostic tool to see where you child is working in English and maths (and also, possibly, science), and there are a few tools you can use for this like EdPlace and IXL. You can use these for regular learning, or just to see where you child is at. Don’t worry too much about your child being ‘behind’ if the diagnostic shows they are not working at ‘age related expectations’ – this is a mainstream education construct and is more of a benchmarking for schools than for home educating parents. Just use these tools as a way of identifying what your child needs to learn next.
You may also wish to read up about different educational approaches (and you can find individual pages for these on my homepage), and discuss this with your child, to see what might be a good fit. Most parents end up taking an eclectic approach, but doing some research in this areas will at least give you a good idea of the kind of vocabulary used for different approaches and this will help further down the line when searching for ideas and resources.
What comes next?
You might choose to take an unschooling route, which is a very child-led approach, or you may choose a more structure approach, but whatever you decide, the next step is to start building a outline plan of the content that you’re going to cover.
What subjects should include in my homeschooling curriculum?
While there’s no mandatory curriculum for home education in the UK, parents are expected to provide a broad and balanced education. The specific subjects you cover can be tailored to your child’s interests and needs, but generally, it’s advisable to include core subjects such as:
- English (reading, writing, and communication skills)
- Mathematics
- Science
- History
- Geography
- Art and creativity
- Physical education
You may also want to include subjects like foreign languages, music, technology, religion and culture, health and wellness and life skills. The key is to provide a well-rounded education that prepares your child for their future, whether that involves further education or entering the workforce.
You don’t need to look at these as isolated subject, however. My preferred approach is using ‘unit studies’, otherwise known as project work. These integrate a range of subjects around a central theme and you’ll find several examples of these on this site. Although maths and the technical side of English (grammar, spelling, etc.) can be integrated into unit studies, my recommendation is that these are studied separately. They tend to be much more sequential in nature, and are more difficult to integrate into unit studies in an organic way that makes sense. I have a number of example on his site, but also Pinterest is a great place to search for something that suits your child.
You may also wish for your child to take some live or recorded classes – The £2 Tuition Hub is a good place to start and they cover a mix of regular academic subjects and more interest-based lessons.
In conclusion, the question “is there a homeschooling curriculum in the UK?” has a nuanced answer. While there is no mandatory homeschooling curriculum that parents must follow, the freedom this provides is a cornerstone of elective home education in the UK. Parents can choose to align with the National Curriculum if it suits their child’s needs or explore a wealth of alternative approaches, from Montessori and Charlotte Mason to unschooling and eclectic methods. This flexibility allows you to tailor education to your child’s unique interests and abilities, fostering a more personalised and engaging educational experience. Ultimately, home educating in the UK is about creating a “suitable education” that meets legal requirements while empowering parents to craft an educational journey that truly works for your child. Whether you opt for structure or spontaneity, the possibilities are as vast as your child’s potential.