Any British Columbia Homeschoolers?

Raising hand : I'm in the interior and have three school-age kids who have never been to school.

It's complicated here but basically there are two types of homeschooling. The first is the only one that is considered actual homeschooling by the Ministry of Education. It's dead simple. You sign a form declaring your homeschooling before September 30 of the school year. On the form you give your child's name and birthdate and your name and address and that's about it. You can fill the form out through an office at your local public school, at your regional Distance Ed. school or through a willing independent school anywhere in the province. This option leaves you completely free ... free of supervision, of accountability, of the BC curriculum. You get basically nothing back from the school (though they do have an obligation to share with you unused textbooks if you ask and they can find them , to offer to let your child participate in FSA testing in Grades 4 & 7 if you want, and some of the independent schools will offer you some/most of the paltry $125 they receive from the government on your behalf for receiptable educational expenses). As a courtesy you should probably inform his school that he won't be returning in the fall, but legally you don't have to do anything other than sign that form prior to Sept. 30. This option is called registration of your homeschooling.

The other option is that of enrolling your son in a home-based distributed or distance learning program. These first started springing up about 12 years ago within the public system and there are now dozens of such programs throughout the public and independent school system. If you want money in exchange for accountability, this might be worth looking into. You can receive up to $1200, depending on the program, for receiptable educational expenses. In exchange you have to jump through some hoops. Most such programs require you to refer at least loosely to the Ministry of Education curriculum outcomes, though they're often very flexible about when and how your child satisfies them.

My eldest is enrolled in the Wondertree SelfDesign Program which is the sole exception to the rule about such programs requiring you to adhere to provincial learning outcomes. We have to report weekly, but are comfortable with the style of reporting (totally anecdotal and very much in keeping with the unschooling philosophy). A few years ago we were with a different such program which we didn't feel comfortable with at all.

My other two schoolage kids are registered homeschoolers. No money, no hassles.

Happy to answer more questions.

Miranda

Thank you for responding, I would love to pick your brain. I had peeked at the Wondertree site before but hadn't looked in depth. (I swear I still have pregnant-brain even though Logan is 9 months old).

What do you need to do to get that $1000 from Wondertree?

Do they provide any kind of outline or curriculum at all?

I want a program/plan/curriculum that is flexible enough to allow us to explore Luke's interests and passions but still keep him on track in case he decides or needs to transition back into the public school system before graduation. Do you think Wondertree could allow for that?

Do you spend a lot of money on "school" tools?

I'm sure there will be more but those are my most pressing questions.

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Before I answer, I want to emphasize the distinction between Wondertree School, which registers homeschoolers in the no-support-no-strings-attached fashion through their Home Learners Network, and Wondertree SelfDesign, which is a separate division of the same organization which enrolls home-based learners in a program. The latter is what nets you the better part of $1000 and I'll answer with that program in mind.

For the money you have to (a) work with a learning consultant to come up with a learning plan for your child at the outset of the year, and modify that plan as appropriate at intervals, (b) keep a log of minimum 25 hours/week of learning hours by category and (c) provide "observing for learning" reports on a weekly basis. All told this takes an average of about 45-60 minutes a week.

Here's a bit from two sections of my daughter's Learning Plan, which was actually kind of fun to flesh out with her:

Erin will participate in a variety of learning experiences this year which relate to living skills and applied technology. She will be cooking meals and baking and wants to strive for more independence and competence in the kitchen. She will continue to be involved in a local children's gardening/environmental club, where she will be learning more about organic cultivation techniques, environmental sustainability in agriculture and otherwise, and about the natural world through stewardship of the garden and its environs. She will also be studying electronics and would like to get access to a comprehensive electronics kit and work towards learning simple electronic circuitry, principles and terminology.

Erin will participate in a variety of Language Arts activities this year. She will expand her creative writing skills and create a website which introduces visitors to the rich imaginary world which she and her siblings have been busily inventing over the past two years. Erin will continue to read independently from a variety of self-chosen and parent-chosen novels from a variety of genres. She will use Microsoft Works and Lotus WordPro, as well as watching film adaptations of novels read and assorted documentaries on science, history and social issues.

I find the logging of hours a mild annoyance because I'm not very organized. I don't obsess over it. I figure Erin does a minimum of an hour two of reading and writing in the course of a day, so I put 1.5 hours down for that every day. If we take a 2-hour hike, I'll mark down 1 hour of "Wellness" and 1 hour of "Science and Naturalistic Learning". All her music practising counts as "Creativity". Computer time and cooking go under "Life Skills / Technology". Easy peasy.

The Observing for Learning (O4L) is quite easy and enjoyable if you envision it as a kind of on-line journaling rather than hoop-jumping reporting. There's no judgement involved, no sense of having to "spin" one's observation to fit a school model, so I enjoyed the time I spent at this. The archived O4Ls are very fun to read, giving one a sense of the progress and passage of time. Since November my daughter, being almost-a-teen, motivated, and very comfortable with written communication, has been doing all her own O4L's and has really enjoyed the relationship she has built with her Learning Consultant in doing so. I've appreciated the reflectiveness this process has encouraged in her.

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No, although they will suggest resources if you need guidance. Often not your standard schoolish type of resources -- it's a very outside-the-box group of people. If you want someone to lay it out for you, you might find a more traditional program would suit you better (eg. through Distance Ed., Phoenix, Surrey Connect, Homelinks, Gold River or eBus).

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Grade-by-grade learning outcomes are freely available on-line and Wondertree SelfDesign also provides tidy access to them. But I doubt that Wondertree SelfDesign would provide you with the structure you'd need to ensure that he wou grade-level learning outcomes. They'd support you in creating structure if that's what you wanted, but they wouldn't assume that was the type of homeschooling you wanted, nor would they lay it out for you.

I haven't yet mentioned the On-line Village, which is a wonderful, safe, internet-based community for Wondertree "teachers" (called "learning consultants), administrators, parents and students. It's chock full of support, sounding boards, inspiration, resources, etc. It has been a wonderful community for my daughter. It's like MDC for self-design learners and their supporting adults.

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Tough question to answer since we don't make a distinction between "school" and "life". We've certainly had no difficulty in coming up with $1000 in receipts, but much of that is money we would be spending even if Erin were in school ... on piano lessons, community soccer, after-school art class, watercolour paints and paper, a kids' cookbook, a digital microscope, a pool pass, etc..

I also find that within the past year my always-precociously-academic kid has taken a real interest in some structured curriculum materials for the first time. This year, after a couple of years of doing nothing structured in the realm of academics, she's gone through two years of music theory workbooks, two years of math coursebooks, is starting a second Latin text and is asking for more resources yet for Latin. Adolescence seems to have brought on an interest in structured academic resources with this kid. From ages 5 to 10.5 we spent less than $50 a year on such schoolish things for her.

Miranda

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

This is all great information. I think that the WonderTree SelfDesign sounds great. I want to have a lot of flexibility and freedom to explore but I really do need to be accountable to someone because I tend towards being kind of lazy and unorganized. I think the combination of SelfDesign, loosely following the Ministry's IRPs and a lot of exploring will get us through the first year. After that we should know more about what works for us or possibly even decide that this isn't it and Luke may want to go back to public school.

You made a lot of good points that I hadn't thought of.

Do I need to do a learning plan before I enroll Luke with Wondertree SelfDesign or is that part of the process?

I'm getting more and more excited the more I think about this. Thanks for your time.