Hiya,

I completely understand why so many home educating parents spend so much time looking at curriculums.

(you know, other than the fact they’re often BEAUTIFUL and make you want to buy new pencils and stickers and rearrange your house and maybe get one of those little trolleys to keep everything in)

Because, goodness, wouldn’t it be nice to just have someone telling you what you’re supposed to do? 😂

To wake up on a Monday morning and know what the plan is, know that someone has already thought it all through, know that if you just work your way through what’s in front of you then you’re going to cover everything your child ever needs.

You don’t have to keep coming up with ideas. You don’t have to worry about ‘gaps’, or whether or not you’re doing enough (oh, to have that question answered once and for all!).

And when you find one you like, when you look through it and think oh yes this one looks good, this looks like something we could do, there can be a real feeling of relief in that.

(plus, the children in the promotional photos seem to be utterly delighted to be doing fractions, so it must be pretty good)

Ok. We have a plan. This is gonna be awesome. Here we go.

But the browsing and the imagining and the choosing is the easy bit. Because what happens next is where a good dose of expectation vs reality often kicks in.

And that’s because the next step is…well, getting our child to actually use the thing we’ve just bought.

A process that will often force you to do one of two things -

Either apply pressure to your child to fit the curriculum.

Or apply pressure to the curriculum to fit your child.

And very rarely does it end up being that second one.

See, when someone puts a curriculum together they make a whole lot of decisions. They decide what’s important to learn, how much time those things should have spent on them, how they should be covered, what order to do them in, exactly what a child should be able to do before they move on to the next thing…

Many will even tell you when all that should be happening.

And we look at all that and mainly see the massive amount of work someone has saved us. Which they absolutely have 😅 A huge amount of work goes into putting something like that together, and there can be real value in good teaching materials.

But what we don’t often see (at least as quickly and as clearly) are the expectations this thing brings into our home. Expectations we may or may not actually agree with.

Expectations that will now be pointed directly at our child.

Let me show you what I mean.

Before we bought it, we might not have been particularly worried about how long our child could sit still for. But now we’re trying to get through a lesson and they’re getting up again and wandering off and coming back and getting up again, and we’re thinking…can you please just SIT for a minute so we can do this?

Or they’re full of questions about space, but the programme has us learning about plants. So we’re trying to get them interested in roots and stems and leaves while they’re asking what would happen if you fell into a black hole. Which is a good question, actually, but come on, we’re supposed to be doing this other thing.

Or they need a bit longer to understand something, so we go over it again, try a different explanation, give them more time. But we’re also looking at what we were supposed to have finished by Friday and thinking…ugh, we’re still on this bit, and next week there’s all this other stuff, how are we going to keep up?

Or they can explain something perfectly well while they’re talking to us, but the activity asks them to write three sentences about it. And getting those sentences written is taking FOREVER. We know they’ve understood, they’ve just told us, but the programme needs it to be written down so we can’t call it done yet.

These are the kinds of expectations that come with this kind of packaged thing. A list that could (would) be dozens of things long.

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying a boxed curriculum like this is inherently bad. It’s just very, very important that we don’t let it rule the roost to the extent we often do.

Remember - our starting point was wanting someone to help us work out what to do and maybe a bit of how to go about it. That’s ok. Provided we keep a critical eye on that stuff not running the culture of our home. Otherwise, it will start affecting how we see everything.

Our child will get through a good block of work one morning, and we’ll say…yay, that was a productive, learning-filled morning.

And then on another day they won’t be able to pull themselves away from that thing they’re doing or building or creating or finishing over there and we’ll say…ugh, that wasn’t a very productive learning-filled morning.

We’ll start seeing cooperation and compliance and sitting still as good good good.

And we’ll start seeing movement and constant questions and wanting to do things a different way as bad bad bad.

That is - if our child is doing the work, our child is doing the right thing. If they are not, they are not. And so they must adjust.

And you won’t be immune from the effect, either. When you’re met with resistance or frustration and you’re spending an entire morning trying to wrangle your child through something the programme says should take 20 minutes, it’s very easy to think you’re part of the problem. Maybe you’re not explaining it well enough. Maybe you need to be more consistent, or firmer, or more patient, or better organised. Maybe someone with teacher training and experience really would do a better job than you’ll ever be able to…

It’s very easy to see a curriculum that’s beautiful and lovely and believe it will be the solution to your whole learning journey. You know other families use it, because the reviews and photos say so. Maybe you even know someone who uses it, and it’s worked really well for them. It’s designed for the right age for your children. It’s full of activities you can imagine them doing (and hopefully enjoying), and the people who made it talk about learning in a way that makes you think yes, YES, that’s what I want for my children.

Which is exactly why it’s so, so hard to say - when things don’t go as smoothly as you hoped - hmm, ok, maybe we need to bend and flex this curriculum as much as we need to make it fit our family, our child. Or maybe this curriculum we thought would be amazing will never fit our child.

Remember - a curriculum is just someone’s idea of what an education should look like. If you use one, make sure you’re absolutely clear on what it’s going to ask of both you and your child. Keep what’s helping. Let go of what isn’t. Listen to your instincts. Bend it, flex it, mould it, shape it.

You get to decide how you use it, and whether you keep using it.

Don’t forget that.

Talk soon,
Issy.

P.S. If you’re thinking…ok, but I really would still quite like some help working out what to do 😅 I’ve got an episode for you - How to design the best curriculum for YOUR child. It’s all about starting with the child standing in front of you and working out what to build for them. It’s in my Life Without School Collection, so you can listen now if you’re already a member or join right here if you’re not yet. Membership includes access to my private (not on Facebook) community, too, so come and tell us what you’re using, what’s working and what’s driving you slightly mad 😂 I’d love to talk all this through with you.