If I was starting home ed all over again, here’s what I’d do (part one) 🎙️
Everything we'd do differently if we could take ourselves right back to the start of this journey again.
Everything we'd do differently if we could take ourselves right back to the start of this journey again.
What really happens in a child’s brain before and after they turn five? And what are the hidden costs of deciding that formal learning should “start” at that age? Let's look at the neuroscience, the developmental timelines, and four key reasons why the idea of “school readiness” is so deeply flawed.
Part One explored five conditions that built a foundation. This second half moves into the deeper developmental drivers that shape capability and confidence from the inside out.
In this two-part series, I walk through 11 essential conditions that help children reach their full potential - backed by science, and shaped by real life. Part One covers the five foundational pieces every child needs to grow well.
AI is replacing the very jobs we’ve always raised our children to aim for. In this urgent episode, I unpack where AI is at right now, what the next decade might look like, and how we can prepare our children for a future more different than we can imagine.
We’ll look at what most people actually need maths for, how numeracy develops without school, how quickly kids can catch up later, and why the data shows the school system isn’t delivering the results we think it is.
How do I actually guide my child’s learning and growth? I know I don’t want to be a teacher, I know I want to be more like a mentor, or coach, or guide, but...how do I do that? What does it look like in practice?
I was sent an email recently that I want to talk about here. It was based around the kinds of questions this parent gets from her mother: "How will your child cope in life if they aren't made to do things they don't want? If...
There’s a nagging question that sits under almost every thought we have about our children’s learning. How do we know this is working? What does success even look like when we're walking a road so different from the one we knew?
"How will I know if I'm doing enough this year? I find it hard to shake the nagging feeling that I'm not, and I don't want to carry that again."
We all know the standard way we're taught to solve problems at school. Start with a clear definition of the problem, follow a proven process, arrive at the right answer. It's clean, it's predictable, it’s measurable…and it's almost entirely useless in real life. Especially in a professional context.
When you first step away from the school system, you leave behind all their built-in ways of measuring progress - the grades, the tests, the reading levels...In this week's mini-episode, I'm sharing the simple daily practice we use to record, track, and review progress in our family.
"I'm having a hard time striking the right balance between following my child's lead, and making sure they're also doing hard things and putting in effort."
You hear a lot about what you’ll need when you first choose to live life without school. The resources, curriculum options, books you should read, the local groups to join. But there's something else that matters more than any of that.