Journey into Home Education: A Personal Story (PART 1)

For every Christian family, the decision about schooling is a challenging one.  All parents want what is best for their children.  In a world that is changing, our decisions change.  Today we begin a journey with a CViE family that took to that path out of state schools and into home education.

Today: THE JOURNEY BEGINS

A bustling household of seven children, the eldest a teen, the youngest toddler twins.   Life seemed full enough.  Busy and demanding life of farm foreman and the full-time job of mother, home education wasn’t even in the discussion.

Then, in September 2019, our eldest daughter started secondary school. The school was mediocre, but the only one in our catchment; it felt natural to send her there.  Soon, though, we could see our little girl being influenced by peer pressure, and it started to make us uneasy.  Was she in the right place?  Then March 2020, and the COVID pandemic hit and we were ‘forced’ into home-schooling.  We felt it was our opportunity to see how she coped with not being with peers and learning from home.

During lockdown, we were anticipating the arrival of our twins. We enjoyed home educating the children, but the demands of the pregnancy and a SATS-soaked and demanding primary school curriculum made for stressed parents! When the time came for schools to re-open, we couldn’t put the children on the bus quick enough and decided there and then that home education wasn’t for us.

Our son started secondary school in September 2021, and although we bought the uniform and packed him off, the niggling question arose quite strongly: ‘Should we be homeschooling?’

We kept putting the idea off, after all we were far too busy working all the hours on the farm, and looking after baby twins, and school runs and the general business of the family life.  But the question wouldn’t go away. We kept putting it off as we both felt that neither of us were ‘natural’ teachers, the children didn’t like the idea when we mentioned it in passing, and we didn’t feel we could commit to the challenge.

Our village primary school has always been very sympathetic to our views and, in fact, they go above and beyond our desire to bring up our children in a Christian way. But our ever-growing concerns were with our local secondary school. The school itself wasn’t too bad, but the peer pressure was becoming a real concern, with our daughter taking the brunt of it.  Added to this our son was being bullied, and although we had been to see the head teacher concerning this, no real action was taking place. This then became a real worry to us both.

It was around this time that CViE held an online Meet-Up on home education – an evening open to all. We decided we would like to join in on the meeting, which was attended by around 70 people.  Armed with a piece of paper with lots of questions which we intended to ask, we listened to what was said from the participants and guest speakers. By the end of the meeting, having been so encouraged by people’s honesty and testimonies, we realised that we hadn’t asked any of our questions, but had come away realising that the one common theme that ran through the whole evening, was that in everything, we had to seek the Lord’s will and put Him first. This was sadly one thing we hadn’t done to this point with regard to the children’s secondary education.

We both made it a real matter of prayer, and although the thought of teaching our children at home seemed like a huge mountain, we believed that if the Lord clearly directed us in it, then we would be wrong to ignore it. Over the next few weeks we had some encouragements from the Lord, but nothing clear until one Sunday evening  we both felt a clear leading from the word that was taken by way of a text  And he led them on safely, so that they feared not, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. (Psalms 78:53)  This was so confirming to us both that we knew that although this mountain had just got even bigger, the Lord would help us and go before us just as He did for the children of Israel.

We told the children all that had taken place.  To begin with, they understandably had mixed emotions.  Our son was relieved as by now he was having real problems with bullying.  We informed the school in June that in September the children would no longer be coming to school. Shortly after this our son got so badly beaten up (resulting in two lads being temporarily excluded) that we decided to take him out of school there and then. This, although tough to go through, was another confirmation that we were doing the right thing.

With this in mind, we felt a calm that we could leave it all in the Lord’s hands.  We began looking into curriculums, other Christian home ed groups, and soon with the help of friends and families the wheels started turning. We were under no illusions that the pathway we were now on was going to be easy.  I think that a sense of failure seemed to fill our minds, “what if we just can’t cope? What if our children fail their exams? How will that reflect on us? How will we manage the everyday routines of running a home and giving enough attention to our younger children?” All these questions played on our minds, but we had to rest on His promise that He gave us and do as David did, he encouraged himself in the Lord.

It was such an encouragement for us both that after our two eldest children finished school for the summer holidays, they both fully came round to the idea of homeschooling, and although like us they have their apprehensions, they have met new Christian friends, realise they have more choice of school subjects which can be tailored to their interests, look forward to being in school without the enormous amount of peer pressure, and of course, no school uniform is always a bonus in their eyes!

With the dining room converted into a school room, textbooks coming through the post, stationery poised to be used, and the countdown of just days before starting, we are taking this step in faith, looking unto Jesus who has helped us hitherto …