I like to have a “default” go to plan for most things – default curriculum, default weekly checklist, default timetable, etc. However I like flexibility as well so I don’t stick to that plan when I have something better in mind, when we have a busy week with lots of out of home activities, we need a break from the normal, or any other reason for doing something different. The default plan is there to provide us with a structure and regular routine, but we still have the freedom to take a break from it whenever we need to.
It’s important you have a plan (it’s a must if you register for home schooling), but plans are not there to hinder your creativity or stop you from exploring different ways of doing things. They’re simply there to provide you with a guideline on what to do next on days when you don’t have the mental capacity to come up with something new and wonderful.
Short & Long Term Planning Tips for Your Home School
I’m finding it useful to have a rough, long term plan to check back on when doing short term planning. I only really refer to the syllabus for long term (stage) planning and the occasional check to see how we are travelling. Year, term and week plans are then based on that. Saves me having to look at the syllabus too many times…. I generally do my stage plans before inspection, refresh my brain on what is required, fill a few gaps if needed and make an effort to plan the next stage based on the syllabus.
Stage Plans
The NSW syllabus is organized in stages instead of grades. One stage covers two grades (exception: kindergarten = Early Stage 1). For example Grade 3 & 4 are taught in Stage 2, Grade 7 & 8 in Stage 4, etc. When you plan your curriculum, check the outcomes / content of each stage and prepare a program, which, over two years, covers the content of that particular stage. The stage plan can simply be a list of workbooks you intend to use, books you plan to read, projects you want to complete, etc., as well as some reference to the syllabus showing that your curriculum will cover what is required.
Sometimes it is difficult to understand outcomes and it helps to read the content relating to each outcome. Stage statements are also helpful for better understanding. They are basically a summary of outcomes, which need to be achieved in each stage. Outcomes are often very vague, which gives you the freedom to develop a program which suits the needs of your student.
From my experience, stage plans are helpful when going through the registration process. If you organize your plan in a way that clearly shows you are familiar with the syllabus and are planning your curriculum based on outcomes or stage statements you shouldn’t have any issues. I use Program Builder, a tool developed buy NESA, to create my stage plans. Program Builder makes it super easy to integrate outcomes into your plan. See more on that here.
Year & Term Plans
At the beginning of each year I look at the stage plan, decide what needs to be done, what we can leave out, what we want to replace, etc. Then I divide the work into quarters. We aim to complete a quarter of the work in 3 months or a term. When we take holidays doesn’t really matter. How many days off we take doesn’t really matter either. And if we don’t complete it all, well, it doesn’t really matter either. But at least I know how much we were “meant” to do and I can re-adjust my plan early in the year and cancel some stuff of lesser importance instead of stressing at the end of the year because we didn’t get things done we really should have. As the year goes by you’ll find that lots of things you have included in your plan for later in the year are no longer necessary or relevant because your student just happened to learn it on his own or you have attended an amazing community event that just covered so many outcomes that you really no longer need to formally cover it (unless, of course, your student is really interested and keen to learn heaps more about it.) Simplify as much as you can!
I find that the more I “formalize” learning, the less keen my kids are about it. We have come from having a program for each key learning area, through a period of unschooling due to near burn out, to now having a set program for math and English with a few random bits chucked in to cover other subjects. My job is to provide opportunities and teach the basic skills so that our kids are able to understand and process information they come across. We have subscriptions to various online learning platforms, a huge selection of books collected from opp shops and book fests, educational toys like Lego, K’Nex, logic games, science kits, etc. We attend community events and workshops, live on a small hobby farm raising animals and growing vegetables and fruit. We are in the process of building our own house. All that contributes to the education our kids are receiving in our home school. Most of what they learn is not structured, planned or organized in units. A lot of it is hard to even record. But I know our kids are learning heaps. Every now and then I get a glimpse inside the brain of one of them telling me about some amazing discovery or fact they have learned. Lots of it I could have never taught them as I didn’t know about it myself.
Week Plans
My week plans include a timetable and checklists, which are meant to be a help, a guide only. Flexibility is very important to us, so if we have a good reason not to follow that guide, then we don’t. But I have found that having a regular structure is helpful in creating good habits and keeping us on track.
Following the concept of GTD I try to group our activities into types of action instead of subjects. Action types could be “at computer”, “with Mum”, “out of home”, “quiet time”, “no sibling distraction”, instead of English, Math, Science, etc. Each time period may still include different activities but the main “setting / action” is the same to eliminate transition issues.
Planning Tools
There are a range of wonderful tools out there that can make planning for your home school a whole lot easier. I use a mix of apps, online programs and paper based planners. More on planning tools and how to best use them here.
