Ben was at school for a year but off sick a lot - I think he was too young at 4 and got exhausted = and | found he learned more at home. When. ‘we moved to another part of the country, | used the move as an opportunity to Keep him out of school, and it was such @ success that | did the same thing for Tabitha. At first | was very formal about it and had fixed hours, but | soon telaxed. We've got books for maths and English that tie in to the National Curriculum, whieh children follow at school, but we also do a lot of topic work on things that interest them. Tabitha follows a curriculum called Primary Maths, and Ben follows the Bobby Moore Schoo! of Football Maths Book, which makes the subject fun. Now we might start off with a bit of maths and then write to a pen friend end then go to the shops. | don't consciously tum a shopping tip into a lesson but when we get back, I'l realise they have learnt things like maths, geography and even issues such as fair trading, We meet up with other home educators through a parents’ group. We go on outings orjust get together in our free time to relax together. ‘Other people I've talked to say home-educated children are less likely to be stroppy teenagers, perhaps because they're isn't the same peer pressure. Certainly, my two are at ease in adult company and seem to be well-balenced people. Mind you, if they really wanted to go to schol, | wouldn't stop them. We made a conscious decision, long before they. were due to start, not to send the twins to ‘school. We realised that they would be sent away for their education, that we would say oodbye to them at half past seven and not see ‘them again till something like half past four; just like business people. Itjust didn’t seem right for us to be passing the responsibility of bringing up our children on to somebody else. Maybe we're just different from other people, but it seems perfectly normal and healthy to have our family all together at home until they've grown up. | actually used to work as a teacher, so educating my own children Is second nature tome Even as a former teacher I'm inclined to think that some of what chilcren do at school, from a stvictly learning point of view, is unnecessery. Like groupwork, for example. Cut that out by teaching at home and we can give our children the individual attention they need, and teke short cuts towards what they really need to know. The Kids are happy, pleasant individuals, with plenty of triends. | couldn't say if they're more or less sociable than other kids, because I'm biased! It's dificult to say how they'd match Up with thelr friends if they took a schoo! test. I think they're OK as far as reading end wnting are concerned, but they might not do eo well in maths. My husband and | feel that the kids are still too young, at 6 end 8 to grapple with mathematical concepts. So we do try and ration this old favourite, for the moment. At the moment there's still plenty of time, and above all, plenty of time still to play and enjoy life. za TEST 1, PAPER 1