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Home-schooling can be much more effective than formal education if the parent and child are both engaged in learning. We used this method of educating our child for nearly a year when our family was in a transition from one Country to another. Although our daughter is now in a very good local school, it's a small primary school that ends at level 6 (5th grade) and she's made it clear that she wants to go back to home-school and not secondary school (junior high)... She looked at me with tears in her eyes just this evening and said "Mom, if it wasn't for dance and drama, I'd want to come back to home-school right now..." then she asked if we could begin home-schooling next term and I told her she should finish her last year at the primary school "...Okay, but then we're definitely going to home-school after that right?..."

She's keen and in a way I suppose that's a real compliment to our little home-school that our only pupil is pushing to come back. I'll give you an example of our home-school experience so you can judge for yourself:

History was studied by writing a time-line on a poster which is tacked onto a wall in our 'study area'. On the poster is each century that this country has been in existence. In each century major battles that have been won and lost, as well as historically and culturally significant places are written down, then studied on-line/book-stores and library visits... then we hop into the car towing a caravan (trailer) to visit the place and inspect it through informed/interested eyes. It was fun exploring castles, buildings, beaches and fields imagining the gory battles or the riveting events that occurred in some of them. History is concrete... we tie it in with visits to significant buildings of the period of history that we're studying and take photos/draw pictures so that we have a clear idea of exactly why an Elizabethan dwelling is different from an Edwardian house and how to tell a Georgian piece of furniture from an Queen Anne piece of furniture... We watch history programs on the BBC and often get ideas of places to visit from the shows and have frank discussions around the dinner table every evening about everything from plumbing to tools that were available prior to and after the industrial revolution. Our child is 10-years-old, it's amazing what kids can understand and take an interest in if it's presented in a fun, engaging manner.

Science is studied by family visits to a local aviary followed up by searching thorough a huge

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