News — lessons

School represents a significant chapter in your child’s life, spanning 12 years where their primary goal is to learn. Tackling such a lengthy and important project should not be done haphazardly. Instead, focus on creating structure and organisation in your child’s educational environment, especially in the early years when your involvement as a teacher is most prominent. Instilling organised, methodical habits early on can set the stage for long-term success. Start With Structure At the beginning of each school year, ensure your child’s materials are prepared and easily accessible. Gather their stationery, books, and other resources, and designate a special,...

Mathematics was always one of my favourite subjects at school. I enjoyed puzzles and subjects with a fixed set of rules that could be learned and applied to practical problems. Unlike essay-based subjects, where marks might be deducted for leaving out one of many points or for not phrasing answers perfectly, maths felt fair and logical. Unfortunately, mathematics as a subject has never had a good reputation. Many parents inadvertently pass on their own loathing for maths to their children, or children hear from peers that “math is difficult,” “boys are better at maths than girls,” or “I can’t do maths.”...

When sitting in a mainstream school classroom, children are used to the teacher standing upfront and being centre-stage. The teacher presents the lesson, explains all the information they need to know, re-explains it in different ways if children don't understand and needs to make sure that they keep the children's attention. So they need to be engaging and sometimes even entertaining!  Even in a homeschool setting, the parent often feels like they need to play centre-stage and everything the child learns needs to be filtered through the parent and presented in some easy-to-understand package.  Charlotte Mason disagreed with this view. She felt...

                  In most schools, children are required to spend an hour on average paying attention to a lesson focused on one subject area. At a certain point, most children start getting fidgety or bored, or their attention wanders off simply because the lesson is too long. Charlotte Mason believed that children should only be required to give focused attention to one subject for a short period of time, before taking a break or moving on to a different subject altogether.  For 6-year olds this meant lessons were generally no more than 15 minutes long. As the child got older...