This instalment of the home school crash course focuses on the resources we are using to backfill our daughter’s arts education. When I was in Primary School, art was presented as a field dominated by talent. It was a simple categorisation: You were either born with innate skill or not. As a kid who struggled to colour within the lines and the only one in their year to never get a ‘pen licence’, I got placed in the ‘without talent’ group almost immediately.

In the last episode I wrote about how the home school approach we have taken allows us to draw upon the best curricula from around the world. It’s a system that ensures we are ‘certified’ by the Australian educational system, but not limited by it. It’s a bit sad that we have to compensate for the educational system here, but the reality is that the performance of Australian schools has become horrifying. By the time Australian kids hit fifteen, their literacy skills are a full year behind their Singaporean peers.

For the remaining parts of the crash course I’m going to dig into the resources we use to backfill our daughter’s education. This edition focuses on Mathematics.

In Part 1 of the Crash Course I wrote about how small incremental changes can help wedge this new educational ‘mode’ into your household, hopefully without wigging your kid out in the process. As you make small incremental changes, it’ll be tempting to recreate a traditional class setting in your home. That certainly seems to be the aim of many distance education providers. You have a ‘tutor’ (maybe it’s a parent, or a video link to a teacher) and they stand in front of your child for a few hours and instruct: “Do this, do that.

I know right? What a shitshow. But this article is not about that; the why. This is about the how. Because right now, you might be finding yourself in a situation where you are unexpectantly running a home school for your kids. Now before we get into this, I need to make it clear: I’m no expert. I don’t have a degree in teaching and I have only been home schooling my daughter for four months.