Homeschooling academy: create one of your own

The term ‘academy’ tends to be used within education as a marker of either prestige or specialisation. So how might parents combine elements of academy-style learning to create a personalised homeschooling academy for their children?

Firstly, what differentiates an academy from a school?

Including ‘academy’ in a high school’s name often indicates that a school is privately funded – and let’s face it, probably expensive and almost certainly exclusive. It brings to mind crisp uniforms, tiny classes and opulent libraries – think Constance Billard School on the TV drama Gossip Girl or the elite conservative boarding school Welton Academy where the action of Dead Poets Society takes place. While these on-screen schools are fictional, they bear some resemblance to real-life high school academies: small schools where students benefit from passionate teachers and tiny teacher-student ratios, a challenging and engaging curriculum, all while going on plenty of school trips. Come to think of it, an ‘academy’ sounds an awful lot like a high-quality homeschool program – just without the hefty price tag.

Ponder the pedagogical approaches 

How boring would homeschool be if a child was simply reading through a textbook and answering questions on the content, day in, day out? While this style may suit some learners to a tee, research shows that certain teaching strategies have a higher impact on learning.

Educators call such strategies ‘pedagogical approaches’. If ‘curriculum’ is what a student learns, pedagogy is how a student learns it. And as home educators become more experienced, and see the impact of certain pedagogies on a child’s achievement, you will figure out which strategy to employ, and when to employ it. No matter the age or stage, it’s important to ensure that learning takes place in a variety of forms. 

A high quality homeschool resource should offer a student multiple exposures to content through quizzes and activities, model key skills, deconstruct exemplars and provide worked examples. Here’s where it pays to trial a learning platform. While free online teaching resources can provide easy access to content, they may be quite simplistic in the delivery of the content, or only offer a single learning strategy.

Lots of these free apps and online programs are useful, but they cannot replace direct instruction. After all, our brains are wired to learn from other humans. EP homeschooling resources include plenty of actual lessons, developed and delivered by curriculum experts. Students can watch a teacher work through a maths problem, explain the steps of a science experiment or conjugate a verb. 

Explore EP’s broad range homeschooling resources – written by curriculum experts

Ask about achievement and progress

When comparing resources, inquire as to how achievement is measured, and whether it is easy to report on.

While homeschooling can extend students beyond traditional curriculums, it is also important to stay on top of the requirements for students’ expected level of educational attainment. After all, homeschooled high schoolers will eventually need to sit nationally aligned assessments to gain a recognized qualification.

A quality online learning platform should have clear achievement indicators built into the resource framework, with the ability to check off objectives as they are met by home learners.

The great thing about using an online platform to keep these records is that real time information is available about a child’s progress. Instead of finding out months down the line that your child is not achieving at the expected standard, the platform will flag any issues and support you to rectify them as you go. 

With the current rise in homeschooling around the world, parents are increasingly looking for robust and trustworthy online teaching resources. When navigating the storm of information, keep focused on the three aspects that matter: curriculum (what is taught), pedagogy (how it’s taught) and achievement (are students achieving the intended outcomes?)

Find out more about using EP’s homeschooling resources to create personalised education programs