Even here in the UK, the amount of contact varies so much per subject too even when looking at the same university. http://www.cherwell.org/news/2010/11/26/the-great-subject-divide I have looked at Chemistry and the amount of contact hours and labs are scary across many universities. The Imperial College one is known to be punishing and gets very low firsts. I met a Chemistry student at Oxford who says he does 80 hours weeks, on top he also dedicates hours to his flute. Not surprisingly Chemistry also gets the highest number of dropouts at Oxford http://www.cherwell.org/news/2011/03/03/chemistry-top-for-dropouts

Thank you all for your replies. My daughter is becoming much more independent however I do feel that perhaps we still should be doing more together. She has some high school students who she works with and help her in Maths and Science. She thinks she doesn't need much of my help. I let her get on with it, she sits with me on the table doing her own work and I don't interfere. I just feel like I don't know much now as I haven't or can't keep up with all her work. I panic a bit and do wonder is she in on track for her exams as I am longer involved as I was. Maybe I should look at it as a positive thing and just accept she is growing.

I am just wondering how much responsibility they have over their daily study. Once you have chosen the curriculum, do you sit with them and see what they are doing? I just want to get an idea of how much involved you are with their day to day work. How do they study? I have a 14 year old daughter and I am just trying to gauge how much responsibility should be on her shoulder. I do find suitable curriculum and resources. It is beyond that I am wondering how much involved you or they are daily. For subject like math, science or literature or even languages, do you just leave them with a book? Do they mark their own work? or do you perhaps show them what needs to be done. What if your child is getting to a point where you aren't very comfortable teaching or showing them? I need to arrange and find a more effective way of managing our daily lives. As we are in UK, she has exams to sit next January but I don't think we have hit the right study spot yet. Any suggestion and ideas welcome.

Wonderful, well done to Calvin!

Good luck to your son Laura. Just out of interest why did he chose IB and how has he found it so far? I have heard Universities are notorious for demanding high points which don't equate to A levels at all so I am just curious as we are starting to think about my daughter going into school for 6th form. I hope you don't mind me asking but how many IB points are the likes of York and Warwick demanding? There is a school near me that gets super IB results but it has many international students and the student who gave us a tour told us that they sometimes pull all nighters. It kind of made me freak out a bit about IB compared to A levels. Does Calvin want to study Classics or English at Oxford? Classics seems to have a much higher success rate but presumably more stellar candidates since most will be from indies too. Keep calm and carry on till the 8th!

Huh you guys in America are so fortunate. My house is about 600 sq ft and it is pretty much a standard 2 bed house and I home school in it and no need for anything extra to get us space. Ideally a bigger house would be nice but that would cost an arm and a leg and for most of us across the Atlantic, the dinning table serves many purposes if you even have one. :drool: My dinning table is actually in the living room by the way! I don't know of a single home schooling family with dedicated room for home schooling. They few who have a separate dinning room tend to use if for home schooling but these tend to be small and pokey so for most of us, the work is done in the living room or kitchen tables. You just need good storage and we have an Ikea here where we get these from including bookshelves that fit in odd small places. Perhaps these things will be harder for you to source there as you generally have massive square footage but here in UK these are sold in abundance. Average home being built in Britain now is 925 sq ft just to give you some perspective from us used to living in shoe box sized houses. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398714/The-incredible-shrinking-houses-British-homes-built-just-HALF-size-1920s.html

I know there are some bloggers and perhaps freelance writers here and just wanted to find out how onecan learn to write well for an informal audience like a blog. You know there are some bloggers who write so well and put things so eluquontly. They have good headline that draw you in to read the blog. How can a soon to be 14 year old child learn these skills? My daughter isn't very keen on english but she loves writing informally and she has a blog. She was wondering how she can write some good headings for her blog and I just thought perhaps I could find something to help her. Are there any blog post or some books that you have come about that explain this or is it a case of just learning from the good blogs one finds?

Just across the channel from you. Waving to say hello from England.

Personally if I had to choose between a computer and a tablet. It would be a computer. Tablet is just more of a toy where we do fun things. School work always gets done 90% on my laptop and 10% on the tablet.

Hi HappyChaos I am another UK Homeschooling mum to a soon to be teenage girl. I too enjoyed the book but don't necessarily follow it to the core but we more are structured in our approach. I have a 4 and half year old too and surely at that age its all phonics, a little this and that??? Oh and the family and friends bit is just one of the things I live with. Every time I hit a snag and tell my family, immediate solution is for them to tell me that if I feel that way then its perhaps better if they are in school. I am just learning to grit my teeth and not say much to them now. Have you looked at some of those home ed yahoo group to see if there are any local activities to you? That may hopefully fulfill the social side of things.

Hi I am planning on starting a speech and debate club for 11+ for our home group and wonder if any of you have any ideas on what I can do to make it lively yet useful. Do you have any recommended resources that I can look at too? Many thanks

Oh dear me, I feel like a fat pig now after entering my results in the poll {walks off sobbing}

12 year old that make her a 7th grader I think. We focus on 3 main subjects: Maths, English and Science and do these in the mornings between 9-12 Monday to Thursday. Friday is activities but she does Maths first. The other subjects; we just fill them in the afternoon and we are normally done by 2pm and latest 3pm. Weekly it is Maths 5x 1 hour English 4x I hour Science 4x 1 hours Then we have roughly 5 hours weekly for History, Geography, Art and other bits. She also has spanish online tutor for 2 x 1 hour sessions. Reading is about 30mins a night. We don't follow the timetable religiously, in our home group there are outings sometimes midweek and we just go for it. In October there is an art and craft group that she will be doing every Thursday so that effectively leaves us with 3 days for academic curriculum What we never miss is Maths, we always have to find time to fit it in but can't say the same for the rest.

I have to dose myself several times a day with some English hot tea or coffee otherwise I would be brain dead ;)

I painted a TV cabinet, coffee table and a stand using chalk paint. It is the easiest and needs no sanding when you use it. I used the Anne Sloane paint, slightly price but well worth it if you are doing the job herself. Its been 6 months now and the paint has stood the test of time esp my coffee table. Varnish is required to make sure the paint last and Anne Sloane has its own range. I really like my new look furniture and so I would say DO IT, unless its very expensive furniture that you don't want ruined.