Has anybody ever set up their schedule ...

[Luanne]

... for what they want their high schooler to do before graduating (meaning what is going to go on their transcript) ... having trouble articulating today (in case you didn't notice) ... anyway ... has anybody ever done this backwards? I have been racking my brain for months now trying to set up my daughter's high school schedule and finally decided maybe it would be easier if we (I want her input) figured out WHAT we want her to learn (accomplish) first, so I was thinking about making a rough transcript and then figure out HOW we are going to accomplish said goal. Has anybody else ever done it this way? How did it work for you? Do you have any tips I could keep in mind while going through this process?

[Cheryl B in VA]

For my senior I never wrote down his graduation requirements - they just stayed in my head. For ds2 I have met with him for "counseling" sessions and put together a couple of files clarifying his diploma requirements. I have tried to attach the files here. We'll see if that works!

[mamato4girls]

I am going to do that soon. My oldest DD will be in 9th in the fall, sorry not much more help!

[Nan in Mass]

I tried, but was so unsuccessful and frustrated that I finally did it backwards. My husband plans projects all the time and he said that is the normal way to do it. I did it for my son who is graduating next month, and I'm doing it now for my youngest. First I thought about what sort of adult I wanted them to be, then wrote those goals down. For example, I wanted them to keep a sense of hopefulness and wonder about the world. Then I thought about how to achieve those goals in a general sense. Some of this consisted of things not to do. So, for the wonder example, this is part of why I chose to do natural history rather than biology, not because I thought that knowing the nitty gritty of how life works destroys wonder, but because there often isn't time to study both the nitty gritty and the whole picture, and so, being forced to choose, I chose the whole picture. Then I thought about what books/projects would achieve that. So here is where I chose a curriculum, reading, and projects to do a year's worth of natural history. Then I chose what it would look like in conventional school terms, although I often had no intention of actually studying the subject that way. Mostly, this was a total guess because I had no idea how much we could or could not accomplish in a year. So for example, with Western Civilization, the end goal was to have an adult who understood that historical people are people with the same problems we have today. The plan to achieve that goal was to do great books TWTM way. The curriculum/books I chose meant that we would be reading Spielvogel's Western Civ over the course of 4 years. On the transcript that would look like 4 years of history. In actuality, as we went through the years, it became obvious that my son wasn't doing enough history to be worth 4 credits, so at some point, I modified the transcript to one year of Western Civilization, and one year of US History and Government. That one year was done a little bit every year for 4 years, but the transcript doesn't show that. The transcript is just a translation of my son's work into it's school equivalent. (And I explain that in the cover letter that goes with the transcript.)

 

Not so surprisingly, when I converted my goals for an adult into educational goals, and then into a concrete plan, it looked amazingly like TWTM. After all, we continue to use TWTM because it matches our goals GRIN. When I submitted my year's plan to the high school, I also submitted a tentative (the key word being tentative) plan for high school. Each year, this changed as I became more familiar with what this particular child could accomplish, and what his individual goal were. We began with 4 years of Latin, but wound up with 2 on the final transcript. We began with 4 years of history, but wound up with 2 plus Japanese Studies and Native American Studies instead. We began with a year of philosophy and wound up with two years of Peace Studies instead. And so on and so forth. Fortuantely, the school system hasn't seemed to mind that the plan has kept changing.

 

As long as you are willing to change that original plan as you go along, I think planning backwards is an excellent idea. I do think, though, that it is better to start even farther forward than just that final transcript. I think it is better to start with what sort of adult you want, then what sort of education would produce that adult, then what sort of reading and projects and courses would produce that education, and then do the transcript.

 

HTH

-Nan

[Sharon in MD]

I definitely did it for high school but really it went way back before that. Which is not to say that I think you have to start when they are in K or something! :glare:

 

But for high school we really started to seriously think about it in 6th grade....we thought about what is the end desired goal and worked it backwards. I also use the same method for the courses that I've developed myself as opposed the the ones I buy out of the box. It seems the only way I can really plan things.

 

I even do it when I am expecting house guests...start thinking about when they will arrive and work backwards to figure out how to get the house work clutter fixed in time...:lol:

 

Another thing that can help with this is just looking at several colleges minimum entrance requirements and the standard number of credits and college prep tracks at area schools. That helped me figure out how to distribute the credits and what was reasonable to expect to accomplish. This was important for me because I tend to try to cram too much into too small of a space...KWIM? I had to step back a bit and realize that it was not reasonable to try to do everything that I wanted to do.

 

Paper and pencil with a big eraser are your best tools!

[Luanne]

Thanks, Nan. I like the Natural History instead of Biology plan. I think my daughter will like it better as well. Do you mind if I ask you what you used for Natural History?

 

I do plan on being flexible with this and will make changes as needed. I just need a rough plan to work with or I am going to make myself crazy ... I am boardering on this already.

[kpupg]

Absolutely!

 

Here's how we did it for my 9th-grader-in-14 days:

 

-- Student's goal: college to study math

-- Look at a few college websites for admissions requirements. This will give you the main core of a transcript.

-- Look at state requirements, if you have them

-- Build a (very general) h.s. transcript to meet the requirements (e.g. 4 math credits, 3 social studies and one must be American history, etc.)

-- Make those course names more specific (e.g. 3 social studies credits becomes 1 world history, 1 american history, 1 government & econ)

-- Mix & match over 4 years (e.g. want to combine world history and world literature in the same year, don't do 2 sciences the same year)

-- Add in Mom's or student's or state's specific requirements

-- We also made a list of "cool-sounding" activities and/or courses that didn't necessarily bubble up in the above process as a pool of electives for future reference

 

-- All of this is documented in Word for easy access AND easy updating. My son's plan has already changed a couple of times, and he hasn't even started it yet LOL. It's just a working plan, not Scripture! BTW, we started this process a year ago, giving my son plenty of time to ponder.

 

Now, if you're not focusing on college-bound specifically, the start of the process will look a little different, Nan's being another example.

 

One tip -- don't think about curriculum for anything except the year that is coming up. Otherwise, you will be paralyzed in the process (ask me how I know LOL). Specific curriculum choices can wait.

 

It's actually easier than it sounds, and it gives you a great skeleton to work with -- and CHANGE as needful -- did I say, it's a working plan, not Scripture! :)

 

Oh, yeah, have fun with it, too!

Karen

[Storm Bay]

For my senior I never wrote down his graduation requirements - they just stayed in my head. For ds2 I have met with him for "counseling" sessions and put together a couple of files clarifying his diploma requirements. I have tried to attach the files here. We'll see if that works!

 

 

Which graduation requirements did you use? Local school district, state, college? This one still gets me confused.

[Nan in Mass]

I made sure that what we ended up for a plan with met college requirements (basically 4 years each of social studies, English, another language, math, and science), and our school systems, which was less in general than the college reqs but had a few odd things like a year of phys ed and some technology. I didn't look at state reqs, because I was meeting the town ones and I assume those meet the state ones. It turned out that it was going to take 4 years of each of those to meet our goals for a good adult, anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

 

I kept track of what we did in a notebook, and then when it came time to write the final transcript, I looked at what we did, divided it into subjects and courses, decided how many credits each was worth, and gave them descriptive names in order to try to make the transcript look like my son. Ellie says don't give descriptive names like Classical Literature and Analysis. She says it is better to say English 1. She has tons of experience, so you might want to consider what she says. You don't need to decide any of that until the end, probably. I gave the school system a list of work completed (which looked like 1/4 year of western civilizations, 1 year of algebra 2, etc., just doing the best I could with what we'd done), a progress report, a plan for next year, and a tentative plan for high school (which changed every year).

 

-Nan

[luv2quilt]

We lived in TN during most of my dd's high school and had to school under an umbrella school. They provided us with a worksheet that listed all the courses/hours needed to graduate. It was a great roadmap that kept us on target. Each year we filled in the courses that we were taking that year, so we could see the classes we were still missing.

[Storm Bay]

I made sure that what we ended up for a plan with met college requirements (basically 4 years each of social studies, English, another language, math, and science), and our school systems, which was less in general than the college reqs but had a few odd things like a year of phys ed and some technology. I didn't look at state reqs, because I was meeting the town ones and I assume those meet the state ones. It turned out that it was going to take 4 years of each of those to meet our goals for a good adult, anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

 

I kept track of what we did in a notebook, and then when it came time to write the final transcript, I looked at what we did, divided it into subjects and courses, decided how many credits each was worth, and gave them descriptive names in order to try to make the transcript look like my son. Ellie says don't give descriptive names like Classical Literature and Analysis. She says it is better to say English 1. She has tons of experience, so you might want to consider what she says. You don't need to decide any of that until the end, probably. I gave the school system a list of work completed (which looked like 1/4 year of western civilizations, 1 year of algebra 2, etc., just doing the best I could with what we'd done), a progress report, a plan for next year, and a tentative plan for high school (which changed every year).

 

-Nan

 

Thanks. I'll check the city ones & college ones again next year. I have no doubt that most, if not all, of what we're doing for next year is required (Geometry, English, foreign language, History [although we're doing Ancient history, but I'll just call it World History I or something close to whatever they say]), logic (not sure where to put that), Chemistry, etc.

 

The next thing to figure out is the whole credit thing. The school district doesn't do 1 credit per class the way I've read about in some posts here (or 1/2 credit or 1/4 credit). I may just go to their website and glean off of that; the question is, will it translate to the colleges dd applies to?

[Nan in Mass]

You make a note at the bottom of the transcript saying that 5 credits is equal to one year's work in one class (or whatever your school system uses), so colleges know how to interpret the transcript. You also usually send a cover letter. I explained how I defined a year's work, how and why we homeschooled, and other details like that in the cover letter.

[Storm Bay]

You make a note at the bottom of the transcript saying that 5 credits is equal to one year's work in one class (or whatever your school system uses), so colleges know how to interpret the transcript. You also usually send a cover letter. I explained how I defined a year's work, how and why we homeschooled, and other details like that in the cover letter.

 

Thanks! High school is going to involve a lot more administrative work than I like to do, but do it I must.

[LoriM]

I developed a "Five year Plan" with my 13 year old, and figured out in advance how far she'd go with her Latin, when she'd pick up Spanish, what Literature/History we'd cover each year, and wrote some clear "by the age of 15, I will be able to" kinds of goals. Now she's turning 20, getting married in 8 months, and graduating from college in December. I never would have believed my "Five Year Plan" was really only a "Seven Years until she's a married adult" plan!!!

 

So, I highly encourage you to not only put all the academic stuff on there, but fit in the real-life stuff too. And make sure you allow time for that. My dd requested study abroad (which she did), a couple of mission trips (which she did), parttime jobs (actually, that was OUR requirement--she'd have been happy never to work! LOL!), and a driver's license. We spent some time teaching her to cook, to do her own laundry, to pump her own gas (!) and get her registered to vote. You know...growing up.

 

We had no trouble having more than enough credits to graduate--like Nan said, she did math, English (grammar, literature, and writing), foreign language, science with lab, history, electives, plus art and music, every single year. So certainly her work was sufficient for college entry. It was just my job to figure out how to document all of it on a transcript there at the end. :)