Leaving it to the professionals...

Well I have finally admitted defeat and decided to give up some of my home ed responsibilities to the professionals.  We have been in a rut, educationally, for about a year and it was beginning to have an affect on family relationships and my sanity lol; I knew something had to be done but all my efforts and discussions with the kids came to nothing.  I was making so much dua about it all as I didn't know what to do next; I felt that state school wasn't an option for us and I couldn't affort private schooling [not that that's much better!]; then, by the grace of Allah ta'ala a couple of opportunities sprung up from nowhere alhamdulillah.

The first was a home school group run by the library that is open to suggestions for session activities and wants to 'cater for individual needs' - more about that in the next post God willing.  The other was a private tutoring service providing Maths, English and Science tuition; the upshot is that I have registered the 3 younger ones for the morning session on Mondays [they will do 1 hour of each subject] and Lego will go on Saturday and Sunday for 2 hours per day to do Maths and Science.  This will all kick off this Saturday when Lego begins his classes inshaAllah.  The service is run by a husband and wife team mashaAllah.  They are both teachers and have lots of teaching experience and the sister was very understanding of my situation and is willing to fit in with our needs, they have a max class size of 12 and they don't believe that sitting down with a text book is the best way to learn alhamdulillah [those of you that know me will know that this will be a great relief to me, lol].  On top of this the lessons are extremely reasonable at only £2.50-3 per hour, based on age!  How fab is that mashaAllah?


On the down side I do feel a bit of a hypocrite doing this as I have been, and still am, a strong advocate of home education and would always encourage people to give Home Ed a go but I am just tired and need to recharge my batteries a little!  I know some of you will be shocked at all this revelation so in order to defend myself I would like to point out that I have no family around me to help, other than my husband, who is unable to help with the HEd, and I work part time in addition to the normal woman of the house stuff we all have to do. I also suffer from a long term illness that effects my energy levels etc.  SubhanAllah, did that sound like whinging....sorry, I don't mean to whine just state my case - a couple of people almost fell off their chairs when they found out LOL!

We had got to a stage where the children and I were on different wave lengths and we couldn't get back our learning mojo that was lost during and after my diagnosis.  I did continue to educate through the illness and beyond but it was a continual battle with no time to take a breather.  I think the kids and I need a bit of time away from each other to get our mojo back and these two ventures will just about do it I think God Willing.  It will allow me not to have to think about what to teach as we can base it on what they are doing with their tutors and the homework they set.  We also have the activities at the library which we can work from too and I am also hoping to incorporate a project that we all work on together God willing - but we won't begin this for a week or two to allow us to get into a routine!

We are all looking forward to our new programme of education [although the kids have been talking about the impact it will have on their 'free' time LOL] and it has already lifted some stress from the house; we are having more fun together already and I have more energy and enthusiasm for the little things that I want to teach them like reading, spelling, crafts etc.

Please remember me and my family in your duas as well as all the home educators out there, who give so much, may Allah ta'ala give us ease and guidance in the task raising our children for His pleasure. Ameen.