High Level Planning for 2024/25

...or, what we're planning to learn in home ed

When I start planning out a new term of home education, I tend to stick to the UK school term dates. So a new year for us starts each September. However, although I might (roughly) plan what we’re going to do for the whole of the academic year, I fully expect this might change by the time we get to the New Year.

So, when I plan in more detail, I only really plan for the first term (September to December) but still allow for plenty of movement if a plan is not going well. Sometimes a topic takes a lot longer (or shorter) than I intended. Sometimes it just isn’t as interesting as I thought it might be, so we don’t continue it.

But I always spend the summer, drafting out what I intend for us to do for the full academic year. And for 2024/25, this looks like this:

• History - covering the Middle Ages/Medieval period

• Geography - continent by continent study

• Sciences - human anatomy, physics/engineering, periodic table/atoms

Within each of these main subjects, I include art, foreign languages, religious studies, music & cooking/handicrafts. And many, many living book readalouds.

These topics are taught as a group, to all the children.

Maths & English (taught as Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar, or SPaG) are taught at an individual level to each child, relevant to their age.

After I have planned out our year at a high level, I will then start to drill down to more detail for a term, for a month, for a week and then a daily plan.