If you’re thinking about homeschooling because mainstream school is no longer working for your child, you may be wondering where to start. Our move into home education wasn’t planned – it happened when our daughter was struggling, and suddenly we had to work out what to do next. This is our real-life experience of making that change.

Welcome to my blog. I’m Laura, a mum of 3, a wife and a freelance marketing manager. I decided to set up this blog to talk to anyone in the same situation as me, back in May 2024.

I’m not preaching to those who know homeschooling inside out – I’m not telling people that what I have done is the right way. I just know that on the day we made the decision to homeschool, I was overwhelmed with worry & anxiety. I had a million questions running around my head, no friends to turn to who were already doing it – and most importantly, a broken daughter who desperately needed help.

So here I am 18 months later, sat in a caravan (long story) the day before my daughters’ History Paper 2 iGCSE exam – in November. Not May, not June.. yes November of her Year 11 journey. Did you know you could take exams twice a year, in most subjects? I didn’t! But more on that later.

I want to talk to my former self – to help make sense of a scary situation and to share what I did, who helped me, ideas on where to go next. Most importantly to say, take a deep breath and don’t rush. School has this wonderful way of making you feel pressured. Pressured to get your children into school before you get attendance warnings and fines – pressure to complete assignments and exams. It won’t harm you or your child to take some time now you’ve made the decision to discover how you will approach homeschooling.

I am a people-pleaser. I like to conform and be seen to be doing the right thing so this new way was out of my depth. I also am someone who needs a lot of information, but structured in a helpful way otherwise I get too overwhelmed. So that’s my goal, to try and sensibly outline things I have done to help my daughter thrive. AND she really is thriving. I would absolutely not go back.

Please share this blog with anyone who might find it useful, I’ll try my best to share this information in helpful chunks. I have a happier daughter now- which was and is my only goal in this journey.

Love Laura x