Teens

Young people taking part in the first EngineerED Lab in Ashbourne with STEM Venturi founder Holly Da

Free engineering courses for home educated teens in Derbyshire

Fully funded EngineerED Labs for neurodivergent home educated young people

A new fully funded engineering programme is giving neurodivergent home educated young people in Derbyshire the chance to get hands-on with electronics, CAD, coding and product design.

STEM Venturi has launched its new EngineerED Labs programme following a further £15,000 of funding from the Sanjay Mortimer Foundation....

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Home educated teenager with no motivation? What can help

What to do when your 13 to 16-year-old teen seems interested in everything except education, from gaming and screens to motivation, GCSE pressure and growing independence.

There is a particular kind of home education panic that seems to arrive somewhere in the teenage years. Your child used to have interests. They made things. Asked questions. Read books. Watched documentaries. Became briefly...

There is more than one route after 16 for home educated teenagers

What can home educated teenagers do after 16? UK guide

College, apprenticeships, qualifications and other routes. A practical guide to post-16 options for home educated teenagers in England, including college, A levels, vocational courses, apprenticeships, Functional Skills, work and continuing home education.

One of the worries that creeps in as home educated children become teenagers is what happens at 16.

When they are eight or nine,...

Home education and GCSEs: preparing for exams without losing the plot

A practical guide to GCSE preparation for home-educated young people

GCSEs have a peculiar effect on otherwise sensible parents. One minute learning is centred around the young person and their interests. Then suddenly, somebody has bought forty highlighters, opened a spreadsheet and announced that Tuesday at 10.15 am is now “simultaneous equations”. I have taught maths for over 15 years, so...

The Inner Compass review: a parent and teen programme for home educators

The Inner Compass review: a shared journey through values, purpose and personal growth. My honest first look. I've tried the free Courage & Vulnerability taster with my son. I have not yet reviewed the complete nine-month programme, so I will update this article when I have seen more of the full materials.

Disclosure : This article is part of a paid collaboration with The Inner Compass ....

Moving from interest-led learning to GCSE preparation without losing what works

How home-educated teens can move from interest-led learning to IGCSEs or GCSEs

For years, learning may have felt quite natural.

Your child became fascinated by a subject and followed it as far as they wanted. A question about volcanoes turned into Geography, Science and documentary watching. An interest in Greek myths led to reading, writing and History. Maths appeared in baking,...

Sailing experiences for home educated teens with Morning Star Trust

Taking home education to sea with Morning Star Trust

Have you ever thought about taking home education to sea?

For many young people, sailing offers something that is hard to recreate on land: real responsibility, practical learning, teamwork, problem-solving, and the chance to see the world from a completely different perspective.

Morning Star Trust is a Christian sail...

Inspire to Learn IGCSE Biology Hub review

Inspire to Learn IGCSE Biology Hub | a home education journey

Our home education journey with the Sparking STEM Inspire to Learn IGCSE Biology Hub

For many home ed families, science at IGCSE level can feel like a crossroads. Children may love the subject, but the exam pathway can feel daunting. Parents often find themselves wondering how to keep curiosity alive while also keeping future options open. Structure can help. Pressure rarely does. This year...

Are exams harming teenagers? Naomi Fisher questions the system

Exams are very strange by Naomi Fisher Do we really want our teenagers to spend their adolescence on a conveyor belt of high stakes exams?

What a strange thing we do to our young people in this culture and time.

We make them spend several years learning things that they often have no interest in, that they have not chosen and that they will in many cases never use again. We tell them...

GCSEs and IGCSEs for home educated students: UK Guide

How to choose qualifications, find an exam centre, book as a private candidate and avoid some of the common GCSE mistakes home educating families make.

Thinking about GCSEs when you home educate can feel bewildering at first. There is no school handing you a list of subjects, choosing the exam board, making the entries and telling you where to turn up. Instead you encounter specifications,...