UK Home education resources


I've pulled together a list of my favourite UK home educating resources. This is not exhaustive.

Please feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.
This particular list does not include individual blogs. I have a separate post about these.
In addition, I have purposely omitted individual books in the interest of brevity!

This only includes UK sites. There are many, many useful sites across the Pond and like many other home educators here, I go on the forums and occasionally, pluck up courage to pay lots of postage! However, there is plenty of help here including some people who conveniently import from the US.

Many but not all of the sites are Christian. Whist these are sites that I have used, I do not claim any responsibility for the contents of any of these sites.

Home education groups


  • The Deut6v7 yahoo group is one of the most helpful resources. This is a specifically Christian, UK home educating group. 



  • Most areas have Google or Yahoo groups for local home educators. Most of these will have people of very mixed philosophies but can be a useful resource about local events.


  • Facebook has many home education groups but the Christian Home Educators UK group is very active. 
Home education organisations and sites




  • Paula Rothermel has researched UK Home Education. Her work is a decade old but is some of the precious little research on the subject.

  • Fiona Nicholson campaigns for UK home educators. Her site includes the latest on government thinking.

Suppliers

  • Conquest Books are a family based business who sell home education materials and other books. They sell Apologia, Five in a Row and Artistic Pursuits amongs others. Their delivery tends to be fast.

  • Ichthus Resources sells a wide range of home education materials including Singapore maths and science. 

  • Galore Park sells curriculum mainly designed for private schools. They are home education friendly and are used by many UK home educators. We particularly like their maths books.

  • The technology shop is based at a London Primary school but sells a rather eclectic range of items from pulleys and propellers to googly eyes and small kits.

  • The Book People have discount books. We have done particularly well with books around art.

  • Schofield and Sims sell workbooks and posters. We use them for mental maths. Our almost four year old world map came from them. The posters are printed on heavy paper and need to be attached to walls with velcro pads.

  • Cambridge Latin Course supplies the Latin course that we use but also has extensive cultural background material and as well as vocabulary and grammar quizzes on the website.

  • Skoldo produces primary French and Spanish resources including song downloads.

  • Northstar Worldwide is a UK based Christian secondary age on-line learning site. They have courses for GCSEs and IGCSEs as well as catering for younger secondary age pupils.


  • Civitas have produced a Core Knowledge curriculum which has an interesting table showing the curriculum by year from year 1 to 6.

  • Rainbow books sell the Maxwell family books. I've used Managers of their Homes which is a helpful and detailed introduction to scheduling. 

  • Branch Out World is run by a UK home educator who produces picture book studies of books easily obtainable, think Dogger and Katie Morag, in the UK.

  •  CIMT is the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching. They produce a free maths curriculum called Mathematics Enhancement Programme. In reality, this isn't quite free as workbooks need to either be printed or purchased.

  • Prim-Ed produces National Curriculum related resources for the primary years.

  • Toe by Toe is the website for the UK manual of the same name. This is a manual for teaching struggling readers to read. It is a no frills approach which is designed to be used by parents with their children.
Trips

This section is generic not related to any particular part of the UK.
  • Kids in Museums advocates for younger visitors to museums. They have a manifesto and a list of those organisations that have signed up to this. This organisation is also worth approaching should you, perish the thought, discover a museum that is not child friendly.


  • National Trust manages historic homes and gardens. They offer reduced membership to home educating families although unless you never want to visit during school holidays, bank holidays or weekends, it is probably better to consider family membership.

  • The Woodland Trust has maps of woodland open to the public. Don't miss their Nature Detective site which has many free activities for children. Most of these activities don't require a trip further than the garden or the local park.


Educational Sites
  • Home Educators don't need to follow the National Curriculum but it can be useful to have an eye on this.

  • Woodlands Resources is a site covering various aspects of the National Curriculum (mainly KS1 and KS2) and more besides.

  • The BBC Schools site has some resources. I prefer the primary part of the site. My younger children enjoy the language area.

  • School physics has explanations aimed at different age groups and in different degrees of depth. 

  • Royal Institution's RI Channel has science videos including of its famous Christmas lectures.


  • Nrich is a maths site with challenges and fun maths for ages from Lower Primary to Upper Secondary. They aim to "enrich the experience of the maths curriculum for all learners".

  • IXL is an international organisation but with a UK specific maths practice site.


Added value


  • Booktime distributes a book bag with a couple of books to reception age children each year. Home educators can apply using this form.

  • World maths, literacy and  science day are hosted each year by World Education Games. These are free to enter although Matheletics runs the games and obviously gets publicity.

  • Grow your own potatoes is designed for primary schools but home educators, with children in the relevant age group, are able to register and enter the competition for heaviest potatoes. 


  • The Royal British Legion produces a free learning pack for educators. This includes DVDs and a poster. The DVDs have sections on both the First and Second World Wars and there is a guide as to suitability for different age groups.

  • The James Dyson Foundation produce Challenge cards which contain 52 science, technology and maths challenges. These are free to educators and use materials found around the house. They also have engineering and ideas boxes out on loan. We haven't tried the boxes yet!

  • Shakespeare Week-this supports an annual Shakespeare week aimed at primary aged children but has a list of useful resources for teaching younger children about the Bard.

  • Poetry Line has poems by various modern poets including some clips of poets reciting their own poetry.


Over to you. What would you add?

7 comments:

  1. Hi Crew buddy, neat to find this post today on Pinterest. :) I'm following you now on BlogLovin.
    I would love to connect in with UK Homeschool Groups, as my heritage is all British Isles, and we feel more drawn to adding a more British flavour to our homeschool resources etc. Do you have any recommendations?
    Bless you, from Victoria

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Victoria,

      You might enjoy the Christian Home educators UK group on Facebook.
      In terms of adding a British flavour to resources, you might like to look at Our Island Story. I've written about studying the UK monarchy http://weshallobtaindeliveringgrace.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/learning-about-english-monarchy.html.
      Hope this is useful but feel free to ask if you would like more recommendations.

      Delete
  2. Thank you for this resource. We are getting ready to move to the UK. Where we live now in the US is full of homeschoolers and I worry about being on my own without the resources I am used to. I will defineyly refer to your blog often.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope the move goes well. There seem to be increasing numbers of home educators here so you won't be alone even if there aren't quite as many of us as there would be in the US.

      Delete
  3. Hi Sarah, great blog! Love your list of resources. I have recently left my teaching job and am in the process of developing a series of resources for home educators with the aim of equipping young people with Biblically based scientific arguments to counter the theory of Evolution and give students scientific evidence that supports the Biblical view of origins. I currently have 5 lessons and I will be adding more materials each month. You may wish to check out my web site. It is
    www.creationfamilyscience.org.uk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for commenting. I have looked at your site and the resources sound really interesting. I'm wondering whether my younger two would be too young for them or not. They are six and eight. What do you think?

      Delete
  4. Thanks for sharing the info, keep up the good work going.... I really enjoyed exploring your site. good resource... dissertation writing help

    ReplyDelete