Real Home Ed: Keeping Records

One thing that seems to come up again and again when I talk to other home-educating parents is the issue of keeping records that will be useful both for the family, and also for showing to visitors from the LA who might want to be reassured that we are actually providing our children with an education. This is a particular talking point for those unschooling, or educating very young children where formal written work might be infrequent.

We've taken a while to come up with a system we're happy with, and I know all families have their own methods, but this is what has worked for us - please do share what has worked for you in the comments!

I try to keep it as simple as possible as I know I'd lose interest in anything too complicated over time. We don't do a lot of formal work, so photos, photos, photos is the theme here. I take one or two photographs of absolutely any activity we do that has any learning associated with it (pretty much everything at age 5!), using either my camera or my phone.

So there are photos of baking, cooking, crafts, messy play, trips to the park, visits to museums or activities, games we have played, books we have looked at, toys we have played with and so on. Anything he creates that is 3D or too large for his folder also gets photographed.

I also keep a weekly planning sheet, similar to the one pictured here. I jot down our plans for the week, or retrospectively note down what we actually did. I also use it to keep a record of when we have done Reading Eggs or Maths Seeds, just so I know we aren't letting it slide. If there are days with not so much written down, I don't worry about it.

At the end of each week, I gather together anything we have done on paper, and pop it into a ring binder in plastic sheets. The weekly planner sheet for that week goes at the front. I print off a page of pictures that are representative of our other activities during the week (sometimes I add a few explanatory notes) and that goes at the back. Any certificates he gets on Reading Eggs etc. also go in there. Sometimes a week might consist only of the planner sheet and the photos, but other weeks we might have a quite a lot of paperwork. The whole process takes me around 15 minutes. Any longer and I think I'd start procrastinating!

So, how do you keep records? Please tell us!





Real Home Ed is a regular feature from one of our home educating parents who is just starting out on a home educating journey with her 5-year-old son. We welcome contributions from other home educating families, so if you would like to share a story, photo or review as part of our Real Home Ed series, please email us:info@gatewaychristianeducation.org.uk