Unexpected Gifts -- Courses Almost Full Already

I know sometimes people will claim their courses are filling up to just get people to sign up earlier, but in this case, I'm telling the plain truth.

This is my "being honest" face

Dreaming Spires has added new subjects this year, and all of them are filling up in May when they're not due to start till the second week of September.

I can't believe it! Incredibly humbled and very excited, but also, stunned.

This is my "I'm stunned" face

So let me just make one plea: if you're considering joining us for any of our courses -- the four options for English and composition, Ancient Rome or Ancient Greece, Spanish and Advanced Spanish, or our new living books Biology course -- then please register today!

The only commitment is a £20 registration fee.

If you're still on the fence, let me just say three things: 

• first, we're the only Charlotte-Mason-style, living-books curriculum delivered live and online by home-educating parents who are subject specialists (that's a mouthful: we really are a unique tutorial staff here at Dreaming Spires!);
• second, we retain 80% of our families year-on-year, and for the first time in this registration period, we've had more than one family RETURN to us after trying a year of something else;
• third, our "graduates" are contacting me to say that not only have we prepared them for their further academic studies, but that they MISS the way that we taught our subjects in such a living and memorable way.

So, with my most sincere face ...

Ummm ... no ... that's not the one ...

Okay, we'll go with this one

I sincerely encourage you to sign up today using the Blogger contact form on the right-hand sidebar, or drop me a line at
https://www.facebook.com/dreamingspireshomelearning/.

I'm very approachable, and I and my hand-picked subject tutors are committed to providing courses for your teens as though they were our own children.

The New Timetable for 2017 is Out Now

Early Bird registration for Dreaming Spires courses will open on 1st April, but in the meantime, you may want to see what we have in store in terms of our timetabling.

There are some alterations based on the necessity of our family commitments, especially when it comes to juggling our own children's home education with our desire to supply the highest quality of online learning experiences for yours.

Pop over to our "2017 ?" tab to see details of additional subjects we hope to be offering from September.

NOTE: This is our latest timetable, but where you see "*", the times aren't 100% fixed.

English Literature and Composition
Course	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Middle Ages Lit	8 am CST/2 pm UK
British Novel		1 pm CST/7 pm UK
Renaissance				9:30 am CST/3:30 pm UK*
American Lit	1 pm CST/7 pm UK
Add-On Composition	Usually meet 1/2 hour after class
Classical Civilisation/Ancient History
Course		Tuesday	Wednesday
Roman History		1 pm CST/7 pm UK
Greek History			8 am CST/2 pm UK
Add-On Writing Extensions	Usually meet 1/2 hour after class
Biology
Course			Wednesday
Biology with lab			SAME COURSE AT DIFFERENT TIMES:  Biology A will be 1 pm CST/7 pm UK*, and Biology B will be 7 pm CST/1 am UK to accommodate US, Asia, and Australia
Spanish
Course		Tuesday	Wednesday
Spanish 2		9:30 am CST/3:30 pm UK
Spanish 1			10 am CST/ 4 pm UK

"Widening Your Radar" -- Part 5 of Transitioning Your Teen to Secondary (Home)School

This is the fifth post in a series about transitioning your teens to secondary (home)school. In the other four parts, I have covered topics like routine, vision, a whole new approach, and routes to your destination, but there is one more preliminary point that deserves consideration, and that's about university.

I need to tell you a hard truth: a university education is actually very important.

Is uni in your home-ed future?

Yes, I know plenty of you will disagree. You will say your child is not that kind of person, that there are extenuating circumstances with disabilities or personality issues or what-not, that you don’t have a degree and you’ve done all right for yourself, that we need to have plumbers and car mechanics and hair dressers in this world.

In order, I say: maybe not, there might be, that’s probably true, and that’s definitely true.

But notice I didn’t say that YOUR child needed to go to university. I simply said that a university education is very important. The reason is that all studies show that the earning power of a university graduate is vastly superior to that of a non-graduate, job opportunities are wider, and career paths are longer and more diverse.

For example, statistics say that an average young person of 22 will earn about £15,000 per year. At 34, the non-graduate’s earnings will peak at £19,400, but the graduate’s earnings won’t peak until 51, at which time, annual salary averages £34,500. Even if you calculate the difference in salary (less current tax rates) between the graduates’ peak at 51 and the retirement age (set to be 68 over the next 4 decades), the graduate will earn £175,000 more than the non-graduate in that 17-year period alone.*

That's roughly an extra £900 a month!

A degree can make a big difference in salary

These are the CURRENT statistics, but the future could be quite different still. That’s because the numbers going to university are soaring. Between 1995 and 2015, for example, the number of young people attending university has gone from 20% to 49% of school leavers. As more and more students opt for university, the job market will most likely start to demand some level of higher education as the norm — a trend experienced in the US where 65% of high schoolers enrol in post-school education.

It’s not a cut-and-dry decision, this university plan I mean. There are issues about funding it, about the future of online modular routes, not to mention that maybe your child just really, really isn’t cut out for higher education.

However, I just wanted to urge you to think about the long-term destination of your home-education journey before we discuss the short- to medium-term stops along the way. 

You don't need to know the answer:
just be aware of the questions for now.

I don’t mean to say that you have to force your child into making a decision about degree courses when he or she is only 13 or 14; I only mean that getting university on your radar now will undoubtedly influence your intervening steps.

Next time, it will be these steps that I’ll explore.

* Salary estimates are for men (annoyingly). Women with degrees earn 20% less of their male counterparts’ salaries in England. Studies suggest the disparity is partly due to career breaks taken by mothers, and partly the industries that women tend to enter (education and health care, as opposed to finance and business). The disparity is worse for non-graduate women, where earnings are 23% less than their male counterparts.

Introduction -- Part 1 of Transitioning Your Teen to Secondary (Home)School

This is the introduction to a series about how to start teaching your teenagers at a higher level than you may have been teaching them up till now.

Primary to secondary might need a re-think.

Families who educate their children at home come from all different countries, different cultures, different backgrounds, and yes, it’s a rare occurrence to find any two which go about this education in a similar way.

That being said, I think it's generally true that almost everyone takes one approach for their 11 and under children, and a rather different – if not radically different – approach for their teenagers.

In the UK, the pressure to prepare for GCSEs suddenly comes into play, even though it's not necessary to sit them until they're 16 (if at all).

Hittin' the books from 12+.

This new reality often changes the game plan. Some may panic and put their kids back into school. Others might add tutoring, or free on-line courses, or sign up for a complete package; they may join a co-op; or simply go on a spending spree for all those books that their schooled peers are using.

All of this, however, is just window-dressing in my opinion. There are more important things about a teen’s education that need addressing first.

Decisions like finding a good routine, choosing quality materials, getting enough sleep, eating the right food, exercising, hitting on a good motivational approach, and turning off the electronics, will all go a long way toward a new, serious educational regime than simply trying to buy in or opt out.

In the weeks to come, I’ll cover each of these topics, explaining why they matter for your teen’s education, as well as giving tips for making the changes.