What's a Transcript? Help for Exam Alternatives!

There's a growing movement amongst home educators of ditching the UK exam system and using the American one for university entry instead.

Instead of GCSEs and A-levels, families are following a broader approach to studies in years 10-13 while preparing for the US national exams known as SATs.

That's not "sats" to rhyme with "mats" as you may have heard about, those national exams for younger UK schooled children, vilified by state schools and rejected by independents as long ago as the 90s.

Instead, you say "S-A-T" and it stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test, administered at College Board test centres throughout the US and even the UK. The general exam lasts about 3 hours and is comprised of maths, reading, and writing multiple choice questions. Subject exams are usually sat in the afternoon of the same day, lasting about an hour per subject. Again, they're multiple choice and can be taken in maths, biology, history, English, and many foreign languages.

UK students can submit the general test plus three SAT exam grades to UK universities instead of doing A-levels, saving a lot of time, money, and stress.

Alongside the grades, students may be asked to provide the university with a transcript of study that shows completion of school-level education, and the video below explains more about this document called a transcript.

For more about taking the US SAT route to UK university, come join the Facebook group called HE Success without UK exams. Many families are members who share how they have done it already, and are helping the rest through the process should they choose.

Early Bird Has Started: Ends 30th April

It's that time again - time to grab one of the limited spots on our live, online courses for homeschooling teens worldwide.

The excitement is catching for students and parents! 

Early Bird is a great time to register because you can save a spot for just the reservation fee of $40, and pay in installments for the remainder until 1st September 2019.

 What's more, the price you're quoted is LAST year's price.

 I've already mentioned how this is our biggest selection of subjects and courses yet, with new addition this year of geography, math, and art history, plus new courses from most of our instructors. In fact, I think I'm the only tutor who isn't adding a course this year!

This is how I feel about that! 

Remember that we're happy to discuss anything about our courses that you're unsure of! Sign up today so you don't miss the chance for your teen to learn in a way that's unlike almost anything else out there!

Jump on a Course in January

At Dreaming Spires, we always take on a few new students after the Christmas holidays, slotting them cosily into our sociable and friendly courses when maybe their previous studies had become dry or boring, unmotivating, or perhaps not rigorous enough.

A student attends class in the airport!

We can do this because we run all our subjects on a modular or unit-based system. Sure, there will be a few things they missed from Autumn term, but all previous webinars and recordings are available should they feel the need to fill in the blanks.

So whether you want to add something like Spanish or French, delve deeply into the history of Ancient Rome or the complicated causes of World War 2, debate medical ethics in biology or the other sciences, write a stunning screenplay, or lay down foundations for great exam results by learning to read harder books and write solid essays, there's something for everyone at Dreaming Spires.

Course fees are reduced pro-rata, and jumping on now means a family can take advantage of the special pricing of our pre-registration period in April, when our current students can reserve places on courses that otherwise fill up fast.

Pop on over to our registration page to sign up today, or use the contact form to ask for further details.

Proposed Timetable of Dates

I've been looking ahead to plot the next academic year and thought I'd share how we get 30 weeks into our year while enjoying generous blocks of holiday!

Date	Event
Sept 10th 2018	First week of Term
October 22nd 2018	This week is a holiday for Autumn Break
October 29th 2018	Classes resume this week
December 10th 2018	This is the last week of class before Christmas Break
Dec 17th - Jan 6th	Christmas Break
January 7th 2019	Classes resume this week
April 15th 2019	Start of Easter break for 2 weeks
April 29th 2019	Classes resume this week
May 13th 2019	Last week of classes before the end of the academic year

Meet our Newest Tutor and History Teacher

Welcome to our newest tutor at Dreaming Spires Home Learning: a specialist in modern history, Yvonne Mason is a well-known online tutor amongst home-educated high schoolers in the UK, and we are so pleased that she is able to join us next year for a fascinating course about World War 1 and World War 2.

Yvonne will teach Modern History

She took her undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature, then an MA in history from Royal Holloway in London while working as a costumed historical interpreter at the Tower of London. She has been working as an online tutor since 2001 in both English and history, home educates her own daughter, and in her spare time, is an avid embroiderer. She has plans to study for a PhD in Medieval Studies very soon.

Now Accepting Mid-Term Entries for January 2018

If you've got tired of your curriculum already, if you're new to home education and looking for something to inspire you, or you just think it's time your teen buckled down and started working harder, then Dreaming Spires Home Learning may be your answer.

Are your current studies leaving you cold???
Let Dreaming Spires warm you up!

We offer live and online courses and accept mid-term entries for January, so your child can jump into our New Year units with any of our subjects, whether Spanish or Biology, Ancient History or English Literature and Composition.

Jump into our courses at mid-term!

We've been allowing people to join us mid-year since we first began, and nearly 100% stay with our programme for two-, three-, or four-plus years, so we know it ends up being more of a long-term love affair with our approach to studying, than a short-term quick-fix.

Get in touch today about registering for courses - we'll kick off the new year during the week of 8th of January, 2018. All classes will take a couple of students so the timetable is completely open.

Calendar of Dates

This is an updated calendar of dates after we decided to break earlier for Christmas and return earlier in January. The changes are highlighted in blue.

The Summer 2017 Mountain Series Episode 2: Take Time to Acclimatise

This summer series about homeschooling was inspired by my recent family trip to the mountains, and will be added to weekly. Be sure to subscribe by leaving your email in the right-hand menu bar, or “like” our Facebook page to get updates posted directly to your timeline.

Whether you're brand new to educating your children at home, or finding yourself at a transition phase such as secondary school, there is a period where you'll be tempted to rush when actually you need to take it slowly and ease into it

I think this period is like our mountain trip when we arrived at our condo and found that it was over 10,000 feet.

High Condo - Waiting for Adventure

For native Texans who live at at 496 feet above sea level, this was a real challenge to our systems. We felt like all the descriptions of acclimatising for Everest - sinuses dry out, tummies get rumbly, headaches abound, breathless, listless.

These are warning signs that we were now in a place that are bodies were struggling to maintain normal function.

After a terrible night's sleep (another effect of altitude), we decided to see how far we could climb up the mountain in view of our balcony - Kuchina Peak.

Kuchina in our sights

Long story short, we ran into two problems: first was our unfamiliarity with the terrain (this will be the subject of the next blog post!), and the other was, no matter how fit and experienced we were with hill-climbing at sea level, we just weren't ready to tackle the exertion at 12,000 feet higher.

Some of us had headaches, malaise, nausea: all symptoms of altitude sickness! They told us that we needed to get back down a little lower and wait till our bodies were more accustomed to the thinner air.

Not ready for prime-time mountain climbing!

However, by the end of the week, we were able to climb not only it but its higher valley-mate, Wheeler Peak: New Mexico's highest mountain at over 13,000 feet. That was because we waited to get used to the elevation, and meanwhile, made sure we prepared a little at a time.

So as you're hitting transition periods in your home-educating journey, just keep in mind that rushing it is probably a poor idea. You'll find yourself ill-prepared and perhaps even in danger - if not in terms of your health, then probably in terms of your purse!

What am I suggesting instead? Take your time. Research. Read through Rainbow Resources detailed catalogue with lots of reviews by homeschoolers for any curriculum you're thinking of buying. Have a look at last year's Series 1  about starting out home-ed where I encourage you to take a look at your values and your aims, and above all remember this: if you are starting home-ed from scratch and have removed a child from school, you both need to deschool first.

The reason you deschool is this: going to school is putting yourself under an institution and there are rules and requirements and expectations that have become second-nature to you, most of which have nothing to do with one's real desire and aptitude for learning. Motivation often needs rediscovering; self-directed exploration of interests has almost certainly been dampened down; realising that one can find curiosity and something intriguing to delve into further 24/7, 365, and yet, it rarely requires 6 hours a day of sitting at a desk.

There is a big world out there, but if you're transitioning, then I would suggest putting your feet up and getting used to the new, rarefied air.

Take Time to Contemplate the View

The Summer 2017 Mountain Series Episode 1: Finding Yourself in the Heat

This summer series about homeschooling was inspired by my recent family trip to the mountains, and will be added to weekly. Be sure to subscribe by leaving your email in the right-hand menu bar, or “like” our Facebook page to get updates posted directly to your timeline.

In this first episode, I want to share about how homeschooling teens can feel like the hottest journey you’ve ever undertaken.

A blog post about a hot road trip ...

No matter where you live now, you have probably taken a trip somewhere that taught you all about assumptions. In my case, I thought I knew all about packing for a self-catering trip to the mountains, having done so almost twice a year in England for the past five years.

So my brothers and I loaded up our three cars and caravanned west to New Mexico. Once we got west of Post, Texas, the temperatures soared over 111º F (44º C). 

It ultimately reached 113!

We stopped for gas, drinks, etc, and my brother who was driving the pick-up truck announced that all the food that had been stashed in the back of his truck had melted. We threw out butter, yoghurt, milk, cheese, and all the chocolate, and though the boys liked to blame me for it, I did point out that they were the ones that loaded it back there in the first place!

Anyway, in hindsight I should have realized that perishables in a pick-up bed in Texas in June weren’t going to survive a 15-hour road trip anyway, but having only experience of Lake District trips in April and September, I recognize the biases I brought to the planning stage. 

So here’s where I think our journey in homeschooling teens is like this trip into the unknown. We know what it has been like to teach our children when the stakes are low - whether we follow set curriculum, something more flexible like the Charlotte Mason method, or even unschool, we haven’t had the pressures to prepare for national exams, worry about credits and transcripts, or hone down to our child’s interests and vocational pathways.

The stakes - like the temperatures in West Texas - suddenly become higher when our kids hit those teen years. Here are a few suggestions for navigating our way through an environment out of our comfort zone.

Navigating the path ahead ...

First, give yourself some grace if you make some mistakes. Yes, we’re in charge of the planning and the execution, but if we get some of it a bit wrong, then it’s not the end of the world. Our children’s education should, hopefully, be a life-long experience, and not something that finishes at 18 or 22, so there’s wiggle room even in these crucial years of high school.

Second, don’t be afraid to ask for help from someone who has been there before. If, for example, someone else is planning a road trip to New Mexico in the summer, I can now warn them about looking after the food on the journey. I can also tell them that there are plenty of big supermarkets in Taos so packing all those perishables was unnecessary in the first place. 

In homeschooling, there are now so many great forums and FB groups with people who’ve been there and done that, you really need only to ask.

Getting directions can be a good thing!

That being said, my third point is this: don’t just take someone’s word for it, but confirm what people say online by doing your own research, too. In the case of my road trip, I was only tagging along on my brother’s trip at the last minute, and I didn’t check out the shopping facilities in Taos for myself. As my brother is a bit more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of person, there ended up being a lot of gaps in his knowledge where I’d have been more inclined to fill them in (this theme will come up again and again in this series - believe me!).

In the case of homeschooling, I have already seen people’s advice running counter to someone else’s state or country regulations. In the UK, there are HUGE changes afoot in the national exam system as it switches from the A-E grade system to a 9-1 system, plus many of its public exams are ditching the controlled assessment for exam only, a change that favours homeschoolers - except for one important fact! These new exams don’t start being offered till 2019! So for many of you who are now entering the phase of UK exams for your teens, few people will have the experience of the new system to guide you more than saying what they did in the old system.

You have been warned!

In the US, there are still people who talk about the old SAT system rather than the new one, about dual-enrollment arrangements that are often dependent on the processes at the local college, about CLEP or AP or other advanced options that vary from university to university as to their acceptance.

It can still be a minefield for you, even with helpful guidance from those who’ve done it.

Our road trip through the West Texas oven was on Saturday. On Tuesday, I picked an apple out of the fridge for our hike up Kuchina Peak. It was covered in some strange kind of wax. I started washing it and the wax wouldn’t budge. Then I realised it was butter - the butter that had melted into the box in the back of the pick-up truck. Clearly, this apple had been in that same box, and though it had survived the heat, it still had some residue of the debacle on its skin.

Sometimes in homeschooling, there may be long-lasting effects from our past mistakes, and they can arise at the strangest times, even years later. 

It may be hot, but the sun WILL go down!

Just do what I did when I cleaned off the apple: I turned up the heat of the water to melt off the butter. You, too, can just “turn up the heat” - ie, put in extra effort, focus intently, make phone calls or write letters: in short, do what you have to do to rescue the situation.

That apple is worth saving!

STOP PRESS! New Sections of Middle Ages and BritNov on Offer!

We're so blessed and humbled at Dreaming Spires that so many people are entrusting us with the education of their teens, and our popularity meant that two of our English courses became oversubscribed before the end of May!

Problem: how to make sure more students can take advantage of our motivating and empowering style of live, online courses?

Solution: Recruit one of my oldest and dearest and cleverest friends to come on board as a second English tutor!

Introducing Jackie Pavlenko!

Jackie's bio can be found on the "About Us" tab, but the long-and-short of it is that she's an Oxford grad who went into the screenwriting business. She's too humble to tell you about the awards won by the film she wrote, El Greco, including BEST FILM at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2007.

Jackie and I have been co-home-educators in the trenches off and on for the past twelve years, and I'm so thrilled that I managed to eventually pin her down to join the Dreaming Spires team. She has so much insight and depth of thought to add to our courses' explorations, and being a "worldschooler" at this stage in life, she'll be one of those value-added tutors with oodles of culture to exchange!

Mrs Pavlenko will teach a section each of Middle Ages and British Novel: refer to the timetable for the new opportunities to study with us.

Early Bird Registration Starts 1st of April

No ... this is not an April Fool's joke - Early Bird registration for current Dreaming Spires students is opening on 1st April, to book places on courses that are due to start in September.

Don't be a fool! Sign up early!!

If you're not a current student, your Early Bird registration period begins the 15th of April and lasts only two weeks.

 Why sign up so early? Because April is the only month where you get two great deals:

1. Fees will be held over from 2016; after 30th of April, the prices WILL increase!
2. You are able to spread the cost over five months instead of paying the full price at once!

Pop on over to our Timetable tab and see all the courses we've got on offer this year: the oldies-but-goodies, four years of English with a composition option; our new star of 2016, Ancient History; and the new kids on the block, Spanish (2 courses) and Biology.

Go ahead and spread the word ... referral discounts are unlimited to the tune of 100% savings, so get out there and share!!!

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