Home schooling a growing option

Home schooling is slowly becoming the best educational alternative for some parents for various reasons.

Randburg Sun spoke to Blessing Nyanhanda an educator at the Blairgowrie recreation centre which offers home schooling option. Nyanhanda said home schooling is a good idea because it offers pupils a friendly environment to do their work.

“Pupils get more time to do their work and having a teacher one-on -one helps them understand the curriculum better,” he explained.

One of the parents who chose home schooling for her daughter is Ineke Erasmus.

“My daughter came home crying and moody and I often had to stitch her self-worth back together,” she said.

After getting advice from a psychologist and searching for various solutions Erasmus decided to home school Lydia.

“Lydia went back to a private school in grade seven but asked to be home schooled again in the middle of grade eight.”

Her daughter Lydia Erasmus, prefers home schooling although she said it has its own challenges. “The only downfall in home schooling is that if I don’t

understand something, I need to go through internet methods to ask a teacher and they don’t often reply immediately,” explained Lydia.

“My grades improved substantially after I began home schooling and I like this better than private schools.”

There are various reasons for parents to choose this educational method but Nyanhanda said some parents hate bullying, crowding and drugs which are

things that a pupil can be exposed to in big schools and they prefer to school their children in a more controlled environment.

However Heather Robinson a communication officer at Rand Park High said that “parents are not forced to home school their children, they do so by choice”.

The Curro Aurora Private school admissions office said they get a lot of applications and places from grade R up to grade three have already been filled for next

year which can result in parents choosing to home school their children.

Details: Blessing Nyanhanda 073 964 5351.