And another thing

That's a strange idea about kids educated from home: they're unlikely to take part in activities if the parental interest doesn't lie there.

Eh? That doesn't work, does it? Take sports.

The gym, I like. The kids think I'm crazy. But I'm not interested in ballet and Squirrel did three years of the torture. I have no particular interest in sailing either, but Shark loves it. And Tiger! Great snorty horse creatures are the stuff of my nightmares! Tiger, she loves them. In England, she regularly and happily sits on a horse, while I sit in the car and happily test the chocolaty bits of digestives.

I don't think I'm alone. I think there are thousands of educating parents out there - school-choosing or otherwise - who encourage their kids in one sport or another while themselves disguising active loathing.

Each week they probably suffer miserably by the sides of rugby pitches, or feel excluded and marginalised at dance classes, or desperately try to weasel out from any parental involvement of school sports days. We still turn out, cheer on, and face up to it all.

But what choice do the children have, especially if it's a school-bound sport?

Of the alternative educating parents I know, one common bond we have is our shared experience of horrible times with sports at school. It makes us all the more determined that our kids should choose for themselves what sports to do, and that their choice should be enjoyment and involvement.

When I was a kid I loved swimming. The swimming pool was one of the first places I went to independently; I can recall the thrill of catching a bus there alone for the first time; every week I imagined myself in training for a triumph great and glorious, even though I was a terrible swimmer and a competitive no-hoper. It didn't matter to me. I adored it all.

Then I attended a school where swimming was a compulsory part of the curriculum. Within a year I was terrified of it. As the hour approached, so did the panic attacks, sweating, shaking, stammering. It was nothing but fear and humiliation. With water. Everything that I'd loved about it, I hated. When it finished, I didn't go swimming again until I was aged 32. That's what school did for my passion.

School did that for all sports. Hockey nearly killed me. Athletics, I loathed. Netball, I dreaded. Tennis, it left largely unscathed, because the PE teacher told us we would never do much, so we may as well use it as an excuse to run about in the sunshine. I could probably pick up tennis again today.

But the worst of all was ice skating. I hated ice skating. With a hard hatred that could slice ice better than hot skates. The six ice skating lessons in 1974 were the only lessons at school from which I played truant. So catch me now, Mrs Watson.


The whole miserable experience has made me sure that Shark, Squirrel and Tiger shouldn't go through that route. But that they should choose their sports, follow their enjoyment, and engage to their comfort and ability levels. Today, we visit the ice rink. Shark wants lessons when we arrive home in England. Tiger and Squirrel already reached the level of their satisfaction.

I don't need to suffer. Ice skating is no pain to me. The kids can do any sport they want, regardless of whether I like it or not. Anyway, Starbucks does a decent coffee, and it's just round the corner from the ice rink.

Grit's guide to home ed (1) Lessons

Holidays are crap, aren't they? I spend every day with my head in my hands because in holiday time there is no timetable and we aren't doing anything.

Then it's January and everyone's back at work. Lessons start again. French. Gym. Trampoline. And I spend every day with my head in my hands complaining we're doing too much. Now our lives are structured with lessons. And aren't I missing the whole point of home education? That we have the right to loll about on the sofa all day? We don't need lessons. Or timetables. We can kiss goodbye to routine. Watch daytime TV. Wear fairy outfits, no knickers and wellington boots. Go for a pee without having to put up our hands. Or getting off the sofa. Yeah. We should be able to do what the hell we like.

And I support that view, really. This is one of the freedoms of the UK. Every home educator directs their educational choice and right now we don't have to follow a curriculum, use timetables or sit in lessons if we feel those things get in the way of an education.

But if we want lessons, they're all around us. Your local sports centre, library, museum, they're touting for your custom. If you have the energy, you can organise a fine week of workshops, a month of lessons, a bunch of outings, visits, meet-ups, make your own plans, hire specialists and tutors, organise groups. Then there isn't even time to scratch your own backside.

And this is a problem with home ed. Should we do lessons? Or lolling? Some weeks it would be easier to fly to the moon than get that balance right.

Well here is the first in an occasional series of Grit's guide to the home ed minefield for the uninitiated. For those of you with enough mental stability to send your offspring to school and thus have the leisure to sit at home reading this stuff while you wait for the manicurist.

There are seven forms of home ed lessons. Really. I've thought of that many.

1. Reading aloud from a book over breakfast while the class has its mouth stuffed full of Cheerios and can't argue.

We do one of those lessons three or four times a week. Today it is how the heart pumps. I don't know why I am driven to discuss body parts at meal times. I just am. Tomorrow I might read aloud the Wikipedia entry on Babylon, so we can go to the British Museum.

These are very good lessons. The ones you do because you want to. I bet the autonomous crowd are clapping now.

2. Lessons you have paid for. So you are bloody well going if you have to hobble there on stumps.

These are good lessons. Dance, Swimming, French, Drama. Stuff like that. Grit likes these lessons and pays for quite a few. I can escort Shark, Squirrel and Tiger on an educational pretext to lessons that sound good if we are stopped by the truancy patrol; dump them for an hour then mooch around Sainsbury's fantasising about the nutritional benefits of Nutella. My only regret is that I cannot find lessons in Ancient Greek. If I could this would be excellent because it would really piss off the we-home-educate-because-our-son/daughter-is-academically-gifted brigade.

3. The crappy boring worksheets, CGP books, National Curriculum books, structured courses, stuff like that.

These are the lessons of Grit's super ego. She would like to do these. I could swiftly slot Shark, Squirrel and Tiger into school knowing they only have to remember to put up their hands before they pee.

On the downside, a pre-packaged curriculum is expensive and boring. To do maths you may have to believe in God. And they require coherence, discipline, organisation, a quiet approach to study, and family unity. We're stuffed.

4. The zeitgeisty stuff like computer-based lessons because everyone's learning online now.

Even I got out my credit card for Education City. Then there is Starfall and the BBC. No shortage. But this approach can be psychologically damaging. You may even become schizophrenic. You spend all morning directing kids to the computer and all afternoon trying to get them off it. Confusing. In Grit's experience, best avoided because one computer between three is not enough and the egg-timer solution doesn't work. So potentially a very expensive approach indeed.

5. Lessons organised from within the home ed community. How trendy and New Age is that?

We all have areas of knowledge, right? Like playing chess, making puppets, telling stories, flower arranging. So it is sensible to share that knowledge. Co-operatively. Together. Let's hold hands.

This would be great if it worked. In reality it means bringing together a disparate bunch of home edders who have nothing in common apart from the fact they home educate. Some may actively hate each other and spend their time conducting guerrilla warfare behind the wiggly eyes at the craft session. But let's lay that aside shall we ladies? We can all be passionate about flower arranging in Sumatra if we try.

6. One-off lessons, workshops, talks, lectures delivered by educational staff at places like museums, parks, galleries, posh houses, aquariums, mines.

Hit and miss. If the leader thinks they are talking to the public then they speak eloquently, knowledgeably, wisely and with good humour and grace. If they think they are dealing with children they have strange ideas about what it is important for the kids to know, like National Curriculum Attainment Target Level 3 Point 5 instead of What did the Anglo Saxons use to wipe their bottoms?

If the education officer expects to deal with a school group they may also make bizarre demands, like put up hands before speaking. This leads to the situation where all the home ed kids put up their hands while simultaneously shouting out the answers. Anyway, Grit likes these types of events and thinks they are the best, mostly because she can look at a fish or a posh house or an Anglo-Saxon brooch for a cut-price student entrance fee.

7. This last type of lesson is brilliant, and free. It is called other people. Including YOU.

We shuffle our carcases off the sofa to get down to the Co-op. There's Doreen at the till. She will not huff and puff and shoot disapproving glances at me because Squirrel has her shoes on the wrong way round again. She will help us count out the change from mama's beer and then wait patiently while we count it out again and argue. She will even smile and wave a till receipt at us to prove she is right. There, you see. Doreen teaches life skills and maths.

Then there's the hobo on the town bench. He has something to teach us too. We have to get past him while he is hurling abuse at a can of Bulmer's. He sets off all the whywhywhy questions. Mama delivers her treatise on society and politics all the way home.

There's the old lady at the charity shop, so we get to talk to her about economics, regional development, charitable status and arthritis. And the young man who stops us on the street to sell us a pizza. We collar him for meteorology and whether you can add pineapple to the thin and crispy.

Then there's the young mother with the toddler, the librarian, the bank teller, the thirty-something woman who draws in her mouth, stares and tuts because it is inadequates like me who make our schools fail; then the truanting teenager, the road sweeper and the single childless twenty-something who strides past us in heels and flicks Shark into the gutter. You're all teachers of something. So do it wisely.

Now, with a week filled with lessons like this, please don't think that I am sitting here with my head in my hands thinking, of all things, there is nothing to do.

Clearly, not every lesson looks like this.

Why home educate? (4) Sport

We get to watch. We get to watch when Shark steps with singular determination to the sailing dingy; when Squirrel twirls, and with that face she thinks a serious ballerina should have; we get to watch how Tiger's eyes light up when she clings to a horse, and we even get to bite our knuckles and pray they don't all fall in, fall over, or fall off.

Every week throughout their lives we see some new and wonderful physical ability. From standing up to chew on the table edge, to falling off the climbing frame in the playground and not dying, swimming for the first time, cycling without pink princess wheels, then archery, abseiling, skiing. This month alone I've watched gym, trampoline, tennis, ice skating, kayaking. And the best of it is I can be right there when it happens. I can seek out any type of lesson that's wanted, we can choose the places and times to go, the instructors we like; and I can look at my little faces delighted and excited as a sudden new skill is found and disbelieved and found again.

Today I watch Tiger at the ice rink. Months ago she clung to the sides, her legs taking off without her. Then I watched tentative toe work, stretching out to the first leg's distance; then the sudden forward movement, one foot in front of the other, and then shooting straight across the ice with that face, that mixture of pure delight, curiosity, strength, ambition, shock, like Where did this come from?

Today I watch while Tiger jumps, really, jumps from the ice, with thin metal blades strapped to the bottom of her feet, and she jumps, up in the air and there is a breath of a gap between the ice and her blades and then down she comes back onto that ice and she stays upright! She actually stays upright! And her face is amazed and inside I scream wildly and declare that is the most stupendous and amazing moment and it will stay in my heart forever. Because now there's no stopping her. And next she'll be twirling and gliding and spinning and doublebackflipping on that ice. And as that vision grips me along with a terrible fear that makes me want to strap her into a helmet and body armour, I am gaping in awe, and I feel privileged and honoured, and with that triumphant fraction of a gap between the ice and her blades, have watched her grow up with a huge bound in confidence and self.

And I am not saying that any parent of a schooled child feels none of these things. Oh no. What I am saying is that home ed gives us all here at the Pile the time in which Tiger and her sisters can experiment, explore, choose and pursue whatever sport they need. I am there not only to set it up for a Tuesday or Saturday morning and then complain about it, but to see it working through and watch those moments of glory when Tiger does not fall flat on her backside for the third time in a row.

If it were only this. Because the local school provides numeracy and literacy hours, but not the thrilling diversity of sailing hours or trampoline hours. And their lack would put me in a mother's role of making up the deficit, probably with emergencies like swimming in the event of a canal or a drunken student party, ten years from now. But I couldn't cram our ambitious range of sports into those leftover weekends and holidays without Tiger giving up on me at 10.30 on a Saturday morning and shouting Mother! Leave me alone! Enough exercise already! Jam doughnuts next!

But most importantly, if Shark, Squirrel and Tiger went daily to school, I simply wouldn't have the imperative that home ed provides. In the land of home ed, the buck stops here. I look to no-one else to come knocking to provide a sports education for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. I look to theirs and mine own judgements and Dig's overdraft. The knowledge of this responsibility gives me a huge kick up the rear end; it impels me to go out and find these sports and activities, plead for rates or special treatment, and get them all organised, scheduled and done. And I wonder would I do this if my kids all went to school? Because there on a Monday, Shark might come down and shout Muuuum! Have you washed my gym kit? If I don't have it, Miss makes me sit out.

Or worse, she might follow it with, On second thoughts mum, can I miss gym today?

Saturday

9.30am Tennis lesson. Thankfully, this passes without major incident. Last week's wires are still intact.

11. 30am Drive to the lake which is used round here for throwing yourself in. Seriously. Windsurfing, kayaking, water skiing, kneeboarding (whatever that is), tipping upside down in canoes, that sort of thing. I have brought Shark here for research purposes.

I slow the day up considerably when we arrive because I become sulky and resent the 50p charge for car parking. I drive off in a huff and park in a field some distance away and make Shark walk back. This she does not like and lets me know about it, so much in fact that I think it may be worth the 50p so I do not have to listen to the horror stories of hummocky lumpy grass. It was just as well I saved the 50p, I tell Shark one hour later, because booking the sailing course for you is quite expensive and I need to save every 50p I can. Shark is delighted that she is on her way to the open ocean at last, even by means of the local lake, and promises not to mention the grass once on the trek back to the car. I get, instead, a big squeeze of my hand.

1.30 pm Demand that everyone enjoy themselves in the garden, eat lunch outside, even though it is dry bread rolls from the Co-op. Tell Tiger I haven't forgotten about sorting out some time for you at the stables. That is next. Now bloody well shut up complaining that Shark gets everything and you get nothing and take off your coat and enjoy it because look! We have reached 20C which means the weather is English Spring and lovely for the time of year, and alright I agree we are all doomed with global warming. Get out the plastic snakes and play with those.

1.40pm Squirrel runs off to amuse herself in the garden, mostly by digging up the fir tree and finding worms to put on the sacrificial altar for the blue tit we'd all like to believe is nesting under the bedroom window.

1.43pm Leave Shark and Tiger bickering and come inside to typeset Chapters Five to Ten.

3.00pm Hearing only occasional screaming, so things must be going well down in the mud patch.

6.30pm Dig sets fire to the barbecue. This may be its final rite of passage on its way to Valhalla, where it will probably provide burned goat meat to the fallen and slaughtered. Dig bought this remarkable bit of equipment from the Co-op several years ago for £4.50. We use it dutifully and need only a small amount of sun to encourage us. Sadly the legs are starting to buckle under the weight of Linda McCartney's doings. Now the whole thing has taken to wobbling dangerously every time the sweetcorn lands on it, so we keep a bucket of water close by, just in case.

6.49pm Everyone complains the sausages are burned. Dig tells everyone to be quiet or else he'll get another packet out.

7.30pm Time to set another chapter while Dig is in charge of the evening's entertainment.

And here is a photograph of Shark, having enjoyed herself in the garden all afternoon, chewing thoughtfully on a burned sausage and contemplating a life at sea.

Tennis

Shark, Squirrel and Tiger are booked into a tennis club all this week. It's cost an arm and a leg so they're going, whatever the weather; ill, squabbling, wounded; no matter.

Things are tight at the Pile right now. No money's yet come in from the work I sit and miserably complete, but plenty's going out, paying for trips here, there and everywhere, when it's not being used for essential items like three pairs of new plimsols and a Viking braiding disk.

It has to be said that a week of tennis lessons won't make any difference whatsoever to any junior Grit's tennis skills. It's a triumph and a cause for celebration if any one of them manages to hit a ball with a racquet at all. Then after the hurrah comes the jealousies and the rages because it was a sister that managed to hit the ball and usually, that's not fair.

So Grit's feeling down in the dumps again after a fun weekend. Probably without cause or justification. Perhaps it really is the bank account that's bringing me down. Or perhaps it's the knowledge of the practical reality involved in getting Shark, Squirrel and Tiger promptly out of the house to the tennis courts at 10.30 every morning. Perhaps it's the thought of the consequence of Shark hitting the ball, and Tiger missing. Or perhaps it's the thought of another week with Sasha.

Well, I'll look on the bright side.

I'm sure I can find one somewhere.