HEO Year 7- A Schedule that Fits it All In and Still Leaves Time for Masterly Inactivity

In a previous post I discussed the books we used in Year 7 from Ambleside's House of Education and tried to simplify it for newcomers. Today, I am going to share how I fit all those wonderful books in without burning out my teens and myself. I will give a brief overview, then explain the weekly schedule and the daily checklist. As I've mentioned before, 'efficiency' is one of my favorite words. I want it simple, doable and I don't want to spend a lot of time on record keeping. I am also miserly frugal and refuse to spend money on fancy systems that I am just going to have to tweak anyway.

A Brief Overview
Children in the upper years of the Ambleside schools spent more time on lessons than the elementary aged children. The bulk of lessons were finished in the morning hours before lunch, but they continued awhile in the afternoons reading some literature, going on nature walks, doing handicrafts and practicing an instrument. They also went to school on Saturday mornings, by the way. Plus, they were learning more languages than we do. Don't faint now, but 3 and 4 languages were studied at 12 and 13 years of age, Europe being a multilingual area of many nations. My children spent most of their childhood in Asia and so learned a foreign language while young, but most folks don't have such opportunities. So you will probably be working on just one or two languages in year 7.

My 7th year students work on lessons for approximately 4 hours every morning and have an hour of reading right after lunch and chores. Many subjects get accomplished because I trained the kids with timers when they were younger to move from one subject right onto the next with out delay. I also keep the lessons short. They know that I have given them enough time to get it done in the morning hours, but if they waste time, they have to use their afternoon quiet time to finish the day's work. Otherwise, no heavy schoolwork is scheduled in the afternoons. Math and Science have to be finished in the morning while their brains are fresh. The rest of the afternoon they are free to follow their own interests until I snag them for an hour of outside work in the cool evenings on our farm.

The Weekly Term Schedule
At the beginning of every term I look over the books that will be used during the next 12 wks and type them into a 12 column chart. I divide up the readings evenly over the term and plug in the chapters on the chart. AO has already done some of the work on the website although it is not in chart form. Here is a sample schedule that one of my daughters used while a year 7 student. It shows her the week's work. My daughters keep their term schedules on personal clipboards and refer to them constantly. It is never allowed to leave the clipboard. I haven't been able to store a copy in google docs without it corrupting the format so if you want a blank template, you can download one from the HEO Yahoo group in the files section.

The Daily Checklist
She also has a Daily Checklist that tells her exactly what to do each day. I fill this in for her at the beginning of each term as well but I don't put any page numbers on it since they are already on the term schedule. It takes about 30 minutes to fill out 12 weeks because the days are 'generic'. Here is a sample checklist for year 7 and here is a blank template. She keeps her Daily Checklist on top of her Weekly Term Schedule and checks off the box for each item she finishes so we both know what she completed each day. This helps her keep track of everything she is supposed to do. I know and she knows at any given time if she hasn't completed an assignment.

Even though each schedule is tailored for each child's individuality, the form is the same every year so they don't get confused and we don't waste time trying to learn a new system. They have learned how to follow their own schedule since they began reading their own books at 9 years of age, so they know what is expected of them. This puts them in charge of their education so they will learn to get knowledge for themselves in years to come rather than relying on an 'all knowing' teacher (this is an integral part of Miss Mason's philosophy). I guide and keep track of their progress, make sure they are getting it all done, listen to narrations and have discussions with them daily.

If you still have questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section. I'll try to clarify anything that was unclear.



one step at a time...