Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/54710
Kimberley (third from left) with her family visiting Melbourne. Kimberley says they can do their school work in their PJs if they want. Kimberley with her dad. Kimberley Barker, 14, Bethells Beach, Auckland I have been home schooled all my life. Home schooling is when you don't attend a school, and you learn at home instead. It doesn't have to be at home though – we know a family that sailed around the world, and they did their home schooling on their boat. My dad had to go to Finland for work a few years ago, so we decided to go with him. We didn't want five months without our dad. And while we were there, Mum taught us our school work. Any time my dad has to go overseas to work for a few days, I can go with him and still do my schooling. Mum used to be a teacher and decided after 20 years teaching that she didn't want to teach other people's children and would rather stay at home and teach us instead. She also wanted to teach us about God and bible history. Mum teaches us all our subjects, except for sport, art and swimming. We don't do all the subjects that kids at school do, but we do most of the core subjects: maths, English, science, reading, and lots more. If we are really interested in something, Mum can design our lessons around that. For example, I want to That school is so great. Teachers teach so much better when they're paid in money and not chickens – Lisa Simpson Kimberley's sister, Brittany, studying dinosaurs in Melbourne. "We get to do heaps of things that other children can't do – sleep in, not change out of our PJs all day, do our work in bed, finish by 11am (sometimes), and not have to walk to school in the rain." work with horses one day, so Mum is including horse riding and equine studies in my school work. We start at eight, and end when we're finished. Every Tuesday, we go into town and meet with other home school children. Together we do sport and art, and each term we do something different. Last term we did wire-sculpting and volleyball, and this term we are doing soccer and Japanese art. You might think that because we don't go to school, we wouldn't have any friends – or that it would be hard to make friends – but at our home school group we have some amazing friends. We also go to a dance group and church, and my siblings and I have awesome friends there. I don't think that being home schooled makes us more or less special than kids that go to school, but we get to do heaps of things that other children can't do – sleep in, not change out of our PJs all day, do our work in bed, finish by 11am (sometimes), not have to walk to school in the rain and heaps of other stuff that is really cool. www.upstartmag.co.nz 39