March 14, 2026 • 44 mins
What if the problem isn’t your child—but the environment they’re expected to learn in?
In this episode, Cheryl talks with Corianda “Corey,” a homeschooling mom of six living in Spain, about raising neurodivergent kids and what happened when traditional school stopped working for her family. With three sons on the autism spectrum and experiences with ADHD, Corey began questioning whether the system was actually designed to help children like hers thrive.
She shares how her family transitioned from the UK school system to homeschooling, how environment and freedom dramatically changed her children’s confidence, and why self-directed learning can be especially powerful for neurodivergent kids. Cheryl and Corey also discuss worldschooling, socialization outside the classroom, learning to read when children are truly ready, and why giving kids agency over their time can unlock creativity and real-life skills.
Today Corey runs a worldschooling community in Spain where homeschooling families gather to learn, explore, and grow together.
If you’re a homeschooling parent—or considering home education for a neurodivergent child—this conversation will open your mind to what’s possible.
Find Corey here: www.shepherdsrest.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shepsrest
Instagram: www.instagram.com/shepsrest
📌 New here? Grab my free 30-day homeschool quick-start guide
🎹 Looking for a fun, simple way to introduce piano at home?
We’ve loved using Simply Piano. It turns lessons into interactive challenges so kids can start playing real songs right away — without pressure or frustration.
👉 Click here to check it out!
📘 Feeling overwhelmed about where to start with homeschooling?
After three years of interviewing homeschooling families, I compiled the best advice, practical tips, key questions, and trusted resources into one clear, actionable e-book: The Homeschool How To Complete Starter Guide.
👉 Grab it here!
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How to Podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:24):
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Corianda.
She told me I could call herCorey, but Coriander's such a
cool name.
I feel like I can't cut thatshort.
How are you?
SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
I'm good, thank you.
How are you?
Good.
Now where are you from?
So we're from Brighton, UK, andum we now live in Aurea, Almeria
in Andalusia, Spain.
So we've been here uh 11 yearsin June, and we love it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
Wow, okay, amazing.
So are you guys homeschoolers?
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Yes, so we haven't always been.
So I've got six children.
The oldest is 29, and theyoungest is nine, and the
youngest four have had certainamounts of time in home ed.
So the oldest two went throughthe school system in the UK.
The oldest one, no problems atall, just sort of flew through
(01:13):
it, and it seemed-I mean, Ididn't even think outside the
box so much then becauseeverything was just easy.
Um and then my three boys theyhave autism, high functioning,
but they were the next three inline, and so they did have a few
struggles in school, and I wasnot happy with the way that
things were working out forthem, and then I realized I was
(01:34):
expecting the school system toprovide something for them, and
actually, why do we expect thatas parents when we are the ones
that know them best?
So I I feel like now I'm totallyawake to this, and I'm just
like, why would I put mychildren in a situation that was
gonna be difficult for someoneelse to deal with, you know?
(01:54):
Because you can't expect toomuch.
SPEAKER_00 (01:56):
That's interesting because a lot of parents say,
Oh, I'd like to homeschool, butmy child is on the spectrum, so
I have to leave them in schoolwhere the experts can give them
what they need.
But I've talked to so manyteachers that are like, No, it's
not, no, they're better off athome.
So yeah, talk to us a little bitabout how like you went about
educating them because itprobably is very different than
(02:18):
sit in front of this textbookand memorize it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:21):
Completely different.
Yeah, we realized um, so wemoved to Spain and we moved with
we left the 18 and 16-year-oldwith their dad, and um, they
were in college and universitystudying music, both of them.
So they were fine, settledthere, and still had all the
rest of the family in the samehometown.
So we bought our 10, 8, and7-year-olds um over here, and
(02:46):
then since had Magnolia, who'snine.
So when we started over here, wewere thinking, oh, we might end
up home educating because oureight-year-old had been expelled
from the school system in theUK, and yeah, I mean, he had a
diagnosis from young, and I'donly ever bothered to get the
diagnosis because they said, Oh,we can't help him without one.
(03:06):
But then we got it and it didn'tchange anything.
And I'm thinking, why you know,where do we go to at this point
when we're trying everything?
I'm asking for help andapproaching all these different
avenues, holistic sort oftherapies, play therapies.
I didn't go the medicationroute.
For me, I've never really beeninto medication.
(03:27):
Don't get me wrong, I'm notjudging anyone else that does
because I know some childrenmight need it.
But for me, it was a no-go,especially when they offer it to
you the day they get adiagnosis.
I'm like, well, now I know whatI'm dealing with.
I don't want the meds because Iwant to try and read up on these
situations and see what I wouldsee what we can improve without
(03:49):
that sort of intervention.
So, anyway, we thought when wecame out here that we might end
up homeschooling.
The truth of it is we didn'tknow it was actually um classed
as illegal in Spain to home ed.
Really?
Yeah, so we we hadn't we'd sortof come out quite blind to that
fact.
And as it happened, we took afew weeks in the summer because
(04:10):
we arrived in the summer, so wespent a lot of time integrating
our three with the locals at thepark.
So we would sit every evening atthe park and we'd take our
camper van up there and make acoffee.
And to start with, our kidswouldn't get out of the van, and
me and Joel were the onesplaying with water balloons and
footballs and basketballs andhoops and god knows what, and we
(04:31):
were playing with all the localkids, and then our kids started
well, the other children startedcoming over to the camper van
and saying, Oh, you're gonnacome out and play.
Our children just naturallyprogressed, and within a week
they were all playing, and meand Joel were able to sit in the
camper van and have a coffee andwatch them.
SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
So they like wonderfully painted this image
of like a big van pulling up andonly adults getting out to play
with random kids.
Like in America, I don't knowthat that would fly anymore.
SPEAKER_01 (05:01):
I know we were we were thinking that at the time
we were like, kids, come out thevan and sit at least on the
bench or something so people cansee that you're here because
we're just like two randomadults throwing water balloons
at little kids.
Do you know what I mean?
So, but it it was good, and theum the local kids were
fantastic, and they startedsaying to my children, Oh, how
(05:21):
old are you?
You'll be in my class at school,they were saying to them.
So then then the kids werecoming home after the park and
going, I'm gonna be inso-and-so's class, and they're
gonna be in their class, and sothey'd like made these
connections and friends, and sowe thought, well, brilliant, you
know, we'll try the school out.
It's it only had 70 children in,ranging from age three to
fourteen.
(05:42):
So that worked for us becausethey'd come from a school that
had six classes of 30 childrenin each year, and there was no
space, no quiet, no peace, nobeauty around it.
It was just a very squashed in,noisy school.
So over here they did absolutelybrilliantly.
For the first three, four years,they were doing great.
(06:04):
They learnt the language, sothey're fluent in Spanish, and
actually, my the one who waseight when we got here, so he's
got autism and AD.
Um, and his emotional regulationhas always been quite difficult
for him when he was younger.
And he was top of the Spanishclass within six months, and we
were in a Spanish village, sothey all thought he was local.
(06:26):
He spoke with the accent, thedialect, uh you know, just
everything was just easy forhim.
And the other two, they learntvery easily as well, and we were
learning too.
We we put ourselves through theclasses with the town hall
because all small villagesprovide lessons for foreigners,
which is absolutely fantastic,and it's free as well.
(06:47):
So, why wouldn't you takeadvantage of this when you're
moving somewhere and you want tointegrate, you know?
Right.
We're not we're not the sort ofpeople that think we're expats,
we call ourselves immigrantsbecause we've moved here to
someone else's country and wewant to take on board what we
moved here for a reason, andthat's to give our children a
better life.
So we now spend, well, we wereable to spend so much more time
(07:11):
with them outside in the niceweather rather than cold, grey,
wet England where you'd have totake coats out on every journey,
not knowing what the weatherwould hold, you know, but more
than likely rain.
So yeah, it was it was great tosee the kids um outside together
with new friends very quickly,doing well in school, and this
(07:36):
all sounds like I'm not going tobe talking about homed at all,
you know.
Essentially, it got to the pointwhere they finished that school
at 14.
And for at 14, my older son, uhLindon, who was uh just about to
move to the high school, hemoved to the high school, but
there were a larger number ofpupils there, it was all change,
(07:57):
and he didn't do so well.
So he was the first one that wetook out of the system, and from
that point on, I knew we'd madethe right decision because he
flew.
He started concentrating on allthe things he loved, and that's
what we we just said.
Well, what are the things youenjoy?
What do you want to do?
Um, he always struggled withmaths, and so we didn't make a
(08:18):
big thing about maths, but heloved baking, and he's now a
baker, but he also sings, um, heacts, and so he's um joined a
theatre group and he has singinglessons, he's recorded cover
songs.
Now, this is a child that whenhe was eight years old in the
UK, he didn't speak for a wholeyear.
He um suffered with well,suffered or had selective
(08:41):
mutism.
So to see this change for himwas so nice because it's it it
was such a jump in hispersonality, and we were able to
enjoy seeing him rather thanthis this child that held
everything in.
He was uh he really came out ofhimself and and he's doing so
(09:05):
well now.
He's actually 21 now and doingreally well.
He actually works with us, withour world school that we run,
and he runs a lot of the classeswith us, especially the specific
uh classes for teenagers.
So he's like a youth worker withthem, and it doesn't matter
then.
We we are neurodivergentfriendly here, and we think
(09:26):
that's really important to usbecause obviously, where we've
come from, how far we've come,and how we've noticed that the
environment alone can change alot of the outcome for our
children like this, and for thewhole family setting, in fact.
So we wanted to be able to offerthat to other families as well,
and it's been absolutely amazingseeing other children come here
(09:50):
and parents saying to us, Oh,I'm not sure if we should come
and stay because you know, willthe apartment be like
soundproofed?
And you know, where where willwe be?
What what what if my childrenhave a meltdown?
And I'm like, just do not worryabout it at all.
Everyone's very accepting, andoften the children really
improve when they're herebecause there's so much open
(10:12):
space, there's always somethingto do.
The fact is, they've got otherpeople to go off and play with.
Um, they're not in the system,so nothing is expected of them.
They're just free to be them,and they see their parents relax
as well and chat with otherparents.
A lot of them are also well,they're home editing all the
people that come here, except weprobably get a few families in
(10:35):
July and August, which in the UKthat's UK summertime, so school
summer holidays, and we do stillget a few families that are in
the school system, but they'retrying out this lifestyle
because they want to be out ofthe school system.
And I totally think it's aprivilege to be able to home ed
actually, and really aware thatthere are so many parents out
(10:56):
there that would love to do it,and it's so difficult.
So, what we actually do is wekeep our prices down in the
summer, and they're some of ourlowest price months in June,
July, and August because we wantto still attract those families,
you know, air prices go up andeverything like that, and I
think it's so difficult forfamilies, especially from the
UK, where we know this happensall the time, and you know, we
(11:19):
know this the months that youhave off over there, so we we
time it right so that we canoffer something and the chance
for them to see their childrenin a better environment.
And we've also seen familiesthat have come and stayed here
when they were their childrenwere in the school system, and
now they've been able to makethe move to starting their
businesses and being able to tolive the lifestyle that suits
(11:42):
their family more now, which isreally nice to see.
SPEAKER_00 (11:45):
Yeah, getting out of that system.
I'm all about that.
I was a government worker for 16years, so it's yeah, like, you
know, you gotta break the tiesand then you'll see a whole
world open up.
But I do love what you hadmentioned earlier because I
remember somebody saying to mevery early on when I started
interviewing homeschoolingfamilies about homeschoolers,
you're giving them the agencyover their time.
And like I didn't know what thatmeant.
(12:06):
And I was like, oh, that soundsgood.
But as I've interviewed more andmore and listening to you talk
about, you know, then my son wasable to do things that he loved.
And I think that sounds so likeyou know, we think about like,
oh, we got to ride his bikemore, but it's like, well, but
maybe that sparked somethingbecause maybe his bike broke,
and then he had to learn how tofix it, and then he was like,
(12:26):
Oh, I really like mechanics, oryou know, it could go in any
direction.
So for him, he learned music,and that took him on a whole
different path.
And I love that that you wereable to build a business, and
then he's able to work in that.
It is just something sowonderful.
Students need strong malefigures, you know, young, good
male role models.
(12:47):
I love that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
So And he's not shy, he's not shy with telling other
children as well.
He will tell the junk youngergeneration that are finding
things hard at the moment.
He'll say, I used to be likethis, or I couldn't cope with
this before, but now look.
And he said, You just need tothink of the things you like to
do and that you want to do, andyou know, people will help you.
(13:10):
So we have young artists thatare already illustrators for
books and things.
We've just had, you know, somany talented children through
here that if they were in theschool system, they wouldn't
have even been recognized now,especially with the creative
side of things, arts, the music,you know, the drama and things
like this.
There's not much, not much spacefor it in the school system.
(13:33):
And I think you know, it's it'samazing to see the growth in a
child when they're somewherewhere they feel happy.
In the environment, they feelhappy.
And when you home it, you oftenhave more time to be able to be
with them, and so there's moreguidance there, and you can see
their strengths as well, you canrecognize them yourself, and so
(13:54):
you can then go, right, okay,they're picking up this really
well, and so you can offer themextra things like sorry, we've
got a kitten in the background.
The kitten's blind, so he has noidea where he is.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
Well, maybe now.
So you took your first son out.
That did you take the other onesout right at the same time, or
did they all have sort of theirdownfall too?
SPEAKER_01 (14:15):
Yeah, so not at the same time.
So then we took out our13-year-old, and he's the one
with autism and ADHD, and he wasthe one that was top of the
class in like every subject.
No one ever noticed that hepretty much had any issues as
such because he was sointelligent, but his emotional
(14:36):
um regulation was all over theplace, and so he was the one
that had previously beenexpelled in England.
Um, and like I say, he did sowell here, and we were really
impressed with how he coped witheverything and all the changes,
and then it got to the pointwhere they just didn't get him
anymore, and they couldn't theycouldn't almost provide him with
(15:00):
what he needed, which was whichwas actually more education.
He he was doing so well thatwhen the kids were messing
around in his class and thingslike that, he was getting upset
that he couldn't learn thingswhen it was too noisy and he
didn't like thedisrespectfulness, he didn't
like the shouting when theteacher then had to shout at the
(15:22):
other students.
He was really sensitive to thenoise, and it just became
somewhere that he really didn'twant to go.
So we took him out without anythought.
That didn't work as easy as whenwe took our first son out.
So we received visits from theGuardia, social services, and I
honestly think it was thedifference being our other son
(15:44):
had been taken out of highschool, and they could see his
problems a lot more because hewas not so high functioning,
maybe.
And so, and then they could seehis sensitivities and the way
that he wasn't speaking and hewas closing down.
Whereas with my other son, theywere like, Oh no, he's like top
of the class, why are you takinghim out?
And I just said, Look, he's nothappy at the moment, we need to
(16:07):
sort this out.
And so, yeah, they sort offollowed it up a lot more.
SPEAKER_00 (16:11):
You said you were in Spain and it was illegal to
homeschool there?
SPEAKER_01 (16:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So we knew we knew we weretaking a risk taking him out of
the system, but he was alreadyyeah, well, it was it was
tricky, it really was.
It was very difficult for thosefirst six months.
Um, we actually had to um sendhim back to England to stay with
family for a few months becausewe felt so it felt it felt like
(16:39):
a tricky situation that couldget like really bad.
When we were in the schoolplayground, and I said to the
head teacher, she said, Holby,there's his name, but you know,
she said, You must um you mustattend school, otherwise your
parents will be arrested and youwill be in the Centro de
Menores, which is the youthdetention centre.
(17:01):
And this is like with a childthat had a diagnosis, he's been
top of the class all the time,and she then told me he has
nothing wrong with him.
If he has something wrong withhim, the class, the rest of the
class, have something muchworse.
That's what she told me.
And I'm like, no, you justreally don't understand what
this is about.
It's about, you know, hiswell-being, his mental health,
(17:22):
and things like that.
So um, the minute she said that,I took him by the hand and I
said to her, I said, We're notcoming back here, you you know,
and from that point, obviously,my other daughter was young uh
21 months younger than him, wasalso in this school.
So you can imagine then when thesocial services came around,
they were they were actuallyreally lovely.
(17:44):
I've got to be honest.
They did check things out in thehouse, but I sort of think
that's okay because they wantedto check that the children were
safe and happy at home, and alsothey could see that we weren't
just doing this on a whimbecause we'd left our daughter
in school because she was atthat point happy so and doing
really well.
SPEAKER_00 (18:03):
Quick pass to share something that's been a great
fit for our homeschool.
My son, he's seven, and we buttheads if I am teaching him
directly.
So his reading and math are donemostly independently, and I'm
just there to support andcorrect when needed.
I really wanted him to learnmusic too, especially knowing
how closely music and readingare connected in the brain.
That's why we started usingSimply Piano.
(18:24):
He's learning to read music andplay piano on his own using
songs he already knows andloves, and it feels more like a
game than a lesson.
It's been amazing to watch hisconfidence and skills grow.
If you want to check it out,grab the link in the show
description.
SPEAKER_01 (18:38):
And they saw that our other son finished that
school and stuff like this, butit was it was tricky because
essentially, yeah, we had to pophim back over to England and let
him stay there for a few monthsuntil he'd finished that school
year, and nobody then caused usa problem.
But that was part of our family,a massive part of our family not
here with us.
(18:59):
We were fortunate in the sensethat we had a lot of family, and
his older two siblings werestill in the UK, so he actually
was staying with them anyway,but it still split the family in
a way that we never wanted to.
So at that point, it was verymixed, you know, it it was like
bittersweet.
He'd done so well in school, hewas fluent in Spanish, the other
(19:20):
two were doing great.
We'd got one homeschooling withno issues at all, another that
then we did have the issueswith.
Then my daughter finished atthat school, all perfect, but
she didn't want to do highschool, so we home edit her as
well, and we realized that oncewe'd got out of that school in
the village to do the changepoint, we just didn't change her
(19:41):
into the school, so we just kepther home, and this worked out
perfectly.
So she she was absolutely fine,did three years home ed, um, and
then decided that she would liketo do uh well, my daughter's
quite headstrong, she's a littlebit like me, and she got to 15
and she said, Mum, can I go backto the UK and do um GCSEs?
(20:05):
And I was like, Well, could youwait until you go till you get
to 16 and then you could go tocollege um and just join in at
college and do the grades thatyou wanted and the subjects that
you wanted.
I said, if you go back at 15,you're in your last year of
GCSEs, which usually are spreadover two to three years, and I
said you'll be putting yourselfunder immense pressure, firstly,
(20:28):
language, because she's verydyslexic.
So actually, in Spanish waseasier for her to learn and read
and write and everything becauseit's all phonetic, and then also
the number of children thatwould be in each year.
She went to a school with athousand pupils.
That's what she went back to.
So she did it.
She took five GCSEs, she passedthem, and the biggest thing to
(20:52):
her was to go to prom.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Yeah, that's I get that because I started out the
podcast.
Like, is my child gonna resentme because they're not gonna go
to a prom?
Right?
And then you know what I justfound out a couple weeks ago.
I said something.
My husband said something aboutbefore his prom his senior year,
he like I don't know, waxed histruck all down and just drove it
(21:15):
through the walk-in.
And I said, All right, well thenlike you know, how was the rest
of the prom?
He goes, Oh, I didn't go.
I didn't want to do that.
I just wanted to show off my caror whatever.
So I'm like, you didn't even gothis whole time.
I'm talking about like, shouldwe homeschool our kids?
They're gonna resent us from notgoing to prom and you didn't
even go to your yeah.
So just did a drive there, yeah.
Yeah, but it's so funny.
(21:36):
So she did want to go, and yeah,there's and there are other ways
to do it when you homeschool,but that's so interesting.
So she did it, she was happy.
SPEAKER_01 (21:43):
Yeah, so she went back, she did her year at
school.
Well, it was actually eightmonths.
So it just shows as well thatshe was, even though she'd been
home edding for three yearsbefore that, she went over
there, did five GCSEs and gotthose, and then she went
straight into college.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
What does that stand for?
Is that like a credit?
SPEAKER_01 (22:01):
ECSEs is like a credit from when you're sixteen.
The that's the national examthat you would do over there at
the end of high school beforeyou go on to college or sixth
form.
And then you would do A levelswhen you're 18, usually.
SPEAKER_00 (22:15):
So how did starting the school come about?
Like had you and your husbandbeen working?
Did you have to quit your jobsto homeschool the kids?
When how did the idea of schoolcome up?
SPEAKER_01 (22:25):
That's a good point.
See, I'm a bit of a rambler andI go off in all these different
directions.
So I do apologize.
You can literally back in.
About this, Corey.
So essentially, when we movedover here and we sold my house
in the UK, and Joel and I hadonly been together three months
before we moved here.
Yeah, you know, we'd known eachother and worked together for a
(22:47):
year.
So and we had loads of commoninterests and loads of um
friends in common as well.
So we knew each other well, butwe got together, and he's quite
a bit younger than me.
So he was 25 and I was 38 whenwe got together, and I had five
children and he had none, and Ihad a house, and he was living
in like rented accommodation,like student accommodation.
(23:08):
And then, yeah, one crazy day hedecided to take on me and my
family.
And yeah, I'm very grateful forthat, obviously.
But yeah, with three of thembeing on the spectrum as well,
it was no mean fee, you know.
It was like he threw himselfinto it, he's been great at it,
he's been a natural dad from dayone and not a father, a dad, you
(23:29):
know.
He's he's really been there inall the sort of senses of being
a parent and the difficulttimes, the fun times,
everything.
So that's been really awesome.
And then yeah, we we sold up,came out, and we bought this
house.
It was a big it is a big house.
It's like an eight-bedroom housewith three apartments attached
to it.
(23:49):
Wow.
But it needed doing up, so it'smuch cheaper to buy a property
in Spain.
So we sold up my house for like300,000 in the UK, and then we
bought this for like 58,000euros or something like this.
So we knew we had to spend a loton it though.
We've probably spent about 120on it because it was the bones
(24:11):
of a house.
There was just a skeleton, thatwas it.
There were windows, there was noelectrics, no plumbing, no
plaster on walls, no tiles onfloors, no bathrooms, nothing.
It was just empty.
But it was 200 years old aswell.
So, yeah, so it had promise andpossibilities.
And Joel and I knew that wewould have the time to work out
(24:32):
what we were going to do, butalso the main thing being it
allowed us time with thechildren to settle them.
So we the first year we did wedid do stuff and like we were
working on the house and gettingmoved in, really.
And so we moved here June 2015,and then November 2016, we had
Magnolia, so our youngestdaughter.
(24:54):
So, and we literally had ourfirst bathroom fitted that day.
The builders stayed late so thatthey could do that for us
because I just had a cesareanand stuff, so they were so
awesome.
We, you know, we had like thisgreat community of people around
us straight away.
It was so nice to be somewherethat felt like home straight
away, really.
(25:15):
And yeah, it's it's uh allowedus a lot of time to be with the
children, and then once wethought of what we are going to
do, what we knew we knew wewanted to be around the
children, so we were thinking,right, well, we've got three
apartments there, so we'll rentthem out.
Um, we put it on Airbnb, andyeah, that was fine.
(25:36):
We were making a bit of moneyand everything.
Then someone said, Would you bewilling to run retreats?
And um there was there was a TVshow that's on in the UK called
Um A New Life in the Sun.
And there was a lady on therethat had been on the year
previous, and she wanted to runa retreat, but her venue had
cancelled on her.
So she contacted us just bychance and asked if she could
(25:59):
run her retreat here.
So we hosted it with her, didall the food and collections and
that of people and loads ofrunning around, and it was good
fun.
So we thought, right, okay, thatwas televised, and then so we
got known a little bit fromthat, and then we got asked by
the TV company if we wanted tobe followed the next year, so as
(26:20):
a new business.
And so they did a whole show,like we were on the show for a
week in 2019, that was, and itwas right like it came out
during COVID time, I remember.
But well, everybody was watchingTV then, exactly, exactly, and
everyone was dreaming of beingsomewhere else as well in
countryside and everything, soit was perfect, it worked really
(26:42):
well, and it sort of well, itgave us a bit of recogni
recognition, and although itstill wasn't where we were
finally going on our journeybecause we ended up doing yoga
retreats, a few of those, butstill realizing it wasn't quite
what we wanted to do because itstill didn't fit our children in
as well as we wanted it to.
So then we looked into sort offamily holidays and things like
(27:05):
that.
Well, then we had this worldschooling family turn up, and it
was just out of the blue.
It was an Airbnb booking, andshe's quite a well, I feel she's
quite well known in the worldschooling community.
Her name's Sarah Beale, um, andthey're an Australian family,
and came here with their fourchildren.
Erin Dylan came with the fourchildren, and we were just
chatting away, and we learnt somuch, so much about homed, so
(27:31):
much about world schooling, anddefinitely opened my eyes to a
lot of different things.
And to be honest, I was probablyin some ways quite small-minded
and ignorant about some of thesethings before, and I was really
like overwhelmed by all thesechoices that are out there that
we had no idea that were there,and I thought, wow, this just
(27:52):
seems like the way we should beheaded.
It felt so much more, Joel andI, it felt like it fitted our
lifestyle, and so then nothingseemed too difficult, and so we
started advertising for familyholidays through the world
schooling pages, which before wenever even knew existed, and we
thought we've got big enoughspace for it to be like a little
(28:13):
community, and our village is socommunity and family oriented
anyway, it feels like a reallynice, safe space to be, and like
I'd said it offered so much forfamilies anyway.
SPEAKER_00 (28:26):
So, okay, so is it a school that you run where
there's classes, or is it likewhen if I wanted to be a world
schooler, you would just be oneof my stops in my journey?
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yeah.
So if you if you're on a worldschooling page or something like
this, you might see an advertfor us that says self-directed
months or event months.
And so six of our months areself-directed, and that is when
families come here, they knowthere are going to be other
world schoolers here as well.
There's no one else, like wedon't advertise on Airbnb, it's
(29:00):
families only.
So it's like a community offamilies, it's a one-month
minimum stay, and we do it fromthe first of the month till the
end of the month, and so you'rethere as a small community for
the whole time together.
We set up a WhatsApp group onthe day you arrive, and then
everyone's on it, and we alllike say, Oh, we're heading off
(29:21):
to the market in the morning.
Does anyone else like to join?
And they'll do a little tour ofthe village.
We pop into all the shops sothey know where everything is.
Then maybe in the winter wemight have Lego Club or Art Club
twice a week, something likethat.
Then another parent will pop onand say, Oh, I'm heading into
town.
Did anyone need any shopping?
Um, I'm going at three o'clockor something, and they would be
(29:44):
like, Oh yeah, that's perfect.
Pop down with them, and thenwe'll come back and we'll do
some gardening.
Today there's been, I think, 20of us doing gardening.
So there's no classes thismonth, although we're running
art month, so we've got artworkshops three times a week,
and it's so it's not fullyself-directed this month, but
(30:04):
it's just three art workshops inthe afternoons, four till six
o'clock.
It's usually working out.
So the children and the parentsjoin this, so it's like gets the
family together working as aunit, having fun.
Um, and they were outside andthey were spray painting their
own t-shirts, so like graffiti,finding natural bits from around
the garden, flowers and leavesand stuff, and using them as
(30:28):
templates.
So, yeah, and we've done allsorts, we've done collage,
mosaic, paper mache, and yeah,so that's like March, is that?
And then next month we haveMonth in the Mountains Junior,
which is a week of musicaltheatre, a week of circus skills
and clowning, a week of rockband, so they get to learn all
(30:51):
different instruments with alldifferent professionals, and
they're all fully trainedworking with children and young
adults, and then we do a week ofart, and with the younger ones,
we do den building as wellbecause we all love the
creativity.
Who doesn't love to build a den,even adults, you know?
Yeah, and then we have communitymeals throughout the year every
Sunday.
(31:11):
So we do bring and share meals,and so then again, you get to
taste all this lovely food fromeverywhere, and it's just a big
mix of everything.
The children and the parents getto sit and chat and communicate
and just connect, really, andthey can talk about all their
different lifestyles.
So we have people that are worldschooling full-time, we have
(31:32):
people that are just taking amonth out of their normal life,
we have people that the childrenhave never been to school,
others that have taken them outof school and probably wouldn't
have chosen to home ed, but feltlike they were pushed into it,
maybe a little bit like us tostart with.
It was like you felt like, ohwell, we're not doing that, so
this is our only choice, youknow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:53):
After three years of interviewing homeschooling
families, I realized howoverwhelming it can be to piece
everything together.
So I took the best advice, tips,questions, and resources that
I've learned along the way andput them into one practical
ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point, you'll find the
link in this show's description.
SPEAKER_01 (32:14):
But now we've we're completely different.
We're completely switched roundand feel like if only I'd known
that and had more confidence, Iwould have done that from the
start, you know?
Wow.
But yeah, and then so yeah, wedo Month in the Mountains Teens
and Tweens as well.
We do that two months a year,and the juniors two months a
year, and then we've in Novemberwe've got our first month
(32:35):
working with just teenagers,which I've I've done for a lot
of my time anyway.
I was a foreign student host inthe UK, and I was a single mum
to five at the time, and I wouldhave four students, and I also
had one of my daughter's friendsliving with us.
So I had ten children most ofthe week anyway, and you know,
(32:56):
did the whole lunchtime thing,you know, packed lunches, had to
drop the students off in themorning, and I'd have a baby
strapped on me, two in thedouble buggy, and a little train
of students going behind me.
But we loved it, it was greatfun.
And I've always I've alwaysrealised how mental health is so
important to, I would say, 11 to15 is a real key point, and it
(33:20):
can become very difficult withall the peer pressure in senior
schools and everything.
And so it's always been veryimportant to me to provide
something that's a little bitmore holistic, and I think the
creative side of things reallyhelps as well, and making
children feel comfortable andallowing them to have fun with
things, and so for November,we're running on from our
(33:42):
October teens and tweens, we'redoing this teen-only month where
parents drop their children withus for the month, and we've got
um, we're doingentrepreneurship, so a lot of
them have already got ideas ofwhat they want to do, or may
already be working in aprofession um at that capacity
already, and so we're just thereto grow their skills and push
(34:05):
them forward to the next levelor help them think and plan
about things, but not only that,it's about independence, and
it's a time we're gonna have aboy's house and a girl's house,
and there'll be seven of each ateach house, and they're both
gonna have leaders in the house,and and then during the daytime
they come together from 10 till7.
(34:27):
They're going to be learningeverything from budgeting, going
shopping, and buying their food,cooking their food, baking their
food.
That's where my son getsinvolved again, there because
he's a baker, so he will beshowing them how to bake bread,
cakes, everything like this.
A lot of homemade children havea lot of these skills anyway,
but often they just need thatlittle bit of independence, and
(34:48):
it's a great space to try itout.
It's a very safe village, andit's a safe environment with
lots of support around them.
So there'll be work with mentalhealth practitioners, physical
health, and well-being.
So we're doing nutrition, we'vegot gym passes for all the
children, so they all get to go.
We do that on our teen and tweenmonths anyway, so that they they
(35:10):
work out their own routine andthey add to it, and it's not
just led by us.
They'll they'll like meet up inthe afternoons and go, Oh, do
you fancy going to the gym?
And like eight of the childrenwill go off to the gym.
Um, and it's yeah, it's aboutconfidence building, working
together, team building, andyeah, just giving them a little
bit of a push in the rightdirection, a little bit of
(35:32):
support when it's needed, butalso helping them realise their
own skills and their ownstrengths.
And yeah, it will be a great.
SPEAKER_00 (35:40):
Are you in Spain or are you back in the UK?
SPEAKER_01 (35:43):
No, we're in Spain, yeah.
We're so we're in Spainfull-time, so these people will
be coming to stay with us.
There is an option if parentswould like to stay nearby.
We are going to have an optionthat parents can rent nearby,
you know, because again, this isopen to neurodiverse children,
and although I can't haveone-to-ones because we haven't
(36:03):
got that sort of capability withour staff, and they will be
staff essentially, they'releaders, mentors, but
essentially we need to thinkabout the safety of everybody
and you know, and what we'reoffering.
SPEAKER_00 (36:16):
I find that you tend to get more.
So explain the neuro what isneurodivergent for anyone new to
the term.
SPEAKER_01 (36:23):
So, neurodivergence is when you're not classed as
neurotypical, I suppose.
So maybe you would have someADHD, so hyperactivity, and you
might find certain situationsdifficult, or you might find it
difficult to be calm in acertain situation, you might
suffer with anxiety or autism,or you know, there's many
(36:44):
different levels of it, andthere's so many different things
that be can be classed asneurodiverse, but essentially a
lot of the neurodiversity doesnot fit the system of the
schools, and so we find so manychildren come to us with their
parents and they feel like Idon't know how to put it really,
it's like they've been pushedout of one system and they've
(37:06):
not had a choice.
So the parents might bethinking, Oh, I'm not able to
teach them, I'm not qualifiedfor this.
But what we're here to do isjust give them the confidence
and say, Don't worry, your childwill do better as long as
they're in the rightenvironment.
It doesn't matter about thesit-down classes, it's more
about how they feel.
(37:26):
Do they feel safe?
Are they in a good environment?
Do they get time outside?
Do they get to meet others?
It doesn't matter about ageseither.
We've realized that quite a longtime ago.
And we our children mix with alldifferent ages, partly because
we've got a nine and a29-year-old, you know, with the
others in between.
We we realize that, you know, alot of people will phone us and
(37:48):
say or message us and say, Oh,do you have any other
eight-year-olds there?
Well, maybe one eight-year-old,but two ten-year-olds, a
twelve-year-old, and that.
And you'll often find that theeight-year-old's off with the
twelve-year-old doing somethingbecause mentally they are more
into the same thing, you know,or practically, you know, they
might both love art or both loveclimbing trees or anything.
(38:09):
But essentially, we've got tostop grouping children together
just by ages and by, you know,sets as such as they do at
school.
Oh, you're good at this, you'regood at that, let's put you in
that box, you know.
It's not about that, it'sfinding this wider range of
where at what makes our childrenhappy.
It's not about grading andthings like that, it's finding
(38:31):
their happy place and findingyour family's happy place.
And that's not often for me.
I've definitely found that it'snot within that school system.
So I agree.
With with that in mind, we umhome edited Magnolia pretty much
since the beginning.
We did want her to learnSpanish, well, we do, and we put
(38:53):
her into the like a nursery sortof style thing because we
thought that's socialization,and then she's learning the
language in a gentle way throughplay in a small group situation
as well.
But it was just too much forher.
She's an incredibly sensitive,quiet child who doesn't need
again, doesn't need raisedvoices and things like this.
(39:14):
And there was just so much inthe end that we just thought,
you know what, she's learnt thebasics of Spanish, we can
continue that at home.
And so the pretty much most ofthe last four years she's been
at home.
So and she she is doing great.
It's like, I mean, we all knowif you're home editing your
children, you all know that youget a lot of questions from
(39:35):
family, from friends.
What are you gonna do aboutthis?
How are you gonna teach themthis?
How are they gonna socialize?
How will they ever be able tofollow rules?
There's so many things that youget questioned over, and
essentially, I'm so confident inall of it now.
I just like tell everyone, youdon't need to worry about this,
you don't need to worry aboutthat.
Find what they're good at, findwhat they enjoy, start with
(39:57):
that, start always go back tothe basics.
And when my parents, I rememberthem saying, So can she read
yet?
And I think she was six and ahalf, and she was just getting
she was interested in words butnot reading.
And then we had some otherchildren here who she became
really good friends with, andthey were reading all the time,
and they were a year and a halfolder.
And we've got a little libraryand we've got a playroom at both
(40:19):
properties.
Um, and they were sitting outthe front with her, and she
said, I heard her say, Are youreading all those books?
and they were like, Yeah.
And so she came into me thatafternoon and she was like,
Mummy, I want to learn to read.
So I was like, So then at thatpoint, we're like, Right, okay,
you're ready for it.
And so within, I think withinthree weeks, she was reading.
(40:41):
Wow, and yeah, because the wantwas there, you know.
She she'd been she was driven todo something, she saw something,
thought, wow, they're learning,they're having fun, they're
reading funny stories, you know,poetry.
We started with a lot of poetryactually, and I find that really
helpful.
Anything rhyming is great forkids' confidence when they're
(41:03):
learning to read because you Ithink repetitive stuff is really
good if it's rhyming and fun andengaging.
There's a lot of the schoolbooks that you get given when
they're in school to read thatare um repetitive but in a
different way.
They're not very engaging,there's not much of a story
there, there's no rhyming oranything like this, it's not
(41:24):
much fun, and they're readingthe same five words on each page
in a different order.
But with the poetry, as you readit through with them, you can
put feeling and fun into it, andyou can guide them and leave off
like a word here and therebecause they can hear the rhythm
of it as well.
So they're listening out for thepattern, and then they can guess
(41:45):
the word.
So then when they're guessingand you're holding, you know,
you're sort of guiding them withthe reading, they're then
picking up on, oh wow, I I'veremembered this word, and then
they're looking at it as well,and so they're not only hearing
that it fits, they're seeingthat they've got the word right
as well.
I find that poetry is such agreat, such a great thing.
Um for learning to read.
(42:06):
So amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
As we're running up on the end of the hour here, I
just want to make sure peopleknow where they can find you,
and I'll link everything in theshow's description too.
But can you let people know thatare listening?
Like if they want to come visityou, what does your weight look
like?
You know, are you booked out forthree years?
SPEAKER_01 (42:22):
Well, yeah, we're we're booked up all through the
summer, um, and which is great.
June, July, August, and weactually take on extra
properties during some months.
So when we're fully booked earlyon, we'll take on properties in
the village and rent those outas well.
So the community is often largerthan average in those summer
months, which is great.
(42:43):
So we've got Shepherd's Rest andCortijo Serendipia, and it's at
www.shepherdsrest.org, and thereyou will find everything that
you need to know about us andhow to book.
And you can feel free to messageus anytime.
We've got Shepherd's Rest is ourpage on Facebook as well.
And yeah, just get in touch, askus anything.
SPEAKER_00 (43:05):
Um, I will link all of that so people can just click
right on it and check you guysout.
This has been super cool tolearn about.
I love this.
SPEAKER_01 (43:12):
It's got pictures of the apartments, it's got um a
diary of what's going on eachmonth with prices there.
So all the information's there.
SPEAKER_00 (43:21):
Corey, thank you so much for talking to us today and
opening our minds about all thedifferent possibilities for
homeschooling.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
(43:41):
thehomeschoolhowtu.com and grabmy free 30 day homeschool quick
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How to Podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:24):
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Corianda.
She told me I could call herCorey, but Coriander's such a
cool name.
I feel like I can't cut thatshort.
How are you?
SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
I'm good, thank you.
How are you?
Good.
Now where are you from?
So we're from Brighton, UK, andum we now live in Aurea, Almeria
in Andalusia, Spain.
So we've been here uh 11 yearsin June, and we love it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
Wow, okay, amazing.
So are you guys homeschoolers?
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Yes, so we haven't always been.
So I've got six children.
The oldest is 29, and theyoungest is nine, and the
youngest four have had certainamounts of time in home ed.
So the oldest two went throughthe school system in the UK.
The oldest one, no problems atall, just sort of flew through
(01:13):
it, and it seemed-I mean, Ididn't even think outside the
box so much then becauseeverything was just easy.
Um and then my three boys theyhave autism, high functioning,
but they were the next three inline, and so they did have a few
struggles in school, and I wasnot happy with the way that
things were working out forthem, and then I realized I was
(01:34):
expecting the school system toprovide something for them, and
actually, why do we expect thatas parents when we are the ones
that know them best?
So I I feel like now I'm totallyawake to this, and I'm just
like, why would I put mychildren in a situation that was
gonna be difficult for someoneelse to deal with, you know?
(01:54):
Because you can't expect toomuch.
SPEAKER_00 (01:56):
That's interesting because a lot of parents say,
Oh, I'd like to homeschool, butmy child is on the spectrum, so
I have to leave them in schoolwhere the experts can give them
what they need.
But I've talked to so manyteachers that are like, No, it's
not, no, they're better off athome.
So yeah, talk to us a little bitabout how like you went about
educating them because itprobably is very different than
(02:18):
sit in front of this textbookand memorize it.
SPEAKER_01 (02:21):
Completely different.
Yeah, we realized um, so wemoved to Spain and we moved with
we left the 18 and 16-year-oldwith their dad, and um, they
were in college and universitystudying music, both of them.
So they were fine, settledthere, and still had all the
rest of the family in the samehometown.
So we bought our 10, 8, and7-year-olds um over here, and
(02:46):
then since had Magnolia, who'snine.
So when we started over here, wewere thinking, oh, we might end
up home educating because oureight-year-old had been expelled
from the school system in theUK, and yeah, I mean, he had a
diagnosis from young, and I'donly ever bothered to get the
diagnosis because they said, Oh,we can't help him without one.
(03:06):
But then we got it and it didn'tchange anything.
And I'm thinking, why you know,where do we go to at this point
when we're trying everything?
I'm asking for help andapproaching all these different
avenues, holistic sort oftherapies, play therapies.
I didn't go the medicationroute.
For me, I've never really beeninto medication.
(03:27):
Don't get me wrong, I'm notjudging anyone else that does
because I know some childrenmight need it.
But for me, it was a no-go,especially when they offer it to
you the day they get adiagnosis.
I'm like, well, now I know whatI'm dealing with.
I don't want the meds because Iwant to try and read up on these
situations and see what I wouldsee what we can improve without
(03:49):
that sort of intervention.
So, anyway, we thought when wecame out here that we might end
up homeschooling.
The truth of it is we didn'tknow it was actually um classed
as illegal in Spain to home ed.
Really?
Yeah, so we we hadn't we'd sortof come out quite blind to that
fact.
And as it happened, we took afew weeks in the summer because
(04:10):
we arrived in the summer, so wespent a lot of time integrating
our three with the locals at thepark.
So we would sit every evening atthe park and we'd take our
camper van up there and make acoffee.
And to start with, our kidswouldn't get out of the van, and
me and Joel were the onesplaying with water balloons and
footballs and basketballs andhoops and god knows what, and we
(04:31):
were playing with all the localkids, and then our kids started
well, the other children startedcoming over to the camper van
and saying, Oh, you're gonnacome out and play.
Our children just naturallyprogressed, and within a week
they were all playing, and meand Joel were able to sit in the
camper van and have a coffee andwatch them.
SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
So they like wonderfully painted this image
of like a big van pulling up andonly adults getting out to play
with random kids.
Like in America, I don't knowthat that would fly anymore.
SPEAKER_01 (05:01):
I know we were we were thinking that at the time
we were like, kids, come out thevan and sit at least on the
bench or something so people cansee that you're here because
we're just like two randomadults throwing water balloons
at little kids.
Do you know what I mean?
So, but it it was good, and theum the local kids were
fantastic, and they startedsaying to my children, Oh, how
(05:21):
old are you?
You'll be in my class at school,they were saying to them.
So then then the kids werecoming home after the park and
going, I'm gonna be inso-and-so's class, and they're
gonna be in their class, and sothey'd like made these
connections and friends, and sowe thought, well, brilliant, you
know, we'll try the school out.
It's it only had 70 children in,ranging from age three to
fourteen.
(05:42):
So that worked for us becausethey'd come from a school that
had six classes of 30 childrenin each year, and there was no
space, no quiet, no peace, nobeauty around it.
It was just a very squashed in,noisy school.
So over here they did absolutelybrilliantly.
For the first three, four years,they were doing great.
(06:04):
They learnt the language, sothey're fluent in Spanish, and
actually, my the one who waseight when we got here, so he's
got autism and AD.
Um, and his emotional regulationhas always been quite difficult
for him when he was younger.
And he was top of the Spanishclass within six months, and we
were in a Spanish village, sothey all thought he was local.
(06:26):
He spoke with the accent, thedialect, uh you know, just
everything was just easy forhim.
And the other two, they learntvery easily as well, and we were
learning too.
We we put ourselves through theclasses with the town hall
because all small villagesprovide lessons for foreigners,
which is absolutely fantastic,and it's free as well.
(06:47):
So, why wouldn't you takeadvantage of this when you're
moving somewhere and you want tointegrate, you know?
Right.
We're not we're not the sort ofpeople that think we're expats,
we call ourselves immigrantsbecause we've moved here to
someone else's country and wewant to take on board what we
moved here for a reason, andthat's to give our children a
better life.
So we now spend, well, we wereable to spend so much more time
(07:11):
with them outside in the niceweather rather than cold, grey,
wet England where you'd have totake coats out on every journey,
not knowing what the weatherwould hold, you know, but more
than likely rain.
So yeah, it was it was great tosee the kids um outside together
with new friends very quickly,doing well in school, and this
(07:36):
all sounds like I'm not going tobe talking about homed at all,
you know.
Essentially, it got to the pointwhere they finished that school
at 14.
And for at 14, my older son, uhLindon, who was uh just about to
move to the high school, hemoved to the high school, but
there were a larger number ofpupils there, it was all change,
(07:57):
and he didn't do so well.
So he was the first one that wetook out of the system, and from
that point on, I knew we'd madethe right decision because he
flew.
He started concentrating on allthe things he loved, and that's
what we we just said.
Well, what are the things youenjoy?
What do you want to do?
Um, he always struggled withmaths, and so we didn't make a
(08:18):
big thing about maths, but heloved baking, and he's now a
baker, but he also sings, um, heacts, and so he's um joined a
theatre group and he has singinglessons, he's recorded cover
songs.
Now, this is a child that whenhe was eight years old in the
UK, he didn't speak for a wholeyear.
He um suffered with well,suffered or had selective
(08:41):
mutism.
So to see this change for himwas so nice because it's it it
was such a jump in hispersonality, and we were able to
enjoy seeing him rather thanthis this child that held
everything in.
He was uh he really came out ofhimself and and he's doing so
(09:05):
well now.
He's actually 21 now and doingreally well.
He actually works with us, withour world school that we run,
and he runs a lot of the classeswith us, especially the specific
uh classes for teenagers.
So he's like a youth worker withthem, and it doesn't matter
then.
We we are neurodivergentfriendly here, and we think
(09:26):
that's really important to usbecause obviously, where we've
come from, how far we've come,and how we've noticed that the
environment alone can change alot of the outcome for our
children like this, and for thewhole family setting, in fact.
So we wanted to be able to offerthat to other families as well,
and it's been absolutely amazingseeing other children come here
(09:50):
and parents saying to us, Oh,I'm not sure if we should come
and stay because you know, willthe apartment be like
soundproofed?
And you know, where where willwe be?
What what what if my childrenhave a meltdown?
And I'm like, just do not worryabout it at all.
Everyone's very accepting, andoften the children really
improve when they're herebecause there's so much open
(10:12):
space, there's always somethingto do.
The fact is, they've got otherpeople to go off and play with.
Um, they're not in the system,so nothing is expected of them.
They're just free to be them,and they see their parents relax
as well and chat with otherparents.
A lot of them are also well,they're home editing all the
people that come here, except weprobably get a few families in
(10:35):
July and August, which in the UKthat's UK summertime, so school
summer holidays, and we do stillget a few families that are in
the school system, but they'retrying out this lifestyle
because they want to be out ofthe school system.
And I totally think it's aprivilege to be able to home ed
actually, and really aware thatthere are so many parents out
(10:56):
there that would love to do it,and it's so difficult.
So, what we actually do is wekeep our prices down in the
summer, and they're some of ourlowest price months in June,
July, and August because we wantto still attract those families,
you know, air prices go up andeverything like that, and I
think it's so difficult forfamilies, especially from the
UK, where we know this happensall the time, and you know, we
(11:19):
know this the months that youhave off over there, so we we
time it right so that we canoffer something and the chance
for them to see their childrenin a better environment.
And we've also seen familiesthat have come and stayed here
when they were their childrenwere in the school system, and
now they've been able to makethe move to starting their
businesses and being able to tolive the lifestyle that suits
(11:42):
their family more now, which isreally nice to see.
SPEAKER_00 (11:45):
Yeah, getting out of that system.
I'm all about that.
I was a government worker for 16years, so it's yeah, like, you
know, you gotta break the tiesand then you'll see a whole
world open up.
But I do love what you hadmentioned earlier because I
remember somebody saying to mevery early on when I started
interviewing homeschoolingfamilies about homeschoolers,
you're giving them the agencyover their time.
And like I didn't know what thatmeant.
(12:06):
And I was like, oh, that soundsgood.
But as I've interviewed more andmore and listening to you talk
about, you know, then my son wasable to do things that he loved.
And I think that sounds so likeyou know, we think about like,
oh, we got to ride his bikemore, but it's like, well, but
maybe that sparked somethingbecause maybe his bike broke,
and then he had to learn how tofix it, and then he was like,
(12:26):
Oh, I really like mechanics, oryou know, it could go in any
direction.
So for him, he learned music,and that took him on a whole
different path.
And I love that that you wereable to build a business, and
then he's able to work in that.
It is just something sowonderful.
Students need strong malefigures, you know, young, good
male role models.
(12:47):
I love that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
So And he's not shy, he's not shy with telling other
children as well.
He will tell the junk youngergeneration that are finding
things hard at the moment.
He'll say, I used to be likethis, or I couldn't cope with
this before, but now look.
And he said, You just need tothink of the things you like to
do and that you want to do, andyou know, people will help you.
(13:10):
So we have young artists thatare already illustrators for
books and things.
We've just had, you know, somany talented children through
here that if they were in theschool system, they wouldn't
have even been recognized now,especially with the creative
side of things, arts, the music,you know, the drama and things
like this.
There's not much, not much spacefor it in the school system.
(13:33):
And I think you know, it's it'samazing to see the growth in a
child when they're somewherewhere they feel happy.
In the environment, they feelhappy.
And when you home it, you oftenhave more time to be able to be
with them, and so there's moreguidance there, and you can see
their strengths as well, you canrecognize them yourself, and so
(13:54):
you can then go, right, okay,they're picking up this really
well, and so you can offer themextra things like sorry, we've
got a kitten in the background.
The kitten's blind, so he has noidea where he is.
SPEAKER_00 (14:06):
Well, maybe now.
So you took your first son out.
That did you take the other onesout right at the same time, or
did they all have sort of theirdownfall too?
SPEAKER_01 (14:15):
Yeah, so not at the same time.
So then we took out our13-year-old, and he's the one
with autism and ADHD, and he wasthe one that was top of the
class in like every subject.
No one ever noticed that hepretty much had any issues as
such because he was sointelligent, but his emotional
(14:36):
um regulation was all over theplace, and so he was the one
that had previously beenexpelled in England.
Um, and like I say, he did sowell here, and we were really
impressed with how he coped witheverything and all the changes,
and then it got to the pointwhere they just didn't get him
anymore, and they couldn't theycouldn't almost provide him with
(15:00):
what he needed, which was whichwas actually more education.
He he was doing so well thatwhen the kids were messing
around in his class and thingslike that, he was getting upset
that he couldn't learn thingswhen it was too noisy and he
didn't like thedisrespectfulness, he didn't
like the shouting when theteacher then had to shout at the
(15:22):
other students.
He was really sensitive to thenoise, and it just became
somewhere that he really didn'twant to go.
So we took him out without anythought.
That didn't work as easy as whenwe took our first son out.
So we received visits from theGuardia, social services, and I
honestly think it was thedifference being our other son
(15:44):
had been taken out of highschool, and they could see his
problems a lot more because hewas not so high functioning,
maybe.
And so, and then they could seehis sensitivities and the way
that he wasn't speaking and hewas closing down.
Whereas with my other son, theywere like, Oh no, he's like top
of the class, why are you takinghim out?
And I just said, Look, he's nothappy at the moment, we need to
(16:07):
sort this out.
And so, yeah, they sort offollowed it up a lot more.
SPEAKER_00 (16:11):
You said you were in Spain and it was illegal to
homeschool there?
SPEAKER_01 (16:15):
Yeah, yeah.
So we knew we knew we weretaking a risk taking him out of
the system, but he was alreadyyeah, well, it was it was
tricky, it really was.
It was very difficult for thosefirst six months.
Um, we actually had to um sendhim back to England to stay with
family for a few months becausewe felt so it felt it felt like
(16:39):
a tricky situation that couldget like really bad.
When we were in the schoolplayground, and I said to the
head teacher, she said, Holby,there's his name, but you know,
she said, You must um you mustattend school, otherwise your
parents will be arrested and youwill be in the Centro de
Menores, which is the youthdetention centre.
(17:01):
And this is like with a childthat had a diagnosis, he's been
top of the class all the time,and she then told me he has
nothing wrong with him.
If he has something wrong withhim, the class, the rest of the
class, have something muchworse.
That's what she told me.
And I'm like, no, you justreally don't understand what
this is about.
It's about, you know, hiswell-being, his mental health,
(17:22):
and things like that.
So um, the minute she said that,I took him by the hand and I
said to her, I said, We're notcoming back here, you you know,
and from that point, obviously,my other daughter was young uh
21 months younger than him, wasalso in this school.
So you can imagine then when thesocial services came around,
they were they were actuallyreally lovely.
(17:44):
I've got to be honest.
They did check things out in thehouse, but I sort of think
that's okay because they wantedto check that the children were
safe and happy at home, and alsothey could see that we weren't
just doing this on a whimbecause we'd left our daughter
in school because she was atthat point happy so and doing
really well.
SPEAKER_00 (18:03):
Quick pass to share something that's been a great
fit for our homeschool.
My son, he's seven, and we buttheads if I am teaching him
directly.
So his reading and math are donemostly independently, and I'm
just there to support andcorrect when needed.
I really wanted him to learnmusic too, especially knowing
how closely music and readingare connected in the brain.
That's why we started usingSimply Piano.
(18:24):
He's learning to read music andplay piano on his own using
songs he already knows andloves, and it feels more like a
game than a lesson.
It's been amazing to watch hisconfidence and skills grow.
If you want to check it out,grab the link in the show
description.
SPEAKER_01 (18:38):
And they saw that our other son finished that
school and stuff like this, butit was it was tricky because
essentially, yeah, we had to pophim back over to England and let
him stay there for a few monthsuntil he'd finished that school
year, and nobody then caused usa problem.
But that was part of our family,a massive part of our family not
here with us.
(18:59):
We were fortunate in the sensethat we had a lot of family, and
his older two siblings werestill in the UK, so he actually
was staying with them anyway,but it still split the family in
a way that we never wanted to.
So at that point, it was verymixed, you know, it it was like
bittersweet.
He'd done so well in school, hewas fluent in Spanish, the other
(19:20):
two were doing great.
We'd got one homeschooling withno issues at all, another that
then we did have the issueswith.
Then my daughter finished atthat school, all perfect, but
she didn't want to do highschool, so we home edit her as
well, and we realized that oncewe'd got out of that school in
the village to do the changepoint, we just didn't change her
(19:41):
into the school, so we just kepther home, and this worked out
perfectly.
So she she was absolutely fine,did three years home ed, um, and
then decided that she would liketo do uh well, my daughter's
quite headstrong, she's a littlebit like me, and she got to 15
and she said, Mum, can I go backto the UK and do um GCSEs?
(20:05):
And I was like, Well, could youwait until you go till you get
to 16 and then you could go tocollege um and just join in at
college and do the grades thatyou wanted and the subjects that
you wanted.
I said, if you go back at 15,you're in your last year of
GCSEs, which usually are spreadover two to three years, and I
said you'll be putting yourselfunder immense pressure, firstly,
(20:28):
language, because she's verydyslexic.
So actually, in Spanish waseasier for her to learn and read
and write and everything becauseit's all phonetic, and then also
the number of children thatwould be in each year.
She went to a school with athousand pupils.
That's what she went back to.
So she did it.
She took five GCSEs, she passedthem, and the biggest thing to
(20:52):
her was to go to prom.
SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Yeah, that's I get that because I started out the
podcast.
Like, is my child gonna resentme because they're not gonna go
to a prom?
Right?
And then you know what I justfound out a couple weeks ago.
I said something.
My husband said something aboutbefore his prom his senior year,
he like I don't know, waxed histruck all down and just drove it
(21:15):
through the walk-in.
And I said, All right, well thenlike you know, how was the rest
of the prom?
He goes, Oh, I didn't go.
I didn't want to do that.
I just wanted to show off my caror whatever.
So I'm like, you didn't even gothis whole time.
I'm talking about like, shouldwe homeschool our kids?
They're gonna resent us from notgoing to prom and you didn't
even go to your yeah.
So just did a drive there, yeah.
Yeah, but it's so funny.
(21:36):
So she did want to go, and yeah,there's and there are other ways
to do it when you homeschool,but that's so interesting.
So she did it, she was happy.
SPEAKER_01 (21:43):
Yeah, so she went back, she did her year at
school.
Well, it was actually eightmonths.
So it just shows as well thatshe was, even though she'd been
home edding for three yearsbefore that, she went over
there, did five GCSEs and gotthose, and then she went
straight into college.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
What does that stand for?
Is that like a credit?
SPEAKER_01 (22:01):
ECSEs is like a credit from when you're sixteen.
The that's the national examthat you would do over there at
the end of high school beforeyou go on to college or sixth
form.
And then you would do A levelswhen you're 18, usually.
SPEAKER_00 (22:15):
So how did starting the school come about?
Like had you and your husbandbeen working?
Did you have to quit your jobsto homeschool the kids?
When how did the idea of schoolcome up?
SPEAKER_01 (22:25):
That's a good point.
See, I'm a bit of a rambler andI go off in all these different
directions.
So I do apologize.
You can literally back in.
About this, Corey.
So essentially, when we movedover here and we sold my house
in the UK, and Joel and I hadonly been together three months
before we moved here.
Yeah, you know, we'd known eachother and worked together for a
(22:47):
year.
So and we had loads of commoninterests and loads of um
friends in common as well.
So we knew each other well, butwe got together, and he's quite
a bit younger than me.
So he was 25 and I was 38 whenwe got together, and I had five
children and he had none, and Ihad a house, and he was living
in like rented accommodation,like student accommodation.
(23:08):
And then, yeah, one crazy day hedecided to take on me and my
family.
And yeah, I'm very grateful forthat, obviously.
But yeah, with three of thembeing on the spectrum as well,
it was no mean fee, you know.
It was like he threw himselfinto it, he's been great at it,
he's been a natural dad from dayone and not a father, a dad, you
(23:29):
know.
He's he's really been there inall the sort of senses of being
a parent and the difficulttimes, the fun times,
everything.
So that's been really awesome.
And then yeah, we we sold up,came out, and we bought this
house.
It was a big it is a big house.
It's like an eight-bedroom housewith three apartments attached
to it.
(23:49):
Wow.
But it needed doing up, so it'smuch cheaper to buy a property
in Spain.
So we sold up my house for like300,000 in the UK, and then we
bought this for like 58,000euros or something like this.
So we knew we had to spend a loton it though.
We've probably spent about 120on it because it was the bones
(24:11):
of a house.
There was just a skeleton, thatwas it.
There were windows, there was noelectrics, no plumbing, no
plaster on walls, no tiles onfloors, no bathrooms, nothing.
It was just empty.
But it was 200 years old aswell.
So, yeah, so it had promise andpossibilities.
And Joel and I knew that wewould have the time to work out
(24:32):
what we were going to do, butalso the main thing being it
allowed us time with thechildren to settle them.
So we the first year we did wedid do stuff and like we were
working on the house and gettingmoved in, really.
And so we moved here June 2015,and then November 2016, we had
Magnolia, so our youngestdaughter.
(24:54):
So, and we literally had ourfirst bathroom fitted that day.
The builders stayed late so thatthey could do that for us
because I just had a cesareanand stuff, so they were so
awesome.
We, you know, we had like thisgreat community of people around
us straight away.
It was so nice to be somewherethat felt like home straight
away, really.
(25:15):
And yeah, it's it's uh allowedus a lot of time to be with the
children, and then once wethought of what we are going to
do, what we knew we knew wewanted to be around the
children, so we were thinking,right, well, we've got three
apartments there, so we'll rentthem out.
Um, we put it on Airbnb, andyeah, that was fine.
(25:36):
We were making a bit of moneyand everything.
Then someone said, Would you bewilling to run retreats?
And um there was there was a TVshow that's on in the UK called
Um A New Life in the Sun.
And there was a lady on therethat had been on the year
previous, and she wanted to runa retreat, but her venue had
cancelled on her.
So she contacted us just bychance and asked if she could
(25:59):
run her retreat here.
So we hosted it with her, didall the food and collections and
that of people and loads ofrunning around, and it was good
fun.
So we thought, right, okay, thatwas televised, and then so we
got known a little bit fromthat, and then we got asked by
the TV company if we wanted tobe followed the next year, so as
(26:20):
a new business.
And so they did a whole show,like we were on the show for a
week in 2019, that was, and itwas right like it came out
during COVID time, I remember.
But well, everybody was watchingTV then, exactly, exactly, and
everyone was dreaming of beingsomewhere else as well in
countryside and everything, soit was perfect, it worked really
(26:42):
well, and it sort of well, itgave us a bit of recogni
recognition, and although itstill wasn't where we were
finally going on our journeybecause we ended up doing yoga
retreats, a few of those, butstill realizing it wasn't quite
what we wanted to do because itstill didn't fit our children in
as well as we wanted it to.
So then we looked into sort offamily holidays and things like
(27:05):
that.
Well, then we had this worldschooling family turn up, and it
was just out of the blue.
It was an Airbnb booking, andshe's quite a well, I feel she's
quite well known in the worldschooling community.
Her name's Sarah Beale, um, andthey're an Australian family,
and came here with their fourchildren.
Erin Dylan came with the fourchildren, and we were just
chatting away, and we learnt somuch, so much about homed, so
(27:31):
much about world schooling, anddefinitely opened my eyes to a
lot of different things.
And to be honest, I was probablyin some ways quite small-minded
and ignorant about some of thesethings before, and I was really
like overwhelmed by all thesechoices that are out there that
we had no idea that were there,and I thought, wow, this just
(27:52):
seems like the way we should beheaded.
It felt so much more, Joel andI, it felt like it fitted our
lifestyle, and so then nothingseemed too difficult, and so we
started advertising for familyholidays through the world
schooling pages, which before wenever even knew existed, and we
thought we've got big enoughspace for it to be like a little
(28:13):
community, and our village is socommunity and family oriented
anyway, it feels like a reallynice, safe space to be, and like
I'd said it offered so much forfamilies anyway.
SPEAKER_00 (28:26):
So, okay, so is it a school that you run where
there's classes, or is it likewhen if I wanted to be a world
schooler, you would just be oneof my stops in my journey?
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yeah.
So if you if you're on a worldschooling page or something like
this, you might see an advertfor us that says self-directed
months or event months.
And so six of our months areself-directed, and that is when
families come here, they knowthere are going to be other
world schoolers here as well.
There's no one else, like wedon't advertise on Airbnb, it's
(29:00):
families only.
So it's like a community offamilies, it's a one-month
minimum stay, and we do it fromthe first of the month till the
end of the month, and so you'rethere as a small community for
the whole time together.
We set up a WhatsApp group onthe day you arrive, and then
everyone's on it, and we alllike say, Oh, we're heading off
(29:21):
to the market in the morning.
Does anyone else like to join?
And they'll do a little tour ofthe village.
We pop into all the shops sothey know where everything is.
Then maybe in the winter wemight have Lego Club or Art Club
twice a week, something likethat.
Then another parent will pop onand say, Oh, I'm heading into
town.
Did anyone need any shopping?
Um, I'm going at three o'clockor something, and they would be
(29:44):
like, Oh yeah, that's perfect.
Pop down with them, and thenwe'll come back and we'll do
some gardening.
Today there's been, I think, 20of us doing gardening.
So there's no classes thismonth, although we're running
art month, so we've got artworkshops three times a week,
and it's so it's not fullyself-directed this month, but
(30:04):
it's just three art workshops inthe afternoons, four till six
o'clock.
It's usually working out.
So the children and the parentsjoin this, so it's like gets the
family together working as aunit, having fun.
Um, and they were outside andthey were spray painting their
own t-shirts, so like graffiti,finding natural bits from around
the garden, flowers and leavesand stuff, and using them as
(30:28):
templates.
So, yeah, and we've done allsorts, we've done collage,
mosaic, paper mache, and yeah,so that's like March, is that?
And then next month we haveMonth in the Mountains Junior,
which is a week of musicaltheatre, a week of circus skills
and clowning, a week of rockband, so they get to learn all
(30:51):
different instruments with alldifferent professionals, and
they're all fully trainedworking with children and young
adults, and then we do a week ofart, and with the younger ones,
we do den building as wellbecause we all love the
creativity.
Who doesn't love to build a den,even adults, you know?
Yeah, and then we have communitymeals throughout the year every
Sunday.
(31:11):
So we do bring and share meals,and so then again, you get to
taste all this lovely food fromeverywhere, and it's just a big
mix of everything.
The children and the parents getto sit and chat and communicate
and just connect, really, andthey can talk about all their
different lifestyles.
So we have people that are worldschooling full-time, we have
(31:32):
people that are just taking amonth out of their normal life,
we have people that the childrenhave never been to school,
others that have taken them outof school and probably wouldn't
have chosen to home ed, but feltlike they were pushed into it,
maybe a little bit like us tostart with.
It was like you felt like, ohwell, we're not doing that, so
this is our only choice, youknow.
SPEAKER_00 (31:53):
After three years of interviewing homeschooling
families, I realized howoverwhelming it can be to piece
everything together.
So I took the best advice, tips,questions, and resources that
I've learned along the way andput them into one practical
ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point, you'll find the
link in this show's description.
SPEAKER_01 (32:14):
But now we've we're completely different.
We're completely switched roundand feel like if only I'd known
that and had more confidence, Iwould have done that from the
start, you know?
Wow.
But yeah, and then so yeah, wedo Month in the Mountains Teens
and Tweens as well.
We do that two months a year,and the juniors two months a
year, and then we've in Novemberwe've got our first month
(32:35):
working with just teenagers,which I've I've done for a lot
of my time anyway.
I was a foreign student host inthe UK, and I was a single mum
to five at the time, and I wouldhave four students, and I also
had one of my daughter's friendsliving with us.
So I had ten children most ofthe week anyway, and you know,
(32:56):
did the whole lunchtime thing,you know, packed lunches, had to
drop the students off in themorning, and I'd have a baby
strapped on me, two in thedouble buggy, and a little train
of students going behind me.
But we loved it, it was greatfun.
And I've always I've alwaysrealised how mental health is so
important to, I would say, 11 to15 is a real key point, and it
(33:20):
can become very difficult withall the peer pressure in senior
schools and everything.
And so it's always been veryimportant to me to provide
something that's a little bitmore holistic, and I think the
creative side of things reallyhelps as well, and making
children feel comfortable andallowing them to have fun with
things, and so for November,we're running on from our
(33:42):
October teens and tweens, we'redoing this teen-only month where
parents drop their children withus for the month, and we've got
um, we're doingentrepreneurship, so a lot of
them have already got ideas ofwhat they want to do, or may
already be working in aprofession um at that capacity
already, and so we're just thereto grow their skills and push
(34:05):
them forward to the next levelor help them think and plan
about things, but not only that,it's about independence, and
it's a time we're gonna have aboy's house and a girl's house,
and there'll be seven of each ateach house, and they're both
gonna have leaders in the house,and and then during the daytime
they come together from 10 till7.
(34:27):
They're going to be learningeverything from budgeting, going
shopping, and buying their food,cooking their food, baking their
food.
That's where my son getsinvolved again, there because
he's a baker, so he will beshowing them how to bake bread,
cakes, everything like this.
A lot of homemade children havea lot of these skills anyway,
but often they just need thatlittle bit of independence, and
(34:48):
it's a great space to try itout.
It's a very safe village, andit's a safe environment with
lots of support around them.
So there'll be work with mentalhealth practitioners, physical
health, and well-being.
So we're doing nutrition, we'vegot gym passes for all the
children, so they all get to go.
We do that on our teen and tweenmonths anyway, so that they they
(35:10):
work out their own routine andthey add to it, and it's not
just led by us.
They'll they'll like meet up inthe afternoons and go, Oh, do
you fancy going to the gym?
And like eight of the childrenwill go off to the gym.
Um, and it's yeah, it's aboutconfidence building, working
together, team building, andyeah, just giving them a little
bit of a push in the rightdirection, a little bit of
(35:32):
support when it's needed, butalso helping them realise their
own skills and their ownstrengths.
And yeah, it will be a great.
SPEAKER_00 (35:40):
Are you in Spain or are you back in the UK?
SPEAKER_01 (35:43):
No, we're in Spain, yeah.
We're so we're in Spainfull-time, so these people will
be coming to stay with us.
There is an option if parentswould like to stay nearby.
We are going to have an optionthat parents can rent nearby,
you know, because again, this isopen to neurodiverse children,
and although I can't haveone-to-ones because we haven't
(36:03):
got that sort of capability withour staff, and they will be
staff essentially, they'releaders, mentors, but
essentially we need to thinkabout the safety of everybody
and you know, and what we'reoffering.
SPEAKER_00 (36:16):
I find that you tend to get more.
So explain the neuro what isneurodivergent for anyone new to
the term.
SPEAKER_01 (36:23):
So, neurodivergence is when you're not classed as
neurotypical, I suppose.
So maybe you would have someADHD, so hyperactivity, and you
might find certain situationsdifficult, or you might find it
difficult to be calm in acertain situation, you might
suffer with anxiety or autism,or you know, there's many
(36:44):
different levels of it, andthere's so many different things
that be can be classed asneurodiverse, but essentially a
lot of the neurodiversity doesnot fit the system of the
schools, and so we find so manychildren come to us with their
parents and they feel like Idon't know how to put it really,
it's like they've been pushedout of one system and they've
(37:06):
not had a choice.
So the parents might bethinking, Oh, I'm not able to
teach them, I'm not qualifiedfor this.
But what we're here to do isjust give them the confidence
and say, Don't worry, your childwill do better as long as
they're in the rightenvironment.
It doesn't matter about thesit-down classes, it's more
about how they feel.
(37:26):
Do they feel safe?
Are they in a good environment?
Do they get time outside?
Do they get to meet others?
It doesn't matter about ageseither.
We've realized that quite a longtime ago.
And we our children mix with alldifferent ages, partly because
we've got a nine and a29-year-old, you know, with the
others in between.
We we realize that, you know, alot of people will phone us and
(37:48):
say or message us and say, Oh,do you have any other
eight-year-olds there?
Well, maybe one eight-year-old,but two ten-year-olds, a
twelve-year-old, and that.
And you'll often find that theeight-year-old's off with the
twelve-year-old doing somethingbecause mentally they are more
into the same thing, you know,or practically, you know, they
might both love art or both loveclimbing trees or anything.
(38:09):
But essentially, we've got tostop grouping children together
just by ages and by, you know,sets as such as they do at
school.
Oh, you're good at this, you'regood at that, let's put you in
that box, you know.
It's not about that, it'sfinding this wider range of
where at what makes our childrenhappy.
It's not about grading andthings like that, it's finding
(38:31):
their happy place and findingyour family's happy place.
And that's not often for me.
I've definitely found that it'snot within that school system.
So I agree.
With with that in mind, we umhome edited Magnolia pretty much
since the beginning.
We did want her to learnSpanish, well, we do, and we put
(38:53):
her into the like a nursery sortof style thing because we
thought that's socialization,and then she's learning the
language in a gentle way throughplay in a small group situation
as well.
But it was just too much forher.
She's an incredibly sensitive,quiet child who doesn't need
again, doesn't need raisedvoices and things like this.
(39:14):
And there was just so much inthe end that we just thought,
you know what, she's learnt thebasics of Spanish, we can
continue that at home.
And so the pretty much most ofthe last four years she's been
at home.
So and she she is doing great.
It's like, I mean, we all knowif you're home editing your
children, you all know that youget a lot of questions from
(39:35):
family, from friends.
What are you gonna do aboutthis?
How are you gonna teach themthis?
How are they gonna socialize?
How will they ever be able tofollow rules?
There's so many things that youget questioned over, and
essentially, I'm so confident inall of it now.
I just like tell everyone, youdon't need to worry about this,
you don't need to worry aboutthat.
Find what they're good at, findwhat they enjoy, start with
(39:57):
that, start always go back tothe basics.
And when my parents, I rememberthem saying, So can she read
yet?
And I think she was six and ahalf, and she was just getting
she was interested in words butnot reading.
And then we had some otherchildren here who she became
really good friends with, andthey were reading all the time,
and they were a year and a halfolder.
And we've got a little libraryand we've got a playroom at both
(40:19):
properties.
Um, and they were sitting outthe front with her, and she
said, I heard her say, Are youreading all those books?
and they were like, Yeah.
And so she came into me thatafternoon and she was like,
Mummy, I want to learn to read.
So I was like, So then at thatpoint, we're like, Right, okay,
you're ready for it.
And so within, I think withinthree weeks, she was reading.
(40:41):
Wow, and yeah, because the wantwas there, you know.
She she'd been she was driven todo something, she saw something,
thought, wow, they're learning,they're having fun, they're
reading funny stories, you know,poetry.
We started with a lot of poetryactually, and I find that really
helpful.
Anything rhyming is great forkids' confidence when they're
(41:03):
learning to read because you Ithink repetitive stuff is really
good if it's rhyming and fun andengaging.
There's a lot of the schoolbooks that you get given when
they're in school to read thatare um repetitive but in a
different way.
They're not very engaging,there's not much of a story
there, there's no rhyming oranything like this, it's not
(41:24):
much fun, and they're readingthe same five words on each page
in a different order.
But with the poetry, as you readit through with them, you can
put feeling and fun into it, andyou can guide them and leave off
like a word here and therebecause they can hear the rhythm
of it as well.
So they're listening out for thepattern, and then they can guess
(41:45):
the word.
So then when they're guessingand you're holding, you know,
you're sort of guiding them withthe reading, they're then
picking up on, oh wow, I I'veremembered this word, and then
they're looking at it as well,and so they're not only hearing
that it fits, they're seeingthat they've got the word right
as well.
I find that poetry is such agreat, such a great thing.
Um for learning to read.
(42:06):
So amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (42:09):
As we're running up on the end of the hour here, I
just want to make sure peopleknow where they can find you,
and I'll link everything in theshow's description too.
But can you let people know thatare listening?
Like if they want to come visityou, what does your weight look
like?
You know, are you booked out forthree years?
SPEAKER_01 (42:22):
Well, yeah, we're we're booked up all through the
summer, um, and which is great.
June, July, August, and weactually take on extra
properties during some months.
So when we're fully booked earlyon, we'll take on properties in
the village and rent those outas well.
So the community is often largerthan average in those summer
months, which is great.
(42:43):
So we've got Shepherd's Rest andCortijo Serendipia, and it's at
www.shepherdsrest.org, and thereyou will find everything that
you need to know about us andhow to book.
And you can feel free to messageus anytime.
We've got Shepherd's Rest is ourpage on Facebook as well.
And yeah, just get in touch, askus anything.
SPEAKER_00 (43:05):
Um, I will link all of that so people can just click
right on it and check you guysout.
This has been super cool tolearn about.
I love this.
SPEAKER_01 (43:12):
It's got pictures of the apartments, it's got um a
diary of what's going on eachmonth with prices there.
So all the information's there.
SPEAKER_00 (43:21):
Corey, thank you so much for talking to us today and
opening our minds about all thedifferent possibilities for
homeschooling.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
(43:41):
thehomeschoolhowtu.com and grabmy free 30 day homeschool quick
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
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