Keystone has built its reputation on providing supplementary tutoring: filling in gaps in a child’s education. Using excellent tutors teaching one-on-one, we also provide homeschooling support effectively and efficiently, often teaching years of curriculum content in a few months. There was a time when most education was conducted in this manner. Before the advent of mass schooling, many families used individual tutors on a full-time basis to provide a rigorous education that took their children as far as they were able to go. Keystone is pleased to be able to offer this homeschooling model of education to parents. Some families have to homeschool because of unforeseen family circumstances, such as illness, expulsion or moving to the UK in the middle of an academic year. For others, it is a decision made on purely educational grounds. Keystone has experience helping in both cases.
Keystone’s Approach:
- Initial Consultation: Consultation between Keystone and family. This can be done over phone and email, but Keystone prefers to meet the family face-to-face. It is always helpful to have some basic information prior to this, such as age of the student, any behavioural or learning difficulties that will impact their learning and the long-term goal.
- Proposal: Keystone summarises the meeting with action points – and creates a timetable for the child or children. We will also include the goal of the tuition (e.g an entrance exam to enable re-entry into school).
- Setup: Keystone carries out necessary clerical work to source and introduce the appropriate tutors into the homeschooling programme.
- Oversight: Keystone oversees the homeschooling programme providing the family with regular detailed reports.
School Similarities:
We are aware that, for many students, this will be an overwhelming change and one that can be very unsettling. Furthermore, we are conscious that in most cases students will ideally be reintegrating back into school as soon as possible. Thus, we are very conscious of ensuring that the structure of home-schooling is as similar as possible to that of regular schools. With this in mind, our programme incorporates the following:
- School Terms: We will set out term dates with the initial timetable which will include half-terms. Typically, these will follow one of the London Independent School term dates, but if you have other children at school, we will mirror their dates for ease.
- Reports: Along a similar vein, we will also provide half-termly reports. Each tutor will compile a report detailing what has been covered that term, how the student has been doing and what they hope to achieve next, as well as a comment on how the student is performing inline with the end goal. These are both a useful resource for parents and guardians but also can be used as reports for the future school your child will go on to.
- Student Catch Ups: Whilst at Keystone, your child’s education will be overseen by Homeschooling Manager, Poppy and Director of Education, Ed. As such weekly catch ups will be scheduled between the student, Poppy and Ed. This will allow any worries or concerns to be shared outside of their lessons.
- Parents Meetings: We understand the importance of being kept up to date with your children’s progress, as well as getting a chance to speak to their tutors. Whilst you can catch up with the tutors after any of the lessons, we will put parents meetings in place at the end of each term, for those on our Premium package, to allow formal feedback from both sides, and a chance for any questions to be asked.
Common Questions:
- What are the main limitations of homeschooling? We are very aware that whilst homeschooling can be a fantastic short-term solution it does come with limitations; given the one-to-one nature of the lessons, your child’s exposure to collaborative learning with peers will be non-existent. Additionally, whilst we appreciate the valuable role extracurricular learning plays in a child’s educational development, we are unable to provide any of these activities. We are purely an academic support and whilst we are there for any concerns the child may have, we cannot provide the pastoral care that a school does.
- What subjects can you not help with? We are only available to provide support for academic subjects. We cannot therefore provide help with Art, DT, Music or PE.
- What age range can you support with? We are, as a company, able to support students from Year 1 up to Year 13 with homeschooling. We do tend to recommend, however, that homeschooling is not the best option during key exam years (Year 11 and Year 13) due to the limitations of our options.
- Are you an exam centre? No. This is a very important point to note. We are not an exam centre and as such we cannot register your child for their public exams, choose which exam boards your child sits, mark or assess coursework and your child cannot physically sit their exams at Keystone.
- Where does your homeschooling take place? There are a range of options for this. We have several classrooms at our office in Hammersmith, though these get filled very quickly so often we will be at full capacity. Some students prefer the comfort and security of their home and if you are within Zones 1 and some parts of Zone 2 in London, the tutor can come to your house. More and more however, homeschooling is taking place online.
- How is your homeschooling charged? Our homeschooling is charged on an hourly basis, depending on the tutor rate. We will send an invoice each half-term and we will ask for upfront payment for this. We have two different packages, and information on these can be found below.
Homeschooling Packages:
We have two types of homeschooling packages available – depending on the level of support required. Each of these has a Programme Fee, and details are as follows
- Standard (£300 exc. VAT per year): This includes a dedicated Homeschooling Manager, weekly student wellbeing meetings & half-termly reports & progress checks.
- Premium (£3,000 exc. VAT per year): This includes all of the above, plus exam registration (if applicable), termly parents meetings, study skills development sessions & super-curricular development classes.
The above costs are added onto the hourly tutoring costs. We will work with you to devise a bespoke programme of hourly tutoring.
Online Homeschooling
- Our online homeschooling is conducted via . This is a highly efficient and simple platform allowing the student access too all of their whiteboards, homework, timetable and tutors in one place.
- Tutors will call the students via Microsoft Teams, using the video function and will share resources, homework tasks and feedback within their individual subject ‘channels’.
- As parents, you will be members of the platform as well to allow you to monitor the progress and check everything is running as you would like. Poppy and Ed will also have access to the channel, and the ability to enter into the lessons virtually to keep an eye on things.
- Full guides on how to set up and use Teams will be sent out once lessons begin.
Testimonials:
“Everybody at Team Keystone are doing an amazing job... not just studies but the wider education of a young man.” (Homeschooled Student Year 9 - 11)
“You have all been so amazing to my daughter. I cannot believe we are here at last and what a difference in a year. We are so happy and just could not believe how far she has come since her first day at Keystone.” (Homeschooled Student Year 8)
“I know it has been sometimes frustrating for you, but you do everything you can and everybody at Keystone looks after him so well….You are a great support to my son and us, we can’t begin to explain how much it means to us.” (Homeschooled Student Year 9 - 11)
“Our son’s journey has been amazing, and without your help and guidance I think we might have been struggling for much longer. He is ready for the next stage, he and us will always keep the fondest memories of you all.” (Homeschooled Student Year 9 - 11)
“The first week has been really special! It is the first I have seen my daughter happy to study... thank you so much! My daughter loved the classes, she loved all the teachers and she is very happy” (Homeschooled Student Year 7)
“This is a very condensed version of how thankful I am, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for everything. Before we met my confidence in maths and science and even myself was very low and you have helped me to believe in myself more. I am incredibly grateful for everything you have done, I am very sad that our lessons have ended” (Homeschooled Student Year 10 – 11)
“My son is so happy with all the tutors you have allocated. Amazingly he asked to do his English homework (a first!) and was buzzing coming out of the English lesson yesterday. So great to see this total change in attitude and approach with a subject he finds challenges with.” (Homeschooled Student Year 4- 5)
“My son is very happy with the way the lessons are working. He is motivated, which is wonderful!” (Homeschooled Student Year 12)
If you wish to discuss homeschooling further, please do contact us here.