So, off we started with our 2023/24 academic year! And boy did it take us a long while to get back into the swing of things. After not doing formal learning for many weeks, some eyes were rolled and there was a lot of procrastination, but we found our usual rhythm and enthusiasm again eventually. This month has definitely made me question whether having such a long break is a good thing…..
Peggy was on her own for the first week of August whilst Aggie was away on a band tour in St Ives, Cornwall; this was great for getting her started on her new subjects. Once Aggie returned, we had one normal week before a busy final two weeks of birthdays, sleepovers with friends and then a reunion with some families we met in Egypt. As we knew it was a busy month, we focused on core and GCSE subjects only and will reintroduce all the other ones in September.
Subjects done jointly
English – we’ve completed a book study of Animal Farm using the Twinkl KS3 unit study. This is a short text so was ideal for the three weeks we had this month. We’ve all enjoyed working through this together and learning about the history it covers. I’ll write up what additional resources we used alongside the Twinkl unit study shortly.
GCSE subjects done separately
Spanish June 2024 – we’re all systems go for working towards GCSE Spanish. We’ve decided to go it alone this term so we’ve started working through the CGP GCSE book. We’ve focused on the preterite tense this month to try and get more grammar ticked off.
Latin June 2025– we’ve not got round to doing any Latin yet this month but it’ll be top of Aggie’s list for September.
Classical Civilisation June 2024 – Peggy has made an amazing start to this GCSE. She’s already watched 10 of the pre-recorded videos produced by Humanatees and is thoroughly enjoying the topics covered so far.
Business studies June 2025 – After a rethink over the summer break, I’ve bought a new textbook for this subject and it’s made a really positive difference to our learning. Peggy and I have worked through several chapters together and are applying everything we’re looking at to her crochet business.
Psychology June 2024 – Aggie has nearly completed the first unit out of seven using the pre-recorded course run by Survive Succeed Achieve. She’s been learning about criminal psychology which is her favourite topic so she’s been super happy to start with this one.
Other subjects done separately
Maths – Aggie has started with the CGP Year 8 textbook and has got back into maths thinking again (not without a lot of moaning though!). Peggy has now finished the year 7 topics so she’s ready to start year 8 in September too.
German – Peggy is continuing on Duolingo and has started using the CGP KS3 book too.
Coding – Peggy has done another couple of lessons in her Python 100 day course to get back into it again. She’ll return to doing it more regularly in September.
Humanities Fair projects – the girls are attending a home ed fair at the end of September for which they have to prepare a display on a humanity subject of their choice to share with other home ed families. We did several of these fairs last year and the girls really enjoyed them. Peggy has chosen to do her display on Heracles’ twelve labours (which forms part of her classical civilisation GCSE course). Aggie is looking at the history of surgery from 1100 to the present day. This is one of the GCSE history thematic studies so she’s doing this project to see if she’d like to go ahead and choose this study (another option is law and punishment which looks equally interesting).
Make-up – Aggie attended another two-hour make-up workshop run by a professional make-up artist. She learned all about stage makeup this time and her look was definitely bold!
Music
Aggie had a fabulous seven days down in St Ives, Cornwall with the Youth Band. They got super lucky with the weather so enjoyed plenty of time on the beach and outdoors. They played a number of concerts for the locals but had lots of downtime to be tourists too. Aggie got to know her band friends even better and came back feeling even more passionate about band life.
We’ve had a break from Band rehearsals over summer so the girls are super ready to start back to twice-weekly sessions again in September.
Sports
Aggie has enjoyed longer gymnastics sessions over the summer holidays as sessions are held during the day rather than in the evenings. She’s been able to upskill on a few apparatus and has enjoyed the more challenging sessions.
Books
Our reads for this month have been:
Peggy – The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Aggie – As Good as Dead by Holly Jackson and Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Dom – Between the Stops by Sandi Toksvig and Sapphique by Catherine Fisher
Susan – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (Kingsbridge Trilogy #3)
Day Trips and One-off activities
Tour of the Engineering Department at the University of Manchester – this was a fascinating trip which opened the girls’ eyes to all the different types of engineering and what university education can look like. You can read more about our visit here.
Peggy and Dom spent a brilliant day at a free summer holiday club run by Canal Connections CIC in Leeds. They spent the morning doing forest school activities, learning about different ways of starting a fire, and then, after a hot lunch (all provided for free), they got to help steer a canal boat down the canal. Dom and Peggy will write up their day shortly as they’d definitely recommend going to these sessions (and Peggy has every intention of returning!).
At the end August we had an amazing five days when a family we met at the worldschooling hub in Luxor, Egypt came to stay with us en-route from the US to France. We showed them the local sites and also met up for the day with another two families from the hub (one of which also lives in Manchester). It was brilliant to be reunited and we made the most of our time together by fitting a lot in. The weather behaved itself so we were able to go to parks together and enjoy the outdoors.
Updates to website
Resources:
- How are we approaching GCSE Classical Civilisation? You can read up on the resources we’re using here.
- We focus a lot on science as both girls are likely to do science A-levels. We’ve chosen to use the KS3 Activate series and you can read about what we like about these books here.
- We absolutely loved the book study we did on Skellig by David Almond earlier in the year. It’s a fantastic story which we all enjoyed. I talk through which resources we used for this study of Skellig here.
- So, what is Team Wint studying in 2023/24? You can find a list of the subjects we’re working on this year in this post here.
Trips out:
- We had a great time at The Forbidden Corner up in Leyburn in the Yorkshire Dales. It’s a strange place; it’s certainly not boring!
- We’ve written up our trip to the Houses of Parliament for a Home Educators’ Day when we had a tour of both Houses and got to meet a Baroness, or “just Sue”, as she preferred to be addressed.
So that was August!
A super busy month that has given us a gentle introduction to our new academic year. We’ll be back to our “normal”, which sometimes feels like about a hundred different subjects, in September!
