When not to do your homework ...

Checking Star's homework folder tonight, I found her maths 80% done.

Me: Oh! You've almost finished! When did you manage to do that?

Star: During art lesson ...

Oh. Right. So there we have one of the differences between school and homeschool. When you are homeschooled, your teacher notices if you do your maths when you are supposed to be doing art.

If you are curious about what they do in school, maths homework for Star is always these Delbert's SATs Practice Sheets. In English schools children have to sit SATs (standard assessment tests) in English, maths and science at age 11. As these are used to rate the performance of the school, most schools put a lot of emphasis on them - this means far too much working to the test, in my opinion, particularly when the test is still eighteen months away. However, the Delberts suit Star, as she is strong enough at maths to benefit from the mental exercise of constantly switching between topics. She started the term in one of the middle maths groups, where she was given just one Delbert sheet a week. After a few weeks she was moved up to the top group (out of six for her year) where she was given two Delberts at a time, and since half term this has changed to two twice a week. I can see that her versatility and speed of working has improved already, so for her they are working well.