Recommended Home Schooling Guidelines
Reports & Record Keeping
Curriculum:
Make a list of the books you plan to use for the upcoming school year. There should be one report for each child you are home schooling. You are always free to make revisions to this list if you change your mind about any of the books.
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Attendance:
Keep track of all the days you home school in a school year. Field trips, library visits, sports activities, employment and household work (valid electives for high school), and some vacations can be used as school time. Use best judgement and common sense. Not all learning is accomplished while sitting at a desk or in front of a computer.
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Final Grade:
Each student must recieve a fianl grade for each subject he/she studied in a school year. Be sure to include sports activities, scout participation, art classes, choir membership, etc. as subjects.
Grades can be A, B, C, D, F; or Pass, Fail; or Satisfactory, Needs Improvement, or whatever method you choose. In most cases, by the 4th or 5th grade, it is advisable to begin assigning letter grades; and by 7th or 8th grade, it is strongly recommended to use letter or number grades. This situation, of course, does not apply to those students with learning disabilities or special needs. Provisions and special instruction is often required in these cases.
Again, use your own judgement and common sense when deciding on a grading system. You will know what is best for your child.
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Progress:
Dividing the year into 2, 4 or 6 grading periods is beneficial to the teaching process. OLGCS prefers the 9 weeks system. Semesters are too long, especially for elementary level students. The 6 weeks system is too short, especially if you fall behind for any reason. The 9 weeks system accommodates all grade levels from Kindergarten through the 12th grade.
Set up a special calendar for each school year, marking the beginning and end of each quarter. It is a good idea to allow extra days/weeks in each quarter in case you do fall behind for any reason, you have allowed yourself time to make up the lost days. In addition, it is important to take holidays for special feast days and holydays of the church. For example, Ash Wednesday, All Saints Day, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Immaculate Conception, Ascension Thursday, the Assumption, January 1st and of course, Christmas Day. You are encouraged to add other religious days that you celebrate as a family to this list. Remember you make the rules.
Be sure to record a grade for each subject at the end of each quarter, as well as a Final Grade for each subject at the end of the school year.
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Year Planner:
This will define what you will cover in each subject for each quarter in a school year. The process of determining how many pages or chapters are to be completed in each nin week period is not the same for each subject.
A math and grammar textbook must be completed before you can move on to the next grade level. Therefore, you must finish these books. Divide the total number of pages or chapters in the book by four, and the resulting answer will be the number of pages or chapters you must complete in each of the nine week periods in order to finish the book through the course of one school year.
History and science requires an entirely different approach. The purpose of these two subjects is to teach the student how to study, research and process the accumulation of facts so as to formulate opinions using logical thought processes. If you do not finish the text in one year, you can always continue into the following school year.
Reading also requires a different approach. some students will enjoy reading and find it a pleasurable activity. These students will ready way beyond the required minimum. Whereas, another student may not care for reading and find it a laborous exercise. It would not be fair to make both students read the same amount of books. Again, use your good judgement and common sense. You will know how to best teach your children.
The above principles cannot be applied to high school level students. Honest record keeping requires that you finish a prescribed course to earn the corresponding credit. It is perfectly acceptable to take more than one year to complete a course, however you must complete it before the credit can be earned.
There are two ways to count credits for high school: finish the book and earn one credit, or count 135 hours and earn one credit. Earning a credit for Religion, Math, History or Science course is more easily determined by completing the book. Earning a credit by working at a business, preforming volunteer work, or practicing for team or individual sports is more easily measured by counting the hours.
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