You may want to start with mapping out a weekly schedule for your child. This does not have to look like a normal school day, but could have a regular start and finish time for academic learning, breaks, lunch, socialisation and time dedicated to sports. Of course, home education offers more flexibility so some days the routine may look slightly different, but a weekly routine can give you a good grounding on which to build your child’s education. 

You will absolutely not be able to plan how long it will take you to cover the entire specification for a subject.  At school the 120 hours per GCSE teaching is set in stone and schools are able to develop a concrete timetable which ensures that students ‘should’ reach the end in good time.  This doesn’t really happen with home-education.  It depends on many factors but the principal issue is how quickly a child understands and absorbs the content.  Approaches here vary but it can be useful to map out a full timetable covering eight or nine half an hour lessons (with breaks) per day and see how quickly you work through the specification for each subject.  Some will take longer than others but remember, it isn’t a race and it doesn’t really matter if exams are sat early or late. Subjects which are a strength can be covered more quickly.  Where a child has shown a high level of competence it may be an option then to enter exams and get these subjects out of the way so that then you have more time to focus on the weaker subjects, again, entering them when the time is right.

It is very common for home-educated children to enter exams early.  This isn’t because they are particularly precocious (they may be) but it is usually because juggling timetables leads to an unknown outcome and it makes sense to enter when good and ready rather than in your rightful school year.  Be careful here.  Some universities mistakenly believe that these children have been hot housed by ambitious parents but from experience, it is more a matter of budgeting and idiosyncratic timetabling.  Taking nine GCSES in one sitting would be beyond the budget of most parents so splitting them makes sense and is normal. Equally, some will tell you that universities prefer students who have sat all their GCSES in one sitting because it proves they can cope with the pressure.  This is not true.  Children have been known to secure places at Oxbridge and Russell Group universities who have split their GCSES over several years.  However, it is essential that all A levels (at least three) are taken in one single sitting.  It is not unusual for a home-educated child to complete a GCSE at age 13 and then make a gentle start on A Level study in that subject which can be very beneficial.

The focus of all education, school or home, should always be about learning and enjoyment of the content rather than rushing to tick off exam qualifications. One positive of home-education is to allow this learning at a pace which suits because there are no time constraints but equally, as a parent, you may not want to be doing this forever. Exam qualifications are simply the tickets you need to progress through the career pathway that life brings you.

One more word of advice here.  Some children show an ability to write well at an early age.  Occasionally parents see this as an opportunity to enter the English Language exam early but this is not really to be advised.  There is far more to the English Language GCSE than simply writing well. Although a strong natural ability to write well is no doubt an advantage, the test here is much greater and includes recognising, understanding and commenting on inferred and explicit meaning, implementing a range of grammar skills, an ability to perform narrative, discursive, imaginative and transactional writing and most importantly, an ability to recognise what a writer is trying to say through the words they have chosen, what techniques they have used and the effect these techniques have on the reader. A young mind may show creative flair but the nuances of this exam are much better understood with a bit of maturity on side.  Topics chosen for GCSE papers are often current and relevant to modern day affairs such as climate change and sweat shop labour so an older, well-read child will no doubt have a significant advantage over a younger person who simply writes well. This is not one to rush.