Homeschool Work Record

It’s always hard to know how much of the kids’ school work to keep. I definitely want to keep some for sentimental value – I always loved looking back at my own weird (and in hindsight hilarious) stories! But it’s also reassuring to have some proof that work has actually been done should ERO ever come calling.

The Ministry of Education expects that homeschoolers will keep appropriate records of work, but it doesn’t say that every scrap of paper must be stored! I quickly realised that our house would soon be overflowing with workbooks if we tried to keep everything. If anything, I would love to cull our clutter rather than add to it!

A couple of years ago I came up with a fairly simple (and probably obvious) solution. Using trusty old Microsoft Excel I created a spreadsheet. One tab for workbooks, one for tests. I will probably add further to its complexity over time.

Every time one of the kids completes a workbook or does a Cambridge test, I immediately write the date in vivid on the front of the book and put it on my desk for recording. The next time I use the computer, I open the spreadsheet and enter the date and grade (if appropriate) in the columns or rows corresponding to that child and particular book. If I forget to write the date on the cover, or it’s too long ago to remember the date, I just write ‘done’, so at least the record is there. Once its completion is recorded, the book can go in the bin!

I haven’t recorded every individual test mark for e.g the Math-U-See tests – maybe this would be worth considering. But I figure the important thing is noting that they’ve completed the book satisfactorily. I don’t let them move on if they still don’t understand the concepts.

It’s probably something that every teacher does but for some reason I hadn’t thought to implement it in our homeschool! Now I have a complete record of work, without the clutter and storage nightmare!