6 Types of UK Homeschool Curriculum + How To Choose One

If you’re a homeschool mum like me and you’re looking for free homeschool ideas to increase your child’s learning experiences, here are 6 types of UK homeschool free resources to help you out!

Do You Need A UK Homeschool Curriculum- And If So, Which One?

As a home educator with 11 years of experience, I have tried many different home education curricula and home education resources.

In this post there are three parts — I start with my preferred curriculum/resource company, then I outline the different types of UK homeschool curricula, then I explain the 4 things to think about when considering a homeschool curriculum.

After reading this post, if you feel you would benefit from 1-1 support with me as your home education coach, do get in touch at adventuretravelfamilyuk@gmail.com to find out how I can help your family on their home education journey.

Many people think that a homeschool curriculum for each grade level is compulsory, but this isn’t true — in the UK families can home educate with or without a curriculum. I talk about this in my Quick & Easy Guide To UK Homeschool Law. My other most popular posts include:

• Can You Home Educate On Benefits/ A Low Income?
• How Much Does It Cost To Homeschool (inc. exact monthly figures)
• How To Start Homeschooling: A Beginner’s Guide
• What Is Unschooling & Who Does It Work For?
• How Does Interest Based Learning / Unschooling Work?
• How Do Home Educated Children Take GCSEs/ A Levels?
• How To Find Homeschool Groups Near You
• How Do Home Educated Children Socialise?
• How We Home Educate: A Typical Day In Our Life (3 kids, single working parent)
• How To Home Educate Children Of Multiple Ages

My Favourite UK Homeschool Curriculum (Super Affordable & FUN!)

If you are looking for a quick recommendation for the best UK homeschooling organization curriculum, my absolute #1 piece of advice is to try the cross-curricular themed activity packs from Curious Little Monkeys Educational Resources.

I started this company with a qualified teacher and home-educating parent in early 2020 because I was dissatisfied with the options available to home-educated children. These are hands-down down the best way for home-educated children to engage with gentle, fun, structure in my opinion.

If you have reluctant learners, feel overwhelmed with lesson planning, or don’t know where to begin with home education, these packs are absolutely brilliant. Themes include Minecraft, Dinosaurs, Harry Potter, Rainbows, and more and they are available as instant downloads and beautiful hard copies.

If you’d like to know more about different types of UK homeschool curricula, read on!

After extensively researching home education, including which UK homeschool curriculum to use, I was pretty sure I wanted to home educate but still looked around a small private school to see if it could sway me. Although there were many aspects of it that were lovely I remained confident that home educating was what I wanted to do.

I researched homeschool curriculums intensely before starting home educating to find something that was fun, engaging, and cross-curricular, and I have continued to try different ones and keep an eye on what comes into the market. Purchasing a curriculum can be a great way to have on-hand activities and resources if:

Your child has recently come out of school and you want to keep some kind of routine

You would like your homeschooled child to take the usual exams such as GCSEs

Your child may go into school at a later date and you would like them to keep up to the same year standard as their peers

I will now outline how to decide if getting a curriculum is best for your homeschooling family, and how to choose one, below.

What To Consider While Picking a UK Homeschool Curriculum

When considering which homeschooling curriculum to choose, take into account the following four factors:

1. Cost. Depending on your budget (see what we spend each month on home education) you may wish to use the many free online homeschool resources for learning, choose affordable individual learning modules, or purchase a whole yearly curriculum at once.

2. Time. Do you like the idea of having a slot of time each day to go through prepared activities, or would you rather go with the flow and see what your child wants to do?

3. Interests of the child. Instead of purchasing a complete curriculum for each subject matter like Math, English, History, Geography, Religious Education, and other subjects in one homeschooling curriculum package, you may wish to buy individual modules focused on one subject area such as “Minecraft”.

4. Your patience and the parent-child relationship. There is no point in buying a curriculum if it is going to be a source of misery to you or your child. Your child will learn a lot more from a happy trip to the park with you than an hour sitting with you both frustrated over a worksheet.

I outsource most sit-down work to the two teachers who run my girls’ home education group (see how to find homeschool groups near me) and I’m very thankful for this!

What is a Homeschool Curriculum?

The dictionary definition of curriculum is: “the subjects comprising a course of study in a school or college”. Please note that the subjects are chosen in any curriculum- school, homeschool, college, or otherwise- do not necessarily reflect what a child will need for life.

There is no way to ‘cover all your bases’ with either a school or homeschooling curriculum; it is simply a path to follow.

I say this because some people think that you have to have a UK homeschooling curriculum when they aren’t a legal requirement or necessary for all children. They are simply a resource to use to help on the educational journey and should be treated as such.

List of Homeschool Curriculum Types

The spectrum of home education ranges from doing the national curriculum at home during school hours (this can take as little as an hour a day because of the high adult to child ratio and fewer distractions/ interruptions) to using an alternative homeschool curriculum, or a child-centric philosophy such as unschooling and everything in between. 

If you’re wondering what are the types of curriculums, here are some often-talked-about methods of educational philosophies:

Traditional Homeschooling (National curriculum at home)

Homeschooling in a traditional manner using the National Curriculum may perhaps suit some families with children who have had to leave school temporarily, and who want to ensure they stay learning the same things like their school peers for a time.

The required provision for a UK local authority to provide a child temporarily out of school (for example, for reasons of illness) is just 5-6 hours of tutoring per week; this begs the question what the rest of the time spent at school is for!

That leaves a lot of time for other fun stuff! If you don’t mind doing a lot of planning yourself I would recommend a selection of the Collins Easy Learning workbooks for primary children, and you can get a good idea of how to deliver the national curriculum to your child with the updated National curriculum handbook.

If you would prefer to invest in a full curriculum where everything is organized for you, and you as the parent have minimal planning to do, I have heard great things about the Horizons homeschool curriculum.

It incorporates all the usual subjects, is easy to purchase for each school year, and is completely ready and laid out for you to deliver without having to plan your own lessons. At the moment I believe it is shipped from America.

An alternative to national curriculum books is to outsource to a UK online homeschool program.

Online UK Homeschool

There are several UK online homeschool companies that will provide your child with online classes and tutoring to enable you to homeschool online. Generally, these companies follow the national curriculum and will teach your child in an online homeschool style so that parents don’t have to plan and deliver lessons.

Companies that provide a form of UK online homeschooling include IXL, Oxford Homeschooling, and Wolsey Hall Oxford. I do not recommend Interhigh as the home educating community has been reported to local authorities under the guise of ‘safeguarding’ when using their services.

Project-based Home Education

Think Scandinavian-style, with learning divided up into more holistic projects and learner-centered than subjects. Using a theme such as “The Romans”, “Dinosaurs” or “Minecraft”, children explore lots of different aspects of learning through a specific focus. There are excellent themed project books from Curious Little Monkeys Educational Resources.

Lapbooks are a popular way of creating projects but this could incorporate anything- making food dishes, dressing up, visiting relevant sites and museums, creating and directing a play, making pieces of artwork, etc, all around the subject.

This kind of curriculum usually needs to be put together and planned by parents but if you’d like a brilliant ready-made template for exploring any topic, I recommend the Curiosity Yearbook.

Christian Homeschool Curriculums

Christan home educating families may decide to purchase a Christian homeschool curriculum that encompasses learning about their chosen religion; this may include scriptural and moral education too.

The Horizons curriculum is an excellently reviewed, all-around homeschool curriculum that includes a Christian-inspired focus on health, spiritual growth, and wellbeing as well traditional topics and subjects.

Although there are some Bible studies included, these can easily be left out if you would prefer to use them as a non-religious curriculum.

Alongside the Horizons curriculum, this beautifully written book ‘Homeschool Bravely‘ is a great first read for Christian parents considering homeschooling their child, or those who sometimes wonder if they’ve done the right thing by homeschooling!

Charlotte Mason Homeschool Curriculum

Developed in England in the 19th century, this method encourages children to focus fully on their tasks as long as they are developmentally capable and to prioritize love of learning over rote facts. The arts and nature are big players in a Charlotte Mason home educating family households. A Minibeast activity book or Ocean-themed activity book would both fit in well, along with a Mindfulness journal.

The Charlotte Mason Companion is exceptionally helpful for parents wishing to use Charlotte Mason’s ideas in homeschooling- it contains day-to-day methods, advice, and explanations of the principles as well as personal encouragement, parenting tips, insight, and humor into the homeschool life.

Worldschooling

Worldschooling: Rather than a specific curriculum, home educating families who use travel as a primary method of education. We did world schooling during our family gap year in Asia when our children were 6, 5, and 2- you can see a typical day in our world schooling life here.

A lot of families who apply this term to themselves are nomadic, i.e., permanently traveling. Some of my favorite bloggers are Worldschoolers! We traveled for a year through Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia and ‘world schooled’- you can see our blog posts from this time in our travel section.

Autonomous Education (Unschooling)

This philosophy is underpinned by the idea that children do not automatically need structured curriculums, or to be forced to learn any particular topic or subject.

Good unschoolers will watch their children carefully to ensure that they provide a good environment whereby children can progress in things that they love and are good at, while also being prepared to offer resources to help in the less confident areas.

I have unschooled for 11 years- all my children can read, and they engage happily with classes and clubs. There is a lot of misinformation about unschooling, but personally, I have found it to be the most wonderfully tailored education for my children. See everything we learned in one unschooling day.

Unschooling does not exclude classes, the structure at home, clubs, workbooks, etc; it simply means that the child gets to choose which of these resources they use. You can read more about this philosophy in my post ‘What is unschooling?’

UK Homeschool Curriculums: In Summary

Although you do not legally need a curriculum in order to home educate, investing in one may be beneficial if you like to have activities ready to go instead of coming up with every activity yourself.

Some people find it really useful to have a curriculum. If you or your child are people who like organization and structure, having the set plan of a curriculum may be of benefit to you.

My personal advice would be to purchase modules based on your child’s interests such as the Curious Little Monkeys Educational Resources – this way you can test the waters of using a fun curriculum for just a few pounds! If you want a homeschool curriculum that is free there is sure something for it in this list too.

You may also be interested in the following posts:

Over 100 UK Homeschooling Resources- websites, memberships, printables, subscriptions & more!

How To Start Homeschooling

Check out our complete collection of UK home education blog posts.