Most parents are more comfortable with the idea of home-schooling their children during their younger years than when they reach secondary school age, and it isn’t hard to see why. As children move from key stage 2 to key stage 3, they are expected to complete harder work and learn across more diverse areas, so parents often worry about being able to handle such a workload themselves.

However, there are actually plenty of great reasons to continue home-schooling when your child reaches this level, and here are just four.

1. Teaches Self-Reliance

When a child is still in primary school, they generally need their teachers a lot more, but this need starts to become less pronounced as education progresses. After all, plenty of adults take GCSEs and A-levels later in life, and they don’t need teachers at all. When home-schooling during these years, your child won’t need your assistance all the time. If necessary, you could get expert tutors from the likes of GoStudent (https://www.gostudent.org/en/tuition) to help them out with some difficult subjects. Otherwise, they can also learn to do work themselves instead of having it metered out across a set period, and that sense of self-reliance can last for the rest of their lives.

2. Plenty of Resources

Before the rise of the internet, home-schooling an older child was much harder. Resources were tougher to come by, and it was hard or impossible to replicate science experiments in the home. Nowadays, this isn’t as much of an issue; you can find plenty of educational packets and lesson plans online from teaching resource providers. Additionally, many of the demonstrations that you could previously only see in person can now be watched simply by searching on YouTube.

3. Option to Skip Ahead

One of the major problems with schools is that they tend to reward the average, which can be tough if your child is quite bright. When the other kids are still struggling to grasp a concept, a more gifted child will be sitting bored in class, essentially not learning anything. Home-schooling lets you be more flexible. You can move ahead at the pace your child learns instead of at the pace of the curriculum, so that they start working on their GCSEs as soon as they are ready.

4. Concentrate on Problem Subjects

Of course, your child is likely to find some subjects harder than others. Once again, the flexibility of home-schooling is extremely beneficial. Maybe your child understands algebra in seconds but takes longer with compound sentences. You can tailor your timetables to focus on the areas that need most attention, so that they can improve their weaknesses with the right support.