Home Educate Maths

Let's make home educating maths simple, fun & easy together!

Home educate maths with Veronika Skye Maths

Hello there, home educator. Welcome to your new future favourite place for home educating maths. (Yes, I'm very ambitious with this page.)

If you're here for the first time, have a little read, otherwise, feel free to skip to the bits you need help with today — use the navigation at the top of the page.

We all need a bit of help here and there, home education is no different.
No matter what others might say, we're all more capable of teaching our children than we might often think. But, of course, more or less help might be needed - time to time. Whether you're new to the exciting world of home education or you're a seasoned home educator, you can find here everything you need to make your child's maths studies easier, less stressful, and even more fun.

Maths essentials for home educators

Want to Start GCSE Maths?
Discover How To Do It Your Way!

The Home Educator’s Essential Mountain of GCSE Maths Survival Guide: Everything You MUST Know Before You Begin

Get Your FREE GCSE Maths Guide →

Join my Facebook group:

If you're not a member of my Facebook group yet—Home Educate Maths—I'd certainly suggest joining as it is the happy place to go for anything maths-related you might come across while home educating. My aim for this group is to become the best place to ask questions and get answers. Free to join, free to enjoy: resources, advice, and support — that and more is (and will be coming soon) there for you.

Join our group →

Get further FREE Maths support in our Subscriber Hub

When you join our Subscriber hub, you can enjoy resoures such as:

E-book: How to Teach Your Child Maths: THE FUN WAY (while enjoying outdoors and nature)
If you don't have my free guide, go get it right now. In the first part of this guide, I shared my nearly two decades of experience educating maths in a way that makes people, young and old, forget they ever had anxiety or any bad feelings about this subject. You can learn all my secrets and enjoy your maths home education journey and when you get to the second part, apply all you learnt right away in a series of fun challenges and activities that just happen to feature maths... oh, how convenient!

Minicourse: Decimals, Fractions & Percentages (with video walkthrough and practice resources)
Tackle the pesky decimals, fractions and percentages once and for all with my free self-paced maths minicourse.

This and much more is awaiting you in our Subscriber Hub!

Discover Subscriber Hub →

What maths level is your child at?

Have you just started home educating? Are you worried you're not sure what level of maths you should be teaching your child right now (if you want to follow the curriculum — which you don't have to). If you're curious about how to assess your child's current maths knowledge (so you know where to pick up from), >> this article << might be just the right help for you.

What maths to teach your child when you're home educating?

This might be one of the most common questions that new (and not only new) home educators ask. In >> this article << I'm trying to answer "What maths to teach?" with a different perspective (otherwise, you can always just grab an age-appropriate maths textbook and go by that). In the above-mentioned article, I also explain what deschooling is and what it's good for.

What maths resources are good for home education?

Besides loads of resources that are out there, I'd like to point you to my Subscriber Hub — my free-resource library — a collection of resources I created to support home educators. And it's ever growing.

CGP textbooks are the ones I always recommend. Usually, I recommend going for Key Stage books rather than books focused on each Year. Just for the simple reason that with a full Key Stage book, you'll get a better overview and bigger picture of what's expected from your child at the end of each stage.

A few more useful links (some free, some paid) for resources I often use for tutoring, that are just as great for home education (there are plenty more, but let's start with a few basic ones).

Maths Genie — based around exam preparation for GCSE, iGCSE and A level

Save My Exams — based around exam preparation for GCSE, iGCSE and A level

Mr Barton Maths — KS3 and KS4 resources

Corbett Maths — KS3 and KS4 resources

BBC Bitesize — a lot of resources for a variety of topics across the whole curriculum (both English and Scottish, I haven't searched there for Welsh and Irish resources yet)

White Rose Maths (now rebranding as White Rose Education) — a huge resource bank for all key stages, including post-16

National 5 Maths — a well-known go-to website for the Scottish National 5 maths exam
For more Scottish exams (Higher Maths, Advanced Higher Maths),have a look at this website.

Twinkl — my number one website for fun resources such as Mystery Maths worksheets. Can't go wrong with those (and there are plenty more).

Maths Starters — my go-to place for a quick fun maths game to break up the lesson. Their Bingo seems to be especially popular amongst my primary students.

IXL* — an interactive online program, a great place for setting HW or independent work with instant answer marking and explanation; it helps track progress, so it can be very handy for home ed reports

*this is an affiliate link, I may earn a commission if you sign up through it; this link will take you to an offer for 20% off for your first year of subscription with IXL (family licence)

Further recommendations — I do not use these as often but others do and recommend:

MathsBot — virtual manipulatives and a lot of practice questions

MathsPad — comprehensive structured resource; some resources are available without a subscription

NRICH — a lot of resources for enrichment structured by level and topic

Resourceaholic — a huge database of free maths resources for enrichment and practice for a variety of topics across the curriculum

MathsFrame — primary maths games and resources, many games there are free

The next stop: Maths Exams — what now?

BIG NEWS: Modular iGCSE exams are coming! The dream-come-true for every student (especially those with exam-induced anxieties and special education needs). Keep an eye on this place for more information. For now, I posted about it with relevant links on my Facebook page >> link here <<. I'll be also certainly talking about it more, when the time comes, in my Facebook group for home educators — Home Educate Maths. Feel free to join to not miss any other exciting news in the world of home educating maths.

Recently, I have been a guest (again) on the Home Education Matters podcast where we talked about the MODULAR iGCSE with Eleanor Marker. Find more here: PODCAST EPISODE — modular iGCSE.

Exams and exam boards — find out more in the extended article >> here <<
In the link above, you'll be able to find out about what different exams you might want to choose from, how to orient yourself amongst all the exam boards (lucky you if you're in Scotland - SQA got it pretty unified) and where to get more information in order to prepare for your maths exams as a home educator. If you choose to do them. They're not compulsory but with regards to maths, let's be honest, it's good to have that ticked off for further education and life.
A quick tip: While you might've opted out from in-school education during the compulsory school age, 14-16 colleges seem to be quite a sensible option to help your child get their GCSEs when the time comes. You might want to look around and see what's available in your area.

Finding an exam provider — find out more in the extended article >> here <<
It's quite an important task, to find a suitable exam provider when you home educate. In the link above, I'll walk you through a variety of options so you'll know where to find the providers, what to look for, and more useful tips to make your exam experience as smooth as possible.
In summary, I'd like you to know, that looking for exam providers doesn't include only independent exam centres, there are also schools that take external candidates. This is an option worth investigating as school fees for exams are usually less expensive (there are some disadvantages as well but more about it in the article itself — see above).

Getting ready for the exams — an article COMING SOON!
Just learning the maths topics is not the whole story when it comes to passing exams and getting the dream grades. (No matter whether your dream is a pass or the top grades.)
Come back soon for a wholesome guide to get ready for your maths exams.

Did you find today what you were looking for?

FAQs: Watch this space for common questions and answers about home educating maths, which I will be adding gradually. More also in my already mentioned Facebook group for home educators — Home Educate Maths.

Textbook, revision guide, student's book or workbook?

My child is in Year 10 / Year 11 and we worry about deregistering so close to the exams although we feel like that's the right decision due to their anxiety and poor mental health caused by the unsuitable school environment. Especially regarding maths exams - will such a change disturb the learning?

So many students are in a similar situation, it's almost unbelievable. The school system simply isn't suitable for everyone. In an ideal world, it will be much better, with more resources, supportive staff and all rainbows and unicorns regarding learning at school.

But if a child isn't learning well at school for reasons that can't just be dealt with or won't go away, you can pretty much go only to something better. Such as learning at home. So no, disturbing non-functional way of learning is not a bad thing.

While I haven't been in this situation personally, the students who I tutor are often those who deregister in Y10, late Y10 or even Y11 to carry on towards their GCSEs as external candidates. As a home educator, you can also take more time and don't have to do any exams at the usual age — you can do them later. There are also people who don't ever take exams — and it's not all just doom and gloom without qualifications in further life (although usually it's better to have at least some of them).
So it's doable and not uncommon. Even quite close to the "expected and usual" exam time.

Firstly, you'd likely want to discuss with your teen what they want to do in life — further education, work,... Then, you can address possible troubles stopping you from achieving these goals.
Does your teen want to go to college? Do they need GCSEs? (And which ones?) Is there an alternative? Some students go to colleges and work towards their qualifications alongside the college courses.
One thing I learnt in nearly two decades of helping students with maths, is that unaddressed anxiety (which is often closely connected to rather poor mental health) is the second biggest problem when it comes to passing exams, right after simply not studying (which is definitely number one).
So it's good to know where you're heading and what you need to do when taking the steps towards it.

It may turn out your teen can "get away" with "just" Functional Skills that can be taken online - which is a massive help when it comes to managing anxieties revolving around exams. Soon, there will be modular maths iGCSE available (see more about it a bit above on this page).
So there are options out there which may turn out to be better than trying to get blood from a stone (i.e. staying at school if it clearly isn't working for your child).

There are so many exams and exam boards... I just want my child to have "GCSE maths", what's the best choice?

Are you looking for further help and support?

Matherati: Small Online Maths Groups

Learn maths with us from early secondary to GCSE/iGCSE and Nat 5.

Structured classes for secondary maths, up to (i)GCSE & Nat 5, perfect for home educators with daytime and afternoon availability.

Learn more →

maths club self paced GCSE maths online course by veronika skye maths

Maths Club: Self-paced, relaxed maths learning

Join our club for flexible, independent learning with a ton of support at your fingertips.

Maths Club will guide you from KS3 to (i)GCSE Maths at your own pace.

Learn more →

This page is still growing, check back later for more info and please, feel free to suggest what you'd like to see here. This is a space for you, to help you with your maths home education. I'll be happy to add here what you need for your home education journey — all you need to do is just ask.

Home Educate Maths