5 Homeschool High School Insider Tips

Hello. My name is Kyle, and I’m a college student who graduated from high school two years early through homeschooling and going to a virtual school. In this article, I want to provide some helpful tips on how to succeed through homeschooling (especially virtual school).

1. Go the Extra Mile

Projects normally come with a grading rubric and/or a set of instructions to follow in order to ensure that students get the highest grade. When reading these instructions, many students will aim to barely achieve the expectations, or to go below them. However, by encouraging your child to include more information than is requested, you help your child in the long run.

An example may help this situation. Let’s say that a child is doing a project on the phases of the moon. If one of the questions to answer in the project is “What is the phase of the moon when the moon is opposite from the sun?”, then one may want to include more information besides merely, “Full Moon”. By including more information, the teacher can award a higher grade for a good explanation. If the student is unable to provide an explanation, or provides an incorrect explanation for the problem, it offers the teacher a chance to provide the correct answer.

Going back to the above example, let’s say that the student had instead answered “The phase of the moon would be ‘Full Moon’, as that is when the largest portion of the sunlit moon is visible from Earth”. By providing a more complete and full response, the teacher knows that the student fully understands the information. Students can also do this with math problems by listing out formulas that they are going to use or dividing their math into step-by-step processes.

2. Sign Up for Clubs

Many homeschooling organizations and virtual schools offer clubs and group activities in order to socialize with other students. They offer students a great way to make friends and socialize with people with similar interests. In addition to socialization, being a part of many clubs can be put on future college applications, can encourage productivity in school, and can provide a positive and engaging environment when going to school.

If your child does sign up for a club, encourage him/her to run for office. Even if he/she does not get the position, it offers an excellent chance to develop communication skills, find friends, and to compete in a friendly environment. Running for office may also encourage him/her to do better in schoolwork, as fellow club members may be part of the same classes.

3. Attend Live Lessons

Many virtual schools offer lessons live through online media software, in which a student can watch a lesson, ask questions, and get a response in real time. Not only does it offer a quick and convenient method for getting answers to questions, it also offers students who prefer learning auditorily a chance to listen to the material being taught.

In addition to hearing the material and asking questions, there is also an additional component. Students that watch the lesson, take notes on it, and see other students asking questions, may feel more like they are in a classroom environment, instead of being at home reading a textbook. This may provide a more focused learning environment.

4. Get to Know Your Teachers

It is always a good habit for students to know their teachers. It not only builds relationships that will benefit the student academically, but it will also allow the student to ask the teacher for a recommendation, additional grace on an assignment, or special time to go over something he/she is having trouble with.

5. Get Organized

When a student is homeschooled or in virtual school, there may be too much of a comfortable feeling: that of being at home.

Obviously, this is good, but it may result in a lack of organization and not taking the school environment seriously. A great way to deal with this is to come up with a structure and organization to schooling.

In any plan, there should be dedicated time each day for classes. It is important to have work each day for classes, even if no assignments are due, in order to prevent forgetting the information. It is also good to have this time so that students can get ahead if necessary.

In addition to dedicated time each day for classes, there should be “study/tutoring” time, in which the student could go over any questions or issues, or perhaps do some research for upcoming projects and review notes for upcoming quizzes. Even if the student has no questions, issues, or upcoming projects/exams, it is still important to review what he/she has already learned.

If your child is a member and/or leader of any student organizations, it is important to have a schedule regarding that, also. There should be scheduled time before the meetings to get ready for them (perhaps on a weekend, if he/she doesn’t have time during the week). Students should also schedule some additional time immediately before and after each meeting, in order to ensure that he/she will get there on time, and not leave too early.

Although you may be tempted to schedule every minute of every day, it is good to have some leeway, in case of problems or emergencies, or if your child needs a break. Of course you can schedule “contingency times” and “break times”, but how you schedule and structure your calendar is entirely up to you.