A home education timetable for maths and English: one week, ready to use
If you teach your child at home, you choose what to teach and when. That freedom is the point, and it is also the hard part. This guide gives you one week of maths and English that you can run on Monday, with sitting lengths by age and a simple way to keep a record.
What the law asks, in one paragraph
In England you must make sure your child gets a full-time education from the age of 5. You do not have to follow the national curriculum, and there are no set hours. The council can make an informal enquiry to check that the education is suitable. The official page is Educating your child at home on GOV.UK. This guide is about the school work, not the law.
How long each sitting should be
Short and daily works better than long and rare.
| Age | School year | Maths | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 to 7 | Years 1 and 2 | 10 minutes | 10 minutes |
| 7 to 11 | Years 3 to 6 | 20 minutes | 20 minutes |
| 11 to 14 | Years 7 to 9 | 30 minutes | 30 minutes |
Stop when the time ends. One-to-one work at home goes faster than a class of thirty. You do not need to fill a school day.
The week
| Day | Maths | English |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Number and place value: one new lesson | Read one page together. Ask one question whose answer is in the text. |
| Tuesday | Addition or subtraction: one method, a few questions | Five spellings. Look, cover, write, check. |
| Wednesday | The same method as Tuesday, with new numbers | One sentence. Check the capital letter and the full stop. |
| Thursday | A fraction, a time or a measure | Six new words. Use each one in a sentence, out loud. |
| Friday | Your child explains one question from the week | Three sentences about something that happened this week. |
Friday matters most. If your child can explain a question out loud, the idea stayed. If not, that lesson goes on Monday’s list.
Match it to the year
Open the England maths page for the year your child is working at. That may not be the year for their age. Start where the work is comfortable, then move up.
Each page lists the lessons in order. Take Monday’s lesson from the top of the list and work down.
English for the same week is on the English page: reading, phonics and spelling, grammar, vocabulary, punctuation and writing.
How to find the right starting year
Use the lesson titles on the year pages. They are in teaching order.
- Start one year below your child’s age.
- Read down the number lessons. Ask one question from the first, the middle and the last.
- If all three are easy, move up a year. If not, stay, and work through that page from the top.
A child can be in Year 5 for number and Year 3 for fractions. That is common, and at home you can teach to it.
Sunday setup
Ten minutes on Sunday saves an hour in the week.
- Open the year page and pick the five maths lessons.
- Pick the page to read, the five spellings and the six words.
- Put paper and a pencil on the table.
- Set a timer your child can see.
Do the choosing before Monday. The morning should be for the work, not for deciding what the work is.
Keep a simple record
One line a day is enough.
| Date | Maths lesson | English task | What went well | What to repeat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Numbers 1000 to 9999 | Read page 12 | Said the columns out loud | Zero as a place holder |
A record helps you in three ways. You can see progress on a bad day. You know what to repeat. And if the council asks what your child is learning, you have it written down.
If the week slips
Keep Monday and Friday. Drop a middle day. Do not add an hour on Saturday to catch up. The next sitting is the normal length, not a longer one.
A missed week is not a failed plan. Start again on Monday with the same lesson.
Maths and English are the base, not the whole week
This plan covers two subjects in under an hour a day. The rest of the day is yours: science in the kitchen, history at a museum, sport, music, a library trip. Many home-educating families do the maths and English first, while everyone is fresh, and keep the afternoon for everything else.
Where FutureSchool fits
Each FutureSchool lesson is a short video, then practice on that idea. Your child can pause the video and try the step again. The lessons are in order, so you do not have to plan the sequence yourself. There is no separate home education course. This plan uses the lessons that are already there.
The maths strands are on Maths. What the programme includes is on the pricing page.
More on home education
- Home education across England: where it is most common, by local authority.
- What is flexischooling?: part of the week at school, part at home.