Teenagers

Suggestions for home-educated teenagers in South London.

Exams
If you are looking ahead to qualifications, please see the Home Ed Exams Wiki, which is a collaborative site built and maintained by the home-ed community. It tells you how to work towards qualifications from home-ed, as our options are different from those for schools. Some GCSEs are difficult to arrange as an external (private) candidate because of administrative requirements regarding eg speaking tests and practical work, so in those cases home-educated candidates usually take International GCSEs instead.

If you are looking for exam centres which accept External (private) candidates in the area, see Finding an Exam Centre - London and South-East.

College
There are options for part-time College attendance in the area, of which the best-known is the Lewisham College part-time programme for home-educated teenagers aged 14+, which offers free GCSE classes and exams.

Project and Activity Ideas
Here are suggestions for things that lead to a certificate (mostly), and which teenagers might find interesting: The key academic skills to focus on are maths and English KS3 work. The CGP books are popular with home educators because they're to the point, no-nonsense, and cheap.
 * Arts Awards.  These are qualifications which can be done from home, in your own time, using a variety of art forms - not only painting / drawing, but also photography, film-making, graphic design etc.  They include practical projects and you have to do some communication / sharing work, too.  Can be quite a lot of work for the parent putting it all together, so it may ease the load to use one of the online Arts Awards providers.  Sometimes you can find Arts Award schemes run by local community groups or local authorities as projects in school holidays.  For more information, look on the Home Ed Exams wiki page on Art.
 * Digital skills, especially Duke of York's Inspiring Digital Enterprise Awards (IDEA).  This is free and you can do it from home, online.  It's modular, so you can complete units as and when you are ready.  Lots of choice of modules.  You get a certificate at the end.
 * Touch-typing programmes - a skill worth developing. BBC Dancemat Typing is a free online program.
 * ECDL or other vocational ICT qualifications - good for the CV later on.
 * Alternative Qualifications - community awards, alternative curriculums, sports etc.  Lots of ideas here:
 * Foreign languages - Duolingo is a free, fun, evidence-based online programme for language learning and if you complete the course it takes you up to about GCSE standard.  My kids and I play this for fun because it's like a game.

There are lots of great maths resources, including channels on YouTube, to explain any maths concepts you find tricky - see

There are some niche distance learning courses provided by home educating parents who are also teachers, some online and some on paper. These are usually much cheaper and more relaxed than distance learning courses from the large companies. Have a look at https://he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/CorrespondenceCourses  It's not necessary to use a distance learning provider if you home educate - many of us never do. However, if you think your child would enjoy it then it's worth a look.

Hobbies and Groups
There are always some home-ed groups which are popular with teens. There are some group classes in the area working towards qualifications, although often there is a waiting list for these. There are regular social groups based around an activity, eg ice-skating, horse-riding, trampolining, rock climbing, and one-off workshops which are organised on the home-ed email and facebook groups. For privacy, these groups are not published on the open Web, but if you are home-educating or seriously considering doing so, please apply to the South London Home Ed Email group or our Facebook chat group.

You can also take advantage of "after school" and weekend groups which are open to the general public. Many families find it helpful to build up a strong programme of activities in hobbies and sports, which can last them as they move from home-ed to college and further afield. Here are some examples popular with local home-ed teens:
 * Sea cadets, air cadets, police cadets,
 * Scouts, Guides, Explorers etc
 * Woodcraft Folk ("hippy Scouts"!)
 * St John's Ambulance / Red Cross juniors
 * sports clubs - so many in South London!
 * Drama societies - ideal for building confidence and presentation skills
 * Horse riding - a couple of South London stables run home-ed groups
 * Local music groups, eg the Lewisham and Greenwich music services, ensembles and orchestras provide low-cost music tuition.
 * Drama / theatre groups - great for building confidence and friendships.