Education the 'Acorn Way'

djp-acornprincipal

Deborah Penk

Acorn Academy

EDUCATION THE ‘ACORN WAY’

Acorn Academy is a small private home education support group based in West Auckland. The group of children becomes like an extended family as they learn and play together.

It all started (of course!) with home education I wanted to provide for my own children. I was dissatisfied with the increased ‘dumbing down’ that was happening in the state education system, and had noticed a big drop in quality since the primary school days of my oldest two children (who began school in 1983 and 1985 respectively). I was frustrated at the broad social agenda which seemed to be replacing much of the academic curriculum, and I was alarmed at the standards of child behaviour which seemed now to pass as normal including disrespect for teachers, bullying of fellow pupils, and the ever-present and insidious peer pressure for children to conform to dubious values, often highly materialistic and usually undesirable in some way.

Put all together, I felt moved to provide a model of education which would meet the real needs of children.

In my view, these involve:

*clear, systematic teaching of basic skills, particularly in literacy and numeracy

*developing a friendly but respectful attitude to teachers

*being treated as an individual for the assessment of learning needs, so that the educational programme fits the child

*being able to act as a member of a group in order to share ideas and complete team tasks

*developing independent work habits and study skills

*learning about the world in every sense - through formal study, an interest in current affairs, wide reading, and observation and reflection on the lives of others

*getting to know your strengths and weaknesses so both can be targeted to achieve higher goals

In my experience, no child who is prepared to work on the basis of these guidelines can fail to achieve their full potential.

Acorn Academy provides the opportunity for all these things to happen. Quite simply, it is education of the highest quality for primary-aged children. Acceleration and enrichment is no problem - the qualifications and experience of myself and my specialist teachers mean that if a ten year old is ready for fifth form maths, he/she can do it here. The same applies to other subjects, so Acorn Academy is particularly suitable for gifted children.

But it’s not just academics - we go out on a constantly varied range of field trips to enhance our ‘classroom’ studies. We participate in community events such as Music Festivals, Art Exhibitions and Book Quizzes. We enter for the Australian Maths, English and Science Competitions. We have an annual concert to showcase individual and group performance - linked to a theme underlining our year’s studies.

A ‘last word’ from a delighted parent: ‘My child loves your Social Studies - he finds the experience of being taken through all the major milestones of World History is absolutely awesome. I know that being at Acorn Academy has changed his life. He will never look back!’

D. J. Penk