Use this guide to help you with your learning plans for 2023. We've also included a downloadable planner and quick link guide for easy reference too!
Outschool's motto and aim is to help Set Learning Free. Let's help you remove the barriers your child has to learning and set their learning free in 2023.
For easy reference for you, here is what is included in this blog post. You can click on these to jump to the relevant sections.
- Making a plan & identifying learning needs
- Choosing which class format is right for your child
- Finding the right class
- Taking classes together with friends
- Budgeting
- How to record your child's learning on Outschool
Making a plan & Identifying learning needs
When it comes to planning for your child's learning experiences in 2023, there are several things you will want to consider.
- Do they go to school and you're looking for something extra, like an enrichment subject?
- Or do they need extra support in a specific area, either in a group setting or one-on-one with a specialised tutor?
- Or are you looking for an afterschool activity, like a social club, learning a musical instrument or learning a new skill?
- Are they really interested in a subject that is not available at school and they want to do a full course in it?
- Are they home educated, or are you planning to home educate?
- Are you looking for a teacher to teach a subject you aren't covering already?
- Are you looking for a full curriculum, or unit studies?
- Is there a particular approach to education you are looking for?
- Do you want your child to be able to choose which classes they take, and so all Outschool classes are because they have chosen them?
- Are you looking for fun classes for them to take, like escape rooms etc?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you may want to go through each of the Outschool main categories for learning, which are shown below, and identify any gaps or needs in these areas that your child needs to focus on in 2023:
- English
- Maths
- Science & Nature (including animal science, astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, climate change, Earth science, life science, medical science, veterinary science)
- Social Studies (including geography, history, achaeology, economics, psychology, civics, religion, law, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, LGBTQ)
- Arts
- Music
- Life Skills (including business & entrepreneurship, cooking & baking, personal finance & investing, social skills, study skills, time management and wilderness survival skills)
- Coding & Tech (including gaming, coding, building computers, internet safety, robotics, podcasting)
- World Languages
- Health & Wellness (including nutrition, hygiene, first aid, mental health, fitness)
You can also look at this Outschool Categories page to see if there are any other areas that pique your child's interest.
We have a handy class schedule planner here for you to download if you want to use one. We also have a handy Quick Link Class Guide for you to download and keep to access different Outschool classes. Download it here.
Choosing which class format is right for your child
Once you have identified potential areas that you'd like to explore classes in, the next thing to do is to work out what level of time commitment do you want for the classes, and which format would suit your child (and budget) the best?
- Do you need a one-off class on a small topic, such as Axolotls or how to tie a shoelace? Or does your child need to just get some support with identifying parts of speech, but not a whole grammar course? A one-time class on an isolated topic would be great for this.
- If there is a topic that your child wants or needs to delve deeper in, then maybe a camp over the school holidays, or a short course or longer semester course would be a good idea. This is also good for things like book clubs.
- If you don't have the funds to pay upfront for a course, or if you want to have a class that they take for interest, you may want to choose an ongoing class format. Ongoing classes don't tend to build on subject knowledge, but may introduce a new related topic each week, for example, a new dinosaur to learn about each week.
- If you find that your schedule is all over the place and getting to a regular class weekly is difficult, then there may be a flex class that covers what you need it to. Flex classes have no live meetings, so they can be taken whenever you can fit them in.
- Do they need a tutor? There are many tutors offering one-on-one classes for a whole range of subjects on Outschool.
- If you're looking for a club for them to join, there are a wide variety of clubs you can utilise on Outschool.
For more information on class formats, take a look at the article Which Outschool Class Format is Right For Me.
Finding the right class
When you have the topics and class formats that you want to find classes for, you can head over to your Outschool account, and using the Find Classes search function you can filter search results by time, date, ages of your children, price, subject area (from the areas above) and class format, such as one-time class or flexible schedule. You can also head to the UK Outschool Families group to ask for class recommendations. Many teachers are in this group too, so you can also search the class listing posts that are pinned to the top of the group in the Featured section.
Taking classes together with friends
When you are planning for 2023, and you are looking at all the options for your child, you may be thinking that you would love for them to be able to learn in a consistent group of children. There is a way that you can make this happen on Outschool.
We recently published an article called How to Take Classes Together on Outschool which has more information about this, if this is something you are interested in.
Budgeting for classes
Paying for classes may factor into your decisions about which, and how many, you enroll your child in. We have a few tips for you when it comes to budgeting for classes:
- Choosing the format for the class will affect the upfront cost of the class. Short courses and semester courses are paid all up front, whereas ongoing classes are paid for weekly and payment is therefore more spread out. Flex classes may be cheaper as there are no live meetings.
- Some teachers will issue coupon codes for their classes, and you can ask the teacher if they do have a current one.
- Similarly, some teachers will issue a sibling discount for classes if you ask them. This is at their discretion.
- We recommend setting a budget for your Outschool classes and sticking to it.
- In order to stick to your budget, you can purchase a gift card for the amount for yourself, and load your account with the Outschool credit for classes each month, rather than have class payments come out of your bank account every time. Once the credit is used up, you can load more or wait until you have put more on to it.
- Did you know that you can earn free class credits on Outschool? Many families will use this to fund their Outschool classes without having to pay for them. You can earn these by sharing Outschool with other people who haven't used Outschool before using the Refer-a-Friend scheme, which also gives them some free credit to try Outschool too. You can read more about this referral scheme here.
How to record your child's learning on Outschool
You may or may not want to keep a record of the learning your child does on Outschool. You can take a look at all the classes they have taken in 2022 by looking at your Transcripts area under your Outschool account. Looking forward to 2023, you may want to keep a record of your child's learning by issuing them with a certificate when they complete a class.
In our recent blog article on How to Record Your Child's Learning on Outschool we look at different ways to keep a learning record, and also provide you with some downloadable certificates you can use too.
Set Learning Free in 2023 - we look forward to supporting your child's learning throughout the coming year.
Happy New Year from the UK Outschool team!
