The 5 Steps of a High School Plan

Help­ing our high school stu­dents devel­op a plan can seem like a daunt­ing task, but it has the poten­tial to be a great shared expe­ri­ence.  For ease, here are the five steps in cre­at­ing a high school plan with your student. 

• Homeschool vision

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: You need a vision for your home­school! When the days are long, you need to know why you’re home­school­ing. When your stu­dent strug­gles, you need to know why you’re home­school­ing. When you’re in the mid­dle of Feb­ru­ary, you need to know why you’re home­school­ing. So what’s your vision? Why are you suf­fer­ing through the work and ded­i­ca­tion that a good edu­ca­tion requires? 

If you need help cre­at­ing a vision for your home­school, check out our free home­school vision work­sheet in the toolbox. 

You can reg­is­ter for a free account to gain access to all of our tool­box resources, or reg­is­ter for our newslet­ter here: scioacademy.com/free to have the vision guide sent direct­ly to your inbox. 

• Assess your student’s gifts and passions

You’ve all heard the clas­sic Proverbs’ verse all about train­ing up a child in the way he should go, you’ve prob­a­bly even heard com­plete ser­mons on this sin­gle verse. Have you ever stopped to talk to your child about his pas­sions, gifts, and dreams? This sec­ond step takes time. It takes open­ness, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and hon­esty with your child. If this type of con­ver­sa­tion isn’t already a part of your reg­u­lar fam­i­ly con­ver­sa­tions then this step will feel a lit­tle like pulling teeth. Please resist the urge to pull teeth. It is okay if your child does­n’t know what his dreams are. With the caveat of mov­ing slow­ly, here are some ques­tions or prompts to help you with this step: 

• • • • What do you love doing? 
      • If you were giv­en an entire day to do any­thing you’d like, what would it be?
      • How do you plan to earn money?
      • When I was a kid, some­one told me ______, and it showed me that I _______. Has that ever hap­pened to you?
      • Who do you look up to? Why? 
      • What do you wish you knew how to do?
      • I’ve noticed that you’re real­ly good at________. 

• Create a student roadmap

Here’s where the rub­ber meets the road. Fig­u­ra­tive­ly of course, although many stu­dents’ roadmaps do include get­ting a license. This is where you plan your stu­den­t’s goals for edu­ca­tion, work, appren­tice­ships, sports, extracur­ric­u­lar, etc.  In short, this step is writ­ing down the fruition from the pre­vi­ous step’s con­ver­sa­tion. Then mod­el­ing plan­ning with your stu­dent. I bul­let jour­nal and have shown my high school stu­dents the ben­e­fits, but only one of them has real­ly used it. It does­n’t work for every­one. Our goal as a par­ent for this step is to show our chil­dren how to plan, and let them cre­ate their own. 

We have a com­plete roadmap for your stu­dent in our tool­box, so remem­ber to signup for your free mem­ber­ship to gain access to it! 

we also have a com­plete blog post series on the roadmap. Check it out on the blog!

• Check the state requirements regarding high school homeschoolers. 

If you are under an umbrel­la school, then they are your author­i­ty on require­ments, so check with them. If your child is col­lege or mil­i­tary bound then check the require­ments for the appro­pri­ate orga­ni­za­tion. This is a sim­ple yet very essen­tial step. This is where you learn that your child needs three years of sci­ence, but only two of for­eign lan­guage. With­out this sim­ple check­list of require­ments, you may not meet the require­ments for a com­plete high school education. 

• Implementation

Final­ly, we dive head first into imple­men­ta­tion. This step is the com­bi­na­tion of all of the pre­vi­ous steps. You find where your vision, your stu­den­t’s gifts, goals, and the state or school require­ments com­plete your four year plan. It’s fair­ly tricky, but com­plete­ly worth the extra work to have a sol­id plan in place. 

We have a tool for help­ing you imple­ment this part of the process too! It’s called the high school guide, and can be found in the tool­box with a free mem­ber­ship. We strive to pro­vide you with the tools that you and your fam­i­ly need to be the home­school fam­i­ly you admire the most. If at any time, we can cre­ate a tool or help your fam­i­ly on your mid­dle and high school jour­ney, please email Lori at Lori@scioacademy.com