The Home-Ed Contract: How a Signed Agreement Changes Everything
At the breakfast table you’re Mum (or Dad), and they’re just your children. Ten minutes later, you’re Mrs Mum/Mr Dad and there’s a pile of work to be done. The multiple roles of home education — parent and teacher, child and pupil, siblings and peers — can quietly unbalance a home if you let them. I never wanted that to happen. I wanted our kids to know that while education matters, and some schoolwork genuinely has to be done, our relationship comes first.
At some point, we weren’t getting that balance right. I’d be so focused on the work that “needed” doing and the targets that had to be met that instead of meeting them as their mum at the breakfast table, I’d be Teacher from the start of the day. On school days, they’d passively wait to be told what to do. I felt like I was juggling everything and catching very few of the balls.
Enter the home-ed contract.
What it actually is
Instead of asking our children to innately understand the shifting dynamics of at-home versus in-school roles, we started explicitly defining them. Instead of ‘school’ being something they did because they were told to, it became a set of goals we were working toward together — as a team.
We talked openly about the curriculum and academic targets, explaining why they mattered. We asked for their opinions on everything from the resources we planned to use to how our days should be structured. We asked what they wanted to learn. And then we sat down and wrote a contract.
Using tea-soaked paper and Harry Potter-esque quills (because the more fun you make it the greater its chance of success), we wrote out four simple terms: core subjects must be completed before any other activity; projects must be completed in the timeframe agreed; at least one hour of every day must be spent reading independently; free time must be spent productively.
That was it. And it was, genuinely, incredibly effective. So effective that years later we’re still using home-ed contracts, and have expanded the idea into signed agreements for project-based work too.
How to write one that works for your family
Start with your non-negotiables. What does a functional school day actually require from your learner? Starting at a certain time, completing a set number of pages, finishing work assigned through an app, filing things correctly after a session — write down the things that, when they don’t happen, make the day fall apart, or you feel like they’re not learning (even though they probably are).
Then consider routine rather than schedule. This was a shift that made a real difference for us. Rather than a time-blocked timetable, our contract specifies an order of operations: core subjects first, then projects, then free time. A rhythm rather than a schedule allows flexibility around life outside school. If we need to be out in the morning, school starts when we’re home, and regardless of what the clock says, everyone already knows where we are in the day based on what’s been completed. As our children have grown into teenagers, this has given them more autonomy without anyone needing to negotiate it afresh each morning.
Include the whole picture. Home education blurs into family life: commitments, meals, gardening, hobbies, whatever daily life looks like. Our contracts have always included practical obligations alongside academic ones: classroom roles (Official Pencil Sharpener is a surprisingly effective role for younger students not normally permitted unsupervised access to blades; Librarian — keep books tidy, make recommendations, locate books pre-lesson — was highly sought after, partly because the badge was actually mine from primary school). This simple shift, giving everyone responsibilities in school and out, made a real impact. School became an extension of home rather than something imposed on it.
Ask what they want to learn. Wherever possible, give them choices: which maths app, which magazine subscription, which topic for the next independent project. A contract that includes their interests isn’t just more motivating: it’s the whole point of home education.
The signature is the key
This sounds silly, but it genuinely is.
Once they’ve signed, they’ve committed. All I have to do, as their mum-teacher-supervisor, is refer them back to what they agreed to and make sure they’re staying on track. I apply the same logic for their weekly folder and daily checklists — a signature is compulsory — and if, for any reason, I forget to have them sign the assigned work for the week, there’s a psychological shift. Worksheets get forgotten. Deadlines slip. Things become slightly chaotic.
A contract, however informally written, centres the homeschool. It cements the idea that this whole thing, the school part of their life and the life we’ve built around it, is a project we’re all in together.
The KTS contract templates — formal, simple, and whimsical — are available free below. Three versions because different households need different registers, and because “I’m bored” shall not constitute grounds for the cessation of learning activities, though it may be noted for the record.
