Homeschooling pr Pods in Mauritius??

Member since 11 April 2019

peterg123Contributor27 February 2023 08:15:50

167

There are good schools available in the West Coast we want to have our kids attend and move to Mauritius for that. But there is a big problem of most schools are full and also we have to realign the Mauritian Jan to Dec International Curriculum with the Sept to September one that many British commonwealth countries use, including ours.

Is there any homeschooling or" pod" tutoring one could use as a stopgap waiting for a place to open in the proper schools? Or is it possible to hire a few tutors to come to one's home and deliver lessons? It's really a dilemma ...we can't plan our move to MU until we get school places, and those already in Mauritius can always be there on the spot to take any unexpected openings for their children...and the problem of schools year alignment Jan/Sept too. We seem caught in a loop we can't move forward.

For example, even if a Mauritian school said to us, "Sure we have places for your boys Jan 2024", their own school year will end in Sept 2023! So we could move to Mauritius and have a few months without school opening in January, not good for our chidden.

*PS a homeschool "pod" is where a few parents pool their children to homeschool but with teacher(s) in either one house or split between two or more houses of different days and was developed during COVID in the USA in particular as a way of sharing the burden of private tutoring.

andrew9799 Active member

Member since 29 May 2022

andrew9799Active member27 February 2023 10:09:42

@peterg123 We had the same dilemma. The difference in the school year also means that even if you find homeschooling (which I know nothing much about), the kids will be in a new country for a long time (for them!) without any friends. We ended up postponing our move until mid December, letting our daughter stay in the school where we were and applying for the new school place remotely (the two schools arranged for the new school's entrance test to be done at the school where she was already attending). We then got the acceptance offer remotely, and then she repeated a couple of months of schooling when she arrived here, so she actually had a bit of a head start when she arrived (it wasn't an exact repeat as the curriculums were a bit different). Worked out well for us, but depends if you have other reasons for sticking to your existing move dates I guess.

peterg123 Contributor

Member since 11 April 2019

peterg123Contributor28 February 2023 04:19:21

167

@andrew9799 Thanks..how old is your daughter? Mine are 5 and 7 so rather flexi. Yep if we stayed out of MU till December 23, then our kids would start 3 months ahead of the British curriculum years in MU, so actually when they started in January 2024 it would be a little easier to adjust as they would be repeating- but in a new environment so that might give them some confidence.

In the pod concept, they do get friends, but I am not sure that concept exists in MU. In the USA when there was strict COVID protocols on schools, parents developed pods from home to get age group tuition and lessons under private roofs. Would not have happened in MU since people were not allowed onm the street even!

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.