Compiling a Portfolio for your Home Educated Child

Portfolio’s seek to demonstrate the learning process a student has been through, show skills and information that’s been learned, and give a glimpse of how a learner has grown over time through different reflections.

One of the pressure’s a home educating family may feel is documenting a child’s education journey. Portfolio’s can be a fun and enriching way to do this. Portfolio’s are also commonly used as documentation and evidence for awards, job and university applications. Therefore, developing the skill now, can be an asset for you and your child for future endeavours. Below I will outline for you some general guidelines to help with the journey of creating your child’s portfolio. Let’s go!

The first thing you and your child will need to know is there is no one way or right way to create and compile a portfolio. Usually when a portfolio has been requested to be submitted as evidence, the organisation requesting will have very clear guidelines on what they expect their portfolio to include and how it should be submitted. However, if you are wanting to do one on your own, here are some general guidelines you can use to help with the process.

1.  Have a purpose and goal for your portfolio. Determine why you are making one, what outcomes you are seeking and why you are  taking the time to go through this process.
2.  Consider the resources you have available to support your child with creating a portfolio appropriate for what you are documenting. Portfolio’s can be written, audio, visual, and could include websites, photography, blog posts, PowerPoint presentations and more.
3.  Next think about what you want your child to learn and how much time you want your child to spend on this process. This will determine how detailed you are and how much documentation you’ll provide.
4.  Consider the age and or skill level of your child. A picture with one sentence underneath may be adequate at a primary level. You may require a secondary student to write a few paragraphs for a reflection.
5.  Focus on creating either a digital portfolio or paper-based portfolio. This is just a recommendation as it makes your child’s portfolio easier to share and track. Think about the type of project/learning/activity your child has engaged in and what form of documentation would be most suitable for displaying work on that topic. 

Now that you have a rough idea of the parameters of a portfolio, let’s get started making a paper-based one. These are just suggestions to encourage you to begin the process and not a rule book.

1.  Make a list of the topics you want to include in your portfolio.
2.  Divide each topic into sub lists of skills learned. 
3.  Decide which evidence you will present for each topic and skills. This could include photos, drawings, diagrams, written documents, 3-D illustrations, something your child has built and more.
4.  Make a cover page and give your portfolio a title.
5.  Leave a page for a table of contents and number the pages.
6.  Include reflections documenting your child’s learning process and experience.

Now it’s time to get started! The most important part of all of this is actually starting the process. Don’t be concerned about getting it right the first time and try your best. Over time you’ll gain experience and have more ideas about how to do things. For now, take it one step at a time.

Let me know how things go and send a picture or video of your child’s portfolio.

Umm Yusuf.

Stewards.ONE