A TYPICAL day for the Joyce children might include maths, English, art and maybe an outside activity.

It’s an average school day but in fact Eden, 11, Callum, eight and Clark, five, don’t go to school – the youngsters are among a growing number of children being educated at home.

Once seen as a bit of a hippy thing to do, home schooling is becoming increasingly popular, with 150,000 children – around one per cent of the population – now being educated at home.

Home schooling support group Education Otherwise reports that 20,000 parents have taken their children out of school in the last 12 months.

Bridget Joyce first became a home educator six years ago, when she felt Eden was bored at school. Eden returned to school 18 months later when her brother Callum started school, but after another year, Bridget decided to teach them at home and they haven’t looked back since.

Five-year-old Clark is also now home-schooled and Soloman, three, and Cody, two, also join in with a number of activities.

“We do a structured approach,” explained Bridget, from Peverell Road, Turlin Moor.

“But that’s mainly because, with five children, my life has to be structured.

“I believe they should do maths and English, but whatever else they do is up to them. We mainly cover the national curriculum, especially with maths and English, mainly so they can do exams later.

“We do maths and English most days and they’re very tailored to their abilities because they do different key stages.”

The children take part in various history and geography projects, as well as learning about events such as Mother’s Day and St George’s Day.

But they are also able to take part in activities organised by outside groups, such as local wildlife watches.

“We’re very aware of the need for exercise,” said Bridget.

“We take the dogs for a walk every day, we do our own vegetable patch and they know more about the natural world.

“The children are equipped to go out and live on their own, they’re more worldly. The children have home-educated friends and schooled friends, so they have a wide variety of friends.”

Eden has a heavier workload than her siblings, so dad Malcolm, who was made redundant in October, now helps her in the evenings with extra maths and computer tuition.

While Bridget would prefer to home educate all the children, she asks each of them when they reach school age what they would like to do. They have all chosen to stay at home and Eden even wants to continue secondary education with her family.

It’s also up to the children if they take GCSEs, but the family must buy their own syllabus, arrange for the children to sit the exams at a local school and pay to have the papers marked privately.

The family has to pay for all its own educational materials, but Malcolm admits it’s one of the only down sides to home schooling he can think of.

“You do have to be committed,” added Bridget.“You can’t play at it because it’s your children’s future. But if you’ve done a couple of hours and it’s a nice day you can say ‘let’s go out’.

“Or if you’re having a bad day, it doesn’t happen very often, you can say ‘just put your books away and we’ll carry on tomorrow’ because they’re not going to learn in that frame of mind.”

Bridget’s used to receiving mixed reactions when she tells people she home schools. But she’s convinced it’s the best thing for them.

“I’ve done this because I want to do better for my children,” she said.“People say to me ‘why do you home school?’ It’s just because we can and actually, it’s really good.”