Studying with Wolsey Hall – by skater, Phebe Bekker

Hi, my name is Phebe Bekker and I am a homeschooled athlete studying with Wolsey Hall. My ice dance partner, James, and I train in the US whilst representing Great Britain. I just wanted to put together a little blog post and talk about my experience with Wolsey Hall so far and how being homeschooled has benefitted me. I just want to start by saying that studying with Wolsey Hall has opened up so many new opportunities for me, especially due to the flexible schedule that it offers. As a full-time athlete, most of my day is spent on the ice training which doesn’t allow me to go to a regular school with set hours. I did try that for a few months but I ended up going into school at lunchtime and only going to three lessons a day. I ended up being really far behind all of my classmates and was obviously not a sustainable route to take.

My parents and I started to look into homeschooling and we came across Wolsey Hall which had also been mentioned to us through friends and other parents. What made us chose Wolsey Hall Oxford, over some of the other companies, was the completely independent schedule. This sounded perfect for me as I could work anywhere in the world whenever I wanted. It was really that freedom and flexibility which made me prefer homeschooling as opposed to attending a regular school. Everyone has their own reason to switch to homeschooling, however at first, I wasn’t sure if it was a choice I definitely wanted to make. I loved school and I loved seeing my friends everyday but I loved my sport more and I knew what sacrifices I had to make to be the best athlete I could be. Now I look back, I don’t see school as a thing I had to sacrifice. Homeschooling has taught me so much more than I realise and has opened up so many incredible opportunities. It taught me incredible amounts of self-discipline that I never had when I was at school. It also gave me a lot of independence which I love more than anything and to know that you are the one deciding what and when you want to study gives you that control that makes you feel more at ease.