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When we first started doing Charlotte Mason exams in our homeschool, I would ask one of my kids a question about a book we had read all term, and if they said “I don’t remember,” or they just didn’t have anything to say, I would get so discouraged. I would tell myself that I was doing it all wrong, or that I needed to be doing something better, because if I’m being honest with you, I am still a bit of a box checker at heart.
It took me a while to shift my mindset about the aim of exams, which is to see what connected with our kids and what ideas they have stored up in their minds.
Now exam week is one of our favorite weeks of the whole term, and my kids LOVE it. So today I want to walk you through how I write our exam questions and what our exam week looks like with my Form I and Form II kids, right down to the little celebration that ends the whole week.
Grab the Free Charlotte Mason Exam Builder
If you’re getting ready for your first exam week and don’t know where to start with writing the questions, I made something for you. The Charlotte Mason Exam Builder gives you starter prompts modeled on the original PNEU exams, so you can pick a few for each subject, fill in what your child read this term, and print it as your child’s exam booklet. Get the free Exam Builder here.
What Are Charlotte Mason Exams?
In Charlotte Mason’s own schools, every term ended with a week of exams, and the questions were set only on the books the children had read that term. The exam week lasted a week, and each subject was examined in its usual slot on the timetable, which is exactly how we still do it in our home today.
One or Two Questions on Each Book
I love how simple Mason kept this. She wrote that at the end of the term “an examination paper is sent out containing one or two questions on each book” (School Education, p. 272), and one of the sample questions she shared for a young child was just “Tell the story of Naaman.” The question is simple, and the child does the work of telling back what they know, which is why I only write one to three questions for each subject.
No Review, No Cramming, and No Marks in the Charlotte Mason Homeschool Method
This is the part that surprises most moms. Mason didn’t have the children review before exams, because they had covered too much ground to go back and “look things up,” and she wrote, “What the children have read they know” (A Philosophy of Education, p. 241). She objected to competition and marks in exams, because the desire to get ahead pushes out the love of knowledge. She said it so plainly: “the evil lies in the competition, not in the examination” (Parents and Children, p. 218).
So in our home, I don’t correct anything during exams. I simply listen.
How I Write Our Charlotte Mason Exam Questions
If you’re sitting down to write your very first exam, here’s where I’d start:
Look at a few examples from the PNEU exams to see how Mason’s schools worded their questions.
Grab the books your child read this term.
Write one or two questions from each book.
My Exam Builder is built from starter prompts modeled on those PNEU examples, so it makes this even easier for you to plug them in. Here’s a little more about how I do each of these in our home.
I Start With the PNEU Exams
I always reference the exam questions from the PNEU, which give you exact examples from Charlotte Mason’s schools of how she built exam questions around each subject. You can look through a full PNEU programme and examination from 1923 here, and more of the original exam papers here. I go to those first to write my questions, or just to have a reference for how to word them.
Other Places I Look When I’m Stuck
Some other tools that have been helpful for me are the A Delectable Education lesson plans, since a lot of those already have exam questions in them, and the Sabbath Mood Homeschool guides, since we use those guides and I use a lot of her exam questions as well. I sometimes reference Ambleside too, since they already have exam questions for several of the books we cover, and then I write my own for any that I don’t have questions for. Over the years, as I’ve done more of these, I’ve gotten more comfortable writing questions on my own, but if you’re new to this and writing them all yourself, those are all great resources to reference.
One Notebook for Each Child
I usually write the exam questions the week before exams. Ideally it would be sooner, or I’d keep track of questions throughout the term as we have discussions, and I wish I was better about that, but I just haven’t been great about it yet. So I take some time the week before and write them all in a spiral-bound notebook. I have one notebook for each child for the whole year, and all of their exams for every term go in it, so at the end of the year I have one notebook with all of their exams in one place.
What Our Charlotte Mason Exam Week Looks Like
We carry out exams at the end of every term, and our exam week is a restful, relaxing week where the kids get to share a lot of what they have learned and we get to celebrate their learning.
Week 11 Is for Catching Up, Week 12 Is for Exams
We have three terms each year, and each term is 12 weeks. Week 11 is my buffer week, which I wrote about in last week’s post on what to do with everything you didn’t finish, where we catch up on readings we’re behind on, and if we’re already done with a subject, we start some of those exams early. We don’t do any review for the exams.
Week 12 is reserved for exams only. I follow our regular timetable that week, but all we do are exams, so there are no reading assignments and no extra work. The kids get more free time, and it gives me some extra time to prep for the next term.
Oral and Written Charlotte Mason Narration by Form
With my Form I child, almost all of his exam questions are oral, because he isn’t to the point of writing his narrations yet. I ask him the questions, and I usually have my computer with me to type out his answers, or I record him and type them up afterward, and then I print them out and glue them into his notebook.
With my Form II kids, we rotate between oral and written narrations, so I might give them one question in a subject to answer orally and one to write. For literature and composition I always have them write, because those are the language-heavy subjects. And if their hand gets tired, or they have more to say, I’ll pick up from there and they narrate the rest out loud. Mason did it this way too, since her Form II students would “write a part and dictate a part” of their answers (School Education, p. 280). If narration is new for you, here’s how we actually use Charlotte Mason narration today.
The Riches Get Examined Too
We cover every single subject, including the riches. For picture study, I ask them to describe their favorite picture, and for composer study, I ask them to share about their favorite piece and describe what it was like. Shakespeare and Plutarch get their own questions too (if those feel hard to get to, here’s how we make Shakespeare simple and how we started Plutarch). I’ve found that every year my kids say something in an exam that surprises me, and a lot of times it’s when I have them sketch something they observed in nature study or map out something we discussed in geography.
A Peek at a Real Charlotte Mason Exam From Our Home
Here are a few answers from a past exam in our home, from a Year 5, Form II student, shared exactly as they were given, with nothing corrected.
Ancient History:Tell me about life in the country of Ancient Egypt.
“The country is really quiet and is not as loud as the city. There are temples and less shops. You’ll see the Nile, mountains, rivers, plains, hills… They had mud huts in the country. The people in the country were poorer than the people in the city and didn’t have as much food… The country people/poor people ate more bread and not restaurant-quality meals and they would have bowls of clay instead of plates.”
Shakespeare (Twelfth Night):Tell about your favorite scene or character from this term’s Shakespeare play.
“This is my favorite scene: Malvolio was walking in the garden and Maria, Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew wrote a letter that looked like Olivia’s handwriting and they gave it to Malvolio, and it was a love letter that Olivia didn’t write at all!… He went off thinking that she loved him, although she didn’t.”
Literature (“The Golden Touch” from A Wonder Book):
“…he went to Marigold and ungolded her. She said ‘Why are you getting me all wet? You ruined the nice dress that I put on this morning!'”
Composer Study:Tell about your favorite piece of music from this term’s composer study.
“I liked the Water Music by Handel because it was really lively. It sounded like there was water everywhere and I imagined a pool…”
For some of the other subjects, like recitation, nature journals, and handicrafts, we actually show them at the end of the week. When the kids are all done with their exams, I make sure all of their notebooks are complete, print everything out, and put it in there.
Then that evening, we do a presentation for my husband, where the kids share their notebooks with him and the narrations they’re really proud of. They bring in their handicrafts, recite something, show their nature journals, and we sing the hymn we’ve been focusing on, and it becomes this end-of-term, end-of-week celebration where we can show off the things we’re proud of. Afterward I keep that notebook as part of my records, and just to hold on to as our own keepsake.
What Charlotte Mason Exams Have Taught Me About My Children
In the past, if I asked a question and one of my kids said “I don’t remember,” or didn’t have anything to say, I would easily get discouraged. And to an extent, that is one of the purposes of exams, because they show me my blind spots as a teacher: what I need to focus on or be more diligent in, and where my children might need more support. Mason even said that the exams tested the books as well as the child, because “Children cannot answer questions set on the wrong book” (A Philosophy of Education, p. 248).
But I would also say that some things are naturally going to stick with certain kids differently. I can have two children who read the same book and give different narrations and connect with different ideas, and that is the beauty of the Charlotte Mason method and valuing our children as persons. It’s so great to see what they have stored up in their minds, and how things that were maybe just small conversations really stuck with them and built strong relationships with ideas.
Now I try to see even the simplest idea as something the Lord is shaping and transforming in them and in how they think about life. Seeing what connects with each child helps me understand the whole child, and I remember Mason’s idea that if a child comes away with even one idea, it is worth it.
Charlotte Mason Exams in a Hard Season: Keep It Simple
If you’re in a hard season right now, maybe with a lot of little ones or a child who needs so much of you, and you’re barely getting to math and reading, my encouragement to you is to keep it simple. You could ask just one open-ended question about each subject and have your child narrate their answer out loud while you record it on a voice memo, so you don’t have to write anything down. Mason’s youngest students narrated all of their answers out loud too, so this is still a true Charlotte Mason exam.
And friend, that’s exactly why I built the Exam Builder. You can use my starter prompts to plug and play, so you don’t have to start from a blank page.
Make Your First Charlotte Mason Exam Week a Celebration
Exam week can be a restful week where your children show what they’ve stored up and you get to sit and listen. So don’t lose heart, friend. If you’d like help getting started, grab the free Charlotte Mason Exam Builder, pick a few starter prompts for each subject, fill in what your child read this term, and print it as your child’s exam booklet, so you can spend exam week listening to your kids.
Before you go, grab the Exam Builder so your questions are ready before exam week starts. It gives you PNEU-style starter prompts for every subject, including the riches, and a printable exam booklet for each child, so you can write a whole term’s exam in one sitting. Send me the free Exam Builder
