July 23, 2018

A Foot In Both Camps

Straddling Home Education and School By Cynthia McStephen The look on her face said it all,“OK you lot, just carry on having fun, why don’t you, while I go off and morph into a school mum for a while.” It was one of those great, local home-ed group get-togethers, where the children were off doing some complicated and creative multi-age activity they’d just invented, […]
July 16, 2018

Beyond Home

Home Ed Activities Around Victoria   Home education doesn’t mean all learning happens in the home: the world really is your classroom! Victoria offers many free and low cost activities. You can plan your activities as a family or link up with a group of home educators to go along together. Many venues that cater to school groups also have education materials available on […]
July 3, 2018

Home Education Beyond Week Two

By Sue Wight Rachel Brady gave up on home education after two weeks and sent her children back to school. Her home education experience is not representational. Around 20,000 Australian kids are currently being home educated, thousands more already have been. For some families, home education provides a valuable short-term solution to an immediate problem, but many educate for a substantial time. The average […]
June 18, 2018

Esperanto: Peace, Love and an Easy Language

By Cynthia McStephen What do you get when you cross a multi-language-based vocabulary with an entirely regular grammatical structure, and throw in a dash of peace, love and the whole brotherhood of man bit? Esperanto, actually. The world’s most widely spoken constructed language. For the uninitiated, Esperanto was the brainchild of Dr Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof, who developed it in the 1870s and 1880s. He […]
June 10, 2018

The Paradox: Home ed and VET funding

When Victorian home ed teenagers transition to full-time TAFE, they de-register from home education and enrol under the same funding arrangements as any other student. Many of our students do this and 48 TAFE courses becoming free in 2019 will help facilitate such transitions. However, if students wish to complete certificates as part of their home education, they face hefty fees. Meanwhile their school peers can […]
May 28, 2018

Home educating your teenager – you can do it!

Can it be done? Yes! Parents often feel pressure from those around them to put their children into school for the high school years. ‘What about university?’ is one of the most frequently asked questions of home educators. ‘What about VCE?’ is another. Home educating your teenager isn’t as big and scary an undertaking as some may have you believe. While it is understandable […]
May 18, 2018

Capturing Natural Learning as it Happens

By Gnat Atherden My father recently asked me to describe how my children learn. I hate getting caught up in validating natural learning by comparing it to formal learning, so I ended up telling him that ‘lessons for us never begin and never stop’ and ‘natural learning happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week’. I think that whilst these statements are true, […]
May 17, 2018

The Teen Scene

By Kirsty James Our family always joked about “those poor home-schooled kids with no friends”, as we drove from one playdate to another, but slowly as the kids got older our social circle decreased. We made new friends, but we had to try harder and travel further. My eldest is 18 now. He has a few friends who were educated at home, but he met most […]
May 11, 2018

Registration and Learning Plans

This information applies to Victoria, for interstate legal information, visit our Legal page. Registration Victorian Home educators are required to register with: Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) Ph: 03 9637 2806 Email: home.schooling@education.vic.gov.au Registration requires an Application form (Word or PDF) together with a Learning Plan for each child. See our video on How to Register Learning Plans Learning plans do not have to be […]
May 10, 2018

HEN 2018 Survey of Vic Home Ed

The Home Education Network (HEN) seeks to inspire, inform and support home educators. We also advocate politically and represent home education in the media when required. HEN surveys the home education community to help shape our future work. HEN works hard for the home ed community. If you’re not yet a member, please consider joining. Membership is only $25 per year including digital Otherways […]
May 6, 2018

Do Your Own Thing

By Sue Wight As you move into the home education world, you’ll have people ask what type of home educator you are. There will be those who make the question sound like some kind of test. Feel free to ignore any such pressure. There are many different ways to home educate but none is the ‘one true way’. You may not be familiar with […]
May 1, 2018

Guide to Reviews

Are you a Victorian home educator up for review this year? The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) is the government department that regulates home education by processing registrations and performing reviews. First, watch the VRQA videos on reviews and what to expect. Don’t stress, we’re here to help The HEN team has put in a lot of work liaising with the VRQA to […]
April 23, 2018

To Australia with love: “Do not forget Australia”

A film for ANZAC Day from the children of V-B, France, to Australia with love: “Do not forget Australia” What would French school children know about Australia? Quite a lot actually! In a small town in France, a class on nine and ten-year-olds has won the Sadlier Stokes Award for a documentary commemorating events that took place there one hundred years ago. A post from the […]
March 20, 2018

But what about Friends? What about Socialisation?

By Pavlina McMaster Whenever we tell people that we home educate our children, they almost invariably ask, “But what about socialisation?”. What they usually mean to ask is, “But how will they learn to be social?”. There is a difference, and home educated children are well-placed to be both, in a considered, thoughtful way. What is Socialisation? Socialisation is the process whereby children and […]
March 6, 2018

Monthly HEN social meet-ups and parents’ nights

To help people better make connections in their local area, we are looking for volunteers to run one-off social events and/or parent nights.  We would like these events to run throughout the state, so that every HEN member will be close enough to at least one event each year. HEN social events will be open to all (members and non-members), aiming to increase local […]
February 27, 2018

What is this home ed thing anyway?

By Cynthia McStephen If you are new to the whole idea of DIY education, you may be wondering what this home education stuff is all about. Of course, life varies wildly between different families anyway. So, by extension, home education, like every other aspect of family life, covers a huge spectrum. Instead of a catch-all definition, here’s a list of some of the things […]
February 16, 2018

School attendance during the approval period

Victorian law requires children to attend school OR be registered for home education. While awaiting registration approval, school attendance is required. However, there is provision for non-attendance set out under section 2.1.3 of The Education and Training Reform Act (details here) e.g. for illness, accident etc suspension/expulsion child’s disobedience the parent has provided a reason to the principal and the principal accepts that reason. […]