Home Ed Stories

Transitioning to High School

Sue Minto Our second child entered year 7 this year. She’d been home educated from Grades 3 to 6. Prior to that, she was in the school system. Here’s our story of her transition from home education to high school.  Her older brother, who was also home educated, is now in year 10, having started high school at Year 7. Both our children decided

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Home Ed Stories

I Love Spending Time with my Kids

Indrani Perera I was chatting to a very good friend the other day about our kids, juggling work, home and all the rest. We are great friends and have very similar ideals and philosophies. The main difference between us is that I educate my girls at home and she sends her two children to school.  As I was talking to her, I mentioned that

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Home Ed Stories

Home Ed Our Way – ‘Otherways’

Cheryl Dedman Home education in the Dedman household can best be described by the title of this magazine – ‘Otherways’. What that means for me is being able to organise our son Jacob’s education for each day in a way that he will benefit from most at that particular time in his life. However, because life has lots of unpredictable moments, this does not

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Research

2020 Survey Results

HEN surveys the home education community to help shape our future work. While we operate mainly in Victoria, our stats can be useful to home educators anywhere in Australia. 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 Magazine (or $45 with printed copies). With 1339 responses,

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Gameschooling

Gameschooling – or how to include games in your education

Gameschooling – or how to include games in your education Faye C When I was a shiny new home educator, I read an article by a teacher who had home educated her children and devised programs for others. She said that with a carefully curated collection of board, table and card games, you can pretty much take care of a child’s primary school curriculum.

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Home Ed Stories

Living Science

Diane Haynes We are about to start our seventh year of home education. It was certainly never something we planned when we first had kids but, as we progressed through kinder, the discussion of where to go to school became important. We had been exposed to quite a few home education families, but it was still something I didn’t feel capable of. At one

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HEN News

Paying it Forward

By Sue Wight I delight in the fact that home education has grown so significantly over the last twenty years. The HEN community I joined way back in 2000 was only 86 families whereas we now have over 1000. While small, the early community was very active and characterised by a culture of skill-sharing. Some were good at maths but lost with craft activities,

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Advice for Home Educators

From Little Things

I’m a HEN volunteer, so I have the chance to speak to lots of new home educators, and see a variety of learning plans. So many parents doubt their abilities, worry that they will not ‘cover everything’, that they are ‘not doing enough’ or that they won’t pass a review. I’m a worrier too, so I know where they are coming from, but I’m

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Key Learning Areas

Madness, Sanity, Greed

…and the Art of Piano Playing by Rod Hough, concert pianist This article is for home educating folk, particularly those who may not have a strong background in piano but would welcome some discussion. Any discussion must be prefaced by one’s position. The reader can and should assume that any vision of music and music learning is only an attempt at providing a perspective

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Home Ed Styles

Natural Learning – a Brief History

John Barratt-Peacock The other day I was proofreading an article on home education when I came across a statement that equated Natural Learning
 with Unschooling and Unstructured Learning. This is quite a false association. By their nature unschooling and unstructured learning are merely a valid reaction to schooling but natural learning is different. It is scientifically based on the anatomy and physiology
 of the

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Home Ed Styles

LOTE in a Natural Learning Home

Gnat Atherden In our family there hasn’t really been an attempt
 to learn ‘a’ language. One language would be a bit limiting. Having said that, I’ve always been keenest to learn German and it’s the language other than English (LOTE) I knew most of before I became a parent so, on reflection, it’s been a big part of our LOTE education. In this article

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Advice for Home Educators

Unconventional Learning

Kathleen Humble   We’re a geeky kind of family. With me being a mathematician and my husband an engineer, it would be hard to not be geeky. We’re also not going to score high on the ‘doing things conventionally’ test, if one of those existed. But sometimes, just sometimes, the paths my kids take to learn are so unconventional that they leave me with

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Legal

Partial school enrolment in Victoria

What is partial enrolment? Partial enrolment is when a home educated student attends a school for classes in a specific subject/s or period of time during a school week. The school can be either a private school, or a neighbourhood government school. The arrangement is unique to the student and the school, and is negotiated between the parents and school. School year level may

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Advice for Home Educators

How to Register in Victoria

This video explains how to register in Victoria (12 minutes) Links mentioned are: Application form, learning plan templates and samples Legal page including partial enrolment Resources page Distance Education Materials Join HEN Attendance during the waiting period Our Getting Started Guide  

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Advice for Home Educators

Why am I Home Educating?

Amy Conley   It comes to my mind often these days. The demands of the little ones, the unpainted bedrooms, the list of to do’s longer than both my arms; and so the thoughts of whether to continue to home educate, or send my children to school, come to mind. They come with all the many questions. Am I spending enough time with my

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Legal

Exiting School (Victoria)

This information is also available in a pamphlet format. If your child is aged under 6 or over 17, they are NOT legally required to attend or be registered for home education.  The information below applies to children of compulsory school age (6-17). What does the law say? In Victoria, the law requires children to attend school or be registered for home education. While

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Advice for Home Educators

All You Need is Love

Indrani Perera   Beverly Paine’s article, Do you really need that resource?, in the November 2014 issue of Otherways really got me thinking and doing. As a result of reading her article, I have spent the last couple of months de-cluttering and organising our house and it feels like a much better place to spend time. Which is a good thing as we spend

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Concerns and Confidence

Learning to Read

By Annie Regan When I was a primary school teacher, one of my main philosophies was about helping all students learn to read. I still believe in the importance of reading, however, I now see it as a lifelong skill and not something that needs to be learnt by age six, and not a skill that needs to be actively taught. My three children

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Disability, Health and Diverse Learning Needs

Leap of Faith

By Heather Haines   Recently, when my son Samuel fulfilled a long term ambition by sky diving, it felt to me the culmination of our home education journey. All those years ago, I took a leap of faith in pulling him out of school, and here he is a capable young man confidently pursuing his interests. Sky diving seemed uncannily appropriate. Samuel started school

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