November 7, 2024
November 7, 2024
September 16, 2024
Faye C Have you ever thought of using your local neighbourhood house or community centre to complement your home education? Neighbourhood houses and community centres offer many activities that cover numerous learning areas. Classes and workshops for children are typically offered during after school hours or on weekends. Some houses and centres are very flexible with age too and are happy to allow a […]
May 21, 2024
By Sonja Otto My husband is a novelist. It was his dream to be a writer from when he was around seven years old and wrote a series of stories titled The Detective Known as Brad (hardly surprising with a childhood of reading The Famous Five and The Three Investigators). His stories (and titles) have come a long way since then, but writing is […]
May 13, 2024
By Nicole Xerri As a kindergarten teacher, I have lost track of how many times families have asked when we will start ‘teaching’ children instead of just ‘letting them play’, while similarly in home education, families can ask about a kindergarten curriculum or the best way to start teaching their child to read and write. So many families are surprised when they find out […]
April 29, 2024
By Clare Dunstan This year I thought I had it all together… Yes I know, how foolish of me! In my mind the kids could just continue on with the work they were doing from last year, it had been going well, nothing needed changing. How wonderful not to start the year with the typical scramble for new books. Or so I thought. The […]
April 9, 2024
By Shweta S Every new home educator (and non-home educator) is always concerned about the social life of the home educated child. I think the concern is valid, especially from those adults who had an active social life at school and still enjoy life-long close friendships with their childhood friends. For many families, a school gives an out-of-the-box community that you can plug into. […]
March 25, 2024
Nicole B Sunday: Used jack hammer, crow bars and cement saw to smash up concrete with dad and friends—part of our home renovation project. Watched anime series in between. Swam at the beach. Watched Labyrinth film with the whole family. Monday: Guitar practice Prepared breakfast and lunch to take out for the day. Went to the hairdresser and got pink highlights as a celebration […]
March 18, 2024
Annie Regan I love the deep, lasting friendships that my kids make, the sense of community and inclusivity, getting to know other parents and kids, having lots of time to relax, exploring new places with friends, eating ice cream, going back to the same places and developing traditions, or going to new places and discovering new things – every camp we’ve been on has […]
March 11, 2024
By Pamela Ueckerman One of the most frequent questions I get about our journey through home education now that my boys are a tween and a teen—aside, of course, from the inevitable and soul-wearying question about socialisation—is, “Will you home school through high school?” It’s a valid question and my answer is always, “If that’s what they want,” which is usually met with more […]
February 17, 2024
After ‘How do I register’, ‘Should I use (insert the name of any well advertised homeschool product here)’, is the question I see most in different Facebook groups these days. It’s most commonly asked by parents who are moving to home education from school because of a precipitating event, School Can’t or because their child is disengaged. When compared to home education, schools are […]
February 12, 2024
Am I a Bad Dad? By Ash B I’m a pretty simple, average dad, no expert, but like so many of you, I want the best for my family. The hassles of school had caused me to consider home educating on many occasions prior to beginning our family’s journey. One of my main objections to home educating was personal, it suited me too much […]
February 6, 2024
This article is a summary of the two surveys conducted in 2023 for the senate inquiry into school can’t. Our two submissions that include comprehensive results from the surveys can be read here: HEN Survey for the Senate Inquiry into The National Trend of School Refusal and Related Matters. HEN conducted a second survey into ‘educational attainment’ in children with School Can’t who had […]
January 26, 2024
HEN surveys provide the best Australian data on the Who, How and Why of home education. Since 2015, this data has proven enormously useful in accurately representing our community both to government and in the media e.g. by exploding a myth of widespread non-registration. https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/HEN-2022-Survey.pdf
January 23, 2024
Our life is anything but Instagram worthy. I read the amazingly post-able blogs of home educating families, that must have fifty times the energy of my family, with mixed feelings of inspiration (at what’s possible), insecurity (I’m not capable of that), and a touch of cynicism (tell us the downside)! We’ve got 11, 9, and 5 year olds. Our week consists of a flexible […]
January 15, 2024
School ‘Refusal’ School Can’t By Pavlina McMaster Going to school is a big expectation that society puts on children (and parents!). Most children cope with this expectation, and go along with it. But what if they can’t? Dr Ross Greene has a philosophy that underpins all of his work – ‘Kids will do well if they can’. He means that all kids (and adults!) […]
January 8, 2024
Spotlight on Home Ed Alumni Jessica Shepstone Hi, my name is Jessica Shepstone. I graduated from home education in 2010. I am an art teacher who runs home-based art classes to children of all ages (primarily home-educated). I started home education when I was 11 years old, having attended school from Prep to Year 5. I enjoyed school, had good friendships and great teachers. […]
December 22, 2023
Infinite Sky By Pavlina McMaster Imagine, if you will, that you are a child. You are intensely curious about the world around you. As you grow, you explore the world around you; you follow your parents and family around and learn about how the world works. You observe what happens when you drop things from your high chair, and experiment with different materials—do carrot […]
December 4, 2023
Home Ed Groups – The Co-op of my dreams By Bridget Muhrer When my family started our first year of home education, I thought we had our co-op set up for the long term. We had a group of seven friends that were all starting at the same time, and we had had lots of meetings and made lots of plans. We knew what […]
November 27, 2023
A week in the life of our home educating family By S. Miranda Monday Eiri (7) and Tal (4) play quietly (like elephants) downstairs before Mum and Dad get up. Dad works from home, so the kids get to have breakfast with him, while I go for a morning walk or sleep in. After helping clean up after breakfast, Eiri does a segment of […]
November 10, 2023
Discovering Learning Opportunities on Phillip Island By Pamela Ueckerman Phillip Island, Melbourne’s playground island, is well-known for its little penguins, Seal Rocks and the Phillip Island MotoGP. Having family who live on the island, we visit multiple times a year and love to see it in all its different guises, and over the years, we’ve found many other fabulous opportunities off the beaten track […]
October 9, 2023
Math with Manipulatives Open-ended investigation has allowed my children to make a number of observations for themselves over the years. For example they learnt (and showed their siblings) that 1 litre of water has a mass of 1kg, so water can be used in a balance to establish the mass of other items, and discovered the commutative property of multiplication by playing with Cuisenaire […]
September 25, 2023
This Little Piggy went to Market Rachel Vautier If you had met my daughter years ago, and said hello, her answer would have been ‘oink’; pigs….and origami…..were two of her biggest loves. April’s love for origami, the overflow of that paper love all over our house, and her requests to sell something out the front of our house like she had read about in […]
September 11, 2023
The benefits of Peer Led learning By Chelsea Reis Earlier this year, I came across a Facebook post promoting a nine week, online short-story writing course for home educated kids and teens. What surprised me was that the facilitator, Emilie Nyguen, was a 14 yo home educated teen herself! I was immediately drawn to the idea that my 8 and 11 year-old, life- long […]
August 28, 2023
Games are a great way to learn through fun. What are some of your families favourite board or card games? Monopoly Junior was a great first game for us to practice counting skills Uno is the favourite at the moment. 7 & 5 year old. Ticket to Ride for geography fun. Sleeping Queens & Kingdomino. Ludo My son is 5 and loves Guess Who […]
August 28, 2023
What advice would you give to someone who is facing opposition from friends and/or family because they home educate? I couldn’t actually tell you which of my friends and family approve or disapprove because I wouldn’t ever ask for their approval or opinion on something that is a decision for me, my husband and our daughter to make. I answer questions that come my […]
August 26, 2023
What advice do you have to get through the ‘bad ‘ days? A Bad Day At Home Is Still Better Than A Good Day At School. This Too Shall Pass. Go Gently – that’s what my 13yo told me 2 weeks ago!!!! Make a cuppa, put on Netflix and relax. Have a bath. Tomorrow is a new day Take the day off and have […]
August 26, 2023
What documentaries would you recommend to other families? Maddie’s do you know on iview. Someone on FB suggested My Octopus Teacher & it was amazing. It’s on Netflix. Also Youth v Gov, The Social Dilemma but it depends on age, mine are older & watch lots of educational documentaries that I wouldn’t say are for younger children. I like My Octopus Teacher too. It’s […]
August 26, 2023
What was the main reason you decided to start home educating? We had our 3 boys in an amazing Montessori school just out of Boston, MA. USA. They built confidence, skills and found drive to progress.
We have not been able to find a school in Australia to provide the same environment for our kids.
So they were each losing who they were, losing confidence […]
August 26, 2023
What advice would you give to someone home educating children under 12? Coffee. If anyone is looking for a fantastic program, we used the coach house. This program is Tailor made to suit your child. Teach them to make coffee. Homeschooled our kids taught my daughter to make cappuccino at the age of eight. Golden years. Get outside and explore as much as possible. […]
August 26, 2023
If your child has School Can’t, and you are looking at other options, then you are in the right place. HEN is here to support parents, to help you meet the needs of your individual child, and to help you find community. Nobody would suggest that home education alone will magically make everything better, but recent HEN surveys of School Can’t families showed that […]
August 22, 2023
Using Your Local Library By Saba Hakim Yesterday at our local library, Eassa, along with a group of other primary aged children, was writing instructions for a robot to make a jam sandwich. The robot was our library events presenter in disguise— wearing a cardboard costume. The session started with an explanation of the task, and direction to write instructions. Some children chose to […]
August 21, 2023
Week In The Life … By Janet W We kind of fell into home education quite by accident. We are parenting for the second time around after our tiny premature grandson arrived and it became obvious very quickly that we would be raising him. As the stay-at-home parent the education decision was mine, but I’m fully supported by my husband. Our boy Charlie is almost […]
July 24, 2023
By Jess D My homeschooling journey started in 1987 when we were living in the UK for 18 months. I was seven years old at the time, and my parents were considering taking a position in Africa. They didn’t like the idea of boarding school for us kids (I had two younger siblings at the time), but my dad was quite unsure/against homeschooling. After […]
July 24, 2023
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VHEAC-Coomunique-April-2023.pdf”]
July 12, 2023
In The Dark – Word Games for Home Education Pavlina McMaster When my kids were little, we spent countless hours playing with language. Almost every time we were in a holding pattern – on public transport, waiting in a queue for an activity, in line at Centrelink – we played verbal games to pass the time. Even last week, in a quiet moment at […]
July 12, 2023
Games for English Kirsty James In addition to the verbal games outlined in Pavlina’s article (In The Dark – Word Games for Home Education), there are many options for pen and pencil games, as well as card, board and online games for students of all ages. Some games focus on specific skills such as spelling or vocabulary, whilst others are broader and include soft […]
July 3, 2023
I’m not a teacher, so how can I teach my children? This answer to an often asked question by newbie home educators was kindly shared with us by an anonymous member Home Educators often get asked how we, as parents, can be effective academic teachers of our children compared to a trained teacher. Prospective home-ed parents often worry about how they could possibly teach […]
June 26, 2023
Deschooling, A work in Progress, Bridget Muhrer I loved school. I was that super cool kid who refused to skip classes with her friends, unless it was PE, or the last day of term. I enjoyed studying, I enjoyed writing essays, I enjoyed highlighting lines in books that might come in handy for a debate about the text. Without putting too fine a point […]
June 19, 2023
Tracey G ‘I will only do it if I know I won’t be hindering them from becoming an astronaut, orthopaedic surgeon or anything in between.’ These were my ‘famous last words’ words as my husband and I discussed the option of ‘trialling’ home education. Having had a private school education, tertiary opportunities, and a wonderful job in the medical-health profession, I was adamant this […]
June 12, 2023
New to home Education – Our Journey Catherine J. Our family is made up of me (Catherine, 37), dad (Darren, 40), Noah (son, seven), Joy (daughter, five) and Jemima (daughter, four). We have been home educating since January 2022. It was prompted by the uncertainty of how schools would fare throughout the pandemic, and the difficulties associated with remote learning. We decided it would […]
May 29, 2023
A week in the life of our home educating family (Sara) Sara I’ve been a home educating parent for almost nine years. We’ve always had a bit of an eclectic style, I prompt and strew a few activities, but the kids (now 12 and 14) have always been mostly self- directed learners as they have many interests to keep them engaged. The best thing […]
May 23, 2023
By Shweta S Every new home educator (and non-home educator) is always concerned about the social life of the home educated child. I think the concern is valid, especially from those adults who had an active social life at school and still enjoy life-long close friendships with their childhood friends. For many families, a school gives an out-of-the-box community that you can plug […]
May 8, 2023
By Kirsty James Unless the family situation is unusual, the HEN support team usually suggests interest based learning, which some people interpret to mean natural learning or unschooling (which is by definition interest based). However, interest based learning is relevant to every philosophy, and also to those who are new to home education and have not identified any particular style that appeals to them. […]
May 1, 2023
Normalise Reading By Pamela Euckerman When I was ten years old, we lived with my grandfather for seven months. He lived in an old stone house surrounded by lush farmland in Cornwall, in the south of England. The house had once been a butter factory and in his younger days my grandfather ran a nursery—he had a shop room, greenhouses and what he called […]
April 17, 2023
Unschooling Neurodivergent Kids Carla Clark Our family consists of mum, dad and two boys now six and three. We are unschoolers with our oldest going into ‘grade 1’ this year. Because we live in Victoria, we are lucky to have the flexibility and freedom to educate our children in a relaxed way that meets their needs. My husband and I are both at home […]
March 27, 2023
By Alicia Hoppit I stood in the hallway, just before the door. I steeled myself, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew what would come. “Why are you on your iPod?” “I’m not. I’m listening to music.” “It’s not good to have headphones in all the time.” “I need the music to help me concentrate on my work.” “Were you playing […]
March 6, 2023
Our Journey Prema Saraswatil Our journey should have started when our only child was four. But looking back on it, my ingrained schooling experience, friends, and family persuasion allowed me to brush it off for another six years. I was working fulltime and our three-year-old was in full-time day care/kinder. He loved every day of it. There was constant play, games, and creative outlet […]
February 27, 2023
Megan Blair Running a small business from home can be challenging at the best of times. Running a small business from home while you’re home educating your children adds a whole different level of challenge. Running a small business from home while you’re home educating your children and you’re a single parent is beyond just challenging. It’s absolute madness! For many years writer, Anaïs […]
February 22, 2023
What is a co-op and is it for you? A home education co-op (co-operative) can be a fantastic way for your kids to make connections and be exposed to a range of group activities. What is a co-op? An Australian co-op is quite different to an American one. Co-ops in the US are often parent-run schools where parents teach classes – complete with projects, […]
February 21, 2023
Joanna Bindon Over the 10 years of home-educating my three youngest children, my family has been almost continually involved in some type of homeschool group, which are now more commonly termed “co-ops”, short for “co-operatives”. Some have simply been groups meeting for a social play with an activity or two thrown in; others have been family groups where we shared in a regular activity […]
February 21, 2023
Lunch with … my mother (and my father comes along for the ride too) By Yi-Shuen Chan My seven-year-old son, not known for mincing his words, hits her with a doozy the moment Mum sits down, ‘Which is better, home education or school, and why?’ ‘Sammy,’ I tell him gently, ‘you know she’s basically preaching to the converted, right? Everybody who’s going to […]
February 13, 2023
Nothing Accidental Karen Glauser-Edwards Our son is neuro-divergent … he is high-IQ. Not twice-exceptional, just high-IQ. And whilst many might ask, ‘So what?’, those parents sharing a space with those kiddo’s living their lives to the right side of the bell-curve will undoubtedly be able to provide an answer… or two! Too many years of mainstream schooling saw us trying to advocate and fill […]
February 6, 2023
Following their Interests Annie Regan In a recent conversation with a schooling family, I was asked the usual question about how I know what to teach the kids, and I gave my usual answer along the lines of, ‘We just follow their interests and all the learning is covered as part of that’. While this is definitely true, I realised that the picture that […]
February 6, 2023
Mother and Son Podcast By Rachel O’Brien Home educating was something I originally thought I could never do. With so much stigma attached to it, it seemed like a task meant for the wonder women (and men) of the world, something well out of my scope of ability as a mother. Add to that a neurodiverse teenager and it seemed like an impossibility that […]
January 29, 2023
Home Education and Mum’s Chronic Illness Kylie Anderson Let me introduce myself. I am a home educating mother of five. We have been home educating for 13 years and my children are now 17, 15, 9, 7 and 4. I first had symptoms of myalgic encephalomyelitis/ chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) in my late teens while doing VCE. I’d have periods of fatigue so severe […]
January 29, 2023
A week in the life of our home educating family… By Bridget Muhrer We’ve just completed our very first year of home educating, and my six-year-old son K is excited to be starting Grade 1 (many home educating families don’t talk about school grades with their kids, but it feels right for us). When we first planned to start, K had no siblings, and […]
January 23, 2023
By Martina McNeill We are newly registered home educators. Again! Our youngest son has had a stint at school for almost six years, but 2022 finds us home educating. Again. If you’ve ever spoken to a home educator who has been at it for more than five minutes, you might have heard them say, ‘It’s a lifestyle, not just an education’. Well, that describes […]
January 23, 2023
A week in the life of our home educating family Kirsty James Three of my children are now at university, so home ed looks very different for my remaining teen, Rosa (15). There’s no more traipsing around after her siblings, the whole week is planned around her activities. Our style is eclectic, and ranges from academic classes to days of nothing much. We discuss […]
January 23, 2023
The End of Home-Ed: Where Are the Parents Now? By Rosemarie Tipping Home educators sometimes wonder what life will hold after the home-ed journey is over. Some feel lost, even down, particularly when the ending is unexpected. Others feel excited, having made plans for new adventures. We hope Rosemarie’s words offer some inspiration and also comfort to those who may be feeling blue about […]
January 16, 2023
Rebecca Gelsi My daughter and I have only just begun our home ed journey. She’s autistic and school has been challenging for years. She’s in Year 10 but I’m resisting that panicky (and unfounded) feeling that she’s somehow going to miss out. We’re unschooling and waiting for learning interests to emerge – in the meantime I’m encouraging her to enjoy and extend a couple […]
January 16, 2023
By Heidi Ryan It has often been argued that traditional or mainstream schooling is beneficial to autistic children due to the consistency and routine offered for those who do well with predictable routines. In fact, even specialist schools focus on the positives of conformity, meeting neuro- normative targets and ‘doing what everyone else is doing’. Success in school is viewed as meeting predictable milestones, […]
January 3, 2023
By Katy Pearce As home educators we can experience a lot of opposition. I found it wasn’t just family members but outspoken friends as well. As soon as we decided to home educate, that’s when we started receiving the comments. I think what hurt the most was the negative comments we received from our families and from people who I thought of as close […]
December 22, 2022
Figures tabled in parliament this week show a huge growth in home education. (Up by a massive 66% from last year) We’ve graphed the rise over time using figures from VRQA Annual Reports going back to 2008. These figures come as no surprise to HEN, as they reflect the rise in enquiries that we have seen this year. Our support team has been busy […]
December 12, 2022
By Annie Regan As an unschooling family, our learning method hasn’t really changed over the years. They learn from the environment around them, making connections to things they already know, following their interests and using things they discover to branch out into new topics and activities to pursue, and not distinguishing life from learning. They have always learnt from playing games, reading books, watching […]
December 2, 2022
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/VHEAC_CommuniqueNo23_18_October_2022.pdf”]
November 21, 2022
By Nabeela Wahid ‘I can do this, Mama! I just need to try harder.’ ‘I can’t believe I did this!’ ‘I love this challenge!’ These are not positive affirmations from a TikTok video, rehearsed and performed for an audience to amass followers and likes. These are the utterances of a child no older than ten. Behind these words lies a gargantuan shift of mindset, […]
October 24, 2022
By Sarah My seven-year-old began making beaded bracelets for kids with their parent’s phone number on them. We learn maths, art, writing, geography, marketing and much more through this along with budgeting and finance. He was really enjoying making beads so we put our heads together to come up with a way he could turn it into a business. We created a spreadsheet where […]
October 17, 2022
The Great Outdoors By Jacqui Rickard As part of our home ed lifestyle, I love to spend time at interesting outdoor places – the beach, the bush, going for a walk, finding a waterfall, exploring rock pools, playing in creeks – anything like that. It’s as good for the kids as it is for me. I don’t think about what our next meal is […]
September 26, 2022
By L Winter “Wait, you were homeschooled?! Seriously?! Surely not… but you’re…” I’m what, normal? Social? Working? Happy? This is usually how the conversation goes when someone discovers that I was home educated for most of my child and teen years. Yes, not only am I a joyful, well-adjusted young adult despite my alternative education, but I’d like to suggest perhaps it is because of it. I […]
August 29, 2022
Pamela Ueckerman A spine, as it’s referred to by home educators, is a book that acts as the backbone for a particular area of learning. A spine usually isn’t a full curriculum to be followed to the letter; some are read aloud to children while others provide education and examples to the parent but they are used as a central resource and supplemented from […]
August 22, 2022
What is a Home Ed Review Like? Both new and experienced home educators tend to find the idea of a review intimidating. The VRQA will be sending out letters soon, so it seems a good time to look at what to expect. First the facts: Every year 10% of registered home educators are selected for review. If your family is selected, you will receive […]
August 17, 2022
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/VHEAC_Communique_July_2022.pdf”]
August 15, 2022
By Sara Giambruno Hello all, we are a quirky family of four (six if you include the pampered cats) who have pretty much followed an interest-led approach since we started home educating seven years ago. Currently, with all our classes/events/excursions temporarily out of the picture, most of our days consist of lots of reading, artwork, discussing anything of interest, daily Duolingo lessons (12-year-old Sofia […]
August 2, 2022
Changing Social Needs By Annie Regan As we’ve moved back into seeing our friends and doing activities this year, after the lockdown of 2020, I was feeling that things were different. At first, I thought it was just the weirdness of being able to go out and to see people again, then realised that it was more than that. We’ve moved into a new […]
July 11, 2022
By Pamela Ueckerman When my eldest son took the exciting step of learning to read using a phonics-based approach at his Montessori school, he dove in and picked it up quickly, which we expected because of his great love of books. What we didn’t expect was that his younger brother began showing an interest in learning phonics at the same time. He was already […]
June 22, 2022
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/VHEAC_Communique_26_April_2022.pdf”]
June 20, 2022
A warm welcome to new home-schoolers 6 tips to help you as you begin your journey By Belinda Lee What an interesting year 2020 has become. If you have joined us this year, I would love to welcome you to our community and we hope that together, we can support you and make you feel part of our community. You may be thinking, ‘I’m […]
June 14, 2022
Cheryl Dedman My name is Cheryl and I’ve been home educating our son Jacob for over 9 years now. We have a family of four: my husband Pete and myself, our eldest son Nathaniel (26) and our younger son Jacob (15) and of course our black lab/golden retriever, Wade. Our elder son went through the mainstream school system, which never suited him, but it […]
June 6, 2022
By Sarah As educators, the age-old adage ‘reading, writing, arithmetic’ either strikes a pleasant chord or strikes fear into our hearts. We want to make sure our children are capable, that goes without saying, and results show home educated children are very capable. But sometimes we feel the pressure and expectations on us as home educators. We may not like how we learned, or […]
May 23, 2022
By Kirsty James A couple of years ago I organised for a small group of 7- to 12-year-olds to come to our house and learn about Africa with my daughter. I’m a huge fan of picture books, and I knew there were some wonderful books about the continent that we could enjoy together. We met for a few hours once a week. About two-thirds […]
May 16, 2022
By Mary Every now and then someone asks how other home educators manage home ed and household tasks such as cleaning and cooking because they’re struggling to get on top of everything. This is especially true of families with younger children who are new to home ed, families who do not have any support nearby or families with an older child where the parent […]
May 8, 2022
Nabeela Fathima Wahid It was a chaotic start to the morning, a frenzy of activity dotted with the clatter and noise of each family member trying to cram in a multitude of chores into a single moment. The announcement of an unexpected visitor threw a spanner into the works and despite the dejection and frustration, we knew it was a matter of just getting […]
May 1, 2022
The End of Home-Ed: Where Are The Parents Now? Home educators sometimes wonder what life will hold after the home-ed journey is over. Some feel lost, even down, particularly when the ending is unexpected. Others feel excited, having made plans for new adventures. Here are some personal accounts from former home educators. HEN would like to thank Jean, Carol, Dora and Jeanie for taking […]
April 25, 2022
By Kirsty James Learning to write is a broad theme, covering such diverse topics as forming letters, learning correct grammar and syntax, and essay writing. This article is just a starting point, and illustrates not only some of the ways in which different families have approached these tasks, but also the variety of possibilities. In general, home educated students do less physical writing than […]
April 19, 2022
By Sarah Botting Lola is eight years old and Elena is six years old, and we have been home educating for a year now. We follow a very play-based, self-led approach, along with some printed curriculum based on current interests and some textbooks. I find some weeks the girls are driven to learn from the books, and happily ask to do more or choose […]
April 4, 2022
Jane Berry One of our roles as a parent is to help our children develop the necessary skills to function well as an adult in today’s society. In raising children who are world changers, hubby and I are trying to become intentional in how our children learn these skills and what those skills are. We are also trying to be intentional with raising our […]
March 14, 2022
You might have had someone say to you that home education can be okay, as long as it’s done ‘properly’. But who defines what ‘properly’ means? Who gets to determine what a ‘proper’ education looks like for individual children? Why is one person’s ‘proper’ better than another, when children are unique? Home ed advocates will likely say that an ideal education is tailored […]
March 1, 2022
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/vheac-communique-15-oct-2021.pdf”]
February 14, 2022
There are many reasons to incorporate structure in your home education life. Common reasons include: Children who need a framework in order to feel less anxious Parents new to home ed who need reassurance and an element of familiarity Children who need help with executive functioning skills Many people might think home ed structure would replicate school; timetables, set lesson times, scheduled breaks, but […]
February 8, 2022
[Image description: graphic showing text information about the article. Text reads VHEAC, Mark Bachman, Otherways issue 170, November 2021] Mark Bachman served as a home education representative on VHEAC from 2018 to 2021. In this article, Mark reflects on his time on the committee, and the significance of VHEAC for the Victorian home education community. For more information on VHEAC, please see HEN’s VHEAC […]
February 3, 2022
Nationally, the number of students registered for Home Education has more than doubled in the last ten years. HEN’s Kirsty James was interviewed on ABC radio about the rise on 2 February. The annual reports of state regulatory bodies provide registration figures as at 30 June each year, and strong growth can be seen across each jurisdiction: Students Registered for Home Education Date […]
January 20, 2022
HEN surveys provide the best Australian data on the Who, How and Why of home education. Since 2015, this data has proven enormously useful in accurately representing our community both to government and in the media e.g. by exploding a myth of widespread non-registration. One of the most interesting of this year’s results was that home educators become less structured over time. […]
January 17, 2022
Annie Regan Digital technology is one of the many tools we use for home education and it has made our life and learning easier, and expanded our world. Finding Information: We often look up information on the phone or computer when we are wondering who, what, why, when, or how. Sometimes we have a discussion first and then search to find out more detail […]
December 20, 2021
Annie Regan Last night I watched a Transformers movie. Liam and Tony were watching it and I was half paying attention and half doing other things (which is the way I watch most TV), and I was getting tired and sat down for a few minutes and watched a bit of the movie without distraction. I really really loved it. I had planned to […]
December 13, 2021
Kirsty James We like to laugh about the stereotypical home educated kid: those poor unsocialised darlings who will never get a job, make friends, or learn how to line up. However, I think the more dangerous stereotypes are the ones against which we measure ourselves. When you read HE blogs or articles, it is easy to feel that everyone else is doing a better […]
November 23, 2021
Heidi McCormack Why? I guess the first thing most people want to know is why we started home educating, and why now? That’s an easy and a hard question to answer. Easy because once I knew this was right for us, it made perfect sense. Hard because it was quite a journey to get here. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more self aware and […]
November 2, 2021
Pamela Uckerman On the first day of the school year in 2019, when my boys were entering grades three and two, I dropped them at school, went home and cried. After six blissful weeks of summer, the complaints about school and the horrible mornings were back. They attended a beautiful Montessori school and we had made a lot of sacrifices to keep them there. […]
October 25, 2021
Lyndall Thomas So much of our homeschooling journey is about learning. But for me, it’s also about unlearning. Unlearning is an academic concept about undoing the bonds of institutionalised learning. It’s a very close cousin to deschooling. You might have been engaging in unlearning without even knowing it. You might have chosen it with all of your free will behind you. Or, if you’re […]
October 18, 2021
Linda Ford On June 12, we were on Day 2 of our 1000km road trip to Armidale in northern NSW. Two of my older children are studying there at the University of New England, and I was taking my five youngest up to visit them. The day started in a caravan park in Forbes. Isabelle announced that it was three weeks until she turned […]
October 11, 2021
Annie Regan Choosing to home educate can be a daunting decision. Whether you are doing it for philosophical or lifestyle reasons, or as a result of the school environment not working out, it is a choice that is outside the norm. You may have lots of home educating contacts already, or you may not know anyone who does it. Either way, you will be […]
October 5, 2021
Welcome to all of those new families considering home education, or who have joined the community during the pandemic and have had little chance to see home education at its best. Normally when we join a new community, we have time to observe from the sidelines. It’s a chance to work out the dynamics and behavior expectations of the group. Many of you have […]
October 4, 2021
Catherine Durrant I recently watched a segment on The Project about Unschooling. Overall, it was very positive towards home education and the families in the segment were very articulate and inspiring. However, towards the end an education expert, Adam Voigt, commented that home education is ‘missing the opportunity to learn cooperatively with other people, that in the future people need to work out significant […]
September 28, 2021
Mairi Girgis. I was never going to “homeschool” my kids myself. I didn’t research home education before I started. When I started I had a lot of misconceptions, I didn’t think I’d have the patience to teach my children, and I was looking forward to having all my children in school and going back to study and work. I distinctly remember attending a school-parent […]
September 20, 2021
Faye C Ahh, those early days of my family’s home education journey! I had our Happy Homeschool House all planned out about ten years ago— something along the lines of perfectly co-operative children who would happily sit down and complete ‘work’ without a problem. My two children were going to be the poster children for home ed and beautiful sibling relationships. Too easy! Of […]
September 15, 2021
2021 has seen a surge in Victorian registrations for home education, alongside significant challenges that have curtailed many of our activities and opportunities. As a result, it’s likely that some of those who receive a notice of review from the VRQA will be concerned about whether you will have enough content to pass a review. A few review facts: 10% of registered homeschoolers are […]
September 13, 2021
In schools, English is often taught in isolation: a series of disjointed exercises in writing, spelling and grammar. In real life, English is about communicating our thoughts and ideas, often relating to work, interests and information sharing. When we change our focus from the subject of English to the task of ensuring our children can communicate, it makes English less daunting. Most parents […]
September 6, 2021
Belinda Lee When did society start to put family values behind those of progress and being ahead? Increasingly, what we are witnessing in society is a way of life which chases a notion of being better, being smarter, having more and having done more. When we talk about family being central to the happiness of a child, we are suddenly seeing a societal climate that […]
September 6, 2021
By Alison Mazza As a homeschooling mum all I seem to do is rush from here to there, With barely any time to even brush my hair. It’s always ‘quick, everyone, shoes on and out the door’, No time now for all those last-minute chores. Then once we’re safely in the car the questions start. ‘Mum, what’s faster, a three- or four-wheel cart?’ And […]
August 31, 2021
Indrani Perera I’m really struggling with home-ed at the moment. I’m finding spending pretty much 24/7 with the kids quite gruelling. My husband and I tried both of us working part time and getting a business of the ground. It was awesome – I felt much happier sharing the load. He was the sport teacher at our “school”. The kids loved time with dad […]
August 31, 2021
In our last issue Indrani confessed to struggling with home education. A low point such as this can be a valuable to reassess our reasons for home education and progress. It was honest and brave of her to share her thoughts at such a low point but, as you can read below in this article, a quiet summer has given Indrani time to reassess […]
August 31, 2021
John Barratt-Peacock In our last issue Indrani confessed to struggling with home education. A low point such as this can be a valuable to reassess our reasons for home education and progress. It was honest and brave of her to share her thoughts at such a low point but, as you saw in the last article, a quiet summer has given Indrani time to […]
August 17, 2021
Thousands of us watched as Oceana represented Australia in women’s sport climbing. Here we learn a little more about her. Meet Oceana Mackenzie Nineteen-year-old Oceana is the youngest of six sisters who were always home educated using a natural learning style. Her parents are from New Zealand but were living in Germany when Oceana was born, and moved to Melbourne when she was very […]
August 14, 2021
Parents considering their options for the Languages key learning area (KLA) are often concerned that they will not be able to meet the requirements. Fortunately, there are a wide range of options, so even parents who have never studied another language can relax. Home ed language learning does not need to look like school for a number of reasons: You can choose your language […]
August 2, 2021
John Barratt-Peacock This account was told to me when I was interviewing hundreds of home educating families across Australia for my doctoral research. You live in the city? Check! There will be a waterway somewhere and even if it is not as rustic as the one in this story, it will reveal great treasures to those who befriend it! === It was my husband’s idea […]
August 2, 2021
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/VHEAC_Communique-9-July-2021.pdf”]
August 2, 2021
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/VHEAC_Communique-23-April-2021.pdf”]
July 26, 2021
Non-year 12 entry to university: an example Home educated students have successfully applied to universities all around the country using non-year 12 pathways. In Victoria, high school students at school typically sit their VCE exams and receive their ATAR, which then allows them to enrol in a university degree if certain requirements are met. But what do you do when home educated kids can […]
July 20, 2021
Pavlina McMaster A little over a year ago, we moved out of our community of 20 years. I was excited to find a mould-free rental with a back yard, but at the time, there were so many unknowns. How was I going to find friends for my kids? How was I going to find the same support level? Was I going to find adults […]
July 16, 2021
The VHEAC election is now open and all registered home educators have received voting instructions from the VRQA. If you did not receive your email, contact them on 9637 2806 or home.schooling@education.vic.gov.au You can find their nomination blurbs below. Voting opens on Aug 2 for two weeks ===================== The Victorian Home Education Advisory Committee (VHEAC) provides feedback to us and the VRQA about the […]
July 13, 2021
Well, we are up for Review! Catherine Durrant Our family has been chosen as one of the families to have a review. Although Paul and I were against the review process and any changes to the regulations, we have no choice but to be open to the reviews and use it to our advantage. We feel the reviews will be a good opportunity to […]
July 6, 2021
Cheryl Dedman I am from Tatura in Victoria and I home educate our son Jacob (11). My husband Pete, Jacob and I have just embarked on an eight-week trek through parts of South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and NSW. Our adult son is home, caring for our ‘Castle’, whilst we travel in our portable ‘Castle’ which some may call a caravan. This is the second […]
June 29, 2021
Jacqui Rickard The Rickard family have shared some amazing home ed adventures on the road by car and bike. See Otherways issues 141 and 143 for details. They are Jacqui, James, Nathanael (13) Ezekiel (12) Levi (11) Joash (8) Elijah (6) and Adeline (3). Here Jacqui talks about their pursuit of home ed friends on the their latest adventures in America. At home in […]
June 28, 2021
John Barratt-Peacock “But what about socialisation?” is the second most asked question of home educators. Why? If you want a technical definition of socialisation Berger and Luckmann will tell you that it is about relating to others, learning to fit into your allocated place in society and that school attendance is vital for accomplishing it. For over fifty years home educators have been demonstrating that the […]
June 22, 2021
Jane Sultana I live in Moe, Victoria, and have two sons aged 12 and 10 . Until the beginning of 2016 neither son had been to school. I chose home education primarily because I really enjoyed spending time with my children and did not want to hand them over to others for a large part of each day. Secondly, having worked as a primary […]
June 15, 2021
By Belinda Lee Sometimes it’s difficult to write a post on how our days have been. And this isn’t because it’s difficult to write about. Simply, every time I write about how wonderful, amazing and fulfilling a day has been, I realise that it absolutely comes across as arrogant, conceited and, to be honest, showing off. This is never the intention. You see, most […]
June 6, 2021
Otherways is Australia’s longest running alternative education magazine, produced quarterly by a team of HEN volunteers. Otherways supports you by bringing together an amazing collection of stories and advice from home educating families willing to share their experiences with others. This makes Otherways truly a community effort! Putting together a 50 page+ magazine is no small feat and takes at least two months to […]
May 30, 2021
This week is National Volunteer Week. Without volunteers from our community working together to oppose overreaching regulation on two occasions, home education would look very different in Victoria. Without volunteers, few groups or excursions would be available. Without volunteers there would be no websites or Facebook pages to help us network and answer our questions. As home educators we are immersed in the volunteer culture, with […]
April 13, 2021
Annie Regan I’m often asked if I give my kids time off during the school holidays. Depending on who is asking and how much time I’ve got, I sometimes answer ‘Yes’, or ‘No’, or ‘Well they’re learning all the time, so if something interesting comes up during school holidays then we go with it, I don’t stop them!’ The truth is that the kids do […]
March 28, 2021
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/VHEAC-Communique-22-Feb-2021.pdf”]
March 22, 2021
Yasmine Davy Watts We live in an age of increasingly flexible working options, coupled with ever-growing connectedness through the internet. As a result, families are taking charge of their lives in a way that hasn’t been possible before. No longer shackled to rigid 9 to 5 hours at a desk in an office, more and more families are taking up long-term travel as a […]
March 18, 2021
Sara G. Each January I take some time out to sit down and do some thinking and planning for the year ahead; I always check with the kids whether there’s any new activity they’d like to try, or what they did and did not enjoy from the previous year. When we started home educating three years ago, we had a look around to see […]
March 8, 2021
Content warning: this article talks about children in severe states of mental distress and issues related to that. People choose home education for many different reasons. For some, home education is the only option when a child is in crisis, and where continuing in the school setting poses a grave risk to that child. If this applies to you, and your child is struggling […]
March 2, 2021
Kathleen Humble Every now and then, usually when news is a little slow, prominent papers like to do little fluff pieces on the edges of the educational world. One week might be about lambasting ‘pushy parents,’ another week an angry remonstrance on the horrors of alternative education. Personally, I find it deeply amusing that, depending on the flavour of the month, our little family […]
February 16, 2021
You may have come to home education happily and willingly, or it may be that home ed is your last resort after persevering with mainstream school before realising it just won’t work for your child. Regardless of the reasons why you are home educating, you would hope that your friends and family support your decision and encourage you. Or, at the very least, if […]
February 15, 2021
“What’s the difference between homeschooling and unschooling?” and “What is deschooling?’ are among the most commonly asked questions in Facebook groups. Homeschooling is generally used to mean home education. HEN (and many individuals) prefer this latter term as it is a more accurate description of what families do: educate their children at home. However, the VRQA uses the term homeschooling, as do most […]
February 9, 2021
Indrani Perera I can’t believe that I have been writing articles for Otherways all this time without talking about books and reading. I’ve been a bookworm ever since I was a kid. I still try to read whenever I have a spare five minutes, and I love reading to Airlie (9) and Phoebe (5). Airlie is now old enough to read for herself and […]
January 30, 2021
Kirsty James Grade based curriculum packages offer a level of security which feels reassuring, but they have some significant drawbacks.The majority of these products are either books designed for schools, or programs for home educators which follow the Australian Curriculum. In some states, HE (home education) families have to follow this curriculum, and as HE numbers have grown, companies have seen a market opportunity. […]
January 18, 2021
By Kirsty James One common concern for new home educators in Victoria is how to keep records. This tends to stem from the question how will learning outcomes be recorded on the VRQA paperwork when applying for home ed registration, and it’s common for people to list multiple methods of record keeping there. The main purpose of records is to provide a framework […]
January 18, 2021
James Rickard We do not know what we are doing. Jacquelyn and I have never bicycle-toured before, alone or together. Our children (aged 12, 11, 10, 7, 5 and 2) enjoy riding but have never had to do it for anything more than local-based transportation. We have never been to Tasmania together (Jacqui lived in Tassie with her family for a year when she […]
January 11, 2021
By Kirsty James At the start of each year, many families are thinking about how to support new interests, help their child with areas where they struggle, or looking for groups/connections. The HE community is supportive, and usually happy to provide advice. However, over the last few years I’ve seen a change in the kind of products and services which are available, and it […]
January 5, 2021
If your teen is interested in legal studies, why not start your own law club? Parents, or teens themselves, can organise groups, or even single activities, where the focus is on legal studies. Activities can include anything from an excursion to an activity held in a hired space weekly or fortnightly or monthly– the choice is yours. You may wish to hire a venue, […]
January 4, 2021
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/VHEACcommunique7December2020.pdf”]
December 22, 2020
Andrea Baird One of the reasons I felt so strongly about home educating my children was that I didn’t want them spending so much of their childhood indoors and sitting at desks. I wanted them to grow up in a world of trees and grass, sky and clouds, creeks and oceans. Even though we lived in the city, a lot of our early home […]
December 8, 2020
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/VHEAC-Communique-9-October-2020.pdf”]
December 7, 2020
Kirsty James We all know that home educating parents are so organised. It’s right up there with patience as the quality most mentioned when I tell people my kids don’t go to school: ‘oh you must be sooo …’. I’m sure there are some paragons out there, but the image of the perfect home educator is as damaging as the idea of the perfect […]
November 21, 2020
HEN regularly answers questions about how home educated teens will access tertiary education, but some students will be more interested in joining the workforce, in either a part time or full time capacity. Sample CVs seem to focus on school achievements, so what does a teen who is not in school put on their CV? Work experience is extremely worthwhile. Not only does it […]
November 16, 2020
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 […]
October 20, 2020
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 […]
October 4, 2020
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 […]
September 26, 2020
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 […]
September 7, 2020
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. […]
August 31, 2020
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 […]
August 11, 2020
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, […]
August 5, 2020
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 […]
August 3, 2020
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/VHEAC-Communique-27-July-2020.pdf”]
July 20, 2020
…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 […]
July 14, 2020
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 […]
July 14, 2020
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 […]
July 6, 2020
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 […]
June 30, 2020
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 […]
June 15, 2020
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
June 15, 2020
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 […]
June 5, 2020
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 […]
June 2, 2020
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 […]
May 29, 2020
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 […]
May 26, 2020
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 […]
May 25, 2020
Everyone Continue to comply with over-arching requirements: Practice good hand hygiene Stay home if anyone in the family is unwell Adults must remain 1.5 metres from people you don’t live with. Indoor events must have 4 square metres per person. Victoria From Midnight 5th August Do not organise or attend home ed gatherings until the restrictions are lifted. More details. Other States Check the […]
May 24, 2020
With schools returning, many home educators are beginning to ask whether they can resume their normal home ed meetups. No, home ed groups are not schools and cannot resume if their numbers and venue exceed the current limits. However, you may begin any activity that lies within the current restrictions on gatherings. Why Schools involve the same set of children gathering at the […]
April 28, 2020
By Sue Wight We are standing at a unique moment in history Globally, an astonishing 1.4 billion children have come home for their education — something unthinkable a few months ago. While some concerns have been raised that children could “miss a year of education”, in reality kids learn wherever they are and parents are highly adept at facilitating learning. For millennia, all children […]
April 13, 2020
Available in Word format and PDF below. [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/VHEACCommunique3March2020_E.pdf”]
March 22, 2020
Most children being kept home from school due to the pandemic will miss their friends and routine, they may also be scared about what’s happening around the world. The most important thing is to ensure that we support kids’ mental, as well as physical, health. Here are some ideas to help you as adapt to the ‘new normal’. Also some recent media articles to […]
March 17, 2020
By Susan Wight You’ve made the decision not to send the children to school this year and the relatives are recovering from the shock…Now, where to start? Having made the decision to leave the school system, you now have the freedom to choose your own education. Spend some time thinking about what education is. What would the ideal education look like? What would you […]
March 15, 2020
UPDATE: 31/3/2020 All in-person groups and events MUST cease until the social distancing laws permit them. March 15: In the current climate, HEN strongly recommends the suspension of all gatherings. While children seem less susceptible to Coronavirus than adults, home ed gatherings involve both. In addition, some doctors warn that children (while remaining well themselves) can transmit the virus to others. Earlier action will […]
March 14, 2020
The Coronavirus has many families assessing the safety of school attendance at present, and HEN has been contacted by families considering home education for this reason. For most people who wish their child to return to school as soon as they consider it safe, registering for home education is not necessary. School absence doesn’t have to mean home education If COVID-19 is your only […]
March 10, 2020
By Judy Ephraums ‘Once you turn your back on the school system, everything’s up for grabs.’ So said one of the first home educating mums I met, at one of the first home education gatherings my young daughter and I attended. She was an experienced home educator, and a friendly and welcoming face at the gathering; we went on to become firm friends. More […]
January 31, 2020
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/VHEAC-Combined-Communique-24Sept19-and-14Nov19.pdf”]
December 24, 2019
By Sue Wight Like Fanny Price, I have to admit to being an unabashed novel reader. A good novel is a type of madness for me, and I sometimes become so emotionally involved that wrenching myself away can be devastating. I was once on a plane which had the temerity to land when Jane Eyre had just left Thornfield. How could I abandon her […]
December 10, 2019
By Catherine Durant Art appreciation is a topic we love to explore in our house. Alannah (10), Max (8) and Eloise (3) always enjoy delving into the life of an artist. I have been amazed at how much the kids take in. There has been many a time that they have pointed to a print on a wall or in a book and told […]
November 26, 2019
By Marnie Black We withdrew our eldest two sons, Anthony and Mitchell, from school back in 2000. What a leap of faith that was! We had to get out of the system after the havoc it had wreaked on our boys. Even our pre-schooler, Jeff, had been negatively affected as most of his life had been lived in a family under stress. We agonised […]
November 21, 2019
By Arthur Grant We often notice how little prompting kids require to learn outside the classroom. Simply setting them free in nature does wonders for their curious spirits, as each overturned rock and never-before-seen leaf piques new interest and inquiries. Their instinct is to explore and learn, and structure isn’t always needed for learning to be meaningful and beneficial. The term “unschooling” puts a […]
November 18, 2019
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). 2019 results: […]
November 10, 2019
By Wendy Morriss I spent 30 years home educating my three children who are now 32, 29 and 19 years of age. It was an amazing experience; one that I will always remember and would recommend to anyone. I liked going to school myself because I was raised in a violent household, so school was an escape. My husband, however, constantly talked about his […]
October 29, 2019
So, you haven’t yet taken the home ed plunge. It would be nice to have a guarantee, right? The thing is life doesn’t come with guarantees. It would be really nice to be able to examine a home education prospectus and see pretty graphs and tables detailing the success rate but that isn’t possible. The best you can do is observe home educating families […]
October 22, 2019
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 […]
October 2, 2019
Victorian home educators can now access free physical and digital language resources through the Department of Education and Training’s languages library – Languages and Multicultural Education Resource Centre (LMERC). They have resources from early years through to senior. Interested families are encouraged to visit the library and complete a membership form to receive a library card for immediate use or join online. [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/LMERCInfoSheetFINAL.pdf”] […]
September 24, 2019
By Cynthia McStephen Excuse me, I just have to crawl into a hole for a while before I can tackle this subject. I’m sure you won’t mind. It’s the weight, you see. It’s the sheer effort of dragging around the huge expectations the world has of me as a home educating parent: ‘You must be so organised’, ‘I don’t know how you do it […]
July 30, 2019
The greatest benefit of home education By Lyn Saint So what about socialisation…how will your kids learn to fit into the real world! The question is so simple and yet the answer so complex. Any one of us that has been asked that question knows how difficult it is to come up with an answer that will satisfy not only the askers but deep […]
July 29, 2019
By Sue Wight Whether we home educate from the start or as a result of school problems, we observe our kids learning firsthand. Most of the time, that’s all the evidence we need. But many of us have occasional doubts and have relatives who want to know if we are limiting the children’s future. Governments and media also want solid data on home education […]
July 15, 2019
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/VHEAC-Communique-25-June-2019.pdf”] Also available in Word format
July 8, 2019
By Marshall C When my wife Brooke and I first met she was raising her four children as a solo Mum and had been homeschooling for the better part of a decade. My first impression of Brooke’s children was of confident, well spoken kids (on their best behaviour to be sure after Mum made it clear that this one was a “keeper”). As I […]
July 2, 2019
By Brooke C. When I started home education (fifteen years ago) I used to dread being asked the *S Question*. You know, “How will your kids learn to socialise if they don’t get to go to school?” I dreaded it because I found that if I had time (and the inclination) I used to launch into a positively soap-box worthy rant explaining that the […]
June 4, 2019
By Sue Wight If there’s one aspect of informal learning in home education that stands out above all others, in common with infant and adult informal learning, it’s conversation. On the face of it much of this is social, everyday talk of the kind that normally goes unnoticed. But it’s surprising how much of this kind of talk contains opportunities for learning, especially as […]
May 21, 2019
By Cynthia McStephen “Hello there from Radio Home Ed Land, where there are a million different reasons and styles for every million home-edders. Today the topic is ‘Why we do what we do’ and sitting opposite me in the studio today is … hmmm. Actually that person looks remarkably like ME.” It can be a strange experience to want to interview yourself, to have […]
May 20, 2019
By Jackie Crosby Permaculture is about design, observing nature and working with nature. When we built our home, we faced it north (southern hemisphere), learnt about various building mediums and settled on recycled double brick for the heat transfer. We looked at our energy flows, and decided to have the vegetables growing near the kitchen and where the children play, as that’s where I travel […]
May 20, 2019
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/FINAL-VHEAC-Communique-30-April-2019.pdf”]
May 13, 2019
By Matthew Panopoulos, M.Ed. (research) As a NSW music teacher of almost six years, I frequently work with hundreds of students in three main roles: primary classroom, secondary classroom, and private tuition. If you asked me which one I enjoy and believe in most, it would be the last one. Having flexibility and the freedom to tailor learning to the interests of each student […]
May 7, 2019
By Lyn Saint The following statement may be depressing for parents of small energetic children – life is an emotional and exhausting roller-coaster ride for parents of teenagers and young adults. Small children are easy in comparison. We just have to pick them up and bandage their knees and show them how to do the million practical things they have to learn in life – […]
March 19, 2019
So, a loved one has told you they’re going to home educate their children. DON’T PANIC! It’s really okay. You will be fine! These parents have thought long and hard about their decision. There’s a load of information and research out there on home education and chances are they’ve done their homework behind the scenes and come to decide that home education will be […]
March 7, 2019
Glenda Jackson has compiled a rundown on registration figures for 2018 around Australia. [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Home-Educated-Student-Numbers-in-Australia.pdf”]
March 7, 2019
The following information is available about the academic outcomes of home education in Australia: The education departments of three states are known to have examined educational outcomes of home educated students through NAPLAN testing etc. Those studies have only been released via freedom of Information requests. NSW BOSTES study on NSW NAPLAN, Year 10 and Year 12 results students being home educated plus those […]
March 5, 2019
By Kathleen Humble There is quite a difference between the way I thought I would teach chemistry and the way my son, Canary, prefers to learn. Canary is very visual-spatial in his thinking. He absorbs knowledge when he can see it and touch it. He doesn’t mind listening, but he can’t just listen – there has to be a visual component, or lots of […]
February 14, 2019
Home ed students have a wide choice of pathways to university and careers. They can tackle university courses whenever they are ready – anywhere between age 13 and 100. Career pathways and destinations can be almost as individual as home education itself. This is a 68 page PDF on pathways to university and careers written by home ed veteran, Sue Wight. Available now $20 Members […]
January 28, 2019
Once upon a time, the animals decided that they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “New World” so they organised a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects. The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact, better than his […]
December 18, 2018
By Kirsty James My 16-year-old son is passionate about woodturning, and is a member of the local Guild. Two years ago, he barely knew that woodturning existed, but thanks to various kind and helpful people in our local community, he has learnt a new skill and found what may become a lifelong interest. At the start of 2016, a friend and I were keen […]
December 11, 2018
By Sue Wight Story writing can be encouraged from a very early age. When your children are drawing, you could ask them to tell you the story of what is happening in the picture and write that down. If your children like to tell stories, you can begin to write them down and make them into books as early as you and they enjoy […]
December 6, 2018
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/VHEAC-Communique-8-November-2018.pdf”]
November 13, 2018
Home educated students are effectively locked out of VET funding at the moment and HEN is trying to get this changed. Our submission is below. An explanation of acronyms is provided below the submission for younger families. [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Skills-First-Submission-HEN.pdf”] Acronyms and terms: VRQA: Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority – the registration body which registers home ed students of compulsory education age. DET: Victorian Department […]
October 23, 2018
By Kirsty James Looking through the photo book documenting the first year of Tyabb Homeschool Activity Teens co-op (THAT), I realised that there were two recurring expressions on the faces of the kids; happiness and concentration. Whatever they were doing – pyrography, cheese-making, polymer chemistry – their expressions were the same. They were learning, and having fun. Sometimes when we look back on activities, […]
October 8, 2018
You may be eligible for: Family Tax Benefit Part A and Part B. Once your child reaches the minimum school starting age for your state, if you are geographically isolated, your child has specific learning needs or medical issues (including anxiety, depression, bullying, family trauma, ill parent), you may be eligible for Assistance for Isolated Children a substantial payment which not income or assets tested and does not […]
October 8, 2018
Partnered home educators may be eligible for: Family Tax Benefit Part A and Part B. Once your child reaches the minimum school starting age for your state, if you are geographically isolated, your child has specific learning needs or medical issues (including anxiety, depression, bullying, family trauma, ill parent), you may be eligible for Assistance for Isolated Children a substantial payment which is not income or assets tested […]
October 5, 2018
Carleen Sing home educated her five sons. Their story has been told over many years through Otherways and the family also appeared in a 60 Minutes segment on Unschooling in 2014 and an article in The Daily Telegraph in 2015. Here we look back at their journey… My husband and I both trained as primary school teachers, and it was whilst teaching that I began to question […]
October 1, 2018
By Pavlina McMaster Home education is a foreign concept to most of us – it is outside our own, personal educational experience, and many people considering it do not know anyone who home educates their children. In Victoria, approximately 60% of home educators have come to it after withdrawing a child from school, often under traumatic or highly stressful circumstances. This cohort often make […]
September 25, 2018
HEN would like to see VHEAC made permanent to ensure that all home education policy decisions, requirements and supporting documents receive input from experienced home educators. The current position of the major political parties is: ALP: Minister Merlino says VHEAC will run through to mid-2019 when VHEAC members will “collectively decide on the future format and functions of the committee.” While that doesn’t rule […]
September 18, 2018
Victoria Legally, teenagers are required to be at school or registered for home education until the age of 17. When kids aged under 17 move to a TAFE course, they may be asked for a Transition from School Form (form will download when you click the link) during the enrolment process. You can download the form using the link provided here, but it must be […]
September 7, 2018
Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) FAQ What is the AIC payment? Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) is a Centrelink group of payments for parents and carers of children who can’t go to a local government school because of geographical isolation, disability or other needs. It is a significant payment available to some home educators, but it is not a ‘homeschool payment’. There are […]
September 2, 2018
If parents are receiving Jobseeker or Family Tax Benefit, they may lose it when their youngest child turns 16, but not everyone does. Jobseeker Once the youngest child turns 16, the automatic exemption from the Mutual Obligation Requirements ceases. You may still be eligible for an exemption but if so, you will receive the lower level of Jobseeker (not the higher level you received previously). […]
August 28, 2018
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/VHEAC-Communique-7-August-2018.pdf”]
August 27, 2018
If you’re looking for help with managing your child’s education costs, the Saver Plus program could help. Saver Plus provides individuals and families on lower incomes the opportunity to have their savings matched dollar-for-dollar (up to $500) to pay for education costs. Find out more about your eligibility and how to apply by phoning 1300 610 355 or visit the Saver Plus website [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/TGEGS_SaverPlus_A4_Poster_Community_General-1.pdf”] […]
August 13, 2018
Victorian home educated students can access the inter-school and interstate programs with School Sport Victoria by providing a copy of their VRQA registration letter to SSV. Families are responsible for the costs involved. Home schooled students can access: 1. SSV Swimming, Cross Country, Golf and Track and Field (District level for primary-aged kids and Division level for secondary aged students They then progress through the competition levels […]
August 9, 2018
Want the quick version on the Victorian legal requirements for home education? [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Vic-Requirements-in-Brief.pdf”] For the longer version see: Learning Plan Guidance Reviews Guide Excerpts from the Act and Regulation
August 3, 2018
By Pavlina McMaster We came to home education like many others, carrying scars from a school system that was eroding my child’s self-esteem, and our sanity. School, though short-lived, had been a time fraught with stress, anxiety, and the regression of everyone’s skills, not least of which were mine. As an autistic adult, I had come to learn so many things that many neurotypical […]
July 23, 2018
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
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
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
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
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
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
An overview of the latest VHEAC meeting discussions. [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/VHEAC-Communique-30-April-2018.pdf”]
May 18, 2018
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
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
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
survey 2018The 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 […]
May 6, 2018
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
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
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 22, 2018
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/FINALVHEACCommunique27February2018.pdf”]
March 20, 2018
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
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
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 23, 2018
February 16, 2018
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. […]
January 30, 2018
2022 Home schooling reaches record high in South Australia as families respond to COVID-19 disruptions – by Rebecca Puddy, ABC News, February 14 Transition to homeschooling – Interview with Kirsty J, Jonathon Kendall, ABC Radio Mornings, February 3 2021 Sport climbing becomes newest Olympic sport, Aussie teen Oceana Mackenzie set to compete, ABC News 16 July (the article doesn’t mention it but Oceana was […]
January 30, 2018
DET has licensed HEN to distribute the 2015 Virtual School Victoria (formerly known as Distance Education Centre Victoria (DECV)) course to Victorian home educators for FREE. Please note that these materials refer to DECV, which is the former name of Virtual School Victoria (VSV). The materials form a comprehensive curriculum for any home educator. New families will find them especially useful, as will anyone […]
January 19, 2018
How to Run Your Next Home Ed Camp or Excursion By Colita Scott Home education camps and events are all about giving your children an experience to remember. For me, the best parts of school were the school camps and excursions. A lot of home educated kids feel the same way. Too many new home educating families ask me ‘so what’s available for my […]
January 10, 2018
The updated Guide to Home Education in Victoria is now available in Word of PDF. [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/GuideToHomeEducationinVictoria-2018.pdf”]
January 10, 2018
Dear New Home Educator, Congratulations on your decision to educate your children from home. You’ve borrowed a pile of books from the library and scoured the internet for advice; you may have bought some supplies already. Great…except that every ‘expert’ seems to recommend different things and now you feel overwhelmed by the choices. Right? Relax, you’ll be home educating YOUR children YOUR way and […]
January 3, 2018
HEN has a long and proud history of standing up for home educators’ rights in Victoria. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information during our regulations campaign confirm HEN’s continued advocacy has been very effective in keeping legal requirements reasonable over the years. Amongst reasons noted for the lower regulation in Victoria compared to other states is: Homeschooling advocates have been influential in their resistance to any moves […]
December 18, 2017
By Anne Hall Our family became involved with Sailability four years ago after seeing a HEN advertisement. Teenagers were wanted to go out to the glorious Lysterfield Lake Friday mornings and try their hand at sailing aiming to take people who needed assistance out on the lake for a sail. Sailability organisations are not-for-profit, volunteer-based and, through the activity of sailing, enrich the lives […]
December 1, 2017
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/VHEAC-Communique-15-November-2017.pdf”]
November 26, 2017
By Bekah Carman In Victoria we are required to provide “regular and efficient instruction that taken as a whole, substantially addresses the [8 key] learning areas”. I recently released a post that discussed the value of looking at the Victorian Curriculum in order to figure out how to fulfil the requirements of teaching to the Key Learning Areas (KLAs). As discussed in that post, […]
November 13, 2017
By Bekah Carman In Victoria we are required to provide “regular and efficient instruction that taken as a whole, substantially addresses the [8 key] learning areas”. These learning areas, which we call the KLAs, are English, Maths, Science, Technology, Languages (other than English), Arts, Health and PE, and Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS). The problem with the requirement to instruct in the 8 KLAs […]
November 6, 2017
By Sue Wight Something odd is happening in the world of unschooling. Sarah has heard that if her children want chocolate biscuits for breakfast, they will eat a balanced diet over time without well-meaning interference from her. Meanwhile, she’s struggling to buy enough chocolate biscuits to keep up with them and is torn between her concerns about nutrition and a reluctance to impose restrictions […]
October 20, 2017
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/VHEAC-Communique-12-October-2017.pdf”]
October 14, 2017
By Sue Wight We all learnt to speak via the immersion method. Babies become aware of vocal patterns and connect them with visual cues from facial expressions and body language and are on their way to cracking the code of their mother tongue. The process is driven by the desire to understand, to communicate, to be part of the group. Watching babies and toddlers […]
October 2, 2017
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Final-VHEAC-Communique-27-September-2017.pdf”]
September 12, 2017
[gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/VHEAC-Communique-31-August-2017.pdf”]
August 23, 2017
HEN has a long and proud history of standing up for home educators rights. With new Education Regulations developed, HEN’s lobbying resulted in a disallowance motion being put in the Legislative Council on 23/8. Unfortunately, the vote was 20:20 so the motion was lost by 1 cross-bench vote. You can read the actual debate in Hansard (see p4307) Be proud – there are many positives The government […]
August 16, 2017
By Kerstin Scheel Eighteen-year-old Claudia was in and out of school but the system never met her needs. We had several stints of home education which, although challenging, was the best option available for much of the time. Claudia has Down Syndrome and educating her has been a continual battle in terms of both appropriate provision and funding. During the prep transition process, we […]
June 18, 2017
Anonymous What I love about home education is that there is room for each and every one of us, in all our glorious uniqueness. We have the freedom to work out what is the best educational fit for each individual and family, rather than trying to contort that individuality to fit into a normative system where one size is supposed to fit all. We […]
May 7, 2017
From schooling to homeschooling to unschooling by Lehla Eldridge and Anthony Eldridge-Rogers Available at http://unschoolingthekids.com/unschooling-the-kids-the-book/ ebook £7.99 Reviewed by Susan Wills, Lorinna, Tasmania in Otherways issue 152 I jumped at the chance to read this book. The title spoke to me as a parent who, over the past 3 years, has moved from schooling to homeschooling and now unschooling – a journey containing moments […]
March 5, 2017
I first had dealings with the Home Education Network when Belinda Cowie booked a gold prospecting tour. This tour gave the students a hands on experience with gold panning, metal detecting and fossicking activities. The morning was a huge success and we received lots of positive feedback from the group. The group included adults, teens, children, preschoolers and toddlers and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day. […]
February 20, 2017
Following our hugely successful Medieval Camp last year, Kryal Castle had this to say: [gview file=”https://home-ed.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Testimonial-from-Kryal-Castle.pdf”]
February 18, 2017
Home education began in Victoria with half a dozen parents in the 1970s With the first generation of home educated students now adults, we set out to find out where they are and what they are doing. Some have entered school, some have gone straight to further education or careers. They have taken a variety of pathways and are living proof that home education […]
December 12, 2016
By Susan Wight Towards the end of the year, I often catch up with old friends. Getting together always emphasises just how different our lives now are. They talk of meetings, workloads, changing policies, best-practice and so on. Their end-of-year display of cards and gifts from appreciative clients or students always takes me by surprise. Jealous? No, I’m happy with my life and don’t […]
October 9, 2016
By John Barratt-Peacock It is the most boring of all the objections to home education and seemingly the most stupid since, on all the evidence, home educated children are the best socialised. So why do they do it and why do we buy into it? Within 30 minutes of my taking my daughter out of school the usual ignorant bully from the education department, […]
October 4, 2016
Schooling and Commercialism By Susan Wight Early Australian society needed, and indeed the land itself demanded, that people be frugal, self-sacrificing and hard-working. This was a time when there was nothing to spare. Possessions were few and were confined to absolute necessities. In order to survive people had to be resourceful and independent – they had to make and do for themselves. Even early […]
September 7, 2016
By Susan Wight Preschool attendance has always been optional in Australia but the issue of compulsory preschool continues to raise its ugly head with depressing regularity. Parents paying expensive daycare fees may be in favour of government funded preschool programs. In order for a compulsory national preschool year to gain popular approval, though, the public would have to be indoctrinated into believing that preschool […]
August 10, 2016
By Dr John Peacock Anna Wintour, when she was editor of the British ‘Vogue” magazine, claimed to be able to spend quality time with her children at some un-godly hour in the morning and still be at the office before anyone else. Quality time seems to be the buzz excuse these days for mothers harassed into the work force by cynical governments and social […]
August 3, 2016
By Sue Wight In today’s society, age segregation is an accepted way of life. Children are separated off from adults daily into crèches, kindergartens and schools which in turn further segregate them by birth year. Elderly people are frequently consigned to nursing homes and, to further exacerbate the isolation of each age group, families are inclined to purchase new homes in subdivisions full of […]
July 25, 2016
By Sue Wight Our family follow a natural learning style of home education and feel quite comfortable that the children are learning all the time but, like many home educators, we have the occasional doubts about maths. Recently these doubts led me to persuade one of my sons, Matthew, to do some maths on paper. As a small child he loved maths, in fact […]
July 14, 2016
By Susan Wight Somehow this question puts us on the back foot and we find ourselves mumbling, “Umm, well no I’m not a teacher…” Why? Why do we give in to the assumption that we need some kind of certificate to ‘teach’ our own children? I don’t believe we should, but somehow many parents suddenly feel unable to defend home education when this question […]
June 10, 2016
School people often nod along with so many of the things we home educators talk about – catering to individual interests, child-led learning, play-based learning, experiential learning. They actually agree that all these things are desirable and are beginning to adopt some of our language as buzz words. At some stage in the conversation they say, ‘But of course we’re doing a lot of […]
June 1, 2016
Financial Education at Home By Rob Wight If teaching your children about money has been on your “to do” list for some time, don’t delay any more – now is the time to act, no matter how old they are Given we spend so much time with our children, I believe home educators often have the best opportunity to lead the discussion about […]
May 19, 2016
By Marie Cosgrove I’ve always valued being different but now my girls say they just want to be ‘normal’… My home ed journey began long before I had children. I was first introduced to the idea by my sister–in-law, who was home educating my two nieces. At the time I was teaching in a primary school and struggling with a system I felt didn’t […]
May 10, 2016
By Susan Wight Play is children’s work and yet it is curiously undervalued in our society. Many adults fervently believe that there can be no ‘educational value’ in something that children choose to do. Their concern about home educating without a curriculum is that children might ‘just play’. Adults are sceptical that play, which looks to them like merely a pleasant pastime, can really […]
April 4, 2016
By Carolyn Franzke (Otherways Magazine, issue 140) I used to be a teacher. I taught maths and science, and sometimes other subjects too. I was on the curriculum committee, attended lots of conferences and ran staff meetings about the value of a quality curriculum. I studied for my Masters in Education and wrote a thesis about the value of digital portfolios in improving the […]
March 7, 2016
By Sue Wight Home educating primary-aged children was easy as far as I was concerned. I spent time with them, read to them, played games with them, talked lots, encouraged their interests, took them to interesting places, and stood back and watched the learning happen. But home educating teenagers? I knew nothing about that! That would be hard – what about the Maths, what […]
March 3, 2016
By Jess Pritchard “What advice do you have for those just starting out?” It is the inevitable question, asked again and again. I clearly remember asking it (in some form or another) myself, many times, of many different people. And now I am being asked it. So here is my advice. In dot point: 1) Don’t be afraid of mess. It goes without saying […]
January 23, 2016
By Dindy Vaughan Not every child is happy at school. Some struggle along grudgingly, some fight the system, some opt out and refuse to achieve; and mostly their parents worry. In many cases it comes down to ‘school refusal’. The state of Victoria currently has not hundreds, but thousands of school-age children who are simply refusing to go. The majority are not rabble-rousers and […]
January 13, 2016
By Lyn Saint On making the decision to home educate their children many women often bring up the question – but what about my life, should I devote the next 10-15 years solely to bringing up my children – what about me…? As we all know, society today does not appreciate, acknowledge and respect women who are fulltime mothers – quite the opposite in […]
December 4, 2015
By Susan Wight We are living in a warming world. Climate change is observable pretty much everywhere: air temperature is rising over every continent, the oceans are heating up and expanding, and ice is melting on land and at sea. The climate has already warmed by 0.8 degrees. This may not sound dramatic, but in the delicate balance of life, it is. Humanity depends […]
November 23, 2015
By Lyn Saint There has always been a lot of confusion with the public’s perception of what homeschooling is. As the name implies, people expect to do schooling in the home and therefore expect to be able to purchase homeschooling as a package for their children. Many are often quite confused and even alarmed when they find out that homeschooling is in fact all […]
October 31, 2015
One of the hardest things I find about home educating is juggling the differing needs of my four children. The challenge is to be able to engage children of very different ages. I have found that the older they get, the easier it is. It is the toddler I find the most challenging! To make my life easier, I have tailored the different curricula […]
October 28, 2015
Home education is legal in every state and territory of Australia but the details and requirements vary. For details of the legal situation in your state see our Legal page.
September 3, 2015
Dyslexia exists in the home educated population just as it exists in the school population. If your child doesn’t seem to be picking up reading, give some thought to whether this is a problem. Late reading is actually common in home education (see our Learning to Read section for details). If the child is learning in other ways, perhaps sit back and wait a […]
September 3, 2015
This is never easy. As soon as you pull your children out of school, it seems as though your parents, your friends, your neighbours, even the local check-out operator suddenly have an opinion on how children should be educated and most of them won’t match with your concept of home education. Take a deep breath. There will be opposition; it is just a question […]
September 2, 2015
By Lyn Saint It can be done If you have found your way to this article, chances are you are having an unhappy time at school. Maybe you are being bullied, or are bored out of your mind or are just plain angry that your life is being wasted in the schoolyard. You may think you are a failure because teachers have said so […]
September 2, 2015
For many home-educating families and prospective home-educators the fear of dyslexia is a significant problem. “It’s all very well to wait for spontaneous reading, but what if my children are dyslexic?” they might ask. “Won’t they be better off in school where they will get proper help?” Dyslexia is a type of specific learning difficulty in which the person has difficulties with language and […]
September 2, 2015
Starting home education can be quite daunting—doubly so if you are deciding to home educate children with diverse learning needs, whether they are gifted, disabled, or both (called twice exceptional or 2e). Neurodiverse kids tend not to fit in neat school boxes, and can be a challenge to parent and to home educate. Defining Giftedness Though giftedness can be hard to define, there […]
September 2, 2015
By Lyn Saint When the notion of home educating our children first enters our thoughts, most of us instantly dismiss the idea that we could ever do such a thing. After all, there is this huge infrastructure in place costing millions of dollars per year, employing thousands of highly-qualified people, using curricula designed by trained minds using the latest researched and up-to-date techniques. We […]
September 2, 2015
By Sue Wight It doesn’t have to cost an arm and leg So you’ve decided to home educate, but now you are worried about how you will ever afford all of those flashy curriculum resources, especially if home education means living on one income as it does for most families. The good news is that home education does not have to be expensive. You […]
September 2, 2015
By Sue Wight Home educating is all very well, but what if your children are gifted? Won’t they need the special programs only available in school? How could a parent be qualified to educate them? Don’t gifted children have trouble socialising anyway, and won’t home education make that worse? School Provision Firstly, let’s look at those “special programs” in schools. In Australia there […]
September 2, 2015
As grandparents, you naturally want the best for your grandchildren. You want them to be happy, well educated and to have every chance at a good life. You have no doubt worked long and hard to provide a good education for your own children and are therefore puzzled and afraid when you hear that your grandchildren will not be going to school. You are […]
September 2, 2015
By Lyn Saint ‘How can I give my child a high level of education when I didn’t do very well at school myself?” is not only one of the most asked questions, but many adults today assume that, just because they failed or dropped out of school themselves, that they are uneducated. As a notorious school failure and drop-out, these were also my thoughts […]
September 2, 2015
By Roland Meighan, Educational Heretics Press A few years ago, I invited trainee teachers to visit home educating families to see what they might learn from such an experience. One young woman visited a family where all four children, two boys and two girls, were diagnosed by the unit at the University of Aston as dyslexic in varying degrees of severity. The trainee teacher […]
September 2, 2015
By Sue Wight By far the most frequent question about home education is: But what about socialisation? In order to answer this question, it is important to look at what people mean when they ask about socialisation as the question can be taken in more than one way. Will the children have friends? Home educating families go out of their way to ensure their […]
September 2, 2015
Dyslexic children are often auditory and kinesthetic learners. They learn best by hearing and by doing. Hands on, concrete activities are the best for reading spelling, writing and maths.Writing on buff or coloured paper is often better than white, because it reduces the glare and enables them to concentrate better. Play dough or modelling clay is great for little children to form letters, words […]
September 2, 2015
By Jim Batt Yes it is possible, although not easy, to get into university without completing (or even starting) VCE. I have spent only a very insignificant amount of my time in high school but still wished to further my education at a university level. I began by undertaking the FAST course (Foundation Access Studies) at Ballarat University. This course is aimed at mature […]
September 2, 2015
By Barbara Frank We were your average homeschool family. We had been happily homeschooling our older two children for five years, and had an adorable little toddler who kept us busy and made sure we weren’t getting too set in our ways. In addition, we were expecting baby number four. Joshua was born shortly after midnight one rainy March night. He was a little […]
September 2, 2015
By Sharee Cordes I think it all started for us when Jayden became interested in linguistics. I was searching on the internet for some way to help him find out more about linguistics when I came across the Open Universities Australia website. Unfortunately they don’t offer any undergraduate linguistics subjects, but there were so many other interesting sounding subjects on the list, so I […]
September 2, 2015
By Cleve Elaine Richey Long before my decision to pull my seven-year-old son, Alex, from public school, I was his teacher. But teaching him meant far more than “enrichment.” It meant reaching him. It meant his survival. As a baby, he’d never wanted to be held, never cooed or babbled. Unlike his sister, who took such pleasure when we played with her, Alex didn’t […]
September 2, 2015
This is an excerpt from Otherways issue 128. It features a sample of former home educated students and details the pathways they took to university and other further education. Alumni Postcards
September 2, 2015
By Katharina Russell-Head For those of us who went to school it is almost impossible to imagine what it must be like to grow up outside the system. The closest most of us get is to remember, or to observe, the experience of early childhood. Babies and small children do not take lessons in asking for food, or observe timetables in learning how to […]
September 2, 2015
By Kathy Ward In recent years there’s been a strong trend for parents to remove their children from school and bring them home to learn because many schools have been failing to provide a positive learning experience for their children. These kids have been bright, personable, competent in many realms, and yet they’ve found themselves existing on the outskirts of the learning experiences that […]
September 2, 2015
The past twenty years has seen a phenomenal rise in home education across the world and the general public’s familiarity with it has moved from almost complete ignorance to one of widespread, if largely uninformed, awareness. This change has been stimulated by, and reflected in, heightened media interest with feature articles on home education appearing in national magazines, newspapers and on television and radio. […]
September 2, 2015
There has always been a percentage of Australian children educated at home. This was quite common in the nineteenth century with one historian stating that 19% of children were being taught at home in 1871. Summary of Australian and New Zealand Research on Home Education. maintained by Glenda Jackson B.Ed, MEdSt and PhD. Here we take a look at some of the major studies. […]
September 2, 2015
For families who have home educated through the primary school years, in many ways home educating a teenager is no different – you just keep on providing a stimulating educational environment and seeking out information and opportunities on topics that match their interests. The main difference is that as kids get older you use higher level resources. Teens also become more independent at finding […]
September 2, 2015
Many people home educate teenagers so you won’t be alone. If they wish, teens leaving school can maintain school friendships in out-of-school hours; they also maintain or make friendships from sporting and hobby groups; and are made most welcome amongst the home education community. To be ‘in the loop’ about what’s on, it is worth joining the network. Members receive weekly emails with coming events. […]
September 2, 2015
By Susan Wight The research on home educating children with disabilities is very positive, showing advantages both academically and socially. An American study by Stephen Duvall is one of the most thorough to date. It concluded that home education offers more of the kind of education that children with disabilities need most and that they benefit greatly from the individualised attention that home education […]
September 2, 2015
What problems can arise? You are seriously considering home education but wondering, “There must be a downside that they aren’t telling me about.” Of course home education brings its own problems – but doesn’t parenting in general? Life is an inherently challenging process and we are not promising you a bed of roses! Home education will neither solve all your problems nor mean you […]
September 2, 2015
New home educators and those enquiring into home education often fear that socialisation will be a problem but it seldom is. Home educating does not have to mean your children are isolated – stuck at home all day with no contact with people outside their family. Joining HEN will get you ‘in the loop’ for home-ed events, camps, excursions and so on. Your kids […]
September 2, 2015
Depending on the compulsory school age in your state, once you reach 17 or 18, home education registration is no longer a legal requirement and, in fact, you may not be able to register for home education in the year you turn 18. If registration is no longer a legal requirement you may wish to remain registered if: Registration in your state meets the […]
September 2, 2015
When kids, especially teenagers, come out of school, there is a process they need to go through in order to work through the stress of school and to regain their love of learning. Many experienced home educators say to allow one month of recovery time for every year of schooling that the child has had. Leaving school can be a turbulent time. We […]
September 2, 2015
By Susan Wight I rarely doubt that home education is a better way for children to learn, but I have to admit there are times when it all seems too hard. I guess this happens to all of us now and then. Some days I feel discouraged and dispirited with home education and I fear my children are just not becoming the kind of […]
September 2, 2015
It is quite possible to home educate right through to university entrance without VCE but keep in mind that, in Victoria, home education at this level does not result in a recognised qualification and students are therefore ineligible for Youth Allowance. Students who choose to home educate through to year 12 level then have the option to enter a further education institution, start businesses […]
September 2, 2015
The AYCE programme is the standard Victorian school curriculum (years 7-12) open to all but only requires attendance once a week with the work completed at home. It is a popular transition programme for home educators and also for students looking for a halfway point between regular school and home education. The main campus is at Yea High School but there are others. Many […]
September 2, 2015
Note: HEN members have access to free advice on pathways to courses and careers. Join now VCE is not necessary for university entrance (see university entry) but if you do want to do VCE, you can enter a regular school in order to complete it, or these options are worth considering: VCE via Virtual School Victoria (formerly known as Distance Education Centre Victoria/DECV). Home […]
September 2, 2015
Today my ten year old son made me proud. Not because he and his team had made it to the basketball grand final but because he acted in a way that showed he had character. When we entered the stadium, all the grand-final-hype was obvious, with streamers and screamers filling the air. Here and there, mascots paraded while banners called for victory. As we […]
September 2, 2015
It is quite easy to get into TAFE or enrol in courses with various Adult Community Education providers. There are generally no formal prerequisites although students undergo a basic literacy and numeracy entrance test. Where prerequisites do exist TAFEs often have bridging courses to get you up to speed. TAFE certificates and diplomas can be used as a stepping stone to university or to […]
September 2, 2015
By Carol Naigon Question: I’ve been homeschooling for 10 years now. I have five children ages 3-18 years. My question is, how do I effectively homeschool when I no longer have the heart for it? I am burnt out, tired and just plain bored of it. Yet, my conscience won’t allow me to imprison my precious children in the typical school setting. Burnout is […]
September 2, 2015
Home education is not an easy option. It differs from classroom education and produces different results in the child, parents and in the family as a whole. Choosing to educate your child at home is making a long-term life-style decision that will affect every aspect of your family’s life. It is not a choice to be made lightly because it requires a great deal […]
September 2, 2015
Note: HEN members have access to free advice on pathways to courses and careers. Join now Home ed students have been accepted into every major Australian university. Home ed students and their families need to be pro-active in terms of investigating the options and deciding on the best route for each student. We provide the following information to get you started. You may find […]
September 2, 2015
Reading is a perennial topic amongst home educators. Many find that children do pick up reading quite naturally in the normal course of a home learning situation. Others are adamant proponents of a phonics method. ‘Late’ reading is not uncommon amongst home educated children. In school late reading is considered a problem and can result in children falling behind in all areas of the […]
September 2, 2015
Learning continues throughout your entire life. Some students are choosing to just keep on educating themselves rather than enrol in formal universities. There are so many resources online now that it is quite possible to do this at an advanced level. Given the rising costs of a university education, for some the real-world experience of work and travel combined with continuing to educate themselves […]
September 2, 2015
Home educators are often hit with the funding issue when they approach a TAFE or adult education provider to enrol in a course – as home ed students they are told they are ineligible for a funded place. However, home educated students can access funded TAFE places for certificates or diplomas if they de-register from the VRQA first – ie you are either a […]
August 28, 2015
Ockam’s Razor, 1996 Robyn Williams: Bertrand Russell never went to school; it didn’t appear to do him much harm either, as he still got to Trinity College Cambridge, revolutionised 20th century mathematics, won the Nobel Prize for Literature and did quite a bit for philosophy and politics as well. Avoiding school was commonplace for the British aristocracy. But does it have a place in […]
August 28, 2015
This information has been updated from an article written for Otherways magazine by a home educating lawyer in 2006 when registration became a legal requirement in Victoria. Why register? The law requires it. It is a serious thing to break the law. Victorian home education law remains among the least restrictive regimes in Australia. Registration is straight forward. The regulations and processes are not […]
August 28, 2015
Victoria has always been the easiest state to home educate in and we have fought hard over the years to keep it that way. Up until 2006, it was allowable under a combination of the Victorian Education Act 1958 and The Community Services Act 1970 which stated parents had to send their children to school or ensure they were receiving ‘efficient and regular instruction in some […]
August 28, 2015
by Alan Thomas Infants start learning informally from (or before?) birth, mainly through interaction with the mother or other caregivers. Part of this is learning how to behave in culturally appropriate ways, e.g., how to deal with emotions, how to interact with others in the family and wider community, and the acquisition of cultural values and attitudes. This alone requires a vast amount of […]
August 28, 2015
By Susan Wight Natural Learning is not ‘Doing Nothing’ Confession time: Sometimes I get ‘the guilts’ and think I’m not really educating my children at all. This feeling usually creeps in following someone’s wide-eyed response when I tell them that I home educate. “Wow, I could never do that! You must be so organised!” The overawed responses vary but the words ‘busy’, ‘dedicated’ ‘organised’ […]
August 28, 2015
by Dr John Peacock Jean Lave had a problem. She knew that the best scholarship said that schools were better than other places of learning because in schools skilled professionals taught general principles that were objective and unbiased because they were not dependent upon particular contexts or situations. That same scholarship said that other sorts of learning, such as go on in the home […]
August 28, 2015
By Lisa Donnelly I read with great interest the article in a recent home education magazine defending unschooling to structured schoolers. In my neck of the woods, the shoe seems to be permanently on the other foot. I can’t count the times I’ve heard my fellow homeschoolers, most of whom unschool, utter conventional proverbs such as, “when you’ve homeschooled long enough, you’ll unschool.” Statements […]
August 28, 2015
Weaving Waldorf Education into Home Learning By Brenda J. Armstrong Receive the children in reverence, Educate them with love, Send them forth in freedom – Rudolph Steiner I watch our nine-year-old daughter as she eyes the many baskets of wool yarn in the small store near our home. The rainbow of naturally dyed colored skeins is plentiful as we search for the “right yarn” […]
August 26, 2015
It was going to be his first day on the mountain and my old anxieties were creeping in. With his brand new snowboard tucked under his arm and his first-ever season lift ticket hanging from his neck, my 12 year old son, Conor, was off on an adventure of his own choosing. He seemed to be ready to tackle it all, but I wasn’t […]
August 24, 2015
The Commonwealth Child Dental Benefits Schedule allows for up to $1000* basic dental treatment over a two-year period for eligible 2–17 year olds. 2-17 year olds are eligible if they receive Family Tax Benefit A or other relevant Australian Government payments. Notes: Treatment is bulk billed through Medicare Eligible children pay $0 – no out of pocket costs No wait list – your […]
August 19, 2015
This was aired in 2014 and republished as part of the 60 Minutes archive in 2020. Also available ‘Extra minutes’ are on YouTube Channel 9 Mornings with Sandra Dodd The Clark family were interviewed with The Chronicle and the website contains a video with them as well Issue 140 of Otherways magazine carries stories from both Carleen Sing and Rachel Clark and their 60 […]
Home education need not be expensive. You can home educate with a library card, the resources you already have at home and the free resources available in your community. An internet connection is highly recommended. Many commercial home education supplies are available if families choose to use them and prices vary. The reality is there is no specific cost of home education; it can cost very little or it can cost thousands of dollars, depending on what method and which resources you choose to use. We advise families to look carefully at materials before making a large investment. It is unfortunate when families spend a lot of money on a resource, only to discover later that their money could have been better spent.
See also:
- Resources for ideas on low cost home education materials.
- Home Educating on a Budget
- Student and Travel Cards
- Insurance
- Work Experience
Financial assistance
There is no specific financial assistance to home educators in Australia and home educators are ineligible for the Education Maintenance Allowance. However, registered home education is recognised as a valid form of education and, as such, you may be eligible for a payment if you meet the other eligibility criteria.
Centrelink payments for parents and home educators can be a little complicated, as eligibility is based on various requirements and circumstances – your age, income, relationship status, and the age of the children. Payments are not automatic, you need to apply for them through Centrelink.
- Partnered Home Educators & Centrelink (children and teenagers aged under 16 years)
- Single Home Educators & Centrelink (children and teenagers under 16 years)
- Assistance for Isolated Children (distance, health, disability)
- Home-ed, Centrelink and Kids Aged 16+
- NSW: – home educators are eligible for the $100 Active Kids Voucher, and the $100 Creative Kids Voucher. Enter “Home Schooling” in the schools field.
- WA: If you have a health care or pensioner card, your child is eligible for the KidSport Voucher of $150.