Advice for Home Educators

Dear New Home Educator

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

Read More »

The effectiveness of HEN

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

Read More »
Home Ed Stories

Come Sail With Us

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

Read More »
Advice for Home Educators

Fulfilling the 8 Key Learning Areas

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,

Read More »
Advice for Home Educators

Should you look at the Victorian Curriculum?

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

Read More »
Advice for Home Educators

Unschooling is not Unparenting

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

Read More »
Advice for Home Educators

Learning by Immersion

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

Read More »
HEN News

Regulations campaign wrapup

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

Read More »
Disability, Health and Diverse Learning Needs

Educating Claudia

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

Read More »
Disability, Health and Diverse Learning Needs

Allergy Bullying led to Home Education

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

Read More »
Resource Reviews

Jump, Fall, Fly

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

Read More »
Home Ed Stories

Testimonial from Gold Prospecting Adventures

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. 

Read More »
Home Ed Alumni

Handbook of Home Educated Alumni

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

Read More »
Advice for Home Educators

Missing the Milestones

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

Read More »
Education Commentary

Socialisation: The Hidden Agenda

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,

Read More »
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap