Advice for Home Educators – Page 4 – Home Education Network

Advice for Home Educators

Should I use an All-in-One Curriculum Bundle?

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.

Advice for Home Educators

Record keeping for home education

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

Advice for Home Educators

What should I use this year?

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

Advice for Home Educators

Planning and organisation in home education

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

Home educating teenagers and entering the workforce

Advice for Home Educators

Home ed teens and entering the workforce

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

Advice for Home Educators

From Little Things

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

Advice for Home Educators

Unconventional Learning

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

Advice for Home Educators

How to Register in Victoria

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

Advice for Home Educators

Why am I Home Educating?

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

Advice for Home Educators

All You Need is Love

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

Advice for Home Educators

What can we do?

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

Advice for Home Educators

Can Home Ed Groups Resume?

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

Advice for Home Educators

Advice for Covid-19 Home Educators

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

Advice for Home Educators

DIY Education

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

Advice for Home Educators

Social Distancing

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

Advice for Home Educators

Everything’s Up for Grabs

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

Advice for Home Educators

Teaching Your Children Naturally

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

Advice for Home Educators

No Guarantee

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

Advice for Home Educators

What is this Home Ed thing, anyway?

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

Advice for Home Educators

‘You home educate your kids? Now, that’s a big job!’

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