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

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Advice for Home Educators

From Little Things

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

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Advice for Home Educators

Unconventional Learning

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

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Advice for Home Educators

How to Register in Victoria

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

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Advice for Home Educators

Why am I Home Educating?

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

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Advice for Home Educators

All You Need is Love

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Advice for Home Educators

The Resilience of Home Educating Parents

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 –

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Advice for Home Educators

Supporting friends and family who home educate

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

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Advice for Home Educators

Budding Writers

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

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Advice for Home Educators

Single Home Educators & Centrelink

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

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