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,
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
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
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,
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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.
Following our hugely successful Medieval Camp in 2016, Kryal Castle had this to say: Testimonial from Kryal Castle
