How Homeschooling is done legally in South Australia

I do hope this post isn't too dull but I've had a lot of people ask me about how it works down here in Oz with regards to homeschooling. So I wanted to cover the process of getting started and the legalities involved with home education in SA.

I know here in South Australia (and all of Australia) it is legal to home educate your children. But of course there's a process to it all. If your children are currently enrolled in school then you need to let the school's Principal know your intent to homeschool, verbally and in writing, to ensure sufficient documentation of your intent. Make sure to let the school's Principal know that you've already contacted DECS regarding home education.

You will have to register your children with the Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS). The Ministry of Education's Project Officer will mail you a packet of papers including the "Application for Exemption from Attendance at School." Once the forms are completed and mailed back to her she will then contact you to schedule an in-home interview to further discuss your application and how you'll go about homeschooling. Once permission is granted (which it usually is) then you have a 12 month exemption allowing you to legally homeschool.

However before the 12 months is up, in order to be approved for the next year, you will need to complete a review process to show samples of work and discuss how your children did during the year.

Technically children are suppose to remain in school until the entire process is complete however it is my understanding that once you've made contact with both DECS and your children's school regarding home education that DECS does not have any issues with you beginning to homeschool immediately.

Some people (so I've heard) simply skip registering their kids with the Dept. of Education. The idea of possible Gov't interference doesn't sit too well with some people. Not because they have something to hide, but because they simply don't want anyone telling them how to raise or educate their children.

As for us we're keeping all our ducks in a row and following the rules. I guess I really don't mind as I have found the process rather straight forward and easy. The Dept of Education seems to just want to make sure that as a homeschooler you will make sure to cover the 8 areas of the Australian Curriculum Standards with your children, which are:

English
Mathematics
Science
Design & Technology
Studies of Society and Environment
The Arts (Music, Art, Dance, Drama)
Health & Physical Education
Language Other than English

Honestly with keeping to those subjects, children will get a well rounded education. And as parents we can always add more if there is something else our children want to cover. You'd be surprised at what you can teach your children and yet it would still fall into the 8 subjects that must be covered often taking care of more then one subject at a time. Say for example you want to teach your kids a bit about the Human Body and Anatomy, that fits easily under both Health and Science. If you want your babies to learn a bit of French, well you can teach them about France with maps, history, and about the culture (that takes care of SOSE) then you can have them learn to speak some French with Rosetta Stone - a computer based total immersion Foreign Language program, they even have a homeschool version. That takes care of Technology and Language other then English.

Parents often get so overwhelmed once they start to see how many subjects must be covered during the school year. The idea is to keep it simple, keep it fun and keep them learning.

Homeschooling in the USA

This was originally published almost 2 years ago...I'm cleaning and reorganising my blog and some things have to be reposted or else I'll lose them

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. ~ Ronald Reagan

As I mentioned earlier I began homeschooling our kids in the Fall of 2007 right after we came back from our 3 months in Australia. Our first go at it was a mess, at least in my opinion it was. I tried the "Independent" way of it, which consisted of a lot of educational internet sites, books from the library and even ordering a less common box curriculum called A.C.E. It really wasn't making us feel very confident in our decision.

After moving to Alaska in 2008 we discovered a way that we could continue home schooling and provide them with the best available. Alaska has a wonderful program called I.D.E.A. which stands for Interior Distance Education of Alaska. It's a state wide home schooling program (the first of several now in the state) out of the Galena City School District. IDEA receives states funding per student, the same way other public schools do, then issues an allotment to the parents of almost $2,000 per child that we can then use on almost any educational  materials. They will even cover the cost of field trips to the museum or zoo, science kits, books, curriculum and school supplies.

Some of the different options include All in One box curriculums such as Calvert or K12, or using different publishers such as Pearson-Prentice Hall or Houghton Mifflin for each core subject. For instance this year we decided to go with Calvert for our students in K-7 then Pearson for our 9th grader. We also supplemented the Math program for them all with Saxon Math (which I love) as well as an Art program called Atelier. Home schoolers in Alaska can also have their children take music classes or join a chess club and the state will pay for it.

On a separate note, I've never been the most organized person out there, just ask my wonderful husband why I can never find my keys. One of the beauties of homeschooling is you will learn to organize yourself or you will fail and your kids will suffer. It didn't take long and every year I've found what does and does not work for my family and every year we get better.

I truly love home schooling our children not only for the freedom it allows our family but also because I know my kids are actually learning. If one of our kids doesn't get something the first time around, we don't have to move on and tell him "that's too bad" we can cover it again and again until he or she does.

Home schoolers in Alaska are very fortunate, Alaska has no regulations whatsoever regarding government interference on how you or I educate our children. Some states however are not so lucky, those such as New York, and North Dakota have very strict regulations where parents have to report to that state's Department of Education their student's test scores and professional evaluations.

 I wish the rest of the country was more accepting of home schooling the way that Alaska is. Here it is embraced and almost the norm. When my family and friends down South found out about my home schooling, we got the usual list of questions such as, how will they be socialized or make friends, or play sports etc? Considering the fact that we actually have 6 kids, they are rather social and outgoing to begin with, but they have also been in "regular" schools most of their lives, with the exception of our younger three. They have kept in touch and visited with the friends they've made from prior school years. We also attend church where they've made friends as well as neighborhood kids and our adult friends' children.

It's rather a shame the way the world has changed its stance on homeschooling. Years and years ago a child's ONLY teacher was their parent. Mothers not only taught their daughters how to cook and sew and their boys how to tend livestock and the fields but were often the ones who taught them Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Unfortunately today's parents often forget they are their child's first and most important teacher in life, and not only are our schools letting our kids down, but so are the parents.

I honestly don't know if I will continue homeschooling once we settle in Australia or not. I have heard a lot of wonderful things about the school systems in Oz and I think we will be trying them out, at least for the first year. After that, who knows!

Quite the array of Curriculum

Our homeschool room, it's not much but it works

Homeschool.com - A great place to begin

Homeschool Legal Defense Association - Find out the regulations in your state

Educators at home blog - This lady has some wonderful tips on homeschooling along with reasons why we should