Yes.
No. Your child's education will be based at their usual place of residence but there are many learning opportunities in the wider community which you would incorporate in your child's program.
A parent, or a registered teacher who is engaged or employed by the parent, can teach the home educated child. However, the person recognised by the HEU as the 'applicant' is legally responsible for ensuring that the child receives a high quality education, irrespective of whoever else may actually teach part of the child's program.
Yes. An education advisor at HEU will be able to offer suggestions, directions and some resource information as you prepare the application. Quite a bit of this information is posted to you when you request an application form and is available in the Planning section.
Under s.208 of the EGPA 2006 the parent is to provide a summary of the educational program or learning philosophy to be used for the home education of their child.
To enable the chief executive or their delegate to be reasonably satisfied that the parent can meet this condition, documentation is required about the proposed educational program or how the chosen learning philosophy is to be implemented to meet the child's education needs for the coming year.
1. This documentation should show evidence of a high-quality education that:
2. The documentation can be supplied in any written format but should clearly address each of the above requirements and explain how the requirements will be met.
Registration is granted following the successful presentation of this documentation.
No. Information about how that philosophy is adapted to meet your child 's learning needs is required.
No. Home educating parents develop or adapt a program for their child. If you wish to have a curriculum provided for your child to complete at home, then you would need to explore the option of enrolling your child at a school of distance education.
No. We offer advice and generally refer you to materials that are available online free of charge. An education advisor may offer some support resources as they process your application.
Yes. However, it is advised that a wide variety of resources should be used to provide for a child's educational needs and interests.
Before deciding to purchase commercial materials, it is recommended that you carefully consider your child's specific learning goals and their preferred learning style. Armed with this information, you should consider:
What does the product offer?
How many of the learning goals that you identified for your child are addressed by the curriculum in question?
Does it suit your child's style of learning?
Are the materials visually appealing and capable of holding interest day after day?
Does it offer a wide variety of learning activities?
Does the program move beyond simple knowledge development and encourage your child to use more challenging problem solving and investigation skills? To assess this, look for the use of a variety of key words such as compare, contrast, classify, develop, illustrate, plan, analyse, evaluate, design, create, synthesise, explain, explore, review, justify, recommend, prove and argue.
Who has created the product?
Is there a better product? Are you locked into paying for a product for many years? What if your child doesn 't like it or goes back to school, do you still have to pay?
How will you supplement the weak areas of the product?
To avoid unnecessary expense and disappointment, it is recommended that you invest a considerable amount of time evaluating the worth of any resource that you are considering purchasing. Given the huge range of low cost or free educational materials, you may find the purchase of a 'ready-made' curriculum an unnecessary or limiting approach to home education.
If you base your child's home education around a 'ready-made' curriculum you will need to advise the HEU of the strengths that it will bring to your child's education, and explain how you will adapt the program to cater for your child's individual needs.
Yes. Many programs that are submitted to HEU have a textbook component as part of the whole program. Choosing how and if you will use textbooks is one of the decisions you will make as you develop a program for your child. However, as with all 'ready-made' curriculums, you should carefully consider their cost and the contribution they will potentially offer your child's education before purchasing them. To provide a variety of learning opportunities, it is recommended that home education programs are not entirely based around textbooks, and instead, reflect the use of a variety of well chosen resources which together satisfy your child's learning needs. The regular inclusion of practical, hands-on tasks is a great way of boosting the interest your child will have in their learning at any age.
The initial ideas for planning your child 's home education program will come from your own observations of your child and the goals that you have for them. If available, past report cards and feedback from class teachers can be very helpful to you as well.
When it comes to documenting a learning program, you are encouraged to choose your own approach or style. We advise that the documents you present be especially useful to you, since it is from this plan that your year ahead will be guided. Time invested by you in the early stages of developing a detailed and meaningful plan, will not only help you to address the registration requirements, but just as importantly, provide you with direction for the learning year ahead.
Additional ideas about how you can document your child's learning program can evolve through discussions with an education advisor at the HEU and also from other families who home educate. Because all children and families have unique needs, it is more appropriate for HEU to offer only general information about planning. Some parents may feel restricted if we were to prescribe a set proforma, resulting in too much of "our voice " and insufficient freedom for you to tailor your teaching style to the individual needs of your child.
This being said, specific guidelines using a variety of planning styles are available if you request them and some can also be located in the Planning section.
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