Home Schooling Melbourne, Australia?

Question

Hi, I am curious to know where to go for information on home schooling my children. Online resources would be a great help. Anyone who has any information or help, would be appreciated! Thanks.

Answer 1

I went through A.C.E.

Accelerated Christian Education.

If you google that.

That's the one that I know of.

It's american.

If you are going to be home schooling. Make sure you weigh up the positives and negatives.

I know I had a temptation to cheat.

Also too I know if you want to at a later date put them back into the public school system it can be hard for them to adjust.

All in all. I think you can create academically brilliant children.

However they may lack the social and sports etc.

:-) Have a nice day :-)

Answer 2

try contacting VCAT to see what Vics requirements are, i'm not sure if you have to cover the Board of Ed's syllabus or not these days...

Answer 3

Home education is, and always has been, legal in Victoria. However, the legal requirements have changed as at 1 July

2007. In the past, parents were acting within the law if they chose to home educate without registering with the Education

department as long as they were providing ‘regular and efficient instruction’.

The Education and Training Reform Act 2006, which came into effect on 1st July 2007, requires home educators to

“register children for homeschooling in accordance with the regulations and to ensure that the child receives instruction

in accordance with the regulations.”

The full Act is available on line ( http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au ) click on Victorian Statute book , choose ‘list Acts by title’ and ‘2006’ and choose number 26 Education and Training Reform Act.

The full (homeschooling) regulations pertaining to the Education and Training Reform Act are online at

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/di...

Registration forms in order to home-educate can be obtained from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) - Telephone: [phone], Fax: [phone], Email: [e-mail]

Basically, in order to home-educate (legally) in Vic. your child is expected to:

'receive regular and efficient instruction that,

(a) taken as a whole, substantially addresses the

following learning areas—

(i) The Arts;

(ii) English;

(iii) Health and Physical Education (including Sport);

(iv) Languages other than English;

(v) Mathematics;

(vi) Science;

(vii) Studies of Society and Environment;

(viii) Technology; and

(b) is consistent with the principles underlying the Act,

being the principles and practice of Australian

democracy, including a commitment to—

(i) elected Government;

(ii) the rule of law;

(iii) equal rights for all before the law;

(iv) freedom of religion;

(v) freedom of speech and association;

(vi) the values of openness and tolerance.

Victoria is pretty laid back about *how* you choose to do that though, simply stating that: 'The Government of Victoria recognises that home schooling can occur across a broad range of styles, from informal learning approaches to formal curriculum programmes, and as such, does not mandate curriculum or reading materials for families who have chosen to home school...'

There's more info' and links to other resources that you might like to take a look at on their site @ http://www.education.vic.gov.au/aboutsch...

http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/in... will enable you, if you wish to, to compare what your child is learning in those key areas with how they are handled in Victoria's schools.

Once you have your registration, you might also want to check with Centrelink as, depending on your circumstances, there may be payments you're entitled to as a registered home-educator.

Also check out http://www.hea.asn.au (Australia's national home-ed organisation) and http://www.home-ed.vic.edu.au (Victoria's state home-ed organisation). Both HEA and Aussie homeschool site ( http://aussiehomeschool.com ) have links to curriculum, resources etc (as well as heaps of other stuff!)

There is heaps of info' about resources, curriculum, options for ways to home-educate at:  http://curriculum.beverleypaine.com/  Actually Beverley has several home-ed websites that provide info' about home-education that is specific to Australia; actually Beverley has a user-name here and pops in sometimes. (Sorry I don't know what her ID here is but she is pretty much THE expert on home-ed in Australia.)

There is also a list of Melbourne-based home-ed groups and their contact details at: http://www.hea.asn.au/resources/results_... Getting in touch with your local group should give you access to all the micro-details of what's available to you and your kids locally; for example: Vic allows home-educated kids to join in part time with its schools, participate in co-curricular activities, sports etc, at the discretion of each individual school - it's only really local mums who are already home-educating who'd be able to tell you what schools in your area do that and what facilities, teams, clubs, activities etc there are on offer .