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Registering Your Intention to Home School With The Local Educational Authority

excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997

For families intending to ‘register’ with local educational authorities the following information reflects an overview of the general requirements found in guidelines and regulations from all states of Australia, as well as overseas. It is important to remember that the particular requirements of local authorities will vary considerably from the following outline. Please inquire from your regional educational office for further details, or contact a home schooling group.

In general most of the guidelines are based on a common sense approach to education. The problems that arise usually stem from over zealousness in the interpretation and administration of the guidelines and inconsistency in treatment of home schooling families by educational officers during the process. By knowing your rights you can sidestep many of these problems with an assertive attitude and approach.

Always check that the information you receive from home schooling sources or your local educational authority is current and accurate. Remember that information from other states or countries may not be relevant to your situation. Problems encountered in other areas may not relate to your area. There is an increasing awareness of the legitimacy, effectiveness and success of home education in the community, and most educational authorities approach most applications with more confidence than in previous decades. If you prefer you can make an anonymous inquiry at first, or find a friend to inquire for you.

From the outset it is important to determine how you want your relationship with the educational authorities to develop. A confident, assertive and positive attitude is definitely an advantage. This is helped by carefully thinking through all of the issues covered in Part 1.

Try to have a flexible and open approach when contacting authorities, staying focussed on the best educational outcomes for your children. Positive comments and thoughts are most useful, and help to focus everyone’s attention on what is best for the children. Long dialogues about the state of education in general, or extended criticisms of schools, educational policies or people are not helpful, and don’t directly relate to your children’s immediate education needs. Your concern should not be to alter the entire education system - just to provide your children with excellent educational opportunities!

Learning to articulate your thoughts and desires in a clear and understandable manner will be necessary, especially if you have radical ideas about education. Explaining and expanding on your own philosophy of education and methodologies will be better received than attacking the ideas and beliefs of others. Keeping conversations and correspondence focussed on your children’s personal educational programs and goals can often avoid a possible conflict of ideas with the authorities, without compromising how you feel or what you believe.

There is never any need to prove the excellence of one system over another. If your philosophy is educationally sound, and is tailored to your children’s individual educational needs, it will be convincing in its own right. In most states registration is compulsory for children aged between
six and sixteen. Educational authorities generally see their roles as one of ‘granting permission’ through a process of registration and review of home schooling families. You may have a very different perspective on this process. Consider this: Are you asking‘permission’? Or are you serving ‘notice’ of your intent to undertake a home schooling program for your children? Are you seeking ‘exemption from school attendance’? Or is your understanding of the process one of ‘registering’ as a home schooling family? Each of these differs slightly in the intention.

You have the power to define your role in this process - understanding exactly what you want from the authority is one way of maintaining confidence in your negotiations, regardless of how they define and understand the meaning of the process.

It is worth remembering that you are only really seeking to change the ‘place’ where most of your children's education happens. Governments have an obligation to the Australian population to ensure all young people have access to an education, and to fulfil this they generally enforce compulsory attendance laws. It is always useful to consider your home as an educational institution on par with a school.

As a home educating parent you are taking on a role equivalent to teachers in schools. It is essential to consider yourself thus at all times, especially when talking to teachers, bureaucrats, friends or family. This demonstrates your level of confidence and competence. You may not have ‘professional’ teaching qualifications, but as your children’s educational facilitator you will be acting professionally each day, developing and perfecting techniques to enhance their learning in the same way school teachers should do.

First contact with educational authorities is often by telephone. This is generally to the local or regional education office. At this stage you will be requesting information on the procedure required to legally home school. Usually some documentation is sent to you, detailing what is needed to obtain approval as a home school. Always ask for written details, to confirm telephone conversations. Take notes, but insist of them sending details in a letter.

Alternatively, you could make your initial contact by mail, although this necessarily delays the process. Remember to keep all correspondence, dated and filed for safe keeping.

Always ask for the full name of the person you speak to whenever you contact the office, and politely ask for the correct spelling. People are always more attentive if they are addressed by name, and tend to be more accurate if they are being held accountable for their words. Don’t rely on your memory. It pays to remember you are only one of many people the other person has to deal with in a day. A written record may be useful later on, if you run into any problems which need clarification. It may save you time to take details of office titles and telephone extension numbers when talking to people.

Usually authorities respond relatively promptly to requests for information, generally supplying a list of requirements home schooling families need to meet. These will probably be stated in educational jargon. In order not to be intimidated by this jargon it is important to ask for clarification of any terms you don’t understand or are not sure of, either from the author of the letter, or from other home educating families. Break large words down into root words to seek their meaning, and simplify them. For example‘methodology’ refers to how something is done, the method used.

The process of ‘registration’ always includes the preparation of a learning program for each of the children being home schooled, an interview process and a regular review of the registration. This is done either annually or bi-annually in some instances. In some instances families have been reviewed more than once a year, but this is rare and the exception rather than the rule. The review interview process usually involves a negotiated visit by an educationally trained officer to discuss your home learning program, and is similar to the initial interview.

More information can be found at:

• How Do We Start?
• Is it Legal?
• How To Obtain Approval

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