New to Home Education

I’d like to educate my child at home – where do I begin?

To educate your child at home you are required to hold a current ‘Certificate of Exemption from Enrolment at a Registered School’ for each home educating child aged between 6 and 16 years. Five year olds, and children 16 years and older are not legally required to attend school, therefore there is no requirement for them to have an exemption. 
 
How do I get an exemption?
Contact the Ministry of Education enquiries.auckland@minedu.govt.nz (tel 09-632-9400 or fax 09-632-9401 or write to Private Bag 92644, Symonds Street, Auckland) and ask for an exemption application to be sent to you. Through a question and answer format, you will be asked to show that your child ‘will be taught as regularly and as well as in a registered school’ according to Section 21 of the Education Act 1989. 
Once you have sent this information in, it can take up to 15 working days for your application to be processed and your Exemption Certificate to be mailed to you. Do not remove your child from school before you have received their exemption, they may be considered truant. 
 
Can I get help with my exemption application?
Writing your child’s exemption application may seem a daunting task at first but don’t panic! It is a very useful process to help you focus on your educational vision and clarify your future goals. It only has to be done once for each child.
But if you need help or reassurance you can visit your local home-ed support group and ask for information and advice from experienced home educators. 
Or seek help online; subscribe to one of the many homes educators’ e-lists (see links) and request assistance from the group.
 
Applying for an exemption, what do I need to know?
The Ministry must be confident in granting your exemption that they do not breach the right of your child to have a decent education. They need to know that you know what you are doing. The more information you can give them to get an idea of your capabilities and increase their confidence in you, without pinning yourself down, the better. You must: 
* satisfy the Ministry that your child ‘will be taught as regularly and as well as in a registered school’. 
* communicate enough of your ideas and methods to show them that you know what you are doing. 
* understand the curriculum areas your child will cover, and show how you will cover them. 
* give enough information to show that you are capable of teaching your child, without being too specific and restricting your options. 
* Look at as many applications as you can, to see the range and styles of information given. The Ministry is trying to assess, in a few pages, whether you are capable of and committed to home educating your child. 
* let your personality come through your application, and convince them of your sincerity and ability. 
*Planning on using a curriculum? If you plan to use a commercially prepared curriculum you will still need to know how it works. It is not sufficient to say that you are using the course. As you will be administering the work, and answering the questions that arise, you will need to have some grasp of the subjects, or at least be able to show how you will find out about them as your child’s needs arise. 
*The New Zealand Correspondence School distributes material and provides a tutor for each child to correspond with, but has particular criteria you must conform to in order to receive it for free. For information on your nearest Correspondence School representative, ring               (09) 377 2898         or              (04) 473 6841        
website: http://www.correspondence.school.nz
email: contact@correspondence.school.nz 
 
The exemption application, where do I start?
The Ministry has sent you their application. Now what? Where do you start? What do they want to know, and how do you explain it all to them? The application says: “In support of your application please provide the information which is outlined on the following pages. The information is needed to assist the Ministry of Education in making an informed decision on the issue of a certificate of exemption from enrolment.” 
 
1.)The first question states “Describe your knowledge, understanding and experience of the broad curriculum areas you intend to cover in your child’s education… The following areas of the state curriculum may serve as a guide: oral and written language, reading, mathematics, science, art, health, social studies, music, physical education, technology, etc.” 
 
“Curriculum” means “course of study”. Although home educators are not required to follow the New Zealand Curriculum, the Ministry wants to be sure that your child will be ‘taught as regularly and as well as in a registered school’, so they need to know that you understand all the different subjects that your child may be taught. For example, they want to see your understanding of maths, that it can consist of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percentages, geometry, measurement, algebra etc. Many home educators see the academics as just one portion of their child’s education. Ethical and spiritual values, musical development, physical well-being and other important concepts are often seen as equally important. The Ministry tends to focus on the academic side, so it is essential that you are able to convince them that you can give your child the academic essentials for a good education. Explain what you want your child to learn. If you can separate all the different things you intend to convey to your child into the different topics they have listed, try to mention ways you will ‘teach’ them. With just one or two ’students’ in the home educating situation the subjects can be combined much more easily than it could be at school. Unfortunately, many of the Ministry of Education personnel are unused to this approach, so to facilitate your exemption being processed, it can be easier to discuss each separate subject individually. If you are online, there are a number of email lists you could subscribe to and ask for advice on particular aspects of your exemption. There are also several local websites with sections on the exemption process. Talk to home educators who have recently acquired an exemption about how to describe your everyday educational activities to fit into the curriculum areas. Much of what is taught formally at school can be taught less formally at home, using hands-on activities rather than textbooks. 
 
2) Intended plan to cover broad curriculum areas. Give a general aim of what you want to achieve in each subject  [viewing the NZ Curriculum before you apply for your exemption might help you understand what MOE expectations are]. “Describe your methods of teaching.” 
 
These could be discussions, reading, demonstrations, activities, visits, videos, writing, etc. One of the main benefits of home educating is the opportunity to use a mixture of styles to learn, not just formally, using textbooks or workbooks but informally, using spontaneous ’seizing the moment’ chances to extend your child’s understanding. There is a section under ‘Plan’ which asks you to describe how you would tackle one topic of your choosing. This is like a teacher’s ‘lesson plan’ – not for the entire subject, just one ‘lesson’. They want you to pick a topic, and give the aim of what you’re teaching, describe the materials or resources you would use to teach it, the method or steps you would take to communicate the material to your child, and how you would evaluate how effective your teaching had been. For many home educators this is one of the most difficult parts of the exemption application process. It might be helpful for you to do this by remembering something your child has learned, and work backwards. Remember how you described the topic, the methods you used to get the idea across, any materials or resources you used, or experiments you tried, and how you saw that your child ‘got it’. 
 
3) ‘Please provide a comprehensive list of all resources and reference material available to you. Also list the type of material you may intend to include in the future.” 
 
Resources and reference material could include: ‘conventional’ resources such as dictionary, encyclopaedia, atlas; books, newspapers, magazines; computers, videos, cassette players; art and craft materials; games and toys; and clubs and social organisations; sports activities; public and private gardens; libraries (local, national, private); museum, gallery, zoo, friends and family, etc. Some people have sent in lengthy inventories of every educational (or potentially educational) item in their home.
This is not really necessary; the Ministry just needs to know that you know what useful resources are and where to acquire them. They probably would prefer it if you owned some of the conventional teaching aids, but if you can get to a library, 
many of these things can be acquired there.
 
4) “Describe the work/study area(s) in the home where the major part of the child’s homeschooling will take place.” 
 
Don’t restrict yourself to the ‘formal’ studies. Your dining table or your child’s bedroom may well be where your child does most of their formal work, but learning can take place anywhere, eg. the family car, on field trips, at the library, etc. Many people in education circles may not remember the way that children can learn things by asking questions and observing people doing things. They may assume that “learning” is just the formal workbook or textbook learning that takes place at a desk. We need to remind them that not all education is ‘formal’ or academic learning.
 
5) “State how you will use the environment and your community to extend and enrich your child’s education. Please include in this a description of the educational visits you hope to make.” 
 
Try not to restrict yourself, remembering that home educated children have a lot more opportunity to become involved in their community. If you belong to organisations such as MOTAT or Weird and Wonderful or Scouts or Explorers, mention this. If your child assists with any community work you do such as Meals on Wheels or anything at all in the community, coaching sports, etc. mention this. If you are a member of a local support group say so, and if there are regular visits or sports days planned by the group mention them. There are a number of afterschool activities available through Community Education, and in Auckland there are a number of group ‘classes’ such as language, sports and art session that are organised each term, This question ties in with the next one, and is generally a reassurance to the MOE that your child will benefit from rather than be isolated by your decision to home educate. 
 
6) “Describe how you intend to provide for your child’s needs for wide social contact.” 
 
The Ministry needs to be reassured that your child is not being isolated from his or her peers because of your decision to home educate. This is what experienced home educators call ‘the old Socialisation Question’, The number of children being home educated now IS large enough that this questIon IS gettIng irrelevant, but In the early years the fear that a child might be kept at home away from peers and becoming socially isolated was a very real one for people who believed that socialisation only takes place through spending time with people one’s own age. One of the benefits of home educating is the children’s ability to mix with people of all ages, from newborn to elderly. 
To reassure the Ministry, however, try to list any activities your child takes part in, as discussed above.
 
7) “Outline how you are going to assess and evaluate the progress your child is making.” 
 
There are two ways to assess: one where you rank a student in relation to other students – very difficult to achieve in a home educational setting; and standards based assessment, where the student knows what he or she is required to learn. Assessment of ongoing learning merely means taking note of how the child performs a given task, and making note of what the next step to helping them move forward will be. (For home educating parents, this does not necessarily need to be written down – you will remember that your child has achieved the goal.) Often you can observe a child demonstrate or explain something to a friend or sibling and see that they have grasped the principle. Many home educators keep a diary of what they are doing, with notes on which topics need revision and which are absorbed completely. This serves two purposes: it helps you to keep track of what you need to work on, and it also helps to jog your memory if you are reviewed. You can also keep a sample file or portfolio of the child’s work, both work in progress, (‘process’ work, showing how the work evolves from first draft to finished copy) and final product. You are not required to keep records, as long as you are able to explain your child’s achievements, possibly with ‘before and after’ samples in the event of a Review. 
  “The legislation requires a commitment to regularity. By explaining your routines, show how you will meet the requirement that your child will be taught at least as regularly as in a registered school.” 
 
Try not to be tempted to pin yourself down to a timetable: e.g, ‘9 am reading, 10 am maths’, etc, no matter how certain you are that you will be doing this, Many home educators find that the mornings are better for more formal work, sitting down and writing, or mathematics, etc, and the afternoons for the less structured activities, sports or social get-togethers, so do not be more specific than that. You are not required by law to have a timetable. What you need to illustrate is your constant commitment to extending your child’s education. Many children who have been at school say that you can accomplish a week’s worth of school work in a few hours at home.
 
What about ERO reviews?
‘The Education Review Office (ERO) is the Government department which reports on the education of students in the school and early childhood sectors, as well as on the education of exempted children’.
 
A guide to ERO reviews of the education of students exempted from school
http://www.ero.govt.nz/Publications/Leaflets/homeschool.htm
 
Report ‘ERO Reviews of Homeschooled Students’ – March 2001http://www.ero.govt.nz/Publications/pubs2001/Homeschool.htm