So, you want to homeschool... start by defining what 'education' means to you

create your own homeschool mission statement

Many families exploring home education for the first time think it’s some kind of distance education, curated and delivered by an online school somewhere. I’ve even had a few families email and ask me if I supply the curriculum and mark and grade returned work.

Nuh-uh. That’s not homeschooling.

Home education in most states of Australia is generally described as you, the parent, taking full responsibility of your children’s education in your home.

You are required to provide the learning plan, find resources to implement it, and then evaluate your child’s progress.

There are no exams or tests or certificates of completion or achievement — not unless you want to create them and give them to your children.

The way the government sees it, you are the teacher and your home is the school.

You are registered as a home educator, or your child as a home educating student, depending on how the legislation and regulations are written in each state or territory.

I have a slightly different, more nuanced take on how I define home education. Firstly because I don’t see myself as a teacher, I am simply someone helping my children learn, a facilitator of learning opportunities. And secondly, because I don’t see my home as a school. It’s a home, and home education doesn’t just take place in our home. Our kids learn at home, in our community, and beyond, in the environment: “the world is our classroom”.

Home educating looks and is different for every family. How I define home education usually involves talking more about what it means to me, how we went about doing it as a family, rather than offering a simple description.

However, I’m not surprised that many families have a school model of education in mind at first because it’s their only experience of education.

And it doesn’t help that the authorities that regulate home education and register students tend to reinforce this schooled image of education. The reality is that the practice of home education is essentially very different to what happens in a classroom.

Home education reflects what we, as a family, need and value. And because of that, the best place to start exploring the concept of home education is not by looking for answers from others but by asking yourself and your children: “what is education, what does it mean to us?”

Take some time to explore what the concept means to you and your family. What did it mean to you as you were growing up? What does it mean to you now? How can it look for your children? Don’t just think about education as you know, but tease out how you learn things now, and how your children learn things now? How important is your environment to your ongoing education?

This is the first step in personalising your homeschool. Because you need to do this if you want to make it work successfully for you and your family.

Remember: it doesn’t have to look and feel and work like a school classroom.

Determine what you want education to deliver in terms of goals for your children: goals for this week, this month, for the rest of this year and perhaps until your child reaches adulthood.

This thinking task might keep you busy for at least a week. That’s how long I spent pondering it way back in 1985 when we first discovered that it was legally possible to educate our own child and not send them to school.

Defining what education means for you and your family will give you a strong basis for developing a foundation upon which to grow an educational framework tailored to your children's individual needs and your unique family situation.

Educational framework is just another name for curriculum. It is a solid place from which to start looking for home educating methods, approaches, and resources.

And there’s a bonus! Developing your own curriculum will, over time, save you money as well as effort. There is an overwhelming number of new ‘must-have’ educational resources and materials cleverly marketed to educating families every year, and believe me, you’ll be tempted! Check out any homeschool buy, sell and swap group to scoop up any number of barely used or unused books, games, puzzles, educational toys and more. It’s easy to get swayed by the hype if you’re not grounded firmly in your own beliefs and values.

You might think developing your own learning plan is too big a task for you, and yeah, it will seem that way at first, but like most things, the more we work at it the easier it gets. And the benefits accumulate as time goes by.

Every year I read through our home educating philosophy, thinking it might need tweaking as the children grew, but because we’d put that time in thinking long and hard about what education was and how we wanted learning to happen, I found the statement remained relevant.

Defining what education means and can be for your family is the first step to building a unique and wonderful learning experience that builds towards YOUR goals. Sure, it is important to give consideration to what society lays out as curriculum objectives and guidelines, but doing so through the lens of your child's learning needs, style and preferences will save you time, energy and money in the long run.

And you don’t have to work this out on your own. There are dozens of online support groups with experienced families ready to offer tips, links to resources and help with putting together your application for approval as a home educator. If you need more support than that you can hire a home education consultant.

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