This is such a well thought out and informative post. Although my children are grown up, I read it with interest because I think it offers a wonderful way to approach lifelong learning, too.
"Whatever your approach, your lifestyle or education philosophy, I’m here to support you. Take what you need, leave the rest. I want you to lean on my experience because I’ve leant on others — we are in this together, growing and learning from each other!"
While we're very new to homeschooling and we don't identify with unschooling, I have so appreciated your work, your notes, and your thoughtful engagement with other families navigating the wild, wild world of learning at home.
All to say - thanks for your great work. Keep shining!
Thank you for an extremely informative post. I had no idea what unschooling is until I read this.
For context, I'm based in the UK and a father of two young girls. I'm just wondering, though, with regards to unschooling (and this is a genuine question), what happens if your children want to attend university and don't have the grades or tests to enable them to do so, or do they choose alternative routes to working life, which of course are just as valid? I'm generally not trying to be provocative here; I'm very interested. 🙏
It's not a provocative question at all and one I've answered many, many times.
The high school certificate, in Australia at least, is used as an entrance exam by tertiary institutions. Students are given a Tertiary Entrance Rank - this is the 'result' of their 12 years of school life, it's what many of them have worked for.
About one third of students entering university in any given year have just completed their last year of school - the rest are mature age students.
Unschoolers, like homeschoolers, can opt to study for the high school certificate either by attending school or enrolling in distance education courses. Or, if they're under 21, they can approach a university with a portfolio of work and convince the uni to allow them to sit a Student Admissions Test.
Many students enrol in Technical and Further Education colleges and work their way through certificate courses. Some universities accept a Cert IV in place of a TER.
Some students enrol in Open University from as young as 13. This is online learning, offering 1000s of uni courses.
Many unschoolers, having experienced a self-directed education tailored around their abilities and interests, usually begin their 'working life' in their teens, either volunteering, part-time jobs, starting their own small businesses, etc. They don't separate education and living, and access courses and tutoring to meet their immediate and emerging needs.
Hi Sam! I’m also based in the UK, and while my children are still young I’ve looked into this quite a bit, so I can speak to how things currently work here.
So unschooling doesn’t mean not having any qualifications, but it does mean there’s no baseline assumption that every child needs, say, 10 GCSEs and 3 levels by a certain age. Qualifications can be treated more as tools: you take them because they open a specific door you want to walk through (decided by the child), not because someone decided all children should collect a certain number by a certain age. (Btw qualifications can also just be taken out of interest not just as a means to an end!)
So if your child has an idea of what they career they want to pursue, and if that career is something that requires a university degree, you can work backwards from there. What does that course require? Certain A-levels? Specific GCSEs? Home educated children in the UK can sit these as private candidates — worth knowing that there’s no financial support for this, so it’s something to factor into planning. But not all courses require formal exams; some UK universities will accept a portfolio of work.
Then of course many careers don’t require a degree at all — apprenticeships, portfolio-based routes, and direct entry are all legitimate pathways depending on what the child actually wants to do.
The unschooling approach is certainly not a hindrance to a professional career, in fact I believe it’s a huge benefit! It reframes education as something lifelong, something you do to grow and continue growing, rather than a fixed programme you complete by a certain age and then you’re done.
Since most people will change careers multiple times over a lifetime, even more so for our kids than for us, it’s becoming increasingly important to be able to identify what you need to learn, go and learn it, gain whatever credentials are actually required for the next step, and be prepared to do it all over again for the next career change.
Hi Beverley. Loving your posts, thank you for taking the time to share.
As a parent new to homeschooling and leaning in to a more unschooling approach, how do you balance an unschooling way of life while also meeting the NESA syllabuses when being a registered homeschooler in Australia?
The support group to join is Home Education NSW, if you haven't already. Great bunch of very experienced home ed volunteers make up the admin team. Very knowledgeable about registering in that state. https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeeducationnsw
The way I met reporting requirements at registration review time was by keeping some kind of records of what and how my children were learning throughout the year - usually a journal/diary plus photos.
In NSW you technically only need to show what resources and methods you are going to use, rather than demonstrate past progress, although many APs insist on examples showing progress.
I'd pre-empt that by preparing some paired examples of learning - eg, what my child could do at the beginning of the rego period and what they could several months later - this could be two handwriting samples, for example. I could easily talk for a minute or three about what they demonstrated. Or it could be a build in Minecraft - a simple one from earlier in the year, then one showing how the child had followed a tutorial and then designed something different and more complex, using symmetry, counting, measuring, etc. Or it could be a piece of art showing improvement in shading techniques, more confident outlines, better composition.
I'd also have one or three science experiments happening somewhere in the room - vegetables growing into plans from scraps, wormfarm/compost bucket, sprout jar...
You'll need to reference the NESA syllabus in your report / learning plan.
My daughter did this by captioning photos with relevant NESA outcome codes. She'd usually find 3 or 4 codes from different year levels to match the activity in each photo. She got told that she was doing too much, that this level of recording wasn't necessary. :-)
So essentially, the kids unschool, live life, do their own thing, and I record it retrospectively as though it was a lesson or unit study.
love - great post - too much to say and so i will just keep following along - but, yes for me and all that is being built around this through OLS and LUV (living unus versus) a living university for those unschooled to roam towards
This is such a well thought out and informative post. Although my children are grown up, I read it with interest because I think it offers a wonderful way to approach lifelong learning, too.
"Whatever your approach, your lifestyle or education philosophy, I’m here to support you. Take what you need, leave the rest. I want you to lean on my experience because I’ve leant on others — we are in this together, growing and learning from each other!"
While we're very new to homeschooling and we don't identify with unschooling, I have so appreciated your work, your notes, and your thoughtful engagement with other families navigating the wild, wild world of learning at home.
All to say - thanks for your great work. Keep shining!
Thank you for an extremely informative post. I had no idea what unschooling is until I read this.
For context, I'm based in the UK and a father of two young girls. I'm just wondering, though, with regards to unschooling (and this is a genuine question), what happens if your children want to attend university and don't have the grades or tests to enable them to do so, or do they choose alternative routes to working life, which of course are just as valid? I'm generally not trying to be provocative here; I'm very interested. 🙏
It's not a provocative question at all and one I've answered many, many times.
The high school certificate, in Australia at least, is used as an entrance exam by tertiary institutions. Students are given a Tertiary Entrance Rank - this is the 'result' of their 12 years of school life, it's what many of them have worked for.
About one third of students entering university in any given year have just completed their last year of school - the rest are mature age students.
Unschoolers, like homeschoolers, can opt to study for the high school certificate either by attending school or enrolling in distance education courses. Or, if they're under 21, they can approach a university with a portfolio of work and convince the uni to allow them to sit a Student Admissions Test.
Many students enrol in Technical and Further Education colleges and work their way through certificate courses. Some universities accept a Cert IV in place of a TER.
Some students enrol in Open University from as young as 13. This is online learning, offering 1000s of uni courses.
Many unschoolers, having experienced a self-directed education tailored around their abilities and interests, usually begin their 'working life' in their teens, either volunteering, part-time jobs, starting their own small businesses, etc. They don't separate education and living, and access courses and tutoring to meet their immediate and emerging needs.
This is amazing. I wonder if other countries also have flexibility in this approach. Thanks for answering with such clarity and detail. 🙏
Hi Sam! I’m also based in the UK, and while my children are still young I’ve looked into this quite a bit, so I can speak to how things currently work here.
So unschooling doesn’t mean not having any qualifications, but it does mean there’s no baseline assumption that every child needs, say, 10 GCSEs and 3 levels by a certain age. Qualifications can be treated more as tools: you take them because they open a specific door you want to walk through (decided by the child), not because someone decided all children should collect a certain number by a certain age. (Btw qualifications can also just be taken out of interest not just as a means to an end!)
So if your child has an idea of what they career they want to pursue, and if that career is something that requires a university degree, you can work backwards from there. What does that course require? Certain A-levels? Specific GCSEs? Home educated children in the UK can sit these as private candidates — worth knowing that there’s no financial support for this, so it’s something to factor into planning. But not all courses require formal exams; some UK universities will accept a portfolio of work.
Then of course many careers don’t require a degree at all — apprenticeships, portfolio-based routes, and direct entry are all legitimate pathways depending on what the child actually wants to do.
The unschooling approach is certainly not a hindrance to a professional career, in fact I believe it’s a huge benefit! It reframes education as something lifelong, something you do to grow and continue growing, rather than a fixed programme you complete by a certain age and then you’re done.
Since most people will change careers multiple times over a lifetime, even more so for our kids than for us, it’s becoming increasingly important to be able to identify what you need to learn, go and learn it, gain whatever credentials are actually required for the next step, and be prepared to do it all over again for the next career change.
Hi Beverley. Loving your posts, thank you for taking the time to share.
As a parent new to homeschooling and leaning in to a more unschooling approach, how do you balance an unschooling way of life while also meeting the NESA syllabuses when being a registered homeschooler in Australia?
Thanks, Emma :D
Hi Emma,
Lovely to 'meet' you!
The support group to join is Home Education NSW, if you haven't already. Great bunch of very experienced home ed volunteers make up the admin team. Very knowledgeable about registering in that state. https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeeducationnsw
The way I met reporting requirements at registration review time was by keeping some kind of records of what and how my children were learning throughout the year - usually a journal/diary plus photos.
In NSW you technically only need to show what resources and methods you are going to use, rather than demonstrate past progress, although many APs insist on examples showing progress.
I'd pre-empt that by preparing some paired examples of learning - eg, what my child could do at the beginning of the rego period and what they could several months later - this could be two handwriting samples, for example. I could easily talk for a minute or three about what they demonstrated. Or it could be a build in Minecraft - a simple one from earlier in the year, then one showing how the child had followed a tutorial and then designed something different and more complex, using symmetry, counting, measuring, etc. Or it could be a piece of art showing improvement in shading techniques, more confident outlines, better composition.
I'd also have one or three science experiments happening somewhere in the room - vegetables growing into plans from scraps, wormfarm/compost bucket, sprout jar...
You'll need to reference the NESA syllabus in your report / learning plan.
My daughter did this by captioning photos with relevant NESA outcome codes. She'd usually find 3 or 4 codes from different year levels to match the activity in each photo. She got told that she was doing too much, that this level of recording wasn't necessary. :-)
So essentially, the kids unschool, live life, do their own thing, and I record it retrospectively as though it was a lesson or unit study.
Hope that explanation helps.
Thanks so much Beverley. It does :D
love - great post - too much to say and so i will just keep following along - but, yes for me and all that is being built around this through OLS and LUV (living unus versus) a living university for those unschooled to roam towards