Budget Home Education

We use a style known as natural learning or unschooling which is child
interest led with the adults acting as facilitators and keeping an eye
on where the kid's interests might lead next and trying to stay one jump
ahead of them. There are a number of other styles, some based around
particular curricula or philosophies/religious beliefs - it all depends
on you and your family as to where your home ed will end up.

For information on the legalities etc of home ed in WA please read through:
http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/homeeducation/index.htm
this is the Ed Dept's take on home ed. Actual homeschoolers vary greatly
in the ways and means of educating their children, sometimes even within
the one family.

For general info on getting started in home ed in Australia have a good
read through Beverley Paine's Homeschool Australia site:
http://homeschoolaustralia.beverleypaine.com/ especially her articles page.
Beverley is a very experienced home educator who has tried a variety of
approaches over the years. Her children are grown now but she still
keeps up with what is happening around Australia in the Home Ed
community. She both writes home ed books and distributes a variety of
books and resources to do with education through her Always Learning
Books website.

She has two useful email lists for those new to homeschooling in general:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HomeschoolAustraliaFAQ/
great for asking those getting started questions and for general advice
once you are home educating
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dailyhomeschoolingtips/
daily tips and ideas from a variety of sources - all available through
Beverley's Always Learning Books - inspirational and strangely useful

Locally you can subscribe to several yahoo groups dedicated to home ed
of various kinds in Perth the two most useful are:
Perth Home Ed Networking List

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PHENetworking/
A place to sharing information on what is happening in and around Perth
and to connect with other home based learners in the Perth area. This
list is mostly an announce list as the replies go to the sender not the
entire list, but you can still use it to contact others in your area or
ed style.

Home Based Learning Network Perth

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HBLNPerth/

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PHENetworking/>
A general discission list and mouthpiece for the Home Bsed Learning
Network. They also have a website - which is unfortunately down atm -
usually found at http://www.hbln.org/ for more info on the Network for
the time being you can goto:

http://www.hea.asn.au/hea/resources/disp_res.asp?type=3&id=609 for
contact details etc

You will find that home education usually involves a bit more travel (at
least in distance) than you may experience currently - home educators
live everywhere and no two families educate in exactly the same way -
but you will probably find kindred souls if you attend any or all of the
organised events relevant for your children held within the Perth metro
area.

If/when you remove your children from school it is best not to expect
them to replicate school at home. This is a common mistake and often
ends up with the kids back in school after only a few months due to
'failure' or 'burnout' - successful home edcuators rarely use a pure
school at home approach with strict lesson times and assessments etc but
end up with a eclectic range of approaches depending on the family's and
individual children's needs and interests.

Basically take a holiday from formal schooling for a few months to get
used to the way each of your children learns and for them to rediscover
their own interests and motivations (this is known as the deschooling
period and last approximately 1 month for eah year of formal education -
for both parents and children, so the kids often will get the idea of
how home ed works for them well before the adults;-). Go on lots of
excursions to those places you never had time for with the kids at
school - museums, performances, sporting events, festivals, holiday
places after the schools have gone back so you have them to yourself and
can explore in peace. Whilst doing this take note of what they learn -
and they will learn stuff whether they want to or not - and any
developmental changes that you notice. Continue with any extra
curricular activities they are currently doing - if necessary enroll
them in local sports/arts/performance activities instead of school ones.
Maybe take up new activities they have wanted to try but didn't have
time or money to do. Go to any Home ed group events you find interesting
or accessible - get onto PHEN to find out what is on and when.

Take the kids out of school at your convenience - tell the school you
are moving them somewhere else ( you are not under any legal obligation
to tell them where) contact the Education District office and say you
have removed you children from school as you wish to homeschool them.
They will supply you with a form to fill out. Send this back to them and
you will receive a certificate saying you are now homeschooling. On that
certificate will be a start date. You then have 3 months from that date
in which to arrange a meeting with your modertator, if you make this
date as late as you can in that 3 month period (just make it clear you
are not prepared to do it any earlier) you will get as long as possible
to settle into home ed without interference. (If your children are
removed from school at the end of the school year you can give yourself
almost 6 months of settling in time, as you will not need to notify the
education dept of home ed till the beginning of February)

At the first meeting the moderator will be looking for an overall
education philosophy (in my case essentially child interest led with
parents ensuring that over the years all learning areas are covered),
and assessment on your part of where each child is currently at in each
of the 8 learning areas, what you expect them to be attempting or
covering over the next 12 months and an idea of the kind of resources
they will be using to do this. They will want to know how you are going
to approach any deficits or advances the kids might have academically
or physically, this can be as little as acknowedging that they are
behind in reading, for instance, and that you will be addressing this by
using texts they will read or might entail using outside professional help.

You should only need one meeting per year - if they try to do an
introductiory meeting and then an 'assessment' say that you want to do
the assessment at the first meeting.

Feel free to ask specific questions.