Does natural learning have an enrolment process?

[Lis]

So assuming this is in the right section, I was just wondering if any one had any info or could point me in the right direction on what I would have to do if we were to pursue 'natural learning' in regards to the law/centrelink?

As far as I am aware, centrelink try to 'force' you back into paid work once your youngest child turns 5, so what would happen if you were natural learners? How do you 'prove' that you are in essence, schooling your children and they are not just missing school because you are slack etc? Is there some kind of process?

I really have no clue on this, but hey, I don't even know the process involved in sending them to the public school down the road :lol

[gemi_ny]

Contact www.theac.org.au (http://www.theac.org.au) for info.

In Tas, your child has to be registered for HS or enrolled in a school when they are 5yo on 1st Jan. You can register as a HSer, then work out the curriculum/reporting in such a way as to keep the 'authorities' happy that your child is not 'disadvantaged' by being at home.

[Lis]

Completely forgot I had this thread :oops

Thanks Ny, I thought as much, in regards to registering with THEAC. But I guess i'm what i'm struggling to grasp is (and I know this is me just being thick) if you are unschoolers, and therefore follow no curriculum and so don't really have a great deal of written 'evidence' that your child is learning all they apparently 'need' to learn, what do you do?

How do you effectively prove to the authorities that learning is taking place? That your children are being educated, even though there is a lack of curriculum?

[Kezia]

How are you going Lis? Hope you're feeling better and the feeding is going OK. When you get the application form from THEAC, you will see that there is room for unschooling, as long as you express it the right way. Eg instead of saying "we will use the Sonlight curriculum to cover x, y and z" you put something like "learning opportunities and resources will include blah, blah and blah". If you're interested, I will email you my draft application (and you can tell me if you think it's shite :lol)

[gemi_ny]

Sorry - can't help you with that info, Lis! There are some contact numbers of experienced HSers in the THEAC newsletter (available on their website) - there may be some unschoolers there who can explain what they've done to appease the authorities.

Unfortunately, most of us are so early in the whole process that we don't have much in the way of practical experience.

[Lis]

Ahh okay, I get the idea now. Sorry, having a few daft moments lately!

Sounds great Is, i'd love to have a read of your draft to get an idea of how to word things, not entirely sure if we'll go the unschooling route, but still trying to get my head around it all just incase. Feeding is going great guns today thankfully, although he's feeding less during the day and more overnight, just my luck! I'm feeling better today although i'm losing/lost my voice, hence the lack of phonecall, DH can barely hear me when I am sitting right next to him, so thought a phonecall would be slightly challenging :lol

[gemi_ny]

Was just reading http://www.education.tas.gov.au/annualreport/06-07/required/otherannualreports/theac

Home educating parents should be free to choose from a wide variety of resources, commercial programs and curriculum materials in line with their educational values and beliefs.
THEAC should not favour any particular home education program or curriculum materials.

and

Articles suggesting strategies for parents to detail their natural learning program were presented in THEAC newsletters.

Maybe contact THEAC to see if they have previous issues of their newsletter they can send you (only one issue on their website)?

[Ceres]

Beverly Paine has an unschooling curriculum - sounds weird I know - it's like a checklist to say each day I play a game, play with a friend (or parent) etc and lots of hints about how to dress it up to meet the criteria for a curriculum.

[Ayla]

Beverly Paine has an unschooling curriculum - sounds weird I know - it's like a checklist to say each day I play a game, play with a friend (or parent) etc and lots of hints about how to dress it up to meet the criteria for a curriculum.

Do you have a link for that? Sounds interesting!

[Ceres]

I wish I could find it online. I picked up a hard copy at a homeschooling expo and I can't even find that now.

[Ayla]

Oh is it a little green booklet on NL? I have one of those, I should dig it out :lol

[~*heket*~]

I remember someone posted a link to it for me when I was making up our crapiculum. I think that was it anyway?

[irishwillow]

We aren't registered, never have been and although we've been doing this for 4 years and my kids have been in the system, I still receive a parenting payment and the base amount for the kids. My girls are equivalent yr 5 and yr 7. I think generally, you have to draw attention to yourself and someone dobs you in for it to be a problem. I've been hearing for over a year that they are coming down hard on this, but still nothing. I guess we'll address it if it ever comes up...the girls will probably be out working or have families of their own before the govt gets its act together. LOL
Susan

[~*heket*~]

where have you been hearing about the crack down, and have you got any more info?

[Anaed]

This may help

http://www.australianhomeschoolcurriculum.com/indexpages/sampleprogramsindex.html

:google


:lol

[asimplelife]

Probably completely irrelevant since i'm in New Zealand, but I recently applied for ds's exemption from school (here they start at 5 but not required by law to attend school until they turn 6) and wrote it very unschooling/natural learning. I decided to be brave and state that we followed no schedule and didn't plan - it's not commonly agreed upon here whether or not to do that, but I know quite a few that do and haven't had problems. What I did was wrote up a sample week of learning that occurred (and it was a genuine one! lol) but also stating that learning didn't only occur during the week. i did embelish it with certain words such as me "teaching" (since that's what they want to hear) but mostly focused on "learning" and played up the socialisation and other aspects that they seemed to want to know about.

[~*heket*~]

despite the fact that you're in NZ that's a helpful post :D thanx!

[cgull]

She's selling a fridge magnet that looks like it might be a summary of what you're talking about - it was all over her website last time I looked. And I assume the unschooling planning diary would have similar reminders in it.

Gee, sometimes I sound like an ad for all things Beverley Paine... And I've not yet spent a cent on her site myself (drool a bit, but feel it's really still too early to be spending money on my kids' official education - once I start, I won't stop...;))

[~*heket*~]

A fridge magnet? :lol

[cgull]

http://www.alwayslearningbooks.com/



Natural Education
Curriculum Checklist
Fridge Magnet!

10cm by 14 cm

Perfect reminder for
you and the children!

Covers all essential learning areas in a way that is easy for the young and young at heart to understand.





Should I be asking for a commission do you think?:rofl

[Ceres]

Yep that's the one!
I really like her stuff but I find the website a bit fiddly to negotiate.

[fairywhispers]

Thanks for the links. This website is a little irritating to navigate, but lots of good information.

[keztol]

As for how to "prove" what they are learning (to the board of studies) - I take lots of photos through the year of what he does and if necessary dress it up in "education speak". eg cooking becomes measuring & weighing in maths etc, as well as home ec skills, personal hygiene (hand-washing) etc etc. I do a weekly blog post that "formalises" what we've been doing so it'll be easy to print off when / if needed. Anything he does that gets a certificate gets filed (eg NSW has a Premier's Reading Challenge and the Premier's arts challenge, sometimes our library has a reading challenge, he got a few certificates through the year from Auskick etc)

[Ceres]

Are you willing to share the link to your blog? I'd love to see it.

[keztol]

Sorry, been out all day - B had his last day at the science workshop followed by his cousin's party. Way too over-stimulated + way too much junk food = way too many tantrums ....

Yep sure am - http://kezs-blog.blogspot.com. I should put it in my sig I guess.

[Ceres]

Gorgeous blog!
My great intentions to keep my blog up to date fell by the wayside a few months back. It really is time to get back on to it.

[keztol]

Thanks. My blog precedes the homeschooling by a few years so it's a habit for me by now. Sometimes I blog once a week, sometimes daily - I've taken any pressure off myself to have to blog, but I get antsy when I don't :)

Would love to see your blog if you want to share. I'm a blog addict :)

[Ceres]

http://ceres-ourlearningjourney.blogspot.com/
I haven't updated it since April! :lol It's on my to-do list for this week.

[evelynn]

thanks for all this info.
i don't plan on registering reikaya for homeschooling, but hadn't thought about what i would do if we were reported.

[Janet]

Not registering is my preference too but it's worth researching I think to have all the info to help us decide. :)

[Ceres]

From Beverly Paine's website..

http://homeschoolaustralia.beverleypaine.com/articles/unschoolplan.html


The Benefits of Writing an Unschooling Learning Plan for the Year Ahead
© Beverley Paine
I know a lot of unschoolers don't bother with writing out unschooling learning programs or a curriculum for the year ahead and tend to 'fly by the seat of their pants'. Some see writing learning plans a bit alien to the concept of learning naturally, but I never found it so. I was always a little paranoid and not very sure that learning naturally would get my kids to where I wanted them to be. Thus I went down the path of documenting the learning process - both as plans and as evaluation/anecdotal records. I put together an unschooling curriculum for Roger when he turned 13 to cover the next three years (developmental stage rather than age based). It was a comprehensive list that incidentally covered learning in all eight school based curriculum areas, together with a statement on philosophy, methodology and how we'd know he was learning. About five pages all up.
I did a similar learning program for April as a homeschooled Year 8 student - feeling worried that I'd need to justify our homeschooling as by then our exemption had lapsed and I figured they'd notice she was turning 13... They didn't. The plan we put together was largely unused. We found more interesting ways to learn what was needed and by the end of the year only a few things on the original plan had been touched on in the way we'd planned. Planning was good though - especially at the beginning of the year - as it helped focus my thoughts on our goals and the reasons we were home educating again.
I used to read through our philosophy statements, etc, at least once a year, to help me remember what not to do, how not to teach, what was most important, and to let go of the need to emulate other homeschooling families' approaches/methods, or copy what the schools were doing. Reading through our self-designed curriculum helped to centre us.
http://beverleypaine.com/images/webgraphics/goldbar.jpg

[asimplelife]

We enrolled to unschool as well (I'm in NZ) and although I didn't give a scheduled plan of what they would learn, I did have a guideline of what we wanted to achieve by unschooling (broken down into all the key areas they required) and gave a sample week of how learning occured (and even went on to say that learning didn't occur 5 days a week between the hours of 9am-3pm). I found it really good going through the process for myself to see that we would cover all areas required (and I mean for our family as well as legally). I have gone on to send it to family members to help them understand our journey better than I am able to put in words. I also blog what we do for my own reference and if I'm wondering (fretting lol) if we are learning it's easy enough to go back and see that a lot has happened that is easily forgotten about. When the time comes to write dd's exemption I'll take the same approach.

[asimplelife]

Oops, just realised I already replied a while ago lol - problem with not reading the thread properly!