10th February 2017

Re:Proposed changes to home education in Victorian Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017

As a parent who home educates their child, I would like to raise the following concerns regarding the proposed changes:

  1. Regulation 72 (b) which states that “…..the child must remain enrolled at, and must attend, a registered school until the Authority notifies the applicant of the Authority’s decision to approve the application in accordance with regulation 74.”
  2. Regulation 82 (1), (2) & (3), regarding reviews of existing home educating families.
  3. Information contained in the Regulatory Impact Statement.

My first concern effects all families who have made a decision in the best interest of their child to withdraw them from mainstream school and provide an education at home to suit their child’s needs. Often this decision occurs because the needs of their child are unable to be met at a mainstream school, they have been bullied or abused. Not only is this a stressful time for families, but the child will be suffering anxiety, which often leads to depression and other mental health conditions.

To leave a child in a situation which will be continually adding to their anxiety whilst an application is prepared, submitted, responded to and possibly additional time for more information, is risking further damage to the child and their family. My personal experience of withdrawing our child from mainstream school due to his extreme anxiety is testimony to this concern. My sonhas autism andother special needs. The effort to actually get him dressed, into the car, out of the car, into his classroom with extreme anxiety behaviours, could take up to 2 hours each day, and some days my husband and I couldn’t get him there at all. This was for 6 weeks at the start of his school life and it did not get better, only worse. The amount of stress this placed upon him and our family, was immense. His safety was also of high concern due to his absconding and impulsive behaviours.

It was due to concerns for his mental health and safety, that we made the decision to withdraw him from mainstream school. We immediately made application to VRQA to home educate him. During this extreme time of stress, the main concern and priority was to work on reducing his anxiety in order to help him heal from the trauma he had had due to his experience. Our family also needed time to heal from the stress of the situation. Only then, could we research and develop a plan to suit our child’s current needs. I say current, because the best resources to educate your child will change frequently depending upon their state of mental health, their interests and available resources. It would have been unsafe for the reasons I have already stated, for our son and the rest of our family to have been placed in a situation of being required to leave him in mainstream school until all of the paperwork was completed and approved.

The second concern I have is regarding the proposed changes for review of registration to existing home educating families. The information in the regulations is not specific on what the review will entail and what information will be required regarding the child’s education.

Each home educating family can be very situation dependent and use a format to suit their child/ren and family’s needs. The style of education will vary from family to family, as will the type of curricula materials and resources used. Each child has an individual learning style. For some, their learning naturally changes not only due to normal development, but from a desire to delve and explore further into the topics that they are particularly interested in or naturally talented with. For others with special needs, education will occur with methods such as those involving movement, sensory activities, music and lego. Some families follow traditional school hours and curriculum, whilst others use a mix of all of the above, including incidental learning.

Regardless of the method used, each family uses whatever is the best choice suited for their situation and will use resources to meet this style. If the officer conducting a review is not familiar with home education and the successful methods used, my concern is that they are not going to be able to see the success for the child. I am also concerned that I will not be able to educate in the manner I choose to suit my child’s needs. Further to this, the impact upon a child being subjected to a review will create unnecessary anxietyfor them and their family.

My final concern relates to the Regulatory Impact Statement. Many of the statements contained in this report are biased basedon someone’s opinion and suggestive. They do not reflect the majority of the home education community in Victoria. I will provide three examples to demonstrate, which shows a lack of understanding of the general standards of home education:

  • On page 24, paragraph 3 it is written “….Only formally qualified persons can teach at schools and teachers receive ongoing professional development and on-the-job instruction to obtain and develop their skills. Schools also allow resources to be pooled and education to be delivered efficiently, and the VRQA ensures schools comply with the minimum standards for registration. Further, the educational progress of students is monitored and reported. In contrast, no equivalent settings exist for ensuring the quality of instruction and student outcomes from home schooling.”
  • Whilst this statement identifies what occurs in mainstream school, it does not report on the methods home educating parents use to develop their knowledge, research subjects (which are wide and varied), implement a program, administer lessons and network with other families.
  • It does not report on the individual attention they have available from their parents, nor does it state that as a parent knows and understands their child best, they naturally are aware of any additional instruction that may be required and how they are progressing.
  • The statement also does not report on the desire that parents have for their child to achieve “their” best and not to be drawn into comparisons which can hinder any child’s educational development.
  • Page 25, paragraph 3 reads “In other words, the reasons for and approaches to home schooling are diverse. With this in mind, it is unlikely that all home schooling families have access to the resources that they need, and not all will have adequately planned how to best provide regular and efficient instruction that substantially address the eight key learning areas in the Act. Table 3.1 shows the number of curriculum materials distributed to home schooling families (between prep and year 10) in 2013 to 2016.”
  • Whilst previous information identifies some of the resources home educating families access apart from the Distance Education Centre Victoria (DECV), this paragraph gives the opinion that families not only don’t have access to resources they need, but that they do not have a plan to address the 8 Key Learning Areas (KLA’s) adequately. The reference to the data of material sourced from DECV in Table 3.1, which has a low level of curriculum distributed, is misleading as it does not include the other sources that families access for resources within this statement.
  • Furthermore, curriculum from the DECV is not going to suit the learning style of many children who are home educated. An understanding of home education learning styles is clearly not understood.
  • On page 27, paragraph 3, the following is written “….The current arrangements do not support the collection of evidence on what parents are doing to ensure their home-schooled children receive a high quality education. The current regulations do not allow for any assessment of a parents’ capacity to home school.”
  • This statement appears to be in context with ensuring that children are educated to a standard deemed suitable by the Education Department. However, as I have previously stated in this letter, each child is individual and learns in different ways. The 8 KLA’s will be addressed in a variety of ways and often several KLA’s will be addressed with the one activity. For each of these children, this is high quality to their learning style.
  • Further to this, the suggestion of an assessment of a parent’s capability to home school would be totally unreasonable. Parents are often faced with a situation of needing to withdraw their child from mainstream school and gradually work through a process to develop an education plan to suit their child. This act in itself is enough to prove that firstly the parent has the capacity to educate and also that they are driven by their desire to provide the best for their child. There could be no better proof than this of their capacity.

After reading my concerns, it is obvious that the wellbeing of children who are being removed by families from mainstream school, needs to be considered with their mental health in mind and regulations written to reflect this.

The concern, that existing home educating families will be required to follow a curriculum approved by the Department of Education, needs to be rectified to reflect the diversity within our community. This diversity is essential for the future, as our world changes and the careers of the future change also. The Education Department would benefit by embracing the strengths and ideas of the home education community that comes with the diversity of the learning styles we use. Each of these learning styles provides an environment which develops the skills required to think differently for the jobs of the future as our world moves forward.

In order to develop regulations which support home educating families, I suggest the following:

  1. The regulations be reviewed and be subject to extensive consultation with the home education community.
  2. Experienced home educators to be part of the application process for new families
  3. Experienced home educators to be part of any review for existing families.
  4. Families are free to remove a child from mainstream school with a suitable time frame for an application to be lodged to the VRQA.
  5. Assistance offered to new families by experienced home educators regarding an application to home educate, resource options and support.
  6. Home education promoted on the Department of Education website as a viable and positive education option.

Home educating families need to be supported and encouraged to continue educating their children to be “their” best. To achieve this, the draft regulations should be revised with proper consultation with home educators to achieve a positive outcome.

I also ask that the personal details from this submission are not used publicly.

Thankyou for your time to read this submission.