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Choosing Homeschool Curriculum: What to Consider

© Beverley Paine 2011

Legal constraints: do your research

Firstly, find out if there are any constraints on what you can legally teach where you live. In some states and territories, home education registration or exemption from attending school is dependent on meeting the minimum requirements of the local curriculum framework, guidelines or syllabus. Copies of these are available on the internet.

Home education is defined in Australia as the parents taking direct responsibility for the education of their children in the home. It does not include the hiring of a paid tutor to teach all school subjects - that falls under different regulations and if you are considering this you need to carefully check your state or territory laws for more information.

However, in Australia you are free to choose the method or approach you use to help your children learn. It can be different for each area of learning or developmental stage, and may include:

• Hands-on activities;
• Investigation, exploration, experimenting;
• Literature-based;
• Using text-books, work-books, online programs;
• Play-based.

What you choose will be based on your understanding of your children.

For more information about home education legislation and regulations read Is it Legal? The Home Education Association of Australia also has information and contacts that could be of assistance.

See also the other articles in this Choosing Curriculum series:

• What type of home educator are you?
• How long will you be homeschooling?
• What ages are your children?
• Learning styles of your children.
• How long will your children be homeschooling?
• Will you be sending your children to school in the future?
• Legal constraints: do your research.
• How much time do you have available?
• How many children will you be home educating?
• Examine the resources carefully.
• How much do you have to spend.

Or purchase Beverley's inexpensive Practical Homeschooling Series booklet from Always Learning Books - over 40 pages of practical information explaining the different approaches as well as useful and helpful advice.

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Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.

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Welcome to the World of Home Education
and Learning without School!

We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.

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Home education is a legal alternative
to school education in Australia.
State and Territory governments are responsible
for regulating home education and have different
requirements, however home educating families
are able to develop curriculum and learning programs
to suit the individual needs of their children.

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