Subject:Submission on the Draft Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017

From:Katrina Ryan

Sent:Monday, 27 February 2017 9:59 PM

To:DET Regulation Review

Subject:Submission on the Draft Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017

Submission on the Draft Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017

As a mother of both a child in mainstream education and one currently being homeschooled, I find the increased regulations for Home Education to be unnecessary. Aside from my parenting role, I am also a qualified P-12 teacher, with years of experience in both teaching a classroom and in curriculum planning as head of the English department. Even with my teaching background, I feel that the increased requirements for planning and reviews place unwarranted strain on parents with little to gain. I am also significantly concerned about the approval prior to removal regulation.

As a teacher, I was responsible for writing significant curriculum plans for my subject and was always confronted with the reality that these plans would require weekly amendments as I met my students at their learning level and allowed that to map the direction for the class. As a homeschooling parent this is an even greater possibility as the drive behind our decision to home school is to allow our child/ren to set the pace for their learning and also have significant say in the activities that will ensure their learning needs are met. Our current home schooled daughter has autism spectrum disorder and extreme anxiety and sensory sensitivities. Some days she is able to actively participate in many subjects while others she struggles to regulate simple everyday tasks such as getting dressed and eating without meltdowns. Having learning plans in place will not add to her learning experience, rather it will take away more of the time I have to assist and teach her. As a home educator and my child’s first teacher, I am well aware of her learning style, capable of following her lead and transitioning any topic of interest into a teachable moment. This is a ‘fluid’ approach that a ‘fixed’ educational plan would not assist with. An education plan also introduces the frightening notion that lack of documentation can evolve into a rejected application to Home Schooling. I would be emphasising the need for these plans to be flexible enough to encompass the special needs of my child, as well as the many different learning styles of children, and that a fair assessment take place with these vast needs in consideration.

Another concern arising from the regulations is the stipulation that reviews can take place at VRQA discretion. Aside from home visitations being against the Education Act, requesting a review is yet another insistence on documentation being maintained to ‘prove’ that learning is taking place. In my teaching role, this was a huge strain on my time and never added value to the education I was delivering. Once again, as a home educator, the time, resources and planning required to be ready for a review doesn’t ensure the education we are offering is adequate. There is also very little detail on what would actually be requested, making it virtually impossible for a parent to be adequately prepared for review. Teachers do not undergo this sort of scrutiny. There is no reason why a parent, someone with an active and emotionally invested connection to their child, should be subject to more conditions than a teacher. Home educators choose home education after meticulous research, conversation and consideration of the best option for their child. We are not a group of people that don’t have the best interests of our children and their education in mind. Reviews will not achieve a better education for the children.

Of deep concern is also the condition being considered that parents must seek approval before they remove a child from mainstream education. This is deeply concerning to me as this is a situation that we may have found ourselves in. During my child’s preschool year, after repeated bullying, refusal of the preschool to adequately address or support my child’s special needs and my child refusing to attend again out of anxiety and fear, we removed her from preschool. This saw her meltdowns decrease from several each day to the one a month we are having now. Had we needed to apply and wait to remove her, this would have caused significant emotional damage and would not have been in my child’s best interests. We are not alone in this scenario and parents need to have the right to remove their child as soon as there is a threat to their emotional or physical well-being. This is not a convenience issue but a safety issue and should be taken very seriously.

This also brings forth my deep concern for the lack of consideration for special needs students in the draft regulations. Within a school setting there are individual learning plans in place for students with special needs and, with that, consideration for their capabilities to participate in a learning standard. As the mother to a special needs child, I insist that the regulations include flexibility in the standards addressed to meet the child where they are at. Insisting that my child learn LOTE this year when we are still actively engaged in teaching her how to communicate effectively with her peers is unfair and places undue strain on her for the sake of meeting a standard.

Additionally, the condition of preparing a plan before applying for removal is placing huge strain on families that are already under duress. Teachers have the entire school holidays and planning time to prepare their curriculum plans and also work within a KLA cohort- pooling resources. To ask a parent who has their child’s emotional needs under consideration to plan, research, write and post said plan and then wait via mail for approval is not considering the needs of the child affected. Approval prior to removal is a very unsafe proposal and one that I would beg to be removed from the plans.

The regulation proposal, as a whole, for home education seems completely unjustified. We are a cohort of very few and there is no research to suggest that greater regulation improves educational outcomes. In fact, from my teaching experience, and witness to teacher burn out and many leaving the industry, I would suggest that it is quite the contrary. Increased regulations, reviewing and planning places undue strain on educators. It is also considered best practice teaching to drop the plans and meet your students at their individual levels and allow them flexibility and autonomy in their learning experience. These are things that cannot be planned for. It is also documented that a child will only learn when they are motivated to by a keen interest in the topic or the end goal. I know within my home, any structured written work results in meltdowns while embracing teachable moments as we read, experiment, explore and converse leads to excitement and engagement in the topic. Schools themselves a lacking this sort of engagement and the chid satisfaction surveys are telling of this fact. Once again, increased regulations don’t value add to these experiences, rather the time I would be spending engaging with my child/ren will be taken up with planning and documentation. If it is the case that plans and reviews must be a part of the new regulations, then I must insist on an advisory board of home educators being enlisted to assess them. Only those with home education experience and an intense understanding on the diversity of home education will be able to ensure this is a fair process and also offer guidance and support to home educators of concern, if this is what the reasoning is behind the increased regulations.

My child is thriving in home education. We have gone from her being assessed as below average intelligence and refusing social interaction to, at the age of 5 and a half, having her sounding out letters in self led spelling, reading certain words, practising fractions, taking an avid interest in maps and countries, cooking daily and participating in sporting clubs, local excursions and playgroups. A lot of what she is achieving on a personal level with life skills and social skills are things no plans can assess. As her mother, I am deeply committed to her education and well-being and would not have chosen home education as her best fit without careful consideration, weighing options and ensuring I am meeting her individual needs. As mentioned in the introduction, I have a child in full time mainstream education. We have never home schooled her as mainstream education is her best fit. I fully believe that parents should have the right and flexibility to be able to make this decision in the best interests of their child. I suggest that the draft regulations be revised with proper consultation with home educators to build a workable regulatory regime which limits the power of the VRQA over home educators and respects the parent’s role as first and foremost educators of their child/ren.

I would appreciate a written response to my concerns

Yours Katrina Ryan