I Am Writing to Express My Concerns at the Draft Education Regulations

28 February 2017

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express my concerns at the Draft Education Regulations.

I have written you this letter to explain a bit more about home education and our experiences over the past 11 years and hope that you can help to ensure this harmful legislation is not passed. At the end of the letter I have included some suggestions for how the government could better support the education of our children in contrast to this legislation which will hinder our ability to provide the best practice in education.

I am an experienced and qualified teacher who trained and taught within the Victorian Public School system up until my third child was born. My three children have all been home educated from the beginning of their learning journey with my eldest about to turn 16 this year.

My letter is because I feel the legislation demonstrates a lack of understanding for what homeschooling is and I am aiming to explain the basis and benefits of it as it has presented to our family over the past 11 years.

As a trained teacher I found it frustrating teaching within the education system because all the best theory and research on how children learn was always secondary to the ‘system’. The confines of days, times, rooms, timetables, structure, class sizes, resources and initiatives were hindering real learning and creating a culture of competition. Children were taught to socialize with their peers of similar ages and even siblings were divided. Children were not learning real life social skills or having real life experiences. The love of learning was not fostered but the need to pass and conform.

One of the most amazing things I have discovered about homeschooling is the secure foundation children get in the family and their community. They all in their own time branch out and develop their independence at a time that works for them personally this never at 5 years of age but it always happens. When it happens this way it is on the child’s terms and they blossom.

My concerns with the current direction Australian education is going is that we are following a failing American model of longer hours, starting younger with preschool loosing much of its play focus. Education has become about results, data and testing. The trust in the teacher as the professional has been removed by the need to test and collate as ‘evidence’, and much respect for the profession has been lost within the community. We are following failing models of education in a nation which has such innovative, ideas and so many bright minds. I have learnt and read enough and I have taught and experienced enough to only want the best for my children and for us this is definitely not within the school system.

Please don’t get me wrong we need both systems, not all families have the desire or ability to take on the responsibility for their children’s education however those who do don’t take it on lightly. I have seen many families leave the education system as it has completely failed their children. Children have become so anxious and bullied that they have heart arrhythmias, anxiety attacks or shut down completely just from the thought of entering a school which is the source of so much competition, bullying and testing pressure. There then needs to be a lengthy period of what is termed “deschooling” which is required prior to being able to truly start. Our family is fortunate some of my children would have made the best of school others would have been under the desk, I am so glad that we had a choice and that my children have had such a rich childhood and education.

I am concerned that the draft legislation is unsupportive of homeschooling and actively makes it difficult to begin. Children at risk will be left in dangerous situation with the 28 day wait period and the farce of an inexperienced parent needing to develop a learning plan for an entire year prior to starting. This is near impossible to write before they have begun homeschooling and will enviably change over the course of the first weeks, and months. A yearlong learning plan is not a good way to plan and is defiantly not appropriate for a family just beginning to homeschool who would be expected to quickly write it to meet the VRQA expectations so they can remove their child from a potential at risk situation.

I have heard first-hand accounts of the change in VRQA attitude to homeschooling over the past few months and have witnessed families electing to not register even after removing their children from harmful school situations because of the difficulty in dealing with the system to register. I am concerned with the VRQA changing their attitude even before this legislation has been passed when the registration requirements are relatively straight forward how they will be with they are given ultimate power within very unclear guidelines.

I feel that the current system could be improved by being more helpful and supportive. By having experienced homeschool parents as part of its structure. There are many parents who are both experienced and or trained teachers and long term home educators who would be well placed to assist new or struggling families with advice where required. The legislation suggests random reviews will take place however does not explain the rational for this. This will just place extra work on the parents that is counterproductive to achieving best practice education and outcomes. A yearlong learning plan and teaching to it is not how quality home education works. Learning is not linear and self-directed learning is amazing and fluid in its progress. If this 10% is randomly reviewed every year I can see many families disappearing from the system. Families who homeschool are doing it for the best interests of the child and a family and will not choose to remain in a system that compromises this. Reviews need to be done by those experienced in home education in cases of concern only.

It appears to me that there is little understanding of just what home education is and perhaps a fear that different is not good. However different is actually superior in the case of Australian Education as it is Private Education at its fullest. It is tailoring education on an hourly, daily, weekly basis to a child’s needs, interests and abilities. It is getting out in the local and homeschool community regularly and having the flexibility to grasp new opportunities and interests when they arise.

Much of the Victorian Education System is focused on outcomes and I am surprised that the legislation is not looking at these. If they were they would see the amazing statistics of almost 2/3 university entry, of almost 0% being unemployed after completing their education. I would expect they would see no teen suicides and very little bullying. I also know that they would see happy, independent, mature, self-confident individuals with a fresh outlook on the world. This is what we all hope for, for our children and homeschooling is already achieving this. As an experienced teacher I could not imagine compromising my child’s education and this legislation will require me to either reduce the quality, fake what is happening to meet the paperwork requirement or move interstate to remove my children from a broken system. We have such a diverse and vibrant homeschool network in Victoria with so many opportunities for our children that moving would be my last choice. I am hoping that the government can learn from all the submissions that are being presented that the homeschool community is breaking ground in education and should be supported and learnt from not reigned in and broken.

Having a child at the older end of the homeschooling journey I am now able to get a full grasp on how great it has been. She has true friends and is an amazing mature girl. She is studying year 10 at home whilst also doing a Cert 3 at Monash University and has been offered management training at her place of causal employment. She has done work experience with her music teacher and was at 15 offered a job working with children which was flattering. She has the maturity to run a work place or household, cook meals and converse with all ages. She also plays baseball, does short courses online and is an a jazz band. She sees many opportunities a head of her and is currently considering whether VCE may be a help of a hindrance to her career plans and interests. She knows many who have entered University though alternative pathways and is looking at all her options to gain experience, qualifications and enjoy her teen years.

My thirteen year old daughter has always loved tinkering, building, creating and drawing. Last year she joined a homeschool Lego robotics team and found a passion for engineering. She was noticed at a First Lego League Robotics Completion and selected to join a teen robotics group working out of Swanbourne University. These opportunities have helped to give her direction and greater purpose in her learning. She is now studying coding online, doing an online robotics course and is looking at starting to learn CAD design. We know of other homeschoolers entering engineering university young through their work in this field. Next month we head to Sydney as a family she will attend the South Pacific First Robotics Completion and we will explore Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Homeschooling has given her the opportunity to be surrounded to like-minded people. She says she feels smarter around them and has blossomed. Oh and she plays tennis, table tennis, guitar, ukulele and is learning the banjo mandolin.

My 9 year old is a musician, she plays piano, guitar and goes to music school on a Saturday. She has also been offered a place in a National Children’s Choir. She taught herself to read at 3 and is a self-confident independent learner. She learns because she is excited to learn and has that beautiful natural curiosity about her world. Homeschooling is natural to her she has always welcomed new school books and is a really happy child.

I could not pigeon hole any of my children’s learning for a year into a particular level and any plan I make at the beginning of the year is always very different by the end of the year because we take the opportunities that present themselves and embrace new things.

Our family holidays a lot we have averaged 7-8 weeks a year traveling Australia in a caravan, we are very fortunate to have had this time and it is my husband’s long term employment that has facilitated this as we use a little of his long service each year. Our children have learnt so much on our travels. They have been to all the major historical sites in Australia, been in so many natural environments, and seen towns, cities, industry and diversity. This is learning that can’t be planned for and this has been a major part of our children’s education. To be standing on a hill on the west coast of Tasmania and realize it is actually a giant Aboriginal Milden is unforgettable, to sit in Sacred Canyon in the flinders Ranges watching the pictures from the old people appear as the light changes after happening to bump into the professor from Adelaide University who has studied the pictures and the local community for years and talk to him about them is priceless. We have walked in ancient forests together, googled the names of minerals found there that we have never heard about, sat in libraries on the other side of the country and explored museums in country towns.

I am explaining our holidays because this term with the draft education regs I thought I would have a look at studying Australian history with my youngest as it would be covered if she was at school. We visited the Museum in Melbourne with another homeschool family to springboard our studies and realized very quickly that her prior learning is so rich that to work at her level of the curriculum is repeating ourselves and too shallow. I have looked at my children’s academic levels and feel that it would be near impossible to homeschool well and plan to the Victorian Curriculum Documents at a particular level. Homeschooling if fluid and is often done in intensive sessions. My children have been studying French in a small group at a friend’s home. The children in the group were aged 6-15 years and were all learning at the same level. When I compared it to the National Curriculum they were mostly covering year 9-10 content.

One of the great things about homeschooling is tailoring education to the individual which as a practicing teacher was impossible with a class of 28-32 children. With the internet the world has become much smaller, we can learn so much and as a parent I have. I am able to purchase workbooks from around the world and there are some amazing programs out there. My children have the benefit of having the right books at the right time. Of having layouts and content that suit their learning styles. When I do cross reference then to the national curriculum I always find that we are covering more than not less than what is outlined.

It would be nice if instead of having legislation tabled that was designed to limit and restrict homeschoolers through difficulty gaining registration and expectations of parents writing curium plans in ‘teacher language’, that the VRQA would be supportive of this alternative style of education. The whole system could learn a lot from it. If parents are to write learning plans aligned to curriculum documentation this will just be paperwork that will take away from their time with their children and many families have a number of children so where a school teacher is writing documentation for one year level a parent may suddenly be expected to do this for all levels. When I last wrote these documents and plans in my employment I was paid for it and honestly do not believe as a parent I should be expected to do so unless the department is looking at paying me to educate may children.