A planning booklet from a district office.
A parent who is attempting to register as a home educator received this
planning booklet from their district office. If I understand the situation correctly they are expected to fill out this booklet before they will be registered.
Before I go any further, I want to point out that
registration is AUTOMATIC. Section 48 of the School Education Act 1999 (link to the right of this post) outlines the registration procedure. Those wishing to register simply ask for a registration application, fill that out, send it in with the child/ren's birth certificate, the names of the child/ren being registered, names of the parent/s, and your address, a registration certificate is then provided to the parent/s. The registration lasts indefinitely - unless it is cancelled or relinquished. The home educator arranges for a moderation visit, giving three weeks notice, within three months of registration at a mutually agreed place and time, this does not have to take place in the home of the home educator. Therefore, this booklet does not need to be filled out to register. It
has no legal basis. It is a flight of fancy of the district office or
moderator who is asking for it to be filled out.
However, I will provide a detailed explanation of what is wrong with this 'booklet' and what actions you - if you ever receive one - can take in dealing with it. I wrote a post on what the
mandatory elements of the Curriculum Framework are and this planning booklet contains non-mandatory elements, that a home educator does not have to report on, there is no legal basis. I will go through the first page (immediately below) one section at a time.
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| Home Education Planning Booklet page 1. |
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I will deal firstly with the box headed 'Curriculum'.
It is asking that:
evidence of working towards planning of knowledge and understanding of
- Australian Curriculum
- Learning area outcomes across eight learning areas in Curriculum Framework
Firstly it isn't well written; it is difficult to interrogate the request. I think it is asking that the home educator needs to show that they are acquiring knowledge of the Australian curriculum and the eight learning areas in the Curriculum Framework (CF).
This is an odd request as it is asking that the home educator acquaint themselves with two curriculums. At this point in time teachers in
public schools may
choose to use
The Australian Curriculum as a basis for their curriculum delivery or they may choose not to. The Western Australian education department's website states:
The Australian Curriculum
learning areas are being written by the
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) in
three phases,
with completion of all learning areas
expected by the end of 2013.
The K-10 [s]yllabuses are advisory materials. The syllabuses detail
content at each year of schooling and phase of
development from kindergarten to year
10. Syllabuses are provided for [e]arly [c]hildhood (K-3), [m]iddle [c]hildhood
(4-7) and each
learning area in [e]arly [a]dolescence
(8-10).
When using these advisory materials,
teachers will continue to make professional judgements about when to
introduce content
based on students' prior learning and
achievement.
During public school transition to
full implementation of the australian (sic) [c]urriculum across all learning
areas, to be completed
by 2016, schools may choose to use the
K-10 [s]yllabuses as a basis for their curriculum delivery.
Firstly we are not a
public school and secondly teachers are not required to implement the Australian curriculum unless they choose to and full implementation of the Australian curriculum isn't required until 2016, therefore the home educator is under no obligation to implement the Australian curriculum.
The second request asks that the eight learning areas be addressed. It is the thirteen overarching and the eight learning areas that are the mandatory sections of the CF. It is much easier to make the links across the curriculum using the thirteen overarching learning outcomes statement, than simply the eight learning areas. A major section of the madatory element is completely ignored.
The next section is
Planning on how to achieve outcomes.
- The specific needs and skills of each student[']s program (sic).
- Organisation/timetable
- Resources
A home educator does not need to provide any of the above information to the moderator. I don't know how a student's programme has skills and needs. Maybe the student has skills and needs. You do not need to have a timetable, home education happens 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. This is a matter of personal preferance; home educating is not, for many, school at home. You do not have to provide a list of - I am assuming - available resources. Some moderators use this as a reason to deny registration; a lack of resources. This again varies from home educator to home educator. Some have loads of resources and others barely any. You have the local library, the state library, the internet, the world, as your resources.
As a home educator you are required - section 51 - to arrange for an evaluation to be made of the student's programme and progress. Nothing more nothing less. How and what information you provide for the moderator to make this evaluation is up to you. The point is that programme and progress is all that the moderator is to evaluate and report on.
The next heading is:
Learning environment.
You do not have to provide information on the learning environment. This is taken from the department's home education policy. In every case of home educators who have had their registrations cancelled (that I have helped) compliance with department policy has been a factor. However, department policy is limited to employees of the department, as home educators are not department employees they are under no obligation to comply with deparment policy. The deparment's website outlines the
scope of the policy which states:
This policy applies to the [d]irector [g]eneral, [r]egional [e]xecutive [d]irectors and home education moderators.
It quite clearly does not apply to home educators.
The learning environment is discussed in the
appendices of the policy (I have copied the entire appendices at the bottom of this page) under the heading
physical environment. It states:
Physical environment
The effect of the physical environment is a factor to be considered in relation to the child’s educational progress.
The layout, ambience and the materials provided by the home educator creates a setting conducive to learning.
The physical learning environment may include:
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a workspace including desks and chairs and areas for quiet study and group/project activities;
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a range of learning aids, kits and numeracy and literacy materials;
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technology such as computers and the internet; and
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accessible supplies. (hyperlink theirs)
The effect of the physical environment is a factor to be considered in relation to the child's educational progress is nonsense. This is a misinterpretation of section 53 (2)(b) of the School Education Act 1999. There has to have been quite a lengthy process happen before this even comes into play. The moderator has to have written out an evaluation report stating that the child has not progressed. The CEO then writes a 'letter of concern' to the home educator outlining the concern and provide the reasons for concern (a step I have yet to see put into practice). A re-evaluation meeting takes place and if the concerns have not been met the CEO may decide to cancel the registration to home educate, taking the learning environment into consideration. If educational progress is bieng made the learning environment is of no consequence to the home education moderator.
The last section is:
Social experiences
There is nowhere in the Curriculum Framework nor any Act where a home educator is required to provide social experiences to the moderator. I have asked moderators who have this as a section on their reports to reference this outcome and I am yet to be provided with one.
I will deal with the rest of the booklet in future blogs and give suggestions as to what actions you can take.
Appendices
Appendix A Meetings with the home educator
While each meeting will vary to meet the needs of the individual
family, there is an underlying structure that provides a basis for
consistency.
A.1 Meeting structure
There are two outcomes of a meeting:
In the first year, an introductory meeting must be arranged with the agreement of both parties.
The home educator is to give the home education moderator at least 21 days' notice that the first evaluation meeting or annual evaluation meeting is due.
The place of meetings should be at the usual place where the
child’s educational program (sic) is undertaken, or at a place agreed between
the home educator and the home education moderator.
The [r]egional [e]xecutive [d]irector may exercise discretion in
deciding that, for logistical reasons, it is more appropriate for the home education moderator to contact the home educator to discuss arrangements for an evaluation meeting at a time suitable to both parties.
Physical environment
The effect of the physical environment is a factor to be considered in relation to the child’s educational progress.
The layout, ambience and the materials provided by the home educator creates a setting conducive to learning.
The physical learning environment may include:
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a workspace including desks and chairs and areas for quiet study and group/project activities;
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a range of learning aids, kits and numeracy and literacy materials;
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technology such as computers and the internet; and
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accessible supplies.
The home educator’s input to the meeting is most important because the home educator should be aware of the progress that has occurred or where any learning problems have arisen.
Meeting the child
Given that unsatisfactory progress can be grounds for cancellation the
child’s progress may be evaluated on a variety of levels including
progress in their:
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physical, social and emotional development;
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ability to reason and understand concepts;
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development of oral and written skills; and
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development of numeracy skills.
While not mandatory, the attendance of the child at an evaluation meeting may assist in determining satisfactory progress.
A.2 Obtaining information about educational progress
Home educators may demonstrate educational progress in some or all of the following ways:
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showing the child’s work sheets used in planning a project or in identifying the areas to be researched for some topic;
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showing some first draft notes on a report, story, letter or other project;
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showing some completed projects that incorporate learning achievements that have occurred;
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showing a diary or other records of the activities where learning
achievements have occurred including [p]ower [p]oint presentations,
photography, internet searches;
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describing or permitting the student to describe some home education experiences and achievements; and
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describing an experience that has not necessarily any tangible
evidence but was an occasion for a child’s personal achievement or
discovery.
The home education moderator is deemed to have the power to request to see tangible evidence of the home education program (sic)and progress (Interpretation Act 1984 (WA), s50).
Effective home educators monitor educational progress as a normal part of the program (sic).
Examples of relevant monitoring may be identified during the meeting and these can be drawn to the home educator's attention as valuable elements in good teaching.
A.3 Obtaining information about the education program
Home education moderators usually find that they are able to gain a sound overview of the education program (sic) through
discussion about learning and assessment processes while they are
seeking information about the students' educational progress. Some of
the major areas that are usually covered during a meeting include:
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the curriculum experiences the student might need at each of the four
overlapping phases of development as set down in the ‘Scope of the
Curriculum’ in the Curriculum Framework 1998 (Curriculum Framework 1998, pp29-32);
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the importance of ensuring that literacy and numeracy are a primary focus;
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the resources available and the learning activities being undertaken;
- the home educator’s intended outcomes for the child’s learning program (sic); and
- the home educator’s understandings of how to assess progress and to what extent the monitoring process is outcomes based.
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