The pandemic forced a lot of people to work from home, but it also turned a lot of parents into teachers. This left parents with some food for thought, especially those who feel like their local schools might be failing their children.
While there are some steps you have to take before you can homeschool your child, it's probably not as difficult as you think. As long as you can prove to your local Ministry of Education that your child will be taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school, you can get a Certificate of Exemption for them and teach them yourself.
Homeschooling in New Zealand doesn't even need to follow the national curriculum, much like with independent private schools.
Have you been considering homeschooling your children?
Here's how you can get started.
Who Should Be Homeschooled?
You can choose to homeschool your children whenever you like. Even if your child has already started compulsory education and you've decided they'd be better off being homeschooled, the process is the same.
Homeschooling (or home education) only really means that the child doesn't attend their compulsory schooling. Their education doesn't necessarily need to take place at your home and you can always teach them in a different location if you want. However, it's unsurprising that a lot of homeschooling does take place at home.
There are a few reasons why parents would choose to homeschool their children:
- Their child has special educational needs that aren't been met by the school.
- Their child would benefit more from an alternative education. This is particularly useful for children moving in the middle of the school year or those whose education would be far more effective outside of school.
- Children experience problems at school like bullying or harassment.
While a lot of New Zealanders realised they could homeschool their children during the pandemic, resulting in a surge in numbers just afterwards, this number has since decreased, though numbers remain higher than they were before the pandemic.
What You Need to Start Homeschooling Your Child
As a parent, you're obligated to gain a Certificate of Exemption to take your child out of compulsory education in New Zealand.
You do this by completing the application form and sending it to your local Ministry of Education. In addition to completing the form, you also need to provide information on how you intend to teach your child, proving that you'll do it as regularly and as well as a registered school.
There are lots of advantages to homeschooling children, but you'll have to convince the Ministry that your child will be enjoying these benefits before you'll be allowed to take them out of school.
The Ministry will expect details on your educational approach and curriculum, learning areas and subjects, resources and materials, educational goals, special projects, learning goals, and schedule.
There's a guidance document provided for all this to help you and applications usually take 4 to 6 weeks. You cannot take your child out of compulsory education until you've received the exemption.
Providing Regular and Quality Education
Homeschooling is called home education in New Zealand, but regardless of the terminology, it means that a child is not taught through compulsory education.
In New Zealand, children aged between 6 and 16 have to attend a registered school whether it's a state school, state-integrated school, or independent school. The only other option for education outside of that is homeschooling.
Homeschooling means that your child's education is your legal responsibility (more on that in a moment) so before issuing any child an exemption, the Ministry of Education has a responsibility to check that parents intend to educate their children at least as much and as well as a registered school.
The application for exemption exists to stop bad actors or misguided parents from jeopardising their children's future by depriving them of an education.
As you'll be planning your child's entire education, the Ministry will want to know that you've thought about how and when you'll do this. The key descriptors in the requirement are "as regularly and as well as" and while this doesn't mean you have to teach in the same way, it can provide some children with some protection.
Homeschooling is challenging and some parents may need some advice on homeschooling children before they apply.
The Legal Requirements of Parents Homeschooling Their Children in New Zealand
It takes a specific set of skills to homeschool children and beyond that, parents have several legal responsibilities before they can homeschool their children.
The first is to gain the aforementioned exemption for their child. No matter how much you want to homeschool your children, you can't legally take them out of compulsory schooling until you have this exemption. Enrolment at a Registered School is otherwise compulsory.
Since homeschooling can come in many different shapes and sizes, it's not entirely clear what's meant by an "appropriate programme of education", but that's what you have to prove to the Ministry and they do provide guides on what they expect.
If your Certificate of Exemption is approved, you become legally responsible for your child's education. The exemption is only valid for one child and you'll need to apply for each child individually if you plan to homeschool several children.
Financial Assistance for Parents
Parents homeschooling their children can get some financial support. The amount depends on how many children you're homeschooling, with less available for each subsequent child.
As of January 2023, the amounts paid annually were as follows:
- first child: $769
- second child: $654
- third child: $538
- subsequent children: $385
Admittedly, it's not much and probably won't contribute much to the actual cost of homeschooling a child, but it is available for parents and every little can help. The allowance is paid twice a year, in June and December.
There are plenty of resources out there for teachers and parents homeschooling their children and while you don't have to use the New Zealand Curriculum, it is made available to parents and teachers alike.
Though you'll need a plan for how to homeschool your children to gain their exemption from compulsory schooling, planning is key to successful homeschooling. Even though you have a lot of freedom in how and what you teach homeschooled kids, it's still recommended that you plan out their education and their regular classes.
Even if things don't go to plan and you have to adapt, their education will be much more effective with a schedule and structure that's planned with them in mind.
If you need some help with this or would like to enlist the help of a professional, consider looking to private tutors. Whether it's a subject you find difficult or help with planning your child's education, there are plenty of experienced tutors across New Zealand and around the world on the Superprof website.
With different kinds of tutors and tutoring available, you can choose the format that best suits your children. Face-to-face tutoring, for example, allows the tutor to work directly with the child, adapting their lessons to what works best for them. This kind of tutoring is usually the most expensive but it's also the most cost-effective since every minute of every session is spent working directly with the student.
Online tutoring is also available one-on-one and often at a lower price. Since the tutors can work from their own homes without reduced travel costs, they tend to charge less. This is also useful if you travel and your child still needs regular lessons from somebody back in New Zealand, for example. With online tutors, you can also broaden your search to cover subjects and topics that mightn't often be covered by your local tutors.
Group tutorials are a good way for homeschooled children to learn in smaller groups while also offering a cheaper tutoring solution for parents. Groups of homeschooled children can enjoy tutoring in one or several subjects while allowing their parents more control over what they learn than they'd get in their local school, for example.
Since so many of the private tutors on the Superprof website offer the first session for free, you can always try a few of the different formats before choosing which tutors are right for you and your children.
Don't forget that you can also get tutoring for yourself if you need to brush up on a certain subject before teaching your child. A tutor could act as an educational consultant to help you plan out your child's education, give you advice on teaching approaches, or coach you on how to get the best results out of your child during class!
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