Education Resources

Home Education Support Groups

In addition to the subject-specific resources accessed via the links in the side-bar, there are currently two home education groups specifically serving the Canberra region, Christian Home Education Canberra (CHEC) and the Home Education Network of Canberra and the Southern Tablelands (HENCAST). At a national level, the Home Education Association (HEA) is an umbrella organisation that provides support for home educators throughout Australia.

Government Support

We were registered for home education with the NSW Board of Studies. Our inspection experiences were entirely positive, and we found the Board inspectors very supportive and helpful. The Board provides syllabus guidelines for all formally approved subjects on its Web site.

We would very much have liked to have continued with formal registration throughout our son's education, but at the time there was no legal requirement to register children over the age of 15, and the Board was unable to accommodate our wishes in this regard.

External Assessment

Having decided to follow a formal education structure, we also sought out opportunities for formal assessment. To this end, we sat the series of Educational Assessment Australia papers (administered by the University of NSW) each year. Details of the available assessments are provided on the UNSW EAA Web site. We encountered a minor problem when our formal home education registration lapsed (when our son turned 15), since the official position is that only formally registered home education students are eligible to sit the assessments. This issue, however, appears to have been resolved.

Educational Resource Suppliers

There are links to a number of suppliers of general educational resources provided on the CHEC, HENCAST and HEA Web sites. Links to specific scientific equipment suppliers are provided on the Science page of this site.