I am getting lots of people contacting me about this. If you have not read anything about this then you can read it here…

Here is one of the questions and others are all similar:

I am so worried about this. I am a home schooling Mum of two children. I earn a little extra money doing some writing but are the government saying I will have to send my child to school and early child care to continue to receive help? Please help this very, very worried single Mum

Then others are saying that they have received letters from WINZ which say they “must attend” an appointment with a date in the very near future (many on Monday and Tuesday of this coming week) and that if they don’t go to the appointment then their payments may be stopped

I was thinking about this as I lay awake for 3 1/2 hours last night. (A common thing at the moment) I have rung Paula Bennett’s office 3 times now and just got her answer phone at her electorate office. During the initial call I gathered that home educators had not been considered in all this new policy and no-one had any answers. I was told some information which didn’t sound right so I asked for it in writing. I rang the office the next day when I had heard nothing and was told that an email would be sent to me. I rang again on Friday and was told that an email would be sent to me Friday afternoon. It did not arrive Friday afternoon. Paula Bennett’s office is coming up with something for home educators – at this stage we do not know what and they wont let us have any input into it at the moment. I have not been able to talk to the people formulating the policy or whatever they are doing. All I know is that I was meant to be getting an email yesterday afternoon and I did not. So last night I thought that going to any meetings at this stage is pointless especially for people with children in the 3-5 age groups.

So those with children in the 3-5 year age groups should cancel their meetings and make them for the following week – tell them that we are waiting for information from Paula Bennett’s office so it is pointless having a meeting now when things could change for home educators.

For those with children 6 and over and with an exemption you may have to begin doing part-time study with Open Polytech or Massey (extramurally) or with the Invercargill Polytech which I believe is free (or used to be free)

(Update: If parents choose the study option, The Southern Institute of Technology (zero fees) offers distance learning options:
http://www.sit.ac.nz/courses/sit2lrn_study_anywhere_-_distance_learning/)

 (cb) the person is engaged in full-time study of a kind approved by the chief executive;

I have heard from a number of people that they have been approved doing only part-time study.

I have also heard of others contacting Paula Bennett’s office including NCHENZ.

Another concerning link: Concern about the move to lower the school age to four