From Cynthia Hancox:
Quite a few folks are wondering whether/how we as home educators can access the resources the Ministry is providing for students under lockdown.
The resources the govt is rolling out are targeted at students enrolled in schools or ECEs, as those are the students the govt is responsible to deliver teaching/resources to. Home educated students do not have the right or ability to access most of those resources on an individual basis. However, some of the resources are being delivered on public platforms, and there is nothing whatsoever preventing home educated students from taking advantage of them. These could include the 6 hours a day of broadcast content over the dedicated tv channels (and on demand), the resources and links on the Ministry’s website and so on.
We cannot, however, expect to be able to get access to free devices, supported internet provision, or hardpacks of printed resources, stationery etc. Nor to have teachers send us stuff and tell us what our kids should be learning/doing at this time.
Ultimately, I think we as home educators are in a good position – we can, as always, have the freedom to choose our children’s program of learning etc, and we can tap into some of the additional online resources if we wish, while they last. We should also remember that this is not something they’re rolling out as an on-going, long term option; eg the tv broadcasting is only funded for a month, with review after that. Schools will resume, though maybe not all at once. All of what is being offered is a stop-gap measure to ensure they are delivering some kind of educational content to students in the meantime. It’s not a roll-out of “great learning at home alternatives” to replace schoolrooms as such, though lessons learned may well shape some of what they offer in the future.
So, we can pick and choose some of the useful online content, or maybe learn about things that have been there all along we just weren’t aware of before which may be useful going forward, but remain in control and responsible for determining, directing, and resourcing our children’s programs of learning as the parents of exempt students. By following some of the links on this site you can find some resources that are accessible and may be useful: https://learningfromhome.govt.nz/.
Note: I know that some of our families have both exempt and enrolled students. They should, of course, be able to access resources for their enrolled students on the same basis as any other family.
From Cynthia Hancox http://www.cynthiahancox.com/homeschooling.html
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Needing help for your home schooling journey: https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/
And
Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:
Information on getting started: https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/
and
Information on getting an exemption: https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/
This link is motivational: https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/
Exemption Form online: https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/
Beneficiaries: https://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-cate