HefNet is the New Zealand based Home Education Foundation email list discussion NETwork.
Established in July 1998, this group has expanded quickly and includes home educators with a wonderfully diverse range of political, religious, philosophical, and methodological views. This mix makes for some red-hot yet edifying debates!Moderated by Craig Smith, a trustee of the Home Education Foundation based in New Zealand.
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ChedNet is the Christian Home EDucation NETwork Email Discussion Group. Discuss curricula from a Christian worldview, child development from Biblical rather than humanist presuppositions, discipline according to the Biblical pattern and for the Biblical reasons, time management, Christlike character development. Give praise to the Lord for His mercies, blessings and victories! All with like-minded people. Moderated by Craig Smith, National Director of Christian Home Schoolers of New Zealand.
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CcedNet is the Christian Classical home EDucation NETwork Email discussion group of New Zealand. This discussion group is for those Christian families who would like to be training their children to think and not just to be concentrating on output (for exams or the ERO).A thoroughly Christian, thoroughly Classical education is one based on the approach known as the Trivium, as promoted by Dorothy Sayers, Doug Wilson and others.Moderated by Barbara Smith, Trustee of the Home Education Foundation.
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TEACH-eForum (Thorough Education Achieved in a Caring Home) Forums have been held annually since 1996 in various parts of New Zealand, by Craig & Barbara Smith of the Home Education Foundation. They are designed to be gatherings of equals to discuss, share and explore any topic the home educators attending wish to raise.The Forums are open to any home educators, but are specifically intended for those carrying some responsibility within the local support group, such as co-ordinator, leaders, newsletter editors and other volunteers. It is also for those wanting to start up a support group or are involved in helping others in their home education endeavours.

http://www.egroups.com/group/dwha/ Diana Waring History Alive email discussion group.
For those who are using the Waring resources in New Zealand.Your questions can be directed to Diana Waring herself when necessary.
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KAHWOMEN/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Harvest-Curric-Swap-NZ/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NZHomeEducators/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taughtofthelord/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Waikato-Activities/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nzhe/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Homeschooling-Downunder/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Frugal-Kiwis-In-Christ/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/R_U_A/
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/CTHNZ
http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/NZUnschoolers
Auckland South Home Educators
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NZCatholicHomeEd/

Loving and genuinely concerned parents are the best qualified of all to teach their own children. Who else is more motivated to invest the time, the money, the blood, sweat, toil and tears required for the child’s best interests than the parents? Who knows and understands the child better than the parents?A parent engaged in home-based education has the vast advantage of a tutoring situation: one parent/teacher to one or two pupils, recognised worldwide as the most effective teaching method. Whatever they may lack in the area of formal educational qualifications they will usually more than compensate for in motivation and the advantages of one-to-one teaching.Learning the three r’s, or teaching them, is no big mystery, as the state schooling system would seem to have us all believe. It is almost a natural extension of what parents do all the time: teach a brand new baby to speak and understand a language. There is nothing in the rest of the educational realm to compare to this incredible feat, yet parents do it naturally with little special effort.

Most home educators find the lifestyle of home-based education rather fun, as they are flexible enough to have field trips, holidays, special projects, extended time on one subject whenever they want. Because the formal instruction per child need only be two hours or so per day, preschoolers can be napping at that time, or other pupils can look after them in turn.

Schools and teachers only control the access to “schooling”: lecturing, pre-digested notes, certain classrooms and labs, and paper qualifications. They do not control “education”. An education is available to all and is virtually free of charge: it is not in short supply; it does not diminish as more people get it. Schooling in schools and other institutions is in a limited, finite supply, and it is this which people like to control for they can make money out of it. Once a person learns to read, write, compute and some research skills, they can teach themselves virtually anything; that is, a true education is out there to be acquired by anyone with the initiative to dig it up for themselves.

“A half century of research has failed to find any significant relationship between teacher certification and pupil achievement. The writer grieves to admit that, especially after a long career preparing teachers for certification. The one valid measure of teacher effectiveness is pupil achievement. Home schoolers have little difficulty in equaling or surpassing the pupil achievement of state certified teachers.” — Sam B. Peavey, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Louisville.”But even the most attentive, perceptive, and thoughtful classroom teachers could never elicit from their students the amount and intensity of feedback that homeschooling parents typically get from their children, because parents know and understand their children so much better…..When children are allowed to decide when they will begin the exciting task of learning to read and are allowed to work out for themselves the problems of doing so…the great majority of them learn to read much more quickly, enthusiastically, and efficiently than most children in conventional schools.” — John Holt, Growing Without Schooling”The evidence shows overwhelmingly that these children perform extremely well, above average, when they re-enter formal education. That appears to be across the board, whether they sat at home and had formal lessons…or whether they were up-a-tree hippies who had no formal learning pattern. On any measure you like, socially or academically, they will do better.” — Jeff Richardson, Monash University, Melbourne

There are many Christian and secular programmes available, both from overseas and from NZ, and many parents simply make up their own programme as they go. One of the best resources is the public library. Once you are officially home schooling, you will also have access to the National Library, to which only teachers normally have access. Friends, neighbours, relations, local support groups all have expertise in many areas, just waiting for you to tap into it all! There are also electronic networks for locating used curriculum materials and other resources to buy or borrow.

Do I have to provide a desk, blackboard and lots of wall space to display work?
Only if you intend to run your homeschool as if it were a classroom. Children do like a measure of regularity and routine, so having an area set aside specifically for formal instruction is a good idea. The kitchen table will do. A favourite easy chair with the child sitting on your lap will amaze you at how it tends to lengthen the attention span. And remember that a walk in the garden or sitting out under a tree or going fishing together can create an ideal environment for passing on some of the most important lessons a parent could ever pass on to his child.

Homeschooling can be as expensive or as economical as you like, and time commitment is extremely flexible. It depends upon what you are endeavouring to do.
First of all, though, dispel the picture of a mini-school established in your home: many start that way but few ever carry on that way, for schools are designed to deal with logistical problems completely absent from the home.
At home you are in a tutoring/mentoring situation, the most superior setting for academic excellence, social training, physical self-discipline, character development and spiritual growth ever devised. Education is not limited to certain activities in a certain place during certain hours of the day: education and learning are taking place all the time, and parents with their children at home are in the unique position to pretty well organise what they learn, to what depth, in what manner and for what purposes. They can take advantage of the “teachable moments” that come when the child has a flash of inspiration or curiosity about feathers in the midst of a history lesson….drop the history and pursue the feather question, for feathers lend themselves to the study of animal husbandry, ornithology, biology, flight, mechanics, physics, mathematics, fashion…..and history, too! Not just the history of the human use of feathers, but the history of fashion, mathematics, physics, etc….see the connections that can be made?

What kind of time and work are involved?
Every homeschooling family would answer this one differently.It does depend on how many children you are teaching, if there are any preschoolers there too, what level the students are at, what lessons and degree of mastery you are committed to, what kind of curriculum you are using, etc.Generally, homeshoolers find that education becomes a 24-hour-a-day lifestyle. This only makes sense when you perceive education as a total preparation for life. Everything you do becomes an educational experience or opportunity. It seems that 1 1/2 to 2 hours of formal instruction per day plus lots of interaction as you go about your regular routine and do projects together is a common formula.

Teaching reading and basic math principles often require concentrated one-to-one tuition. Subjects such as science, history, geography, and all the arts can be taught at once to a whole range of ages, expecting more from the older ones, and parenthetically explaining parts to the younger ones. Regular preparation and evaluation time for the parent is also recomend. And it must be stressed that both parents should be committed to the whole exercise and totally supportive of one another.

Most homeschoolers find the lifestyle of homeschooling rather fun, as they are flexible enough to have field trips, holidays, special projects, extended time on one subject whenever they want. Because the formal instruction per child need only be 2 hours or so, preschoolers can be napping at that time, or other pupils can look after them in turn.

There will be a need to organise your materials and your time, so having a well-ordered house and housekeeping routine as well as a well-organised programme of instruction is a definite plus. This does not mean you have to be SuperParent. Often it does mean that you re-organise your priorities. For instance, we run our business from home and have one preschooler and homeschool our other three children plus one foster child. Because of this we have had to place “general tidiness” a bit lower on our priority list.

Homeschooling requires a fair amount of self discipline plus the will and ability to discipline the children to help carry out their programme, as you are all a part of your family corporation. Helping the children to see their indispensible place within your family and the way they are depended upon for certain jobs gives them a real sense of self-worth and of contributing.

The biggest job of all is the one you need to do first and which will in fact be an on-going one. And that is to work out your own personal philosophy answering the question, “Why am I homeschooling?” You must be able to articulate this as clearly as you can, and be committed to it, or else the smallest obstacle or the least criticism will be enough to stop you cold.

Where do I get materials and what does it all cost?
There are excellent materials, resources and curricula available from a great variety of sources. Some national and local support groups keep a range of resources for the use of their members. Many homeschool veterans are happy to lend items not currently being used. The public libraries are excellent. Secondhand book sales, flea markets, garage sales can all yield very useful material. Once you take a higher profile and display confidence and commitment, friends and relatives may come up with some surprises. Take your time when shopping around and do not buy the first thing that strikes your fancy nor buy something for use many months down the track. There is a lot of high-gloss junk for sale, too, plus it is easy to spend a lot on resources that you later find to be unsuitable. Check things out as much as you can first.Comprehensive package curricula are available at varying costs, and correspondence programmes are offered from a variety of schools in NZ and overseas. Older children can attend night schools and polytechs. Many public schools are now open to the idea of allowing a student to attend only one or two specific classes, chemistry for example. You may have a close friend or relative who would be thrilled to offer tutoring in a subject area in which they are particularly good. In short, there is a vast range of material helps available, and you can spend as much or as little as you like.Take a moment to reflect on the fact that if you only passed on all the important lessons that you have learned during your own life, you will have done your child an invaluable service.