A note from Gwenda Smithies
I thought you might be interested in putting the following info out to NZ homeschoolers…
Last year we discovered Taratahi Agriculture Training School. They offer distance learning courses in agriculture and their courses give you NCEA credits. You can choose whether you want to do level 1, 2 or 3 courses. Our son did sufficient level 3 credits (14 credits) to gain an entire subject for the purposes of University Entrance. You don’t have to have done levels 1 and 2 before level 3. Our son went straight to level 3 and the material was straightforward.
Taratahi post out all required materials and offer a wide range of agriculture areas to choose from – for example you can study sheep breeding, how to improve soil health, recognizing common pasture plants and lots of other things. You can do as many or as few courses as you want. It is totally flexible and the workload required for each course is not high. There is a cost but it is not unreasonable. We were their first ever homeschoolers but they liked the experience of having homeschoolers! They have now streamlined a process to make it easier for other homeschoolers to get qualifications and credits in agriculture. We think this is a brilliant option for homeschoolers. Their website is https://www.taratahi.ac.nz/programmes/primary-industries-in-schools This site contains all the various options for secondary school-age students. You will notice that they also offer some pretty cool on-farm courses but these practical courses are not available in all parts of New Zealand, however we can certainly all access the many distance-learning options (scroll to the bottom of the page on that site to find the distance learning section).
Regards, Gwenda Smithies rgsmithies@xtra.co.nz
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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: http://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: http://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-categories-and-work-focus-amendment-bill-has-passed-its-third-reading
Click on the link above or here to get to the Huge List of Free Homeschool Printable Sites
