MoE Meetings: 1st Meeting 17 July 2014 – Getting to know you

Red Tape Cluster Buster meeting 28 July 2014

This meeting was with Megan Reid (Senior Project Manager) and Mireille Consalvey (Project Coordinator) for the Change Team, which is a part of Sector Enablement and Support.

The aim of this project is to reduce or stop those activities that deliver little or no value to schools, ECE providers and the MoE, and to streamline and improve existing processes. In addition they are looking at resourcing forms and online templates that the Sector use. Their intention is to simplify these forms, and retire the ones that are low value. So this is MoE wide, not just with home educators. The purpose of meeting with us is to seek feedback from home education leaders as to how the current home educating process and practice works and how they can make this work better for us. This is an opportunity to think about a desired end to end process.  I put these two links up on the HEF website about the meeting: MoE discussions and Preparation for the MoE discussion

First, it is good to look at the law for home educators in New Zealand: Education Law in New Zealand – updated with extra links. In all our talks we want to keep everything simple and according to the law rather than policy.

We first looked at the forms (exemption forms and declaration forms) and talked about the process of the ERO communications with home educators around ERO reviews, based on discussions home educators had online at Clutter buster group or (for ease of reading as not everyone can get onto the google docs) here… https://hef.org.nz/coming-events-archives-2012/red-tape-cluster-buster/

Megan and Mireille were very easy to talk with and seem to have a great understanding about home education. We managed to talk about everything mentioned in the link above.

Some highlights from our meeting:

Exemption Form online

Megan and Mireille were positive about the exemption form being online. We have suggested to them to let parents track their exemption application online. With exemptions taking 4-6 weeks to be approved this would help parents know what is happening. We hope that the time frame can be reduced, especially now that there are ten MoE offices approving exemptions.

Use of the Exemption Application

Megan was very understanding of the current process and wanted us to be aware that the Ministry understands that there is difference in current practice. What we write in the Broad Curriculum Areas and Curriculum Areas (hopefully these two questions will be combined to focus on the Home Educator Overarching Philosophy) in the exemption form sets the stage for how the MoE will look at the whole exemption application. In other words what we write in these two areas will be reflected in what we write in the Topic Plan and Regularity. So if we have a bookwork approach to our home schooling then the MoE will expect to see a Topic Plan and a Timetable. If we write up our understanding of natural learning/unschooling and show how we plan to go about applying it in our homes, then the Topic Plan and the Regularity questions should be answered quite differently to the way the bookwork approach will be written up – in other words they want to see how natural learning will work in our children’s lives.

Truancy

There are 38,000 children truant every day from school; some are still on the school grounds but just skipping one class. When the MoE writes or talks to us, they have to obey the law and say that children have to be at school between the ages of 6-16. After reading a letter Jim Greening wrote to principals wanting them to concentrate on chronic non-attendance, I thought it was time that we addressed this for home educators. So I asked Megan and Mireille about it. Megan outlined her understanding of the Justified Absence and Unjustified Absence. More information about the absence definitions can be found at http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/Schools/Attendance/ForBoardsAndPrincipals/Definitions.aspx. So after they left I searched around the MoE website to find out more about these terms.  This is what I came up with: Truancy and the Home Schooler/Home Educator

I have asked the Red Tape Cluster Buster team to make “justified absence” a part of the process of applying for an exemption application. It is more likely that a school would be in agreement of an Explained (but unjustified) Absence if a Home Schooling application is pending. This will need to be worked through in greater detail.

Special needs

Megan and Mireille want to have a lot more helpful information out there for home educators with Special Needs children. The national office realise that special needs children may be being educated in the home rather than in a mainstream setting. So they want home educators to know what services etc are out there for special needs children. Megan said that they want to have good flow charts, information, links, what is available, etc for home educating with special needs children in the exemption application package.

ECE

Megan and Mireille agreed with us that writing information about whether our children had been in an ECE during the last 6 months (when our children are turning 6 or being pulled out of school) is not a requirement of the current legislation and does not demonstrate to the MoE that we have the ability to “teach our child as regularly and as well as a registered school”.

Principals

“Principal notified of your intention to homeschool (in the case of a child currently enrolled in a school). The Principal of your child’s current school (or most recently attended school) will be asked to comment on the suitability or otherwise of home education as an option for your child.” We talked about the way different local MoE offices use this statement.  Any contact with a previous school should not delay or interfere with the process of approving an exemption. There are other ways that a check can be made to see if the child is on the school’s roll. Presently the home educating community sees this as potentially causing additional problems for the child, and parents, in the school, when the MoE contacts them, while an exemption application is still in approval phase. It is the parents’ decision whether to home educate or not, not the school’s. When a principal is asked to comment “on the suitability or otherwise of home education as an option” they do not necessarily have insight into the home educating philosophy or different approaches planned to be used. Therefore it is a subjective comment currently being asked for by Principals with little contextualisation. Most schools are good about this but there are some where the school has a predetermined objection to the philosophy of home educating and this impacts on their response to this question. Megan and Mireille seemed to understand this and agreed that this statement and the process needs to be changed.

Please be patient

The MoE is at present making huge changes in all areas, not just home education, and it would seem that the changes could be good for home educators. Both teams are still meeting with home educators. They plan to involve home educators in the changes.

At this stage most changes have not happened yet. The ten MoE offices have been set up – but not all of them are able to approve exemptions yet.  It will take awhile for these changes (once approved) to be operating in the local MoE offices. So we need to be a little patient.

In the meantime we need to help people get their exemptions with as little stress as possible. If you find challenges and barriers in particular MoE offices, there are other avenues that can be explored to continue a conversation. Our contact at the National Office is Lucy Ambrose – but first make sure an experienced home educator has seen your exemption application.

So it would seem that there are encouraging things afoot.

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Please leave any comments you have on this. The Red Tape Cluster Buster team are still keen to hear from everyone. So if you have any comments (especially if they are not in the link above or mentioned here and you are not part of a group meeting with the Red Tape Cluster Buster team) on the forms and processes the MoE use for home educators then please leave them here so that I can pass them onto Mireille. Thanks.

Background links:

MoE/ERO issues: https://hef.org.nz/2014/moeero-issues/

MoE Meetings: 1st Meeting 17 July 2014 – Getting to know you

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From the Smiths:

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/

Coming Events: https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: https://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/

The MoE had a shuffle around with their staff and offices on 1 July 2014; you can read about it here:  https://hef.org.nz/2014/changes-in-the-moe/

Recently, I have been part of two meetings with the new MoE staff.

The first meeting on 15 July was with Jim Greening (Group Manager, Schools and Student Support), Sonya Logan (Manager, Student Engagement) and Lucy Ambrose (Senior Advisor, Learner Engagement). The purpose of the meeting was for the MoE to meet with a Home Schooling organisation to establish that they were a valid and recognised representation of home educators, and to lay groundwork for scoping: consulting with ERO, evaluating MoE resources and policies and opening communication with home schooling groups. These meetings are to be ongoing.

Our discussions were fairly general for the first part of the meeting where we were getting to know Jim, Sonya and Lucy and they were getting to understand home educators. We talked very briefly about the history of home education in New Zealand. See A Brief History of Home Education in New Zealand by Craig Smith.

We did talk about some nitty gritty things, and I believe ended up with some good outcomes.

Jim would like to see consistency of information and approach within the ten MoE offices. The two main questions are:

• is the child getting a good education?
• is the child safe?

Need to keep records

These three from the MoE National office want to unpick this one with home educators. Here is what we talked about, and it is not about keeping records at all, but preparing when we need to for either the “ERO, further education or training”. See more here: https://hef.org.nz/2014/record-of-progress-and-achievement/

Need for MoE to contact Schools during the exemption process 

We considered this statement: “Principal notified of your intention to homeschool (in the case of a child currently enrolled in a school). The Principal of your child’s current school (or most recently attended school) will be asked to comment on the suitability or otherwise of home education as an option for your child.” We also discussed the way different local MoE offices use this statement. They stated that the school’s input is to highlight any special needs or learning needs that the child has. This is part of the process in working out what is best for the child. Our response: The MoE should not contact the school as a normal process of approving an exemption application. They could check online to see if the child is on the school’s role. When the MoE contacts the school this can cause all sorts of problems for the child in the school until the exemption application is approved, and also for the parents. It has nothing to do with the school whether a child is home educated or not. It is the parents’ decision not the schools. A child can have difficulty learning at school, or be naughty, and when they come home and the parents are working with them one on one and using different approaches to what the school uses, the child can flourish. Principals don’t see this but we do. They may not take that into account when “commenting on the suitability or otherwise of home education as an option for your child”. Most schools are good about this, but there are some schools that are one-eyed and they will, out of prejudice, say that home education is not suitable for some particular children. Jim, Sonya and Lucy seemed to understand this and agreed that this statement needs to be changed. They had also heard from others who are concerned about this.

Failed ERO review

We looked at the wording in the letter that goes out to parents after a failed ERO review. “There is provision for the MoE to request that ERO reviews a programme again in six months, following an ERO review, if parents indicate that they accept the findings of the ERO report, intend to address the relevant issues and have already made progress.” If the ERO has made a report and we feel that it does not reflect our home educating of our children, how can we “accept the findings of the ERO report” without incriminating ourselves? They agreed the wording needs to be changed.

As regularly and well

Unfortunately Jim feels the need to define the words “regular” and “well”. We told him that these words do not need to be defined any more than they already are in the exemption form. We have not needed these words defined in the past and it could be detrimental to home educators if they are defined for the future. Thankfully the MoE want to be in discussions with us over all aspects of home education – the forms, the processes and anything else. So if these words are defined more than what is in the exemption form, we will be able to comment on it.

ERO Reviews:

Jim would like to see ERO reviews done not on the basis of a complaint but in a more supportive role. He feels that this would give a better overall view of Home Schooling. He is questioning why these reviews are so limited – up to 35 done per year (14 last year). We know why – because the MoE was looking to see how they could cut their budget and found that home educators are a low risk group. At the meeting I thought that Jim was considering taking the reviews from around 14 a year up to the full quota of 35 a year with non-compliant based reviews. We need to discuss the purpose of the ERO reviews more. Are they to find out where parents are not “teaching as regular and well as a registered school” or for the MoE to get an overview of home education or both?

Conclusions

Part of the aim of this meeting was to form a group of people who can work with the MoE – a sector group to look at all aspects of home education. Jim, Sonya and Lucy are still meeting with home educators to find who should be part of this group. They are meeting with NCHENZ on the 19th August 2014. I am not sure who else they are meeting with, but they did say that they would be meeting up with some Home Education Support Groups.

I also want to explain my role (representing the Home Education Foundation) at any MoE/ERO meetings. I am not representing any other home educators – only my family. I asked another couple to be with me at this meeting, who have finished home educating seven children and are looking forward to having grandchildren who will be home educated too. I have eight children and have already been home educating for 28 years, with an exemption. I still have an eight year old being educated at home along with her 13 and 16 year old siblings, so I will be at this for a long time yet. As I see it, my role at these meetings (if I am a part of them) is to be there with the 28 years of experience I have at home educating and supporting Craig in the work he did with the Home Education Foundation, then to share the outcome of these meetings with you, the home educators of New Zealand, so that you will be able to represent yourselves by either contacting me (I’ll pass on your comments and concerns), your local MoE office or Lucy Ambrose from the National Office.

Please be patient

As you can see there are new staff at the MoE and they are wanting and needing to make changes to the forms and processes the MoE uses for home educators, and it would seem that the changes could be good for home educators. Both teams are still meeting with home educators. They plan to involve home educators (not sure who yet) in the changes.

At this stage most changes have not happened yet. The ten MoE offices have been set up – but not all of them are able to approve exemptions yet.  It will take awhile for these changes (once approved) to be operating in the local MoE offices. So we need to be a little patient.

MoE Meetings: 2nd Meeting 28 July 2014 – Red Tape Cluster Buster Meeting 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Smiths:

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/

Coming Events: https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: https://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/