Home Education in Victoria
The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) is Victoria’s education and training regulator.
Part of our responsibilities is registering children for homeschooling in Victoria. Any child of compulsory school age (6–17 years) who is being educated at home must be registered with the VRQA
In Victoria, home education or home schooling means that a parent or both parents assume overall responsibility for their child’s educational program.
There are a few things to know when considering homeschooling:
- Your child can be home educated throughout the compulsory schooling phase. This means ages six to seventeen. (You can register your child from the beginning of the year they turn 6).
- Your family’s residential address must be in Victoria to register with VRQA.
- The learning plan you develop must provide regular and efficient instruction in 8 key learning areas:
- English
- Mathematics
- Sciences (including Physics, Chemistry and Biology)
- Humanities and Social Sciences (including History, Geography, Economics, Business, Civics and Citizenship)
- the Arts
- Languages
- Health and Physical Education
- Information and Communication Technology, and Design and Technology.
Exemptions are available if it is unreasonable for your child to receive instruction in one or more of the learning areas.
The regulations do not elaborate on what needs to be covered in each learning area. You get to decide what to include, so you can best reflect your child’s individual needs.
The VRQA reviews a random sample of homeschooling families each year to make sure their learning activities show evidence of regular and efficient instruction across the 8 learning areas.
Applying for registration
The registration process has four key parts. These are:
- Application form
- Required documents (e.g. birth certificate)
- Learning plan
- Submission
To learn more about registering to homeschool and the application process, see:
Registering for home education
Source: VRQA – www.vrqa.vic.gov.au
