Moderation

 In almost 18 years of home educating, I've had a lot of moderators.  

When we lived in Scotland, and we home educated for a few months, we were planning to leave, so we didn't bother with any of their system.  We started 2006 home educating Willow in class 1 in a Steiner method with a curriculum from a Queensland Steiner school, with the idea that this would be helpful for returning to Australian schooling by 2007.  April 2006 we made our way to London, and from there we headed to Paris where we spent two months life learning and using our Steiner curriculum, until we returned to Adelaide mid 2006.  The remainder of 2006 saw us home educating and looking at schools for Willow.

Willow working on a drawing in Musee d'Orsay

Gabriel working on a drawing too

In 2007 Willow attended two schools, Trinity Gardens, in class 2, in their Steiner stream, and then Kiranari, a small community school.  After six months, approx, we had enough of the schooling systems in Adelaide, and we registered to home educate.

Our first moderator was called Sally, and she ran the home education department in Adelaide, and she was lovely.  She was an ex-homeschooler and she made it quite clear that the department was not on my side and was not there to support me.  She did supply a few ideas for contacts, but again it was made clear that this was not her primary role.  Her role was to assess my ability to provide an education.

Vaccswim in Glenelg

For our approximately five years home educating in Adelaide,  I became accustomed to writing up my notes on our experiences, and reviewing our year, and reading the learning outcomes and connecting our curriculum to the learning outcomes.  I grew to find the experience quite useful and it helped me a lot to understand the progress my children were making over the year. 

Every year in Adelaide, we had a different moderator who was generally an ex-principal with no interest in home education, who the department was "retiring".  For six months they would cause havoc in the community and then they would work out how home education worked.  Generally we were lucky to have our review in the second half of the year.  Plus Damien and I had the advantage of knowing how to work the system. By our final year in Adelaide, after a few dramas, including discussing the dramas the Department of education were creating with the education minister, we were assigned a moderator who was to be our new permanent moderator.  By then, after five different moderators, we were off to Perth.

Arden working on geometry.

In Perth, in total, over approximately 12 years we've had three different moderators.  Our first was very supportive and indicated that that was part of her role, which was quite a foreign idea to me.  The longer we got to know her, the more we enjoyed her visits, and the better she understood our family's learning style and goals.  During our time with her as moderator we shifted from having learning outcomes to report on, to having the WA national curriculum to report on.  (I was less than impressed with this; when we lived in the UK the media was constantly reporting on how the national curriculum was failing our children, and it was one of the main reasons we decided to send Willow to the Glasgow Steiner school.)

Willow busking with Irving hanging out on his balance bike.

At an exhibition of historic pianos

Our next moderator, was a mixed bag, sometimes he would be ok, and other times he was trying to catch me out, which made the experience somewhat unpleasant.  It was like I was misbehaving in school and he knew it!, and if he just saw me it the right moment or time he could reprimand me.  After two years of  having him as our moderator, I sent him our notes, a week in advance, and this did help quite a lot.  Sadly I never really found a rapport like our first moderator here.

Arden working on some art.

Our current moderator came with a reputation for being difficult, so I made a few amendments to how I wrote up my report.  Instead of hand writing I typed it, and for each learning area, bar english and maths, I added either a photo or screen shot as evidence of progress.  This seemed to make all the difference, and our first meeting with her was a pleasure, and a huge improvement on our last moderator!

15yrs - A Review

Well my computer actually died, taking some things with it, and leaving this very neglected this year.  I had wondered if I wanted to continue posting on here- I really started it as a sort of a diary of homeschooling when I was quite uncertain of how it would go, and if I would be able to do it.  I know I can now.  I think  this is 15yrs.  Best decision for our family. 

There's been ups and downs and it gets a lot easier as time goes along- or at least it gets more familiar.  Children come with themes and personalities, certain things usually happen at certain time in childhood and having this knowledge makes home educating my younger two children easier than my older two children.  I have an idea of the path and the way forward.  The older two are still more challenging, but the older two also now are on their own journeys into adulthood- the oldest working in internet security, and enjoying it, and the second looking for work and continuing to study at home- in particular working on drawing, Japanese and maths in this past year as he contemplates the idea that he would like to study and work in Japan. 

 
I am thinking I will try to keep posting on this from time to time.  I've had a little feedback that it has given people the idea that they could home educate, and that was the other reason that I put it here.  To help provide others with ideas of "how to...".

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2025

I decided a while ago that I would continue.  It was nice to hear that some people I knew had found it useful.  When I started home educating, I used to spend a lot of time researching ideas and plans, etc online and in a way just looking for a little inspiration.  Inspirations for how we could do things at home, and what we could do.

Plus everything was very community based and so it was also nice to have ideas for our co-op, and to be encouraging each other along in our home ed community in Adelaide.  I'm really feeling a need to get a bit more grass roots community like that again, but TBH every time I've tried to create something like that in Perth it's never really worked, and quite some time ago I accepted, rather sadly, that it was not possible here partly, I think, because people here generally believe that there is nothing wrong with school.

Arden was always keen to have extra classes and more activities out and about, and so in the last few years of his home education I have tried to foster that a lot, and that has been one of the advantages of living in Perth; there are a lot of  classes and external activities.  Irving likes a more intimate learning environment and so I've been aiming to do more at home, and one on one with him.

I always like the idea that learning is for everyone and should be free and that the sharing of knowledge should be free and so that is another reason I've continue blogging and sharing more diverse thoughts on education, because simply, I have a lot of experience now, and I hope that I can continue to offer inspiration.

If you've enjoyed or got something useful from my blog please say hi, and let me know what helped you out, and there's a few link's shared below that may be particularly useful.

My early thoughts on natural learning vs natural learning, with 2025 update.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-i-waldorf-homeschool-and-dont.html

John Taylor Gatto's resignation letter.  

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2023/07/john-taylor-gattos-resignation-to-wall.html

Willow's adventures at Uni.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/06/adventures-of-homeschool-graduate.html

Childhood.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2025/01/beginnings-and-endings-and-thoughts-on.html

Things I've Learnt Teaching My Four To Read.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2025/07/learning-to-read.html

Vision for Life

How did we get here?  I must admit as a first time parent in my mid 20s there was no way that I ever would have envisioned that my eldest child would have been home educated for all but a couple of years of school.

Damien and I started out parenthood with the idea that our family unit was important, and that being connected and supported in our relationship was important and that supporting each other and our child(ren) was our priority.  Our main priority for ourselves when we met, was happiness and to have a happy relationship.  This was our vision for our future, and this has been the motivator for many of our decisions.

We started home education, because it seemed convenient for relocating back to Australia.  We stopped home education because Willow needed more social contact.  We returned to home education because Willow's happiness and our own family harmony were more important to us than the schooling system. 

With Willow being in school (in Scotland), home educated in Scotland, France and Adelaide, and back in school (in Adelaide) it became clearer to Damien and I that some of our own problems as young adults were purely to do with school and its systemisation.  We could see some of this appearing in some of the kids in Willow's school in Adelaide, certain behaviours that the 7yr olds were developing to cope with being in the system, that parents explained away as a stage, and that Damien and I with our new perspective could see was the kids finding ways to cope with have too few adults to spend time with, be supported by and to model grown-up behaviour from.

Within a very short time of removing Willow from school the anti-social behaviours that she was displaying at home vanished, and when on further questioning on my part, about how much happier she seemed, 7yr old Willow declared, "I don't have to act any more Mummy."

So this formed the basis for our decisions around education, these transformative experiences, started us on this wonderful and at times challenging but always inspiring journey that has lead us towards a usually contented home life based around education and learning.  This has meant that only Willow attended school, and that Gabriel and Arden have never been, and that Irving is heading towards being registered for home education next year.  For the littler ones in particular this experience has been all encompassing and nurturing, being surrounded by their family that loves them almost all of the time, and having an understanding that learning is inspiring and interesting and exciting. 

When they go out into the world, they transition into being independant, and they are not rudely and sharply separated from their family, and the feeling of safety that that offers them.  The separation that happens does so gently over the years: time at classes with parents present, time at classes without parents present, time with friends, time at home alone, time walking to the shop,etc.  Each skill is built up gradually and gently and each separation is partly encouraged by Damien and I, and by our child.  In the early years, this can feel very slow, but in a larger family there are so many other activities happening that the later years of school travel past quite quickly and all of a sudden, home education is coming to an end, and new experiences past school are being planned and created.

One final note, in our family, one of the main occurrences during the years to keeping life happy and content, is to always resolve emotional disturbances and disharmonies on the spot.  Some days this has meant at home learning has gone out the window, as we sit and work out and sometimes have a good cry, about life and what has been going on.  But these times of disharmony, have always worked out in our favour, as we as a family, have learnt about emotions together and have language and skills to problem solve our feelings, and the problems that they can create.  For me pre-children this was the path that I was starting that lead us to this place, the path towards being able to find and create happiness, and be content most of the time.

So my question to anyone starting home education is...What is your goal for your family?

Some of our moments...
Coffee mornings with Damien have become a thing around here, after him missing us all in the mornings!  (We tend to be later risers) 

Hanging out at the playground with everyone...so nice to have teens that have fun with everyone, that like to chat with people, and to have a family of people that look out for each other.  (Little one has a way to go with this obviously!)

Things to do whilst waiting for your older siblings...."pop"...umbrella fun!

One of Arden's latest passions, photography.  Hot chocolate on a cold day!

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2025 

I had forgotten a few of the things I had referenced here- those illuminating moments when I realised what was going on for some children in their early years of education, as they become dulled and disillusioned and surrendered to the idea of being systemised.  I imagine now that more and more children are in childcare from almost birth, that this may be harder for modern parents to notice, and I am certainly glad to have had that experience of illumination.

As a family with 20 something children, a teen and a pre-teen we still have a lot of fun.  Willow lives out of home with her fiance, in the South- West of WA, and regularly comes to stay with us, and we get down to visit her too.

Our goal as a family has stayed consistent over the years; working out how to get along, and allow everyone to be themselves, and at times it has been easier to work this out than at other times.  Introducing regular computer usage brought  some challenges, and some of these boundaries are things we are still working out and exploring.

Timetables part 2

In our first year of home education we were using a pack from a Queensland Steiner school.  From what I understand it was their year 1 curriculum packaged up for use at home.  For my first year of home education this was great, as I was quite of the mindset that I needed someone else to teach my child and that I didn't know how.

Early days- exploring Regent Gardens in London.

Buying a pack that told me how to gave me confidence and guidance for finding a place to start.  I was already interested in Steiner education, from my experience working in natural skin care, and coming across Dr Haushka and learning about biodynamics and eventually coming across Rudolf Steiner.  The pack gave me somewhere to start;guidance with music, circle time, main lesson and craft.  Willow was 6 and Gabriel, 4, we did a lot of it together with Gabriel joining in the best he could. We had a lot of fun, and  very much did school at home, except in a more relaxed playful way.

When home educating became a permanent decision, on return to Adelaide, my first thought was to return to a kit.  However with a bit of searching I started finding resources and then I came across Shining Star school and their Waldorf Home Educators page.  Mrs M (who manages the page) shared so many wonderful resources that I felt that I could use her information and pull a plan together, and so for grade 2, that is what I did.

Exploring the parklands in Adelaide

In the early days I was quite regimented about sticking to her plan, I felt quite impatient to do everything!  However as time progressed, I started to relax as I came to realise that there was a time,place and season for everything and that we could fit in different work in different years.  (We also largely hung out with unschoolers in Adelaide, who frequently went on about "doing nothing" at that time and I share my feelings on unschooling here- for me my attitude to this has not changed over the years, though I am more relaxed now).  I also came to realise that I could create my own lesson plans, and that sometimes new opportunities that I had been wondering about quietly fell into place as we lived life.

Afternoon tea stall by Willow at our friend's garage sale- early foray into how to make some money. 

For the remainder of our second year home educating we followed a very similar rhythm to our first year- circle time, main lesson, craft.  Thursday was our outing day whilst we were settling into home education becoming a lifestyle decision.  Our third year was much more chaotic- Arden was born- and we did things as we could manage them.  There was a time early on when we were at home more, and we followed what I now refer to as baby rhythm.  We worked to Arden's needs and we fitted around him.  As he grew our need to structure the day around him became less and less, and we settled back into a rhythm closer to our early days.

One of our favourite places in Adelaide- Botanic Park- and particularly the Moreton Bay Fig trees

Hanging out with Alice in Rymill Park

Much of our work took place around the kitchen table, or in the garden, or at the coffee table.  We, as many home educators will tell you, became educate in pyjamas sorts of people (except for me).  I still joke that we really need to buy more pyjamas than clothes.

Kindy in the kitchen-learning to count eggs

When we moved to Perth, we started doing more classes, and this changed our daily rhythm a bit.  By this time Arden was getting bigger, so there was more time for me again, and some time for quiet each morning which was lovely.  By the time Arden was 4 3/4 I was pregnant again.  At this stage Willow was 13 and we were heading towards more self-directed learning.  We spent a couple of  years doing subjects when it suited everyone, and we gave up circle time (as Arden was not very enthusiastic for it) and with baby rhythm back in place with Irving's birth I found it easier for me to manage if we were all at least doing more or less the same work.  (I was starting to feel a little crazy jumping from craft to baby to english to baby to maths to baby,etc, etc) and so we came up with the plan of start the day with music, maths, lunch, main lesson, and craft.  This helped me feel much more grounded and centred and so made life calmer for everyone.

Arden was very pleased to discover Arden St near our home in East Perth.

Our first connection with the Swing music and dance scene in Perth- heading out for dinner and we found a great Swing band and live dancing!

That said this experience was brief for everyone and at the beginning of this year,  Willow and I sat down and came up with a plan for her to meet the requirements of the national curriculum and to cover all the musical work that she needed to do to get up to an adequate level to do further musical study.  We created some guidelines and divided up her work over the year, and on the whole I have acted as manager whilst she has got on with managing where she needs to be during the week and what she needs to do when.  It has been a very positive experience in learning how to manage time and projects to achieve goals whilst balancing free time and other interests.

Timetables part 1

In 2006 when I first started homeschooling I thought our homeschooling experience would be a year out of school whilst travelling back to Australia- something convenient and useful to make our transition back into school easier.  We started the year in Glasgow, Scotland (our home at the time), spent some time in London, and approx 2 months in Paris before arriving back in Adelaide in June.  It was a fabulous 6months of travelling, and over that time I came to love learning as a family.  (This process had really begun when we left Adelaide in 2004).  Not really knowing anything about home education; other than my sister-in-law had started educating her kids, I felt that I needed a curriculum on how to do it.  My SIL recommended a Steiner curriculum (that she was using) and we followed that 5 days a week for grade 1.  ( Willow had been attending the Glasgow steiner school's kinde class the previous year).  We spent that first year home educating in Glasgow, Paris and Adelaide.  We were all enjoying it, and I was finding it was bringing our family closer together.

Learning in Paris

At musee d'orsay

Off to see Monet

When we settled back into living in Adelaide, for various reasons, although we'd come to love home educating at the end of year 1, we found a school to send Willow to.  Sadly after a brief stint in one school (Willow normally ridiculously talkative was saying almost nothing after school), we tried a second school where even Gabriel was commenting at pick-up time that he didn't want to go there!  (There was issues with bullying).  During our six months in school-  I connected into the home education community in Adelaide and by the time the second term was coming to an end we decided that school was not worth the trouble, and that we had a much more pleasant time home educating.

Initially I felt that I would buy a grade 2 pack to help me with home education, but as I settled back into the idea of it, I realised that I mostly knew where Willow was up to with her work, and that maybe with some guidance I could figure it out myself.  In my hunting around I came across Shining Star school in Portland, and discovered the wonderful Mrs M. who shared knowledge and files on how to create one's own plan for home education.  In the early days we still stuck to doing 5 days- but gradually we transitioned to 4 days (as we went out once a fortnight on home education outings) and finally we settled on 3 as we found it best to have a home loving day and a catch up with other home educators.

For years now, we have more or less stuck with that arrangement, though presently due to being busy with Irving, we also do a half day of craft, as we have been struggling to fit it in during our other three days.  The biggest adjustment to our weekly rhythms has always been the time when a new baby has arrived, and this has involved adjusting how we work, and due to the ages of the children some great lessons on how to take care of babies!

As people have gotten older we've also added in extra classes here and there for things that we haven't personally got the skills to teach.  Initially when we arrived back from Europe, we did some French lessons (as Willow in particular had been picking up a bit of French whilst we were there), eventually we added in music lessons and sport lessons.  Otherwise we've done some one off classes such as woodwork, science, gardening.  We also attend a lot of arts events as Willow is interested in a career in classical music, and to cater to our desire to live learning as well as do some structured rhythms - we tend to have quite extended holidays (we used to take 3months over summer, and follow the general Australian holidays, now we take 3months over Summer, 2 weeks at Autumn, 6weeks over Winter and 2 weeks in Spring.)  This gives lots of down time for people to be unstructured.

That said we are now at the stage where Willow has been managing her own time and work, and Gabriel is heading that direction.  Willow, Damien and I have discussions and regular catch ups to discuss where Willow's work is at, and anything that requires review from us (such as essays, or written pieces is looked over together, discussed and reviewed until it is at a satisfactory level).  We've found many benefits in this scenario and lots of learning happening for all of us- but ultimately Willow is learning how to manage when and where and what she is doing all week.

Fringe Time

On Friday we will be participating in the Fringe parade again. Should be good fun in general, though I have been disappointed compared to last year, there was much more scope for the kids to express themselves creatively. Based off this years, experience so far, I wouldn't bother to organise a group. The flags are very uniform, the clothes are very uniform, and there is to be no banners put forth to identify various groups. Laughably, IMO, one of the themes for this year is anti-authoritarianism and Punk. We aren't even permitted, in theory, to choose which clothes we wear fit their colour scheme- red shirt, black/white pants, and red accessories. Possibly we should all turn up in purple, and point out part of the theme is punk.....

We've also bought some tickets for performances in this years Fringe- so we are looking forward to that. One is a taiko drumming performance, and another is a Circus performance. As usual we are also considering attending Womad.