Translate

Update from the Home Education Registrar

Home education update

Dear Home Education Community,

We’d like to share an update on the work we’ve undertaken since the last stakeholder survey in August 2024.

Thanks to your valuable feedback and suggestions, we’ve made several improvements to our processes and documents. Your input continues to shape the way we support home education in Tasmania.

This week, I’m sharing the updated Guides to the Registration Process along with revised Home Education Summary and Program Templates.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing a series of documents that outline our approach to various situations in home education—such as supporting young people in crisis, conducting registration visits for children with complex or challenging behaviours, and managing complaints and personal information.

We’re grateful to THEAC for lending their support in reviewing these documents and for providing valuable insights as current home educators.

Soon, you’ll receive an email invitation to participate in the 2025 Home Education Survey. Your insights are essential, and we encourage you to take part and share your experiences.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Warm regards,

Jo Spencer
Registrar (Home Education)
Manager, Home Education

Feedback and comments

We genuinely welcome your feedback and suggestions—your insights help us improve and ensure our approach continues to meet the needs of the home education community. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have thoughts about any of the documents being shared today. We can make changes to incorporate relevant comments and suggestions.

Our aim is to reflect on the feedback we receive. We may not always get everything right, which is why your input is so important—not just for us, but for families seeking registration for home education. Home education is a wonderful responsibility, and we want to ensure that those new to the journey feel supported and confident that they can do this.

An opportunity to provide feedback will also be available when our 2025 Home Education Survey is conducted soon.

Email: registrar@oer.tas.gov.au

Registration Guides

Guides to the Registration Process

One key theme of the 2024 home education survey was that the registration process could feel overwhelming and confusing, especially for new home educators. In response, we’ve developed clear, separate guides that outline the process for both new registrations and renewals.

These Guides aim to make the experience more straightforward and supportive for families.

Understanding the Standards

We are in the final stages of reviewing the document titled Understanding the Standards. This document received feedback noting the presence of jargon and duplicated content. In response, we’ve revised it to improve clarity and accessibility

As part of the update, we’ve separated the processes for new registrations and renewing registrations, aiming to make the information more reader-friendly and easier to navigate.

We expect to release the updated guides within the next four weeks. In the meantime, the current version is available on our website Understanding the Standards – Office of the Education Registrar

Templates for Home Education Programs

We’ve also been working on revised templates for home education summaries and programs — HEP for new applications and HESP for renewals.

These templates use a new style and include guiding questions to help you provide the information we need. These documents contain boxes where you can enter your response to the questions.

Home Education Program (HEP) - used for NEW Applications

Home Education Summary and Program (HESP) - used for RENEWING Applications

A separate HESP must be provided for each child.

As each child is registered individually, we require a separate HESP for each child. Your Research and Pedagogy and possibly even the Evaluation may be similar, if not exactly the same in each HESP, however the remainder of the HESP needs to be specifically written and developed for each individual child’s needs.

Example HEPs and HESPs

Now that we’ve finalised the templates, we’re working on developing example Home Education Programs (HEPs) and Home Education Summary and Program (HESP) documents. These examples are currently in progress, and we expect to release them in approximately four weeks.

Improved communication

We’ve recently reviewed all correspondence—letters and emails—sent as part of the home education registration process. Our goal was to simplify the content, remove irrelevant information, and bring a more positive tone to our communications.

We’re now producing a new look Student Registration Cards, printed on special laminated paper to give them a more professional look and feel. To help home educators keep track of when their next HESP is due, we’ll be including a fridge magnet with each registration card.

A key theme from the stakeholder survey was the desire for more timely reminders. In response, we’ve introduced SMS text messaging to notify home educators when:

their HESP is due, and
a registration visit is approaching.

We hope these changes make the process clearer, more supportive, and easier to for you.

Making our practices visible and accessible

While our practices and approaches have generally been consistent, they were not previously documented in a way that allowed stakeholders to clearly understand our actions. To improve transparency and consistency, we have now formally documented a number of these practices.

The following documents have been developed:

Guidelines: Approach to home education for young people in crisis
Key Information: Approach to home education for young people in crisis
Guidelines: Conducting registration visits for children with challenging or complex behaviours
Key Information: Home education visits for children with complex or challenging behaviours
Guidelines: Home Education Documentation - Legal Name Requirements
Guidelines: Parental Consent and sharing of information about a home educated student
Guidelines: Home education documentation or evidence shared via external platforms
Personal Information Protection Policy (Home Education)
Privacy Statement (Your right to privacy)
Policy: Managing Complaints about Home Education
Procedure: Managing Complaints about Home Education

These documents will be shared gradually over the next couple of weeks to avoid overwhelming you with too much information at once. However, if you would like a copy of any of these documents, please contact our office—we’ll be happy to provide them. Please email registrar@oer.tas.gov.au.

Once our new website is live, all of these documents will be readily available for download.