Homeschooling in Lydenburg: what it actually looks like day to day

Most parents who phone us about homeschooling are not looking for an education philosophy. They want to know what Tuesday morning actually looks like, who marks the work, and whether the certificate at the end is worth anything.

Reasonable questions, all three. Here is what we tell them.

First, the words

Homeschooling in South Africa gets used for three quite different arrangements, and the confusion causes real trouble.

1. 1Full home education. The parent takes responsibility for the education, registers the child with the provincial education department, and either teaches directly or buys a curriculum package. The parent is the school.
2. 2Online or distance schooling. The child is enrolled with a provider that supplies the curriculum, the teaching and the assessment. The parent supervises. The provider is the school.
3. 3A support centre. The child is enrolled with an online provider and works through it alongside a tutor who closes the gaps, keeps the week honest, and prepares them for external exams.

Nova is the third one, and we will be plain about it: we are not the examining body and we do not issue the certificate. Our students are enrolled with CambriLearn, with Study.com through My Online School, or with GED Academy — and they are assessed externally, through SACAI or at GED testing centres.

That is deliberate. It means what a student earns here is not a Nova opinion of their ability. It is a mark from an outside body that has never met them, which is exactly what makes it worth something to a college.

The registration question

If you are educating a child of compulsory school-going age entirely at home, the law expects that to be registered with your provincial education department — for us, the Mpumalanga Department of Education. The home-education provisions were amended by the BELA Act and the practical requirements have been moving, so we are not going to print a checklist here that may be out of date by the time you read it.

What we will say is this: phone the department and ask, before you deregister anybody from anywhere. And note that if your child is enrolled with a distance-education provider rather than being taught by you at home, your position is usually a different one from full home education. If you are not certain which situation you are in, that is worth an hour of somebody's time to establish properly rather than assuming.

What a week looks like

It varies enormously, which is rather the point. But a fairly typical week for a full-time student at the centre runs something like this.

• Mornings are for the hard subjects. Maths and the sciences, while concentration is at its best. Video lesson, then the quiz, then the written work.
• A lesson gets watched more than once. This is what surprises parents most. In a normal school day a lesson happens once. Here, if the third minute of a maths explanation did not land, the student watches the third minute again. And again. Nobody sighs.
• Afternoons are lighter. Languages, Life Orientation, reading — the subjects that want time rather than peak focus.
• Somebody checks. Quizzes and tests follow the lessons so that understanding is verified rather than assumed. Where a concept has not landed, staff work through it individually and then set extra tests on that specific thing.
• Written work is real. Especially on CAPS, where a good deal of paperwork is done alongside the videos and all the exams are on paper. Screens do not remove the pen.

The rhythm is different again for a student working from home over Zoom, and different again for someone studying around a job. That flexibility is not a compromise on the model. It is the model.

The three costs that are not money

It is fairer to name these upfront than to let a family discover them in March.

Structure has to come from somewhere. In a school, the bell supplies it. At home, either the student supplies it or an adult does. For a self-directed sixteen-year-old this is nothing at all. For a distractible thirteen-year-old it is the entire problem — and it is precisely why a support centre exists rather than just a login and good wishes.

Socialising has to be arranged on purpose. A child who leaves the school system also leaves the twenty-eight other children in it. That is often a relief in the short term and a gap in the long one. Sport, church, cadets, a part-time job, cousins — something has to fill it, and it will not fill itself.

The parent picks up a new job. Smaller than teaching, larger than nothing. Somebody has to notice when three days have gone by without much happening.

Why families around here choose it

Lydenburg is not a big town, and the school options within a sensible drive are what they are. The families who come to us are usually in one of a handful of situations:

• A child who is bright but cannot function in a class of thirty-five.
• A child who has been bullied and is now refusing school outright, sometimes with real physical symptoms every morning.
• A child with a learning difficulty who needs to hear things more than once, in a system that has run out of patience for that.
• A family on a farm or a plot where the daily round trip is two hours the child never gets back.
• A student who is simply older than their grade and does not want to sit among children two years younger.
• A student already working through a programme alone, who wants somebody to prepare them properly for the finals.

Not one of those is the same problem as the others, which is why we run three different programmes rather than one.

Not one of the students who has come through here was incapable. Every single one of them was, at some point, in the wrong room.

Where to start

If you are somewhere in this and unsure of the next step, the useful first move is a conversation rather than a form. Tell us the age, the last grade completed, and what has been getting in the way. We will point you at the right route — and if that route is not us, we will say so.

We are on Church Street in Lydenburg, and on Zoom everywhere else. Come and talk to us.