The National Council of Home Educators (NCHENZ) exists to encourage, promote, inform and advance the cause of home education in New Zealand at a national level.

By sharing this newsletter we hope to improve our communication with our members and the wider home educating community in New Zealand.

Christchurch Earthquake
The NCHENZ committee extends its sincere condolences and heartfelt prayers to our fellow home educators in Canterbury.  There are a super-abundance of agencies offering all sorts of help, but if there’s anything specifically home education related that you need, do let us know.  People all around the country are desperate to help in tangible ways.  We can circulate requests for help (books, stationery items etc come to mind) and I’m sure that between us we can work something out.

In this newsletter
We have a big newsletter this term – see below for details

• It’s that time again – time to renew your membership to NCHENZ.
• Yes! your high-school aged student can get a student ID card for subsidised bus-fares etc.  We can organise these on your behalf.
• Cambridge Students – are you preparing for the Cambridge qualification? *please* read the urgent notice below
• Are you a new Home Educator? We give you some web links to help get you started with writing your exemption application, and with finding a local support group.
• Your committee needs your help.  It’s not a lot of work, but we can’t function without you.
• Want to be kept in the loop regarding NZQA?
• We have agreed upon a rewording of our Constitution – see below for details on voting to ratify it.
• Mid-year meeting with ERO

Renew your Membership
Yes, it’s time to renew your membership to NCHENZ – or sign up for the first time!.  The easiest way to do this is online at our web site – just fill in the form, make a deposit to our bank account (remembering to include your name) and you’re done. www.nchenz.org.nz/join-us/online-form-for-individual-membership/

This year our fees remain unchanged – $10 per year (50% discount if you belong to one of our Member groups).

However, we’re thinking about adding a new option for next year: a 3 year membership for $20. We know what a hassle it is to have to renew your membership every year, and how the task gets lost somewhere way down the priority list. This way all you would have to do is sign up for $20 and not think about it again for three years!  Sounds good to me.  This option will need to be accepted at our AGM (in the middle of the year) to be available for 2012, but we’re quite excited about it

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a current member of NCHENZ and by the end of March haven’t received a direct e-mail from one of our committee members about renewing your membership, then we may have incorrect e-mail details for you on our files.  Our membership files are separate from the system that allows you to keep receiving e-mail through the Yahoo members loop.  If you have changed your e-mail address and not e-mailed us to let us know, could you please drop us a line at info@nchenz.org.nz

NCHENZ is the only national home-educators’ group which represents members democratically and by consensus. We need your membership in order to hear your ideas, and be as representative as possible.

Student ID cards
Yes, your teen can get subsidised bus fares, movie tickets and have a proof of age.  These little cards can also come in handy if a truancy officer appears a little too interested in why your child is outside having fun during the day.  You can choose from a MAXX card (Auckland), a CANDO card (Christchurch and Timaru – also serves as a bus ticket), and a plain card (all other regions).  Prices have risen for these this year, and are now $10 per card, or $15 for non-members.
www.nchenz.org.nz/join-us/student-id-cards/
Note: there may be some delays in processing the CANDO cards, due to the earthquake.

Cambridge students
Message from Erena:
Cambridge Exams (CIE) in New Zealand for Home Educators

There is a major problem regarding Cambridge Exams (CIE) in New Zealand at present. A number of parents have been directly contacting schools and asking if they will take private candidates (even ones that aren’t listed as doing so.) As a result, a number of schools are no longer taking Private Candidates. Just today we learnt of two schools who regularly offered this option and have now pulled out. If we are not very careful, we may lose the opportunity altogether!

I (Erena) am involved in a working group which is trying to help solve this problem. This group includes homeschoolers as well as reps from CIE and also the Association of Cambridge Schools NZ (ACSNZ.) CIE are very committed to giving us this option and are prepared to work on our behalf they have requested that, in the meantime, all homeschooling parents STOP contacting schools, effective immediately.  While I can understand people’s initial reactions to this, we need to give the working group time to come up with a solution that is acceptable to the schools. We will do this as soon as possible so we should all know where we stand very soon.

***Please assist us with spreading this message far and wide to anyone currently studying or planning on studying Cambridge up until and including 2013. A single enquiry could be the straw that broke the camel’s back the situation is very serious. Home Educating is about choice and we need to preserve this choice!***

For more information join the new e-mail loop for homeschoolers interested in or using Cambridge
NZHomeEdCambridge@yahoogroups.com

STOP PRESS There has been a recent update on this situation, including details on accessing an Information Pack.
See hefnet’s web site for more details
http://hef.org.nz/2011/nz-homeeducation-cambridgeimportant-update/

Help! Where do I start??
So you’re new to this whole home education thing and you’d like to know where to start?  Here are a few NZ specific web sites to help you on your way:

National Council for Home Educators
http://www.nchenz.org.nz/
We carry out ongoing liaison with the Ministry of Education, so up-to-date info about recent legal issues can usually be found here.(look under the “Resources” tab on our web site)
Also, our site has a list of contacts for a great many of the support groups throughout the country. (if you know of any that aren’t listed here, or see that some contact details need updating, please let us know)

http://www.nchenz.org.nz/networking-across-the-nation/

New Zealand Home Education
http://home.school.nz/
My personal go-to site for clarifying the overall legal situation and for helping sort out how to write your Exemption Application. A great starting point.

Home Education Foundation
http://hef.org.nz/
“The Home Education Foundation has been serving Christian and secular home educators all over New Zealand since 1986 through national conferences, a quarterly journal, a bimonthly newsletter, various one-off publications, local work-shops and seminars, lobbying campaigns, phone counseling and more.”  Extremely good people with a wealth of knowledge.

And of course, don’t underestimate the knowledge and support to be found in your local and regional groups!  Many areas (for example, Auckland’s AHE), have a wealth of information and can assist with up to date, local information.  Have a look on our website for your local group, and if you can’t see one, then just drop us an email – we’ll send a request through our email lists and you never know; we may just find a group that we didn’t know about!
An Invitation…
The committee of NCHENZ cordially invites you to join us via SKYPE or teleconference link-up, for approximately an hour, one evening each month.  Our committee is currently a little short on members and we would really value your presence with us!  You don’t need to have any special skills, just be currently home educating, agree with the aims and purposes of NCHENZ (briefly summarised at the beginning of this newsletter), and have been a member of NCHENZ for at least 12 months, You can be anywhere in the country, so long as you have a landline (and we’ll call you – so it won’t cost a bean).  The workload is not onerous, but we do need some assistance.  Our Constitution sets a quorum of 5 committee members, and a maximum of 8.  Although we are currently operating within our Constitution, a couple of our members have indicated that they will be stepping down from the Committee at the next AGM.  We’d love to have *you* join us now so we don’t have a mad scramble come AGM time   In particular we’re looking for people who enjoy the advocacy / liaison with government type side of things, but if you’re not sure that’s you, we’d still love to have you join us – you never know what hidden talents you may uncover

NZQA circulars
The NZ Qualifications Authority is the body that regulates and oversees NCEA, among other things.  If you wish to be kept in the loop you can sign up for their e-mail circulars.  Most of these are relevant only for schools and their administration, but occasionally there is a useful one – especially if one of your children is sitting NCEA this year.
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/publications/

Democracy at work
Over the past several years NCHENZ has been debating and working through the question of whether we should pursue status as a Charity with the Charities Commission, and how we can do that.  Late last year we confirmed through voting that we will continue to pursue Charity status. Feedback from the Charities Commission has indicated that we need to change aspects of our Constitution in order to meet their criteria.  We recently conducted a poll through the NCHENZ e-mail loop to vote on preferred wording and we reached a clear majority decision (in short, to adopt all proposed changes – for full results, see the relevant e-mail on the members loop).

In order to make these changes official we will be conducting a Postal Ballot to close on April 30th 2011. NCHENZ members will receive an e-mail with more details about this in the week to come.

Mid year meeting with ERO

Each year NCHENZ has a friendly meeting with the Education Review Office (ERO) – the body charged with monitoring the quality of education being delivered by state, private and independent schools, and others, throughout the country. ERO currently are not conducting regular, routine reviews of home educators, but they do hold reviews if the Ministry of Education has received a complaint.

These meetings have been a valuable point of contact between the Office and home educators, and are a great way of keeping the lines of communication open. They are an opportunity for us to raise any matters that our members wish to discuss with ERO at a national level. This year’s meeting is set for 11am, Tuesday 12th July. If anyone has any issues that they’d like raised at this meeting, please email us. There is also an opportunity for NCHENZ members to attend this meeting, with us being able to subsidise part of the travel costs. If you’d like to participate in this way, contact us for more details.

——————————————-
You have been sent this e-mail because you are on our list as a Member of NCHENZ, or we have your e-mail as the contact address for a Member, Associate, or Friends Group.  If you have received this e-mail in error, please e-mail us at info@nchenz.org.nz and we will remove you from our list.

YES!! You can forward this e-mail!  We exist to support all home educators, and people interested in home education in New Zealand, not just our members.

Contact us on info@nchenz.org.nz

Paper form here- link at the bottom of the page

You will need to fill this in this form for each child please.

Do click submit each time. Do email us your photo to info@nchenz.org.nz

We process this once a month on the 20th.
$10 for member families** $15 for non member (see below)

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Note

*for Metro (Christchurch, Timaru) see www.metroinfo.org.nz/metrocard.html
For MAXX (Auckland Region)  see www.maxx.co.nz/pricing-passes/childstudent-discounts.html
Plain card for all other regions

Payment

1. Cheque payments made out to NCHENZ posted to Mail: PO Box 80144, Riccarton, Christchurch 8440
2. Internet payments to 01-0504-0009447-00 and also email our treasurer info@nchenz.org.nz

If paying by internet banking, please include your surname and initial as an identifier. We take no responsibility for tracking down anonymous payments

Photo ##

Please email your photo to info@nchenz.org.nz

or post to NCHENZ PO Box 80144, Riccarton, Christchurch 8440

** individual member or member of a member group
see www.nchenz.org.nz/join-us/member-groups/ Not a member – please join us – www.nchenz.org.nz/join-us/

Have her/him do the Tertiary Foundation Certificate (1 year, costs a total of about $540) the year before she wants to start her degree.

Pass this and you have as much shot as anyone with good NCEA or Cambridge results at any Auckland Uni degree program – even restricted entry ones. Of course what helps with restricted entry courses are A’s so tell her to pass it well

The TFC course is an excellent intro to Uni – it is more hands on so there is a lot of guidance, here is how to write essays to Uni standard, it is on campus, run by Uni lecturers, so it is way better than NCEA or Cambridge.

My homeschooled daughter was accepted to Auckland Uni’s TFC program one month after her 16th birthday on the strength of her diagnostic test scores (they run this test twice a year – it is free to sit).

The other way to get into Uni without NCEA or Cambridge is to sit a few no-requisite, easy entry papers at Uni, pass them well, then simply point to them on your application.

The purpose of tight entry criteria is to weed out applicants who do not have what it takes to pass at Uni – Uni does not care so much about NCEA or Cambridge, they care about whether or not you can do the course, handle the workload so TFC and passes in other Uni papers are fine because they answer that question.

Looking to listen to something about home education/homeschooling try these wonderful podcasts.

http://www.ahe.org.nz/2010/05/meeting-with-moe/

Failure to comply will see their benefit cut by half, but they will retain additional assistance.

Exemptions will be available for those in fulltime study or with mitigating circumstances such as special-needs children.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3498073/Unemployed-face-work-tests

We welcome your comments.
We are asking for homeschooling to be considered mitigating circumstances.

Please join us in emailing Paula Bennett . Her email address is paula.bennettmp@parliament.govt.nz

——————-

Update

The reply from our email so far:

Hello Tarnya

The Hon Paula Bennett, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has asked me to thank you for your email.

Consideration is currently being given to the matters you raise and you may expect a reply at the Minister’s earliest opportunity.

Kind regards

Nicky Uriaro

Private Secretary, Office of Hon Paula Bennett

Minister for Social Development and Employment | Minister of Youth Affairs

—————————

the email we sent:

Good Morning Paula Bennett

We ( National Council of Home Educators www.nchenz.org.nz) request thathomeschooling be considered as mitigating circumstances in regard to the work requirements for DPB claimants. We request that a home educating parent who holds, for their child/ren, an exemption from attendance at a public school also be issued an exemption from these work requirements.

We submit to you that a home educating parent is involved in full-time work, albeit unpaid.

“We understand that exemptions will be available for those in fulltime study or with mitigating circumstances such as special-needs children.”
from
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3498073/Unemployed-face-work-tests

Regards
Penny Bilton, Tarnya Burge Maddy Maxwell, Dawn Jones and Michelle Campbell
NCHENZ executive committee

www.nchenz.org.nz

Homeschool team Free Range Robotics have won the New Zealand National VEX Robotics Championship for the second year in a row. They also scooped more than their fair share of other awards, winning the New Zealand Championship awards for Web Design (www.robotics.org.nz), the Think Award for Autonomous Programming, the Promote award for the best team video, the VEX Essay Award and the runner up for Programming Skills Award.

Their youtube channel is here

Online homeschool conference http://www.thebroadroom.co.nz/old-schoolhouse-expo/

Interesting podcast about John Holt from a Libertarian perspective John Holt: Libertarian Outsider thanks to Tarnya

Immersion Learning – Resources to bring ocean science adventures to students in grades 4–8. Immersion exposes students to ongoing scientific expeditions in an effort to ignite their interest in real discovery and learning.

http://www.immersionlearning.org/ thanks to LARA

French Website http://www.tivi5mondeplus.com/#live thanks to Margi

Homeschool Planner http://hef.org.nz/2010/free-homeschool-planner/ It’s for a free homeschooling planner that is really simple and looks perfect for anyone who has lots of ideas but never seems to get around to doing them or being organised enough. It’s called “Planned Spontaneity”. Thanks to Erin
http://hef.org.nz/2010/free-homeschool-planner/

Earthquakes for kids  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/kids/
http://www.fema.gov/kids/quake.htm Thanks to LARA

Bible maps and timelines http://www.biblestudy.org/maps/main.html Thanks to LARA