What 'As Regularly and As Well' Actually Means for NZ Homeschoolers

When New Zealand families research homeschool exemptions, they quickly run into the phrase that defines the entire legal standard: your child must be taught "as regularly and as well as in a registered school." It sounds deceptively simple. In practice, it is the most misunderstood sentence in the entire application process — and getting it wrong is the most common reason the Ministry of Education requests revisions or declines applications.

This post explains precisely what the standard means, how it is measured, and what your application must demonstrate to satisfy it.

The Legal Foundation

Section 38 of the Education and Training Act 2020 grants the Secretary of Education the authority to exempt a child from enrolment at a registered school. The exemption is granted when the Secretary is satisfied that the child will be "taught at least as regularly and as well as in a registered school."

Both halves of that phrase carry legal weight.

"At least as regularly" refers to frequency and scheduling. "At least as well" refers to quality, breadth, and outcomes. An application that addresses one without the other will likely be returned.

What "As Regularly As" Means in Practice

The Ministry benchmarks regularity against the school attendance requirements set out in the Act. For primary-aged children (Years 1–8), schools must provide 384 half-day sessions per year. For secondary-aged children (Years 9–13), the benchmark is 380 half-day sessions.

In practical terms, this translates to roughly five half-days of structured learning per week across approximately 40 school weeks per year. Your application does not need to replicate the school timetable — but it must show an equivalent commitment of structured learning time.

What satisfies the regularity standard:

• A weekly timetable showing planned learning sessions across five days
• A narrative schedule describing the typical learning week (e.g., "Monday through Friday, learning activities run from 8:30am to 12:00pm, with afternoon sessions for projects and practical work three days per week")
• An annual plan that accounts for school holidays and explains how you will reach the equivalent session count

What does not satisfy it:

• A vague statement that you will "learn every day" without structure
• A schedule that accounts for significantly fewer than 380–384 half-days
• A plan that describes learning as entirely child-led with no adult-structured time — this may satisfy "as well as" under some philosophies, but requires particularly careful documentation to address "as regularly as"

The Ministry is not looking for a carbon copy of school. An afternoon of hands-on science counts. A field trip with documented learning objectives counts. But the cumulative learning time needs to be demonstrably comparable.

What "As Well As" Means in Practice

This is where most applications require the most thought. "As well as" does not mean "using the same methods as school." It means that the outcomes — what your child learns and can demonstrate — are comparable in breadth and depth to what a registered school provides.

The New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) defines the breadth requirement. Your child must receive instruction across all eight learning areas:

• English
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Science
• Technology
• Social Sciences
• The Arts
• Health and Physical Education
• Learning Languages

Your application must show that each of these areas will be covered at a level appropriate to your child's age and current stage. It does not need to look like a school timetable with discrete class periods for each subject. A unit study on ancient Rome might cover Social Sciences, English (writing and reading), Arts (architecture and sculpture), and Science (engineering and construction) simultaneously. The Ministry cares about coverage, not compartmentalisation.

"As well as" also encompasses assessment and tracking. Schools use ongoing assessment to check that learning is progressing. Your application needs to describe how you will track progress and adjust your approach if your child is not advancing as expected. This does not require formal testing — narration, portfolio work, oral discussion, project outputs, and parent observation records all count.

The Combination: What Reviewers Look For

When a Ministry reviewer reads your application, they are checking whether both standards are met together. A technically sound curriculum plan paired with a vague schedule fails the regularity test. A detailed schedule of daily sessions paired with a plan that ignores three of the eight learning areas fails the "as well" test.

The application needs to address:

Frequency: How many days per week? How many hours per day? How does this reach the annual session benchmark?

Breadth: Which learning areas will be covered, and how does your approach address each of them?

Depth: What are the specific goals for this year? How will you know if your child has met them?

Flexibility with accountability: If you use a flexible schedule (e.g., seasonal learning, project-based blocks), how will you ensure the cumulative learning is equivalent?

A Practical Demonstration

Consider a family following a Charlotte Mason approach. Their application might include:

• A weekly narrative schedule: "Our learning days run Monday through Friday. Morning lessons (approximately 9am to 12pm) cover English through copywork, dictation, and reading aloud; Mathematics through daily practice; and Science or Nature Study through observation and journaling. Afternoons (approximately 1pm to 3pm) are used for Arts, handicrafts, and Social Sciences through living books and timeline work three days per week."

• An annual plan mapping each term to specific books, topics, and projects.

• A list of specific, measurable goals for the year: "By December 2026, [child's name] will be able to write a narration of 150–200 words from a living book passage with correct sentence structure and punctuation appropriate to their stage."

• A description of how progress will be tracked: "We will maintain a portfolio of written narrations, copywork samples, and nature journal entries. We will review goals at the end of each 10-week term and adjust our book choices or lesson frequency if progress is below expectation."

This addresses regularity (five days per week, documented hours), breadth (English, Maths, Science, Arts, Social Sciences — with Languages and Technology to be addressed in the full plan), depth (specific goals), and accountability (portfolio review each term).

Unschooling and the Standard

Unschooling families face the most significant documentation challenge because the standard appears to conflict with the philosophy. However, the Ministry has approved unschooling exemptions — the key is demonstrating that child-led, interest-driven learning produces outcomes comparable to schooling, not that it replicates the school process.

A separate post addresses unschooling applications in full detail. The short version: if you are unschooling, you need to show exhaustive record-keeping, retrospective planning that maps spontaneous learning to curriculum areas, and a clear account of how you will recognise and document learning as it occurs.

The Most Common Errors

Underselling structure. Many families who have rich, busy learning lives undersell their structure because they do not want to sound "school-at-home." Write what you actually do. If your child does four hours of structured learning five days a week, say so explicitly.

Ignoring specific learning areas. Review your application against the eight NZC learning areas and confirm each appears somewhere. Technology and Languages are the most commonly missing.

Goals that are activities, not outcomes. "We will study the solar system" is an activity. "By the end of Term 2, [child] will be able to name and describe the eight planets and explain the difference between rotation and revolution" is an outcome. The Ministry wants to see that you know what mastery looks like.

No review mechanism. Your application must explain what you will do when things are not working. A brief statement — "We will review progress at the end of each term and adjust resources or lesson frequency as needed" — is sufficient, but it must be there.

The "as regularly and as well" standard is achievable for any family with a genuine, thoughtful approach to home education. The challenge is not meeting the standard — it is demonstrating clearly in writing that you meet it.

If you are preparing your NZ exemption application and want a structured framework for putting all of this together — including goal-setting templates, timetable formats, and a topic plan structure — the New Zealand Legal Withdrawal Blueprint walks through the full documentation process step by step.

See more New Zealand homeschool guides →