How to Homeschool in South Australia: A Practical Starting Guide

Getting started with home education in South Australia involves two parallel tracks that you need to handle simultaneously: the legal administrative side (getting your exemption approved) and the practical educational side (figuring out how you will actually teach and document). Most parents focus on one and underestimate the other. This guide covers both.

The Legal Starting Point: You Need an Exemption

South Australia does not have a simple notification system for home education. Under the Education and Children's Services Act 2019, your child must be enrolled in a registered school unless they hold a formal exemption from school attendance. That exemption is granted by the Department for Education, and it requires a genuine application with a detailed educational program.

The exemption is not granted automatically, and your child remains legally required to attend their current school until the exemption is approved. That means you need to prepare your application before you withdraw — or at minimum, submit both at the same time.

Full details of the registration and exemption process are in the dedicated post on SA homeschool registration. The short version: you will write a comprehensive educational program covering all eight Australian Curriculum learning areas, submit it to the Department, and wait for an Education Director to assess it.

The Eight Learning Areas You Must Cover

Whether you use a structured curriculum, Charlotte Mason, project-based learning, or a more unschooling-oriented approach, your educational program and annual documentation must demonstrate coverage across all eight Australian Curriculum learning areas:

1. English — literacy, reading, writing, oral communication
2. Mathematics — numeracy, spatial reasoning, problem-solving
3. Science — biological, physical, chemical, and Earth sciences; inquiry skills
4. Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) — history, geography, civics, economics
5. The Arts — visual arts, music, drama, dance, media arts
6. Technologies — design technologies, digital technologies
7. Health and Physical Education (HPE) — physical activity, personal wellbeing
8. Languages — exposure to at least one language other than English

You are not required to follow the same year-level progression as mainstream schools. A ten-year-old working ahead in maths and behind in writing is entirely acceptable. What you do need to show is that your program addresses all eight areas and that your child is making progress over time.

The Department does not require a particular teaching method. The same week can include a formal maths workbook, a nature walk documented as science, a cooking session that covers HPE and maths, and a family audiobook for English — as long as you record it in a way that connects back to the curriculum framework.

What the First Three Months Actually Look Like

Most new SA home educators go through what is sometimes called a deschooling period — a phase where both parent and child decompress from the rhythms of institutional schooling. This is normal and educationally valid. A general guide is one month of adjustment for every year the child was in school.

During this period, your job is to pay attention to what your child gravitates toward, start building the documentation habit, and keep the educational program loosely structured rather than trying to replicate a school timetable.

Month one is typically about establishing routines, exploring interests, and figuring out what curriculum or resources you want to use. Do not buy everything at once — most families over-purchase in the first month and abandon half of it by month three.

Month two is when most families settle into a rhythm. You are not yet worried about the annual review, which is at least ten months away. Focus on the daily habit of noting what was covered and filing one or two work samples per learning area per week.

Month three is when the approach usually solidifies. You have a clearer sense of what works for your child, what you can realistically sustain, and what gaps you need to address in your coverage of the eight learning areas.

Curriculum Options and Costs

The cost of homeschooling in South Australia varies significantly depending on the approach you take. Here is a realistic breakdown:

Free and low-cost options:

• The Open Access College (OAC) offers part-time enrolment for home-educated students, particularly useful for subjects that are hard to deliver at home (advanced sciences, languages, senior secondary subjects). This is government-funded and available to SA students.
• Libraries provide access to extensive resources at no cost.
• Online platforms like Khan Academy, YouTube educational channels, and free printable curricula cover most learning areas adequately.

Mid-range structured curricula:

• Boxed Australian curricula (such as those from Firefly Education, Oxford, or various homeschool publishers) typically run $200–$800 AUD per year depending on year level and subjects.
• Individual subject curricula purchased separately can be more cost-effective if you only need to fill specific gaps.

Premium options:

• International structured programs (such as Sonlight, Abeka, or similar) run $1,000–$3,000 AUD per year for a full suite.
• Online tutor-led programs or platforms with live teaching sessions add ongoing subscription costs.

A realistic annual budget for a single primary-age child using a mid-range approach is $500–$1,500 AUD, not including excursions, extracurriculars, or specialist tutoring. That figure drops significantly in subsequent years as you reuse curriculum materials with additional children or continue into the next year of the same program.

One cost most families do not anticipate: the time cost of documentation. If you do not have a system from the start, the time spent reconstructing your year's learning before the annual review can be substantial. This is why building a simple filing habit early — rather than leaving it until month ten — has real practical value.

The Progressive Achievement Test (PAT)

South Australian home-educated students from Foundation to Year 10 can sit the Progressive Achievement Test (PAT) for free each September. This is an electronic standardised assessment covering literacy and numeracy.

PAT results are not mandatory for the annual review, but they are genuinely useful. The Department prioritises evidence of literacy and numeracy progression above everything else. Having an externally validated, standardised test result removes any ambiguity about where your child sits academically and gives both you and the reviewing officer a clear, objective reference point.

Registering for the PAT is done through the Department for Education. Mark it in your calendar at the start of the year — families who plan around it tend to use it consistently, and it becomes one of the most reliable pieces of evidence in their annual portfolio.

Senior Secondary: The SACE Question

Home education in South Australia works cleanly for children aged 6 to 16. Once your child approaches Years 11 and 12 and the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) becomes relevant, the structure changes significantly.

The SACE cannot be delivered independently by parents — it must be completed through a registered educational provider. The most common pathway for families wanting to maintain some home-based flexibility is enrolling through the Open Access College, which delivers the full SACE program via distance education.

Alternatively, students can access the SACE through the five new Technical Colleges established across SA, which combine the SACE with Vocational Education and Training (VET) in trade and technical fields.

If your child opts not to complete the SACE and wants to pursue university, alternative entry pathways exist through the University of Adelaide, UniSA, and Flinders University — including the Special Tertiary Admissions Test (STAT), enabling courses through Open Universities Australia, and completion of a VET Certificate III or higher. For detail on these pathways, see the dedicated post on homeschool university admissions in Australia.

Your Documentation System Is Everything

The single factor that most determines whether SA home education is sustainable long-term — and whether your annual reviews go smoothly — is your documentation system.

Families who struggle are almost always those who defer documentation until the review is imminent. When you try to reconstruct a year's worth of learning from memory in the two weeks before the Home Education Officer visits, you will produce disorganised, incomplete evidence and feel significantly more stressed than the actual teaching ever made you.

The solution is simple: commit to a weekly 15-minute habit of selecting a small number of work samples, annotating each one with the curriculum area it covers and what the child demonstrated, and filing them by learning area. Do this every week without exception. By month ten, your portfolio is already built.

If you want a pre-built framework to do this correctly from the start — templates mapped to the eight SA-required learning areas, annotated work sample layouts that match what Home Education Officers look for, and a goal-setting structure for the annual review — the South Australia Portfolio & Assessment Templates are built specifically around the current SA compliance requirements.

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