How to Withdraw Your Child From School in SA to Homeschool
How to Withdraw Your Child From School in SA to Homeschool
Withdrawing a child from school in South Australia to home educate is not as straightforward as simply not sending them. Under SA law, your child is required to attend school until a formal exemption from school attendance is granted by the Department for Education. If you withdraw without an approved exemption in place, your child is technically in breach of compulsory attendance requirements — and that can create complications.
This post explains the correct sequence, how to handle the school conversation, and what you need to submit to the Department before the withdrawal takes effect.
The Legal Sequence That Most Families Get Wrong
Many parents assume they can contact the school, say they are withdrawing, and begin home educating immediately. In South Australia, that is not how it works.
The correct sequence is:
- Prepare your home education exemption application (including the educational program)
- Submit the exemption application to the SA Department for Education
- Formally notify the school of your intention to withdraw
- Wait for exemption approval before the child permanently stops attending
In practice, the Department aims to process exemption applications reasonably promptly, and many families coordinate so that the formal withdrawal from school and the exemption grant happen close together. But the key point is that the exemption application should be ready to submit — or already submitted — before you communicate a firm withdrawal date to the school.
If you withdraw before the exemption is approved and there is a gap in coverage, you are technically in non-compliance with the compulsory attendance requirements under the Education and Children's Services Act 2019. Fines for non-compliance can reach up to $5,000. In practice, the Department is not looking to penalize families who are actively engaged in the exemption process, but a disorganised withdrawal with no application in progress is a different matter.
Preparing Your Exemption Application First
The exemption application requires a comprehensive educational program covering all eight Australian Curriculum learning areas:
- English
- Mathematics
- Science
- Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS)
- The Arts
- Technologies
- Health and Physical Education (HPE)
- Languages
For each area, you need to outline your planned topics, the resources you will use, how you intend to document progress, and what social interaction opportunities you have planned.
This takes time to write well. Most families need at least one to two weeks to put together a genuine program that the Education Director will approve. Do not leave it until the day you decide to withdraw — the application preparation is where most of the lead time in this process goes.
Full guidance on what the application needs to include is in the post on SA homeschool registration.
How to Talk to the School
Once your application is ready to submit (or already submitted), you can approach the school. The tone of this conversation matters less than the substance: you are informing the school of your intention, not asking for permission.
You do not need the school's approval to home educate. They may ask questions, express concern, or attempt to dissuade you — this is common and does not have legal weight. Your obligation is to formally notify them of the withdrawal and to have a valid exemption in place.
In writing is better than verbally. A simple letter or email to the principal stating that you are withdrawing your child from school to home educate, effective from a specific date (once the exemption is approved), creates a clear record. Keep a copy.
The school will process the withdrawal in their system and notify the Department through their own administrative channels. You do not need to coordinate this with your exemption application — the two processes are parallel.
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What About Mid-Year Withdrawals?
Most families plan withdrawals around term breaks — the start of Term 1 is the most common timing, followed by Terms 2 and 3. But there is no legal restriction on when you can withdraw. Mid-term withdrawals happen regularly, particularly when a child's situation in school deteriorates quickly.
If you need to withdraw urgently — due to bullying, anxiety, a significant negative incident, or a child refusing to attend — the process is the same, just compressed. You can expedite the exemption application by having a clear, straightforward educational program ready and requesting prompt processing from the Department. In genuine welfare situations, the Department is generally responsive.
If there is a genuine emergency and you need the child out of school before the exemption is granted, contact the Department for Education directly and explain the circumstances. Acting in good faith and communicating proactively puts you in a much better position than simply not sending the child without notice.
What the School May Do After Withdrawal
Once the withdrawal is processed, the school will remove the child from their roll. You may receive follow-up communications — particularly if the school is concerned about the child's welfare — but this is standard procedure and is not an investigation.
If there are existing support arrangements in place (such as an Individual Education Plan for a child with additional needs, or involvement with a school counsellor), those arrangements end when the child leaves the school roll. If your child receives NDIS funding, that funding continues independently of their schooling status and can still be directed toward therapeutic support during home education.
After Withdrawal: Your First Annual Review
Your exemption runs for 12 months from the date it is granted. At the end of that period, the Department will notify you that an annual review is approaching. The review involves submitting a home education review form and meeting with a Home Education Officer to present your portfolio of evidence from the year.
The families who find this review stressful are almost always those who did not build a consistent documentation system throughout the year. If you start filing annotated work samples and mapping activities to the eight Australian Curriculum learning areas from week one, the portfolio is essentially built by the time the review arrives.
If you want a framework for doing this correctly from the start — rather than scrambling to reconstruct twelve months of learning before a Home Education Officer visit — the South Australia Portfolio & Assessment Templates provide templates mapped directly to SA compliance requirements, including annotated work sample layouts and the annual review goal-setting structure the Department expects to see.
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