Educational consulting

According to the Home Education Regulations of the School Act (Articles 5.a – 5.j), all home school supervisory boards are required to provide helpful assistance to families who have chosen to home school their child or children. At thee, this assistance comes primarily in the form of home education teachers, whom we refer to as Facilitators and whom we assign to you once you register with thee; they are your personal consultants for your home education program and plans. Your Facilitator will visit with you, preferably in your home, twice during the school year and will make one mid-year contact with you. You may, at any time during the school year, request a different Facilitator. THEE respects the right of parents to refuse to allow the Facilitator to enter their house; however, we hope that parents will have a certain level of confidence and trust in their Facilitator so that the Facilitator may conduct her visits in the child’s learning environment. The Facilitator should complete the first visit before November 15th and the second visit before June 15th of the school year.

The Facilitator’s role is to provide supportive supervision to the home educating family, to evaluate the program plan that the parent(s) has established for each of his/her child or children, and to help the family assess and record any cumulative achievements and progress made by the child or children. The Facilitator accomplishes her/his role during the visits and contacts during the school year as you read about above. The guiding purpose of these visits is to assess and evaluate the progress and achievement of each student, address any related questions or concerns of the family, and write an individualized report for each student, which is another requirement of the above-mentioned home school regulation.

As mentioned earlier, each family may choose their own Facilitator (if available), or thee will assign a Facilitator to each new family who joins us at thee. For families who are returning to thee, thee encourages these families to continue their working relationship with their current Facilitator; however, the returning family may certainly request a different Facilitator when they complete the new school year’s Notification Form or at any time during the school year.

During each visit, the Facilitator will review the student’s portfolio of work. Doing so is a requirement of each visit; however, for a family’s initial personal visit, the family may not have compiled such a portfolio of work. If this is the case, the family may certainly ask the Facilitator for guidance on how to compile a portfolio of the student’s work so that this portfolio will show strong samples and examples of the student’s academic progress, interests, and accomplishments. During each visit, the Facilitator may ask to review the portfolio as part of the Facilitator’s task of assessing the student’s progress toward attaining the goals of the home learning program which we discussed briefly. If the Facilitator is concerned about any aspect of a parent’s home school program, the Facilitator will communicate these concerns firstly to the student’s parent(s) and must also report the concerns to thee. We will attempt to resolve any conflicts or concerns as quickly as possible. THEE will not permit parents who abuse their right to home educate to re-enroll in thee for the following school year.

The current Home Education Regulations require that the parent establish an education program plan which is actually designed to be a strong help to the parent(s) to provide an overall framework in which to teach and guide. The education program plan (aka “program plan”) is your personal statement and roadmap for the concepts that you intend to cover and the materials that you intend to use. This learning plan is also connected to the issue of the funding money that you will receive from the provincial government via thee for the purpose of purchasing these materials, and we’ll cover this matter in “Funding”.

Traditional Home Education Experts (thee) supports parents who wish to create their own customized program plan with individual student needs and family values in mind. We believe that home school affords parents the opportunity to prepare an educational program that is customized to the child and that will inspire the child to excel.

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Academic assessment

Assessment refers to measuring student progress. Viewing student’s work is one of the primary methods of assessment and evaluation, which are required by the Home Education Regulations.

Portfolio

To help your Facilitator with this requirement to evaluate your child’s work and progress, we encourage our families to compile a portfolio of the child’s work, writings, projects, “creations”, etc. With a portfolio, the child is able to demonstrate and showcase his/her progress and achievements in learning, and the Facilitator is able to efficiently evaluate and determine the level of learning that that child has achieved by looking at samples of the child’s best work which are displayed alongside a general record, or “collection”, of student activities, assignments, projects, etc. in each subject area as outlined in the learning program that we discussed above. THEE offers workshops on how to plan a successful portfolio, and your Facilitator can also help you design and plan a portfolio.

Standardized Assessments (Optional)

For purely objective (quantitative) assessment, THEE recommends to the thee families the Canadian Achievement Tests (CAT3) as additional and optional methods for assessing your child’s academic learning and readiness. These tests may be used exclusively on their own or in combination with materials provided by the parent. The Canadian Achievement Test, Version 3 (CAT3), is a standard achievement test that will provide the parent with a plethora of information on the child’s language and math skills, as well as some applied problem solving skills. These tests are used across Canada and are quite accurate. The CAT4 and CAT5 are currently available, but they are available to only schools and not directly to parents who are homeschooling; Version 3 is available to home educating parents.

Parents may purchase the CAT3 directly from the publisher at https://www.canadiantestcentre.com

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Funding accountability

The funding accounts manager of thee, Mrs. Natasha Hicks (natashah@thee.ca), will help you manage, track, and receive your home education funding that you will receive from the province (We’ll talk in depth about this item in Home School Funding).

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