Home Is Where The School Is

If you’ve decided not to send your child back to school this year here’s what you need to know about home-schooling

- Gezzy S Sibisi

You know you should feel over the moon. After all these months of nagging and tearing your hair out as you try to homeschool your kids, there’s an end in sight at last.

But now that most Grade 7s and matrics are back in the classroom and as other grades wait for the announcement of their return date, you have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, it’ll be great to hand them back into the care of their teachers and have the responsibility of educating them off your shoulders – but on the other it opens a whole new can of worms.

After all these months of doing everything in your power to keep them away from other people, it feels weird to be gearing up to send them out into the world, especially if you’re still working from home.

Mask or no mask, how safe will they really be sitting in a classroom with their fellow learners?

And you might also have people in your home who are particularly vulnerable – grandparents, for instance, or adults with comorbidities.

Kids don’t seem to be as affected by the virus but what about adults who are most at risk?

It’s a concern shared by many parents and it’s exactly for this reason that the department of education has announced that those who don’t want to send their children back to school don’t have to do so.

But this doesn’t mean those kids are going to take the rest of the year off. Parents are legally obliged to formally register them with the department for lockdown learning – a form of home-schooling – and then teach them at home themselves or hire a tutor for the job.

Thinking of going this route? Here’s what you need to know.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS