By Internewscast
Once a primary school teacher, Clarissa Valentine couldn’t have imagined she would choose to homeschool her 12-year-old twin sons. Since the age of six, they had attended a local school in a verdant suburb of northeast Melbourne.
However, in March 2022, after experiencing several lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Valentine swiftly decided to move her family to Queensland.
At that point, her sons Owen and Miles were nine, and Valentine was yearning for a change in scenery.
She focused on the Sunshine Coast, known for its easygoing, family-oriented lifestyle and immaculate beaches—vastly different from Melbourne’s persistent lockdowns and vaccination mandates.
“When I paused and reflected, I realized many of the things I once deemed important no longer were, and that our family unit was what mattered most,” she shares with SBS News.
Clarissa helps Miles with some schoolwork. Credit: SBS
Valentine says she was also motivated by the vaccine mandate imposed in schools.
It just didn’t feel right to then put my kids in that system.
Valentine is one of a growing number of parents in Queensland who are opting to homeschool their children — a trend that is outstripping rates in other Australian states and territories.
As daily habits and routines changed during the pandemic, Valentine says she reflected on her family lifestyle and decided the school system “wasn’t ideal”, and that she “could do it differently”.
Growing trend towards homeschooling
Clarissa is among thousands of Australian parents who homeschooled their children during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020, and statistics show some have continued to.
The number of children registered in home education nationally is estimated to be around 92 per cent higher in 2024 compared with 2020.
This data is based on home registration figures from state and territory home education departments, compiled by Vivienne Fox, president of the Sydney Home Education Network.
Queensland has experienced the most significant increase of homeschooling students, rising by 163% from 2020. Credit: Supplied/Vivienne Fox
Dr Rebecca English, a senior lecturer in education at Queensland University of Technology, says while homeschooling rates had been slowly increasing prior to COVID-19, numbers ballooned at the onset of the pandemic.
It gave parents a deeper insight into classrooms via remote learning, which was imposed during periods of the pandemic. English says this led some to believe they are better equipped to educate their children.
“Parents looked at that and said, ‘I’m already at home anyway, maybe I can do just as good of a job as the teacher is’.
Why has Queensland seen the biggest growth?
English says the reason behind Queensland’s pronounced uptick in homeschooling rates is unclear, but that the state has a complex history with mainstream schooling.
“I’m not really sure why it’s Queensland, but Queensland has a long history of quite a fractious relationship with state schooling,” she says.
According to English, lower vaccination rates and opposition to vaccine mandates in Queensland may also play a role.
Dr Rebecca English is a senior lecturer in education at Queensland University of Technology. Credit: QUT/Anthony Weate
Parents also attribute the popularity of homeschooling to its vibrant community mindset, particularly in the Sunshine Coast, which Valentine says encourages families to consider alternative education.
“I think that once the community starts to grow a little, then other people get more confidence to join that community,” she says.
The ‘school refusal’ cohort
Despite the potential motivations of parents, the primary driver for homeschooling in Australia comes from students.
English says that while around 10 or 15 per cent of people are “ideologically opposed to schooling”, the main reason people opt for homeschooling is school refusal.
This is typically as a result of bullying, social anxiety or because a child is neurodivergent and unsuited to the mainstream school environment, English explains.
Eight-year-old Ben started homeschooling two years ago after experiencing school refusal. Credit: Danika / Supplied
After a year of trying mainstream schooling, Sunshine Coast residents Danika and Joel resorted to homeschooling their eight-year-old son Ben, after his school refusal and anxiety reached a tipping point.
“Homeschooling sort of chose us,” Danika says,
“It was something that we as a family decided for Ben’s mental health, [that it] was a better option to try homeschooling just because of how school was making him feel.”
Ben was experiencing “a lot of separation anxiety”, and was arriving home in tears as he voiced to his parents daily that school wasn’t for him. Danika says this initially “derailed” her and Joel, who had both had a positive school experience.
“He just was this little five-year-old boy whose heart had been broken, spark had been put out and it was not the school’s fault, it was just the sheer volume of everything on such a little human being,” she says.
Danika, Ben and Milly learning together at home. Credit: Supplied
Ben has since been diagnosed with ADHD, which Danika says contributed to his school refusal.
While she doesn’t blame the school or teachers, she says public school resourcing isn’t designed to support all children, especially those who are neurodivergent.
She says Ben felt he was being punished for his “neurodiverse idiosyncrasies”, which was “quite shameful” for him.
Shortcomings of mainstream schooling
Remote learning during the peak of the pandemic caused many parents to question traditional schooling, according to Queensland Family and Child Commissioner Luke Twyford.
He says increasing rates of homeschooling indicate parents are being “very conscious of the wellbeing of their children” and choosing homeschooling as a “positive outcome”.
I’ve certainly seen increases in adolescent mental health and ‘school can’t’ and ‘school refusal’ movements.
English says it’s important to reassess the psychosocial care limitations of state-based school systems, given the main driver of homeschooling results from school refusal.
Calls for more regulation in home schooling
The former Queensland government was unsuccessful in attempts to pass legislation last year that would enforce homeschooling parents to follow the Australian curriculum, among other reforms.
That was largely thanks to the Free2Homeschool movement, led by homeschooling parents, who gathered more than 21,000 signatures and more than 2,000 submissions in opposition to the bill.
“So the freedom that we have now is a lot of why we choose homeschooling,” campaign manager Patricia Fitzgerald tells SBS News.
“So, if we’re going to take that away, our children may as well be in school, but we didn’t want that”.
The current Queensland government introduced new legislation in March this year, which is still under review, removing clauses that homeschooling parents had objected to, such as enforcing the Australian curriculum and removing provisional registration options that parents argue allow for more flexibility to commence homeschooling.
Patricia Fitzgerald and Amanda Bartle started the Free2Homeschool campaign seeking to protect caregivers’ ability to meet the specific education needs of homeschooled students. Credit: Patricia Fitzgerald
Queensland’s Family and Child Commission conducted a report last year into Queensland’s home education system, in response to concerns raised by the Child Death Review Board in their 2022-2023 report.
The December 2024 report into Queensland’s home education system “affirmed a parent’s right to choose the most suitable learning environment for their child”, but called for improved information-sharing between state government departments to ensure child safety.
“What we are mostly concerned about is that the registration system in homeschooling isn’t always picking up other risk factors that other government departments are identifying,” Twyford says.
Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek told SBS News that the department is considering the findings of a separate independent home education review and “will work with families, Child Safety, and other agencies to implement all accepted recommendations of the report”.
Changing lifestyles and greater flexibility
The growing trend towards homeschooling also raises questions about the future structures of work, education and family life.
Homeschooling is much more child-centred and I would expect to see that schools will adopt more of that child-centred learning.
Valentine has seen the advantages of homeschooling firsthand and says she appreciates the time she shares with her two sons.
Valentine says there are so many varying learning opportunities afforded by the flexibility of homeschooling. Credit: Supplied
She says her family feels part of a “bigger community”.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be able to go out into the world and be able to talk to different people. Everywhere we go is a learning opportunity”.
English says the rise in homeschooling has also coincided with greater numbers of people working from home since the start of the pandemic, which could offer greater flexibility for families.
“I think homeschooling does offer parents an opportunity to balance that work, family life, school situation,” she says.
“And homeschooling offers families the opportunity to spend more time with that young person.”