Home Education Plans + Records

How to write adaptable plans and records using the official and FREE syllabus/curriculum without stress, in minutes.

Dear Reader,

I hope that wherever you are, this post finds you well.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on how humans navigate the document commonly referred to as A Curriculum. It’s a document that is assigned to quarantining aspects of knowledge or skills that we as humans might want to learn about. Most of the time it is used as the front loading of information from people we assume understand the curriculum’s contents, called teachers, facilitators, or instructors, into other people we assume to know little to nothing, called students.

That’s a lot of assumptions.

Another use of a curriculum is using it as an objective assessment tool, for learning that happens ‘in the wild!’ That’s more exciting. Learning about the world, from the world, and then seeing whereabouts it is mentioned in a curriculum. THIS is how to retro record Unschooling for registration purposes, for people who are home educating.

One of my tasks for home educators has been adapting the NSW Syllabus, a rewritten version of the Australian National Curriculum (only NSW seems to require a special ‘silly bus’). The plans I wrote met the individual learning needs of each child that I had the pleasure of getting to know, either directly, or through their caregivers.

I would also use the retro recording approach towards creating records with registered home educators, as plans are MEANT to be put aside for all spontaneous learning opportunities, and changing needs, according to the policies based on legislation. The ability to write a plan being the more important skill, for the home education registration inspectors and assessors.

After I unwittingly became a crutch to parents unwilling to engage in the necessary process of learning how to DIY, I switched to helping parents to write their own plans and records. The people who still wished to bypass this step found someone else to help them, but for the most part it was a successful change, and I had many wonderful non-returning client moments where people went for it!

I’ve always offered to read anyone’s plans/records, for free, and continued this until 2021, when I stopped all paid registration support as well. I could see ChatGPT coming down the pipeline. The usefulness of my unique skill was running out. Having a deep understanding of the National Curriculum and its offspring, the NSW Syllabus, and somehow fashioning paragraphs of bespoke text over only 1–2 evenings, was (blissfully) coming to an end. Ai was able to do the same in seconds.

Ask Ai enough questions, and you’ll likely learn a lot about the syllabus/curriculum documents. It might tell you that it’s an important document, perhaps necessary, because that is what the document claims many times over. So, it won’t call it a silly bus, and it won’t tell you how limiting that thin document is.

Useful for a basic understanding, to get the lay of the land, and use it to make those registration records, but go to the support groups. We need to talk with living, breathing home educators, to find our tribe and discover the unending possibilities that come from learning outside the school system.

Many of those experienced home educators will remind you that the registration is only 1% of the home education experience. I believe that the 1% moment is also an opportunity, unique and worthwhile to take the time to tap into rich rewards.

The key to the registration, to be authentic and successful, is knowing your plan, understanding what records to make, irrespective of painstakingly creating your own plans and records from scratch, using Ai or purchasing something off the shelf. You need to know it and how your children are working with it, or not working with it.

The problem with some, but thankfully not all, of my original clients was delegating the plan and record making to me but then NOT reading what I put so much time into writing. I believe a fraction more would have ignored the reading step, but they felt obliged towards me. Later they had ‘bought it, so owned it’ and felt the need to read the records. Most thankfully really cared about what I’d written about their children.

Forcing parents to make the records with me was the necessary fix to the issue of parents not engaging with this crucial golden nugget opportunity.

Now, however, the exact same risk exists due to Ai.

Ai is not perfect. It can say the wrong word, have the wrong meaning, produce duplicates of examples, etc and without proofreading MANY people using this tool can become ‘a tool’ in front of their teacher, boss, or registration inspector. Another aspect is not knowing what is written in the plans and records. You will be asked during your meeting, and I feel a strong need to write about this, to save people from failing their registration interview.

Again, you need to know what is and isn’t working for your children. This needs to be reflected in your records, and in the matching words you use in answers to questions during the interview.

Is this a really hard task?

Not if you’re actively engaged in observing your child and their learning experience.

And this is where the standard syllabus/curriculum that your state/territory requests that you use as a base to your plan/records, comes in. This is how to use Ai, as a tool, and not simply a rescue raft, like so many used me once upon a time.

Write into an Ai chatbot an activity you witnessed your child doing. You don’t need to add any personal identification details, just the activity the young human did. Then ask it to rewrite it using your state/territory’s syllabus/curriculum to create a 1-paragraph summary and use the relevant codes those documents use.

You’ll need to refine this process, but once you have trained your dragon… ah your Ai (ChatGPT/DeepSeek etc) you can ask it to write new ones the same way. Ask it to write it in language that is formal, for records. Informal, for your children. For a grandparent. In any style you like.

Doing this will firstly help you to have context for what your child is doing according to those formal documents. It can help you to know what image would improve this record.

It will help your child to understand where their learning sits within the standard system and in my experience removes their fear of ‘being behind’ or not knowing as much as had they been in school.

I personally love that you can cover a lot of learning by going out and interacting with the world. Then you can return home, look up where they would cover that same learning had they been in school. That’s when you discover how it would take many years to bump into it, and usually through only abstract means.

Documenting natural learning and where it shows up in the official syllabus/curriculum for them in real time, and squirrelling it away for your future self, for registration time, can add value to your home ed experiences. They often love that feedback, as it’s reassuring. Knowing you are ‘gathering nuts’ helps you to relax and enjoy the experience more.

As our children move into independent learning, having had guidance in having command over the production of records, interacting confidently with the syllabus/curriculum, they can become autodidactic, choosing their own activities, locating resources that appeal to them. This is what many online programs promise to do but are limited to what a teacher puts in place; and teachers limiting learning is why many of us decide to home educate in the first place.

Post home education, by practicing for years an organic, flexible, curious application of life to a syllabus/curriculum/training manual/online course etc. The result is mastering how to use any formal document that is written in a format that doesn’t always lean towards easy learning. Intimidation lifts as critical thinking is applied in this very practical activity. The documents are demystified, as is the broader formal education system.

Another bonus can be healing of any trauma that anyone received from having had attended a school. In this way, the stodgy syllabus/curriculum, the flawed Ai, and our own ambition to reduce stress can combine to create, with practice, an activity that can be replicated and applied to many parts of life.

Learning the skill of mastering this ‘assisted decisive thinking exercise’ can then help our graduates navigate University courses more confidently. It puts Ai in the place of a tool, not a replacement for our memories or something to fear. The computer, tablet, phone are not in charge of us, we use them to perform tasks, learn information. These devices benefit our lives, making them better when used appropriately. Similarly, using Ai in this way helps our family redefine and thereby thoughtfully direct its use.

It also allows everyone to understand that the edubabble documents were created by professionals and designed to be used in a school setting, not in a home education setting. Ai cuts out the confusion that sets in when reading the syllabus/curriculum and wondering how they relate to the real world. I was the translator because I had both a degree in teaching and home education experience. It takes some training, but you can get Ai to decipher it. Use the support groups for clarity if confusion persists.

An unintended bonus of not having to ‘ask a teacher’ is an opportunity to become empowered. This helps with deschooling. Also, it can put the syllabus/curriculum in its place, a document that is written and used in schools, and free us from all associated intimidating influences.

At the end of the day, for us home educators, the syllabus/curriuclum are reference tools, not whips, rods or set to limit our journey. We’ve opted out of the school system, and how we refer to them is open. That they are referred to is the only stipulation, and we’re not limited to only referring to our state/territory syllabus/curriculum. You can add on anything you like.

Just as a dictionary gives us definitions but doesn’t dictate how we write a story, the school-based syllabus/curriculum doesn’t dictate our home education stories either.

Until next time, what have you been learning about lately?

Tamara Kidd

03.3.25