Most children get their education at a school - with other children, and teachers. But as you'll see in the story, more parents are teaching their own children at home.


KATHY MCLEISH: The bell rang last week on a new school year.

TEACHER: Could you open up your playbooks today to the page you want to write in.

KATHY MCLEISH: But not all books were opened in a classroom.

Increasingly, Queensland parents are choosing to teach their children at home.

Terry Harding is principal of the Australian Christian Academy, and father of five home-schooled children.

TERRY HARDING: It's a big commitment. My wife and I have been home schooling for 13 years to see our children through, and it's meant that we've committed to a single income as a family so that has economic spin offs but we believe that the cost is really worth it.

KATHY MCLEISH: Education Queensland can't estimate how many families are home schooling like the Hardings. So it's attempting to better understand the sector in a review of its 14-year-old policy.

ANNA BLIGH: When the current regulations were put in place there was about 300 children in these circumstances, it's now close to 1500, in a decade. So with that growth, that's in the formal home schooling sector, and beyond that there is a sort of an informal home schooling sector about which we know very little.

KATHY MCLEISH: Support groups believe as many as 20,000 Queensland children could be home schooled this year, without the Education Department's consent. Education Queensland only provides a dispensation when it's approved the curriculum. That's mostly for State distance education schools. Eleanor Sparks represents Brisbane Natural Learners, a home school method with no set curriculum.

ELEANOR SPARKS: The current situation tends to be a little bit difficult for some families because technically you're breaking the law and although this hasn't been enforced in recent years some families are uncomfortable doing that.

KATHY MCLEISH: Terry Harding agrees parents don't need a dispensation to provide an excellent education at home, even though his Australian Christian Academy uses a set curriculum and is applying for state approval.

But Education Queensland is concerned it can't monitor that development if parents don't register their children.

ANNA BLIGH: We know very little about the reasons these families are making this choice, but we also know very little about the sort of achievements of children in this kind of schooling. It is clear from some of the data we have that a number of children in home schooling situations achieve excellent and outstanding results. So I don't think we should see this in any way as a substandard form of education but we do need as we do with all of our schools in our systems require them to be able to demonstrate minimum standard.

KATHY MCLEISH: Home schoolers, far from feeling threatened by the policy review, are hopeful they'll gain greater recognition in the education sector, securing their future.