It was after the COVID-19 pandemic mother of three Tamara McNally realised something about the way their family was living needed to change.
Her oldest child, Bodhi, had just started primary school and was coming home wiped out, and her husband Grant was working 12-hour shifts, from 6am to 6pm, also finishing exhausted.
Bodhi and Kai McNally started year 2 and kindergarten whilst on the road. Credit: Instagram
“We just realised there was more to life than working those long hours and missing out on your kids’ lives,” she said.
The pair decided to sell most of their belongings, including their house, take Bodhi out of school and, alongside younger siblings Kai and Blaire, teach him on the road while travelling Australia in a caravan.
Since their decision, McNally said Bodhi had more energy and was enjoying learning on the road alongside Kai, who had started kindergarten.
Their day consists of a “cruisy morning” followed by an hour of schoolwork, including on weekends. But the majority of learning is practical and hands-on.
“We know exactly where they are in school, where they need help. Bodhi was behind on his reading in school, but now he is not,” McNally said.
“It’s that one-on-one learning the kids can’t get in school that has really helped him.”
McNally and her husband follow a program set by national online home-schooling provider Euka, to help structure the day and make sure their sons are at the expected level.
The family plan to spend the rest of the year exploring the coast of WA and said their favourite place so far was Exmouth.
“We’ll do this for as long as we can,” McNally said.
Alison Grierson also chose to home-school her children, as she wanted to “explore topics in depth and without the constant pressure of assessments and comparisons.”
“My priorities for our kids’ education is for them to enjoy learning and to build a good work ethic, as well as developing great friendships,” she said.
“Our son and daughter both participate in a wide range of activities including team sports, dancing and choir, as well as excursions and specific learning activities with others.”
Grierson said one of the big questions around home-schooling students in high school was how they would cope at university when they hadn’t experienced the pressure of exams.
“Intrinsic motivation is key to success in tertiary education. Our daughter is on the third unit of a university course, with fantastic results so far,” she said.
“Home-schooling is often seen as second rate to schools, but when we can provide our kids with amazing opportunities and watch them thrive, it is a privilege to be able to home-school.”
There were 6466 students registered for home education in WA in 2023, around double the 2019 (pre-pandemic) number of 3720 – a rise of almost 74 per cent.
Euka conducted a study of more than 1000 parents across WA, asking them the main reasons they had chosen to homeschool.
Almost a quarter cited bullying; another quarter, academic reasons.
Third was “philosophy on education”, followed by travel and the desire for more time for extracurricular activities such as sport.
Euka chief executive Brett Campbell said home-schooling numbers had grown exponentially over the past few years and so far, were not showing signs of slowing down.
“What’s important is that parents have a choice as to how their children are educated,” he said.
Home Education WA committee member Lianda Gibson agreed numbers choosing home-schooling had grown, particularly since the pandemic, and that this was unlikely to stop unless there was a shift in the way classrooms were structured.
In December, Education Minister Tony Buti announced a review of the School Education Act to identify opportunities to strengthen access and inclusion for students with disability, which Gibson said could change things for parents who were choosing to home-school due to a lack of available support in classrooms.
She said another key reason parents were turning to home-schooling was “school can’t”, a term that refers to children experiencing severe emotional distress around attending school.
“As a result, there has been a growing trend of parents home-schooling their kids when they had no plans to do so,” she said.
“There are also more choosing to home-school for a short period of time, say one year, as a bit of a circuit breaker.”
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