Subject: New Homeschool History in the Making

Reaching Higher Newsletter
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New Homeschool History in the Making


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From a maths test in our first week back at the books: “Six hundred ninety people bought tickets for the concert. Seventy-five people stayed home because they were sick. One hundred twenty-one decided not to go for other reasons. How many people ended up at the concert.

“Mom, these numbers sound like Zuma!”

While homeschoolers and stand-up comedians poke fun at the president and his numbers, his days in office are numbered.

2018 promises to be an eventful year in South Africa. Thing are being shaken up in the political arena and there are changes afoot that could affect homeschoolers, for better or for worse.

Be a part of making the history of homeschooling take a turn for the better:

If you haven’t yet done so, we’d like to urge you to submit a comment on the Draft Policy for Home Education which was published by the Department of Basic Education in November 2017.

Don’t be confused. First we had to make submissions about the BELA Bill by 10 January. Now we also have to submit comments on the Draft Policy for Home Education by 31 January.
Please make sure you do both!

The Pestalozzi Trust has provided information and guidelines to help you make a submission on their website here: 

"The Pestalozzi Trust prepared resources and guidelines to help you. How to use them:

First read the Fact Sheet.Act Sheet to understand the overall drift of the Draft Policy:
(1) A Draft Policy Fact Sheet.Act Sheet

Then read the Step-by-Step Guide as a summary of what to do:
(2) A Step-by-step Guide to the Draft Policy

Then choose a template to draw up your letter:
(3) Home educating families: Draft Policy Submission Letter for Individuals Template

OR

(5) For Cottage Schools Owners and Parents: Comments Template for Cottage School Parents and Comments Template for Cottage School Owners.


Please send a BCC copy to the Pestalozzi Trust at this email address as they are keeping track of the numbers of letters sent for evidence: 

homeschoolfreedom1996@gmail.com



For parents who want to be well-informed, Shirley has compiled a free resource on Home Education and the Law, which includes information about Homeschooling legislation in South Africa, homeschooling as a human right, cottage schools and the law, removing or returning a child to the school system, provincial registration requirements and more. 
Sign up for a free account at Teachable and enrol free. Homeschooling and the Law


Customised, South African Footprints notebooking pages for your children to record their Footprints learning activities.
This is another great new product from Footprints On Our Land in partnership with homeschool mom, Jo Madgwick.
The notebooking pages look good and will help your children to keep a portfolio of their work which they can be proud of. They can show Grandma and Grandpa what they have been learning!
Notebooking pages giving guidelines and structure to children who need it, but they can be customised and decorated, by adding lapbooking elements, souvenirs, pictures or drawings by children who enjoy being creative.

Above: samples of the new Footprints notebooking pages

You can paste the pages into a notebook or store them in plastic sleeves in a ring binder.
Notebooking pages are a useful tool for Charlotte Mason’s concept of narration – the art of telling back.
Read more about these beautiful printable pages to go along with Footprints on our website here:
Footprints Notebooking Pages 

To order, contact Wendy at footprintsonourland@mweb.co.za or add them to your Footprints order.

Footprints into the 21st Century
2018 edition due for release!

We have been burning the midnight oil over the holiday season to try to get Footprints into the 21st Century updated and ready for the new school year. 

Although it is not quite completely ready for print, we have decided to launch it in 4 stages during the course of 2018. Two modules of the manual will be released each term in digital format.

Footprints into the 21st Century is an original and uniquely South African high school homeschool unit study curriculum which presents teens with some of the best books that portray this era in the history of our country. 

It includes historical fiction, poetry, reference books as well as biographies of people who contributed to the events of the century.

Footprints into the 21st Century has been newly updated to include the ever changing South African faces in politics, the drama of the State Capture Report, the pain of the Border War of the 80’s, the Woman’s March to Pretoria along with the history that we know – or thought we knew – of the Apartheid Era, the Freedom Struggle and the first democratic election.

In this one year program for 12 – 14 year olds, you will be taken on a journey through the last 100 years of South African history. In the Natural Sciences section, you will look at the major biomes of South African from bushveld to mangrove swamp. 

In addition to a Life Skills section which challenges teens to learn about a wide range of 21st century issues such as entrepreneurship, healthy food choices, balanced use of digital media and dating and relating, there is also a new Christian Apologetics section. These new resources will help you and your students find answers to challenging issues of faith such as the reliability of Bible history, the Creation vs Evolution debate, truth versus subjective morality, modern spirituality and more.

You and your children will be challenged to do hard things and to think deeply about the twists and turns that post modern thinking has taken. They will be encouraged to look at 21st Century world living in the age of social media. They will do an in-depth study of South African’s voting and political system. And MORE!

If this thought-provoking and challenging course sounds good for your family,  contact Wendy, footprintsonourland@mweb.co.za for more information.

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