From time to time, a home educating family may be informed that ERO is to conduct a review. Under current policy (since 2009), this usually only happens as the result of a complaint. (For more on the history and statistics of ERO reviews see HERE and HERE.). However, it can also happen because ERO choose to do a review of their own initiative, or because the Minister directs them to do reviews. The Ministry might also initiate a review process due to concerns arising from reading a new exemption application for a family that is already homeschooling, or based on "other relevant and verified sources of information." 

In this article I will outline each of the steps that are supposed* to occur in the process. 

*Sometimes things don't happen the way they are supposed to - if you need help, contact me. 

I strongly recommend that you are contacted about a review, that you get support from someone knowledgeable IMMEDIATELY. A review can be a positive and encouraging process, but it is also innately stressful and has the potential for serious repercussions. Your exemptions are at stake! So, first, get support. You can Contact Me if needed. 

If any person (they can be anonymous) contacts the Ministry of Education and expresses concern that a home educated (exempt) student is not being taught as well or as regularly as they should be, then the regional office make note of this complaint, and conduct an "initial investigation" which should involve two parts:

​1) Asking the complainant some questions to ascertain the grounds for the complaint – do they actually know the family/child, do they have specific educational concerns (or do they just need to be given some information about how homeschooling actually works) etc. You'd be amazed how often "complaints" happen that are either made out of ignorance or by people who don't actually know anything about the child and their learning. 

Some (experienced) staff are very good at doing the above. Others skip right over this step and move on to....

​2) Write to the family concerned, notify them that a complaint has been received, give the specific educational concerns mentioned and provide them with the opportunity to comment. Families are informed in the letter that an ERO review may occur, but that the Ministry is first seeking information from them before determining whether this is necessary.

Things to note:

• You have a right to see a copy of the complaint (if it was by phone, then the notes made by staff). You can request this from the Ministry, and it will be treated as a Privacy Act or OIA request - which means they have up to 20 business days to respond. The name of the person making the complaint will be redacted. You can tell the Ministry that you wish to see the complaint before responding, and thus ask for an appropriate extension if they gave you a set date to respond by. 
• While the Ministry usually doesn't tell you exactly what they're looking for in your response (though if they describe specific concerns you obviously need to speak to those) but usually what you need to do is give them a brief update on your children's learning programme and regularity. It may be wise to seek some guidance in doing this, to make sure you cover what is needed. If you provide the Ministry with sufficient information to satisfy them that your child continues to be taught as regularly and well as, then they will close the file and notify you (and the complainant) that they will be taking no further action. 
• However, if you are in a situation such as a split family where the matter of homeschooling is likely to end up in court, then I advise you to consider politely declining to provide any informing, forcing them to proceed with an ERO review. A positive ERO review can be useful evidence in a court case to show that your child is being "taught as regularly and well as" as ERO are the only ones tasked with making this call, and you can't just request an ERO review. 
• If the complaint is deemed "serious" or if there has previously been a complaint which didn't result in an ERO review, then the Ministry might skip asking families for info and go straight to the next step. 
• They cannot review a student who has turned 16.
• Ministry policy states that if they become aware, in the course of their investigations, that a child has special learning needs, they should seek specialist input from Learning Support. If it is determined that the family could meet s38 requirements with appropriate and available learning support, then an ERO review should not be conducted. 

Important: The Ministry does NOT have the power or authority to review a family themselves. If they tell you they want to visit (or you come to them) so they can conduct a "review" or "informal review", this is a red flag. It's ok if they ask you for information in an email and you tell them you'd prefer to meet in person to go over things - that's your choice. But they should not in any way imply this is required. 

If the Ministry is not satisfied with the response provided by families to their inquiry, the family refuses to respond, or if the complaint was deemed "serious" and they skipped asking for info, then they move on to Step 2.

Other than a complaint about your homeschooling programme, the Ministry might also decide to conduct a review on the basis of concerns they have after reading a new exemption application submitted for an additional child in your family, or based on other "relevant and verified sources of information." A Judge or Oranga Tamariki might also ask the Ministry to arrange a review. In these cases, they are still bound to follow due process. 

As noted above, ERO can initiate reviews independently, or at the direction of the Minister. In those cases, they start from Step 3 below. These situations are rare however, so if you're contacted directly by ERO as your first knowledge of a review, don't assume this is the case - find out why the review is happening. 

Your local regional office cannot just directly ask ERO to do a review - they must put the request to the National Office, who should independently review the request and related evidence to make sure the regional office has done its due diligence. If they concur, then they will put the request to ERO to do a review. 

Things to note:

• Legally, the Secretary of Education (aka "the Ministry") cannot order ERO to do a review. They can only make the request. ERO are only bound to conduct a review when directed to do so by the Minister of Education, who is not involved in the situations I am describing in this article. 
• ERO should consider the evidence provided to them by the Ministry and independently conclude that a review is appropriate in the circumstances. This, in theory, provides an additional layer of checks and balances so that families are not subject to reviews unnecessarily. However, I have never heard of a situation where the MoE made the request and ERO said no. The language ERO uses is "The Secretary asked us to conduct a review." which implies a "they asked, we do" approach. When reviews changed from routine to being conducted on a complaints basis, the then-Chief Review Officer announced "ERO will carry out reviews only when requested by the Secretary for Education, or in other particular circumstances."
• If the Ministry decides to request a review on the basis of complaint about one child's education, they will request ERO review all exempt students in the family at the same time. 
• The information that the Ministry supplies to ERO includes your original exemption application/s (and any related extra information if you were asked for some at the time), and the details of the complaint. 
• The Ministry should write to the family informing them of the decision to ask ERO to conduct a review (but only after the National Office have agreed to this). This is policy. 

ERO emails the family advising they have been asked to conduct the review and setting out a proposed date and time. They should include the following:

• A form to complete and return, confirming the details of exempt students, whether or not you will have the review at your home, and whether or not the proposed date/time is acceptable. ("Confirmation of Review of Exempted Students")
• A document which outlines particulars of the review interview. ("Education Review: Exempted Students (Homeschooling)")
• A pre-review questionnaire, which asks some questions about your children's learning programme and which they would like you to complete and send back to them along with any evidence you wish to supply. 
• A link to the Evaluative Questions which guide the review (these are the points that they are seeking information on). 
• A link to their Code of Conduct. 
• They may also tell you, as it says on their website, that "Our reviewers may use sections of our School Evaluation Indicators in reaching judgements about your homeschooling programme. The indicators provide examples of evidence for good quality and effective programmes and practice."

They will tell you that at the review, the reviewer will speak to your child/ren, and that when they do, you or another person must be present. 

Things to note:

• It is highly recommended that you have a support person present - ideally someone with homeschooling experience. This person cannot answer for you in the review, but they can remind you of things you planned to talk about but may have gone blank on in the moment (if you've prepped with them), be available to assist with a child who needs attention while you're focused on the review, be present with a child who is being interviewed, and, perhaps most importantly, serve as a neutral witness to what goes on if needed. 
• Also give thought to whether or not to allow ERO into your home. They have no right of entry to your home, (this is explicit in law), and therefore they do not need to see your home in order to conduct a review. Years ago, leaders in the homeschooling community used to recommend NOT having them in your home, but for some years now we have been more relaxed about it. However, recent events, which I will write about separately soon, lead me to strongly recommend you do NOT allow the review at your home. Instead, negotiate with ERO a suitable neutral local place (it needs to be private). The downside of this is that you will need to pack up and lug all your records and other resources you wish to show them to the location of the review (and may wish to print some photos of broader resources etc that they would have seen if they visited the home). However, the upside is that it avoids ERO passing judgements based on people's homes and prevents them from making completely out of scope comments in this regards. 

ERO takes an "evidence-based approach." This means that while you can answer questions and make statements - and need to - it's highly important that you can show evidence to support this. Ahead of the review, you need to collect and collate the evidence that you will present. 

It is also important at the time of the review that you do not assume that ERO will ask for what they want to see - often they will not. YOU need to be prepared and present things to them. (You can also have sent them some good evidence in advance with the pre-review questionnaire, which I recommend you take advantage of).  

Evidence you might want to have ready includes:

• Samples of writing done by the children
• Current and completed workbooks, worksheets or similar
• Photos of projects completed and activities they take part in. ERO will not want to scroll through photos on a device. Print off the photos you want to show them, and suitably collate/present them. 
• Any earned certificates, awards or similar. 
• Any standardised testing you may have chosen to use AND evidence of how you use this to inform your planning and teaching. 
• Other evidence of assessment and record keeping of learning outcomes AND how you use this to inform your planning and teaching
• Term reports if used
• Your reflections or notes, diary or what have you of work completion, activities and learning
• Resources available
• Learning environment - where do the children do most of their learning at home? What other places do they do learning activities?  What places do you go to that serve to enhance or support their learning experiences?
• Documentation of any testing or diagnosis of learning difficulties or disabilities, as well as recommendations for support AND evidence of how you are putting these into practice. 
• Evidence of their participation in/access to social and/or sporting opportunities, clubs, homeschool groups etc.
• Evidence of regularity - timetable, diary showing achieved work and activities or similar
• Portfolios for each child showing much of the above

ERO are going to be looking for information and evidence that enables them to make "findings" on each of the following points:

• ​<Name of child> (is progressing and achieving OR is not progressing or achieving) at a rate and level appropriate to what could be expected for age and stage of learning.
• The homeschooling programme is (effective OR needs improvement) in meeting the learning needs.
• The teaching and management of the homeschooling programme is (effective OR needs improvement).
• Assessment and planning information (is OR is not) used well to monitor progress and inform future learning.
• Achievement information (is OR is not) valid and shows progress over time.
• The home learning environment (supports/does not support) engagement and success in learning.

Their findings on the above points will each be listed in the review report, with a conclusion as to whether or not the child "is being taught as regularly and well as" they would be in a registered school. 

So, you need to prepare information and evidence to allow you to speak to each of the above points (and taking into consideration the Evaluative Questions). 

Two reviewers arrive at the appointed time to conduct the review. Typically, one will do most of the talking, and the other will take notes. 

• They MUST (by law) begin the review by showing you their designation - that is, proof of their appointment as review officers. They will ask you to sign a form to say that you've seen these. If they do not show you this, they cannot conduct the review; if they do not comply with this, the entire review is void. 
• Some reviewers will fairly closely follow the Evaluative Questions document in guiding the review. Others don't so much but cover the main areas in their own way. 
• Do NOT assume that reviewers will ask you for everything that they need. YOU need to be prepared and present information and evidence to them to show your children are being "taught at least as regularly and well as."
• The reviewers will take photos of various things to record as "evidence" to support their report. Make sure you present them with the things you want them to see. 
• The reviewers will speak to each child. They are not to "test" the children, but they will ask them questions to encourage responses. Prepare your children by ensuring they have things they can talk comfortably about with the reviewers - such as a project they enjoyed, a model or some artwork they are proud of, a story they wrote that they'd like to read to the reviewers or similar. Another adult must be present with the child. If reviewers cannot speak to a child, they will stop the review. 
• If YOU do not provide them with evidence of your child's current learning abilities, particularly in literacy and math, they may try to gauge this by asking the child to read aloud, or asking a math question etc. No, they're not supposed to test the child, but they will be looking for evidence of some sort of current abilities. 

The review will likely take several hours. At the end of the review, the reviewers will leave for a period of time (usually a couple of hours) and go somewhere to discuss together your review. They will then return to you, and give you an indication of what they expect the outcome of the review to be, as well as share any pointers they may have that they think will help you improve your home education programme. They will give the caveat that they still have to return to the office and put everything together, have it checked by a manager etc, but usually they are able to tell you what the outcome of their report is going to be. 

Back at the office, the ERO officers will type up their notes, compile and annotate evidence, complete worksheets, and draft the official report. A manager will go over all this and either agree with the outcomes, or make amendments if they deem it appropriate. 

ERO will then send the draft report (only) to you, along with a response form. You will have up to 10 working days to respond. 

The draft report will include the following:

• Child's name, date of birth, parents' names, your address, date of review and the names of the reviewers.
• A few short paragraphs describing the homeschooling programme, child's particular interests etc. 
• "Findings" where they state each of the following:​

1. ​<Name of child> (is progressing and achieving OR is not progressing or achieving) at a rate and level appropriate to what could be expected for age and stage of learning.
2. The homeschooling programme is (effective OR needs improvement) in meeting the learning needs..
3. The teaching and management of the homeschooling programme is (effective OR needs improvement).
4. Assessment and planning information (is OR is not) used well to monitor progress and inform future learning.
5. Achievement information (is OR is not) valid and shows progress over time.
6. The home learning environment (supports OR does not support) engagement and success in learning.

• Possibly "Next Steps" or "Areas for Improvement" if they want to put any recommendations.
• Conclusion: which will state that the child is or is not being "taught as regularly and well as". Note that "as regularly" and "as well" are two separate things, and are judged separately. So the judgement, could, for example, state that the child is being taught as regularly as but not as well as or vice versa. 

If you're happy with the report, you can simply use the response form to confirm that there are no errors of fact, and send it back. 

If, however, you believe there are errors in the report, or you disagree with the findings, then you will want to respond by listing what you consider to be the errors, explaining what the issue is, as well as providing evidence to support your position. ERO operate on an evidence-based approach, so just saying you disagree won't work. You need to provide evidence. 

This may be where you end up sending scans/photos of things you have already shown them, but they didn't take photos of, or things you had ready to show them, but they didn't look at. 

In theory, if you can show them evidence and speak suitably to a point, they will make changes to the report. Experience, however, has shown that while they may amend or add a sentence or two as a result of your response, ERO has never been known to change their "bottom line" (ie conclusion) no matter what you send them. Don't let that discourage you from sending a meaty response when needed. I'm just pointing it out so you are prepared. Regardless, it is never a waste of time to properly respond - because what you send will become part of the file, which may come in handy later. 

Particularly if you think the findings of the report are unfair, or if what is in the report seems at odds with what the reviewers told you at the time, it can be useful to request a copy of your file from ERO under the Privacy and/or Official Information Act. You would do this by asking for a copy of all notes, evidence, information and documents held by ERO that form part of or were considered in your review. You can also request that the timeframe for you to respond to the review report be extended to allow you to receive and consider this information. A typical such file can be around 200 pages (will vary depending on the number of children). When I review such a file, here's what I focus on, in this order:

• The typed worksheets completed by the reviewers. This will have remarks for each section, their judgements on each point, and ultimately conclusions for each child. 
• The Peer Review Attestation (aka moderator reports) which is usually about 2 pages. Here you will see if the moderator has disagreed with any of the reviewers' findings, and why, and if they have changed judgements, and why. 
• The photos of evidence and the annotations (or notes) written about them. 
• The handwritten sheets of notes the reviewers took during the review. 

For both of those last two things, they are likely to have highlighted various things in one of three colours - green means "good", yellow means "to note" and purple means "of concern". The highlighted points as well as handwritten red notes next to their original notes will be the main things that have led to their ultimate conclusions. 

If reviewers have come to a positive judgement on a point, and then the moderator has changed it, speaking to this in your response will be important. The same applies if the reviewers have reached a negative judgement on a point, for reasons you believe to be in error. 

After considering your response, ERO will finalise the report and send a copy to both you and the Ministry's National Office. The N.O will then forward it on to your regional office for follow up. 

If the outcome of your finalised report is that the child "is being taught as regularly and well as" then the Ministry will send you a letter which states that they have received the report, are satisfied, and will be taking no further action. 

If the report included suggested next steps, then the Ministry will consider whether there is any action they need to take on their end (eg if it suggested the Ministry should provide learning support to the child), however the parent is under no obligation to take any further action. (This is stated in the Ministry's Policies and Procedures manual). 

If the outcome of your finalised report is that the child is NOT being taught either as regularly or as well as (or both), then the Ministry will send you a letter that states this and giving you the opportunity to comment before they make any decisions. 

It is important to understand here that the Ministry has the right to revoke your exemption on the basis of a negative review report, but only after they have made reasonable effort to obtain all relevant information, which is why they are giving you the opportunity to comment. 

This is your opportunity to either:

• ​Acknowledge the findings of the report (if they were fair) and explain what improvements you plan to make in order to ensure your child WILL be taught at least as regularly and well as. OR
• Otherwise show the Ministry evidence that you are or will be ensuring your children are "taught at least as regularly and well as..."

Keep in mind that the ONLY thing that the Ministry will have received from ERO is your final report, all 1-1/2 pages of it. They see NONE of the evidence collected, internal worksheets, your response etc. This means that it can be very helpful for you to send them these things yourself, where they support your position. This is where the work you have done both before and after the review pays off. 

If you are able to provide information and evidence that satisfies the Ministry that you will teach your children as regularly and well as going forward, in most instances they will allow you to continue home educating, and will send a letter confirming this. 

Otherwise, they will revoke the exemption, and send you a letter informing you of this, and giving you 14 days to enroll your child in school. There is no appeals process for revoked exemptions. Should this happen to you, please do contact me. 

If you or someone you know has had a review in the last 5 years, whether or not the exemptions were revoked, I'd love to hear from you/them - please Contact Me. 

Most of you may have seen THIS news article this week, in which two Northland principals made statements about the need for greater review of homeschooling families. This article may distress some folk, or generate more rumors about what is going to happen. There will also no doubt be a lot of strong feelings about the "cheek" of principals pointing fingers at homeschoolers when it's been clearly demonstrated that the school system is failing miserably in providing children with effective teaching and learning. Claims that kids returning to school are behind are lacking in credibility or substance - every week I work with families taking their kids out of school who are demonstrably way behind where they should be, and it's at home that they make much more progress than they were making in school.

I could write lots of articles with numerous examples of real families and how the school system has let them down, and how much better they've done at home. I could also give lots of example of kids who have been homeschooled for many years and then entered the school system where they've been incredibly successful. There's little point, though, in playing games of tit for tat. If you do want to read some homeschool success stories, though, start HERE.

​And if you want to know more about how home education programmes are currently monitored, see HERE

In regards to the news article, I want you to know the following:

• This article was not a surprise to us. NCHENZ and I were aware it was in the works the week prior, and the gist of it, though not the exact content. And it was also inevitable that something like this would come up with the recent growth in home education, which has taken most of the state sector by surprise.
• All they're really calling for in the article is a return of routine ERO reviews. You can read more about the history of those reviews HERE 

Does this article mean that the govt will immediately bring back ERO reviews? No. There is a process to that. It would require a policy amendment, and the assignment of a good chunk of money - usually that would be something that they would consider in the Budget rounds, not on the spur of the moment. Remember, they stopped doing ERO reviews because they could not justify the expenditure when so few families were found to not be doing an excellent job. 

Would a return to regular ERO reviews be a bad thing? Not necessarily. Some kind of accountability is, generally speaking, a good thing - all of us tend to lift our game when we know we're accountable to someone. For example, a few years ago I decided to set a personal goal to grow 1000kg of produce in my back yard within 12 months. I set up a blog in which to share progress reports and photos and updates because I know myself well enough to know that when I tell people about what I'm trying to achieve, I will do better at making a consistent effort towards it. While nothing bad was going to happen to me if I did not reach my goal, just having that outside "scrutiny" helped motivate me to keep going when it got tough. 

However, there are a few things wrong with ERO reviews as they stand in terms of their usefulness in improving outcomes for our children, which is, after all, the main point:

• The way reviews are currently structured is that they result in a report that you are or are not "teaching your child at least as regularly and well as..". That report goes to the Ministry, who, in theory, can, if the outcome was "are not", summarily revoke your exemption. Not that they always do - there is space to discuss how you will improve things and be allowed to keep going. However, the mere fact that this can happen, makes the whole process very intimidating, which does not bring out the best in anyone, and may result folk being unable to present themselves as well or accurately as they would under other circumstances. 
• ERO's reviews of schools have a different focus - they are deliberately intended these days to help schools find areas where they need to improve, and then giving them space and support to do so. The wording on the website is: "Reviews of schools are focused on continuous improvement through strengthening the capability of schools in identifying priority areas for improvement, including the effectiveness of engagement with whānau, Iwi and the wider communities." Schools are not under threat that one bad review will close the school. This means that schools and home educators are not being reviewed on an equal basis. 
• Currently, reviews of home educators only happen on a complaints basis - so they're going in because there is, theoretically, a problem. This naturally adds tension and a degree of bias to the review. 
• Because so few reviews happen each year, most reviewers are very unfamiliar with home education as a whole, though the ones I've spoken to are supportive in general. Years ago when reviews were first routine, it took quite some time until the few reviewers who focused on home education reviews became familiar with home education in all it's shapes and sizes - they ultimately became some our biggest advocates. We lost that when we lost routine reviews. 
• The questions that ERO use to guide their review are, in some degree, not as useful as they could be, as many of them are not written in terms that are meaningful in the home education context, or even make a lot of sense to homeschooling parents who don't speak "teacher-ese."

What about other possible forms of accountability or review? Traditionally most home educators have strongly desired to maintain independence from any form of "interference" by government departments. Even having to write an exemption application in the first place in order to teach your own children may seem an unnecessary imposition to some. This article is not the place to debate in full these points of view, but know this: I agree that good parents should be able to make their own choices when it comes to their children's education and wellbeing, and not be interfered with. I (and NCHENZ) have long been in a place of advocating to maintain our freedoms as much as possible. However, two things must be acknowledged: sadly not all parents are good parents, and even the good ones can flounder a bit and would benefit from some support, ideas or guidance from time to time. Ignoring these facts does not lead to the best outcomes for members of our community. 

That said, there may be other ways we can help ourselves and each other, that will benefit our children, and not be too burdensome or stressful for busy parents who need to focus on the day to day teaching and guiding of their children. And, maybe, there would also be something in this space that would provide additional assurance to the Ministry that the children are doing ok. 

One of the downsides, it must be understood, of the Ministry having little or no information on the on-going programmes and progress of our children is that it increases concern and pressure at the front end, which is directly responsible (in large part) for the increasingly demanding expectations of staff members who are processing exemption applications. 

So yes, I think we can find other ways to hold ourselves accountable in a way that actually benefits our families, while also helping to calm government sector concerns. 

Work that is being done:
These matters are being worked on on a number of fronts behind the scenes, including by the NCHENZ executive and other key people within the home education sector. It's all still in the discussion and brainstorming stage.

• There is planning being done to have a meeting with key staff to give them an opportunity to express their concerns, so we can listen, and consider those when making suggestions down the track.
• There is work being done on making suggestions for improvements to ERO's review questions, and also considering how some similar questions could help families consider their own progress and next steps periodically.
• There is work being done on considering what data we may be able to share with ERO in respect of the survey they're currently conducting, which may better inform them.
• And there is brainstorming being done, for experienced home educators coming up with ideas which could then be put to the wider home education community around how they might self-review for their own benefit and also provide some appropriate degree of accountability that would help ensure better outcomes for all students, while also relieving concerns.

​Always kept in mind in all of these things is not adding unreasonable burdens to busy families and protecting our privacy and freedom to make individual choices about our children's education. 

Bottom line:
Please don't be distressed by articles like this. And don't engage in speculative rumours about what might happen, and what the Ministry thinks and so on. Do take a moment to ask yourself "How do I personally monitor my own children's progress and achievements? Is there anything I could do better? Would I like any further resources and ideas to help with that?" Whatever your answers to yourself, write them down. This will help you act on them, and will also be helpful when we get to the stage of calling for ideas from the wider home education community. 
​
Know that national representatives of the home education sector and those who work closely with families are working together to find answers, temper concerns, and come up with workable outcomes and ways forward that will be beneficial to families and impose as little as reasonably possible on time and freedoms. We are all volunteers in this space though. We cannot promise to make certain things happen - but we can say we are doing our level best to work for the benefit of the wider home education community. 

The following is excerpted from a write up I did for today's NCHENZ newsletter. If you are a home educator and not yet a member of NCHENZ, I encourage you to join (it's free). 

Background: 
The number of families who are home educating their children has risen significantly since the pandemic began. The number of exempt students as of 1st July 2018 was 6,298; in 2019 it was 6,573, in 2020 it was 7,192 and in 2021 it was 7,749 as of 1st July. By 31st October 2021, the Ministry was reporting that there were 8,253 exempt students, and while I don’t have the current number officially, references have been made to it now sitting around 11,000.

NCHENZ recently completed their annual survey of home educators. Of the 507 families who completed the survey (a statistically significant number), a significant majority indicated they intend to homeschooling until their children finish school, while the number who planned this as only a short term solution was very small. Naturally, some families are as yet undecided, but regardless, I think it is evident that homeschoolers will continue to make up a larger portion of the population than ever before.

ERO conducting a survey
Along with these increases, there is increased interest from various sectors, which is unsurprising. ERO have recently begun conducting a voluntary survey – they are aiming this at a “random selection of parents” who have gained exemptions in the last 3 years. ERO says that “The big picture background is interest in the rising number of requests for exemptions” and “Our interest is in finding out parents’ views on how their home school programmes are going.” (All quotes are directly from ERO's email to me, mentoined below)
​
Their method is to send an email inviting parents to participate and outlining the four areas of questions, then following this up with a phone call to explain more about how this works, and to conduct the survey over the phone. The questions included in the email are:

• Rationale/Motivation -We are interested in what led you to make an  application for home schooling.
• Learning Progress - How is it going? Has the home school programme you set up for [y]our children led to the learning progress you were looking for?
• Support - What support have you been able to access for your home school programme? How useful is the support?
• Duration - Do you have any idea how long you will want your children to continue to be home schooled?
• General question - Overall, what have been the pluses in home schooling? Any minuses?

When I was informed of this survey, I had immediate reservations, and asked ERO for more information, particularly around how the information provided will be used, and how parents’ privacy will be protected. They responded:
“In short, all information from parents will be received in confidence, no names will be used in the summary report and the process for collating parents’ answers to the questions will be anonymous. The information received will only be used for research and statistical purposes.…..Once we have talked with those parents who wish to join in the survey, we will prepare a summary report for ERO’s Chief Executive. We hope to have a summary report ready early in term two. That report will be shared with the Ministry of Education and the parents who participate in the survey in the first instance. The Chief Executive may wish to make some of the summary findings public.”

So, should home educators participate in this survey? Ultimately that is a decision for each of you to make for yourselves. I do understand that the Ministry and ERO will have questions in their minds about the rise in home educating families – such as how many are likely to continue home educating in the longer term (which affects the advise they give to schools, decisions around school funding etc), or wondering whether the kids to whom they have given exemptions are in fact doing ok. And therein lies the rub.

Under the law, all parents have the right to apply for an exemption. The exemption application process requires parents to satisfy the Ministry that the child “will be taught at least as regularly and well as” they would be in school; the exemption is only granted once the Ministry is thus satisfied. After it is granted, the only follow up (due, it must be noted, to previous government decisions based on cost) is the 6 monthly declaration, other than in the few instances where a complaints process leads to an ERO review, for which there is funding to review up to 35 students per year (but numbers more typically sit around 10 reviews conducted).

At this current time there is no other way for Ministry staff to “check up on families” or their children’s progress. And ERO has only had the power to enquire into these things when asked to do a review by the Ministry.

So, what are they thinking? Are they merely curious about the state of things for families who have made the change? Are they trying to figure out to what to do with schools affected by the loss of students? Are they looking for areas where they might actually offer further support or resourcing (that would be nice, but the track record suggests this is unlikely), or are they seeking evidence that could be used to justify greater interference in the lives of home educating families? We do not know at this juncture. I have more questions for ERO, and will add updates of answers received in due course.

Another reservation is that these questions are being asked over the phone, which can lead to unguarded, uneditable answers begin given. If they were being answered by email, folk could think about what they really wanted to say, and make changes before hitting send.

And finally, could this set a precedent? “Give them an inch and they take a mile” is a saying often applied to government departments. Now don’t misunderstand me; as a representative of NCHENZ, I have regular contact with key people at ERO and the Ministry, and have high regard for those currently holding the respective roles. I don’t think they have any underhanded motivations. But I know from long experience that specific staff come and go, but actions and outcomes remain, and one thing can be interpreted differently by someone else and lead to something else and so on and so forth. In my role as Government Liaison for NCHENZ, I have to take the long view. If ERO successfully runs a survey now, will they decide to run them regularly? Would this be a good thing, or not? If the survey suggests that families are struggling, what action might they take? Would it be beneficial to the community as a whole, or not, as well as to individual families? Could this voluntary survey morph into something compulsory down the track?

Again, do not misunderstand me – I am all for being able to give feedback to the MoE/ERO about issues such as lack of support in schools leading to the choice to home educate, and opportunities that could lead to better resourcing options etc. The question is, is this the right way for these things to happen? And is there a downside?

Do I have all the answers to the above questions? No, I don’t. Which is why we circle back to, it’s up to each family whether they want to take part in this survey. If you choose to do so, proceed with at least some caution.

The NCHENZ survey collected a lot of useful data, including that related to a number of ERO’s questions. If NCHENZ were to provide ERO with a selection of such data, families personal information would be completely protected. If ERO or Ministry were to seek information about home educators through a representative body such as NCHENZ, that degree of separation would provide a greater layer of privacy and protection, while still furnishing useful information. 

Update 25th March:
ERO have responded to two further questions I sent them:

• What sample size are you aiming for?

 We are hoping to engage with approximately 80 families from the random list of 100 forwarded by the Ministry

• Who originally requested this survey?

  The survey is an ERO initiative. 

Once an exemption is granted, how is a home education programme monitored? In order to legally home educate a child, the parents must go through a significant application process, in order to "satisfy" the Ministry of Education that "the child is to be taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school" in order for the exemption certificate to be granted under Section 38 of the Education and Training Act 2020. 
But once the exemption is granted, then what? 

Note: The wording on the letter that comes with a certificate of exemption talks about ERO contacting parents and conducting reviews. This is there only because they might be called upon to do a review, as outlined below. They do not routinely do them. 

Let's explore the ins and out, parental obligations, Ministry responsibility, and where ERO comes in. The relevant sections of the law are near the end of this post, for reference. 

The Ministry of Education is responsible (under law) to process an exemption application and determine whether the proposed programme of learning outlined therein satisfactorily demonstrates that the child will be "taught as regularly and well as" they would be in school. Once they've determined that and granted the exemption, do they have an on-going responsibility to check that the child continues to be thus taught? And if so, how do they do that?

The law gives ERO the ability to review home educators, and it give the Ministry the ability to ask ERO to carry out a review. It also states that the Ministry cannot revoke an exemption without first considering the outcome of an ERO review. 

What the law does NOT do is require the Ministry to regularly review home educators or in any other way follow up on their exemption & home education programme, nor specifically empower them to ask questions about the education programme of the exempt child after an exemption has been granted, except where they are gathering information when considering whether an exemption should be revoked. 

Anything that a government department does in terms of its processes and procedures that is not explicitly set out in law is rather based on policy. Policies are the ways in which the law is interpreted and applied as decided within a department. Policies can be changed relatively easily. Laws required parliamentary process to be changed. Policies should always, always be within the boundaries and scope set by the law, but sometimes they drift beyond this (if so they can be subject to challenge and amendment). Laws are generally quite broadly worded, leaving room for policy to be developed around how they are applied.

The Ministry, at the directive of the then-government, ceased routine ERO reviews of home educators on the 30th June 2009. (For more detailed history and review statistics see HERE).  Since then, they have provided funding for up to 35 reviews per year. That's review of up to  35 students, not 35 families, as they pay per-student that is reviewed. And how do they decide who will be reviewed in any given year? Their policy is that reviews are initiated only when/if the Ministry has some reason to believe they may need to check up on a family. In rare cases, this could be initiated by information from a government department, but for the most part this only happens as a result of what is known as the "complaints process." More on that shortly. 

So, in the absence of ERO reviews, how is the Ministry to determine whether an exempt child continues to be "taught as regularly and well as"? Do they even need to? As we've seen above, in fact, no, they don't actually need to, under law. However, there is one cardinal unwritten rule of all government departments. I like to call it "C.A.R.E" which stands for "Cover [rear], Retain Employment." In other words, nearly everything they do is predicated upon the ideal of never leaving themselves open to being found responsible for something going horribly wrong because of something they did, or neglected to do. (Look carefully at the actions of any govt dept and you'll see that this is true). 

This kind of mindset has led to a number of ideas over the years. The most persistent one is some variation on this: "If we grant an exemption for little Johnny when he's 6 and he turns out to be an uneducated societal misfit when he's 16 it will be ALL OUR FAULT. Therefore we need assurance that Johnny will be ok." 

And this, in the absence of routine ERO reviews, is what led to the policy of sending out 6 monthly declarations for parents to sign and return, on which parents affirm that their child has been "taught at least as regularly and well as.." for the last 6 months, and will be for the next 6 months (or insert start/stop dates). And because there is no legal basis for these declarations, they can't force parents to sign and return them. Thus the other policy - of linking the supervision allowance to the return of these declarations - it's the "carrot" to get most folk to do so. "You send us this piece of paper, duly signed, and we'll give you the allowance." We've been assured, you've been paid, everyone's happy. Or something like that. 

But what if you don't care about the allowance and don't sign and return the form? Well, that's when they might act upon another policy. That is, since they haven't been assured via the declaration that little Johnny is still being taught as regularly and well, then they must have an "obligation" to investigate further, to ensure he is. This makes them "concerned" about Johnny's learning programme, and this is where the complaints process can also come in. 

As noted above, the only time, under the law, that the Ministry has the right or obligation to "gather information" related to the learning programme of an exempt student once the exemption has been granted, is when they are considering whether there is grounds for the exemption to be revoked. That is, they are considering whether there are grounds for them to NOT be satisfied that the child is being taught as regularly and well. And why would they be considering that?

Under current policy, since routine ERO reviews ended, they do this on a "complaints basis"- that is, if someone  expresses a "concern" or makes a "complaint" to the Ministry suggesting that an exempt child is not being satisfactorily educated, then they investigate to determine whether or not that is the case.

Legally, they can immediately request an ERO review to make this determination, but as this process is sadly open to abuse by people just wanting to make trouble for the homeschooling family, the Ministry agreed to a NCHENZ request that they first talk to the family about the complaint and give them an opportunity to address what might be going on before deciding whether to initiate an ERO review, and this has become part of the process. 

However, the way this is being interpreted and applied is not really what was originally agreed to. The NCHENZ request was both to ask the Ministry to investigate the source of the complaint to determine legitimacy, and so that if a family knew that there was someone with a personal axe to grind who might be making a nefarious complaint to the Ministry, this could be identified and an ERO review not pursued unfairly. This has mostly morphed instead into the Ministry asking families for an update on their learning programme so that they can decide whether there is likely to be an issue that warrants further investigation via ERO. 

So, if the Ministry receives a complaint or an expression of concern about your children's home education programme, they will contact you to let you know, and ask you for an update on their programme. If the complaint expressed specific issues, they may ask you just to speak to those, or they could ask for a more general update. Either way, you have the right to see the original complaint before you respond, though any identifying information about the person complaining will be redacted. You can ask for this under the Privacy Act. 

You then have the opportunity to put together such information as you feel is appropriate and submit it to the Ministry, who will then review it and decide if what you have provided satisfies them that your children are continuing to be taught "as regularly and well" - in which case they advise you of this and close the file - or not - in which case they request an ERO review, and advise you they have done so. 

However, if a previous complaint did not result in an ERO review, and another one has been received, Ministry policy is generally to skip asking for an update and just refer to ERO.

The regional office that deals with exemptions for your area is the same one that would deal with the above process. However, they cannot on their own authority ask ERO to conduct a review - they must put in a request to the national Ministry office, who need to check everything is in order and confirm the request, and then order the review. 

If this happens, then ERO would contact your family in due course, arrange a time to meet with you and conduct the review, advise you of the expected outcome, write a report on their findings, send you a draft copy to review and request amendment to if appropriate, before sending the final report to the Ministry. ERO reviews can take several hours, but result in reports that are typically less than 2 pages long. They always conclude with a statement that the child IS being or is NOT being "taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school."

If the finding is that the child "is being taught as regularly and well as" then the Ministry will be satisfied and close the file, and the family's home education programme carries on. If the finding is that they are not, then what happens next depends on certain factors, including whether ERO suggested the family could meet the requirements with a few changes or some additional support, and/or whether the Ministry (and the family) are open to discussing how the family might improve their programme to meet the requirements and so give them another chance. Otherwise, they will enact the law to revoke the exemption/s. 

I will write more detailed posts separately about responding to a complaint-based info request, and preparing for an ERO review.

When parents decide to home educate their child, they are taking full personal responsibility for their child's learning programme. This is not something to be entered into lightly, and the application process itself ensures that parents have thought through what and how their child will be taught. (For more on this process see HERE). 

Once the exemption is granted, the parent continues to assume full legal and moral responsibility to ensure their child is educated at least as well (and regularly) as they would be in a school. Many parent's personal bar is a lot higher than "as in a school." Yes, this is a responsibility, but it's also a privilege and a right - the right to decide how and where your child will be educated, the privilege of being right there with them to see the learning happening and to be a part of it all alongside your child. 

Part of being responsible for your child's education is, in some appropriate way, self-reviewing how things are going from time to time - considering what the next steps in your child's learning are, how you will facilitate those things, whether additional resources are needed, whether your child is progressing appropriately etc. Alongside of this is a need to record progress somehow. Now, there are no rules or laws about how you do any of this - it's up to you. Whatever you decide about the details, the purpose of this is primarily to serve you and your child by supporting their learning journey and helping you to manage things more easily. There are many great ideas to be gleaned from other experienced home educators about how they do this; what you choose to put in place should not be so burdensome that it unnecessarily detracts from the time you need to actually engage with and teach your children. 

One of the big pluses of maintaining some kind of on-going record is that in the event you are asked for information by the Ministry or have an ERO review, it will be so much easier for you to pull things together in response or preparation. Another plus is that when they're grown and gone you'll enjoy looking back at those reminders and memories, plus when some other parent (or maybe your own children when they want to homeschool their children) asks you how you did things, or what you used etc, the answers will be at your fingertips! (Believe me, those things you think you will remember in vivid detail often are not so easy to recall!)

NCHENZ has some helpful info on planning and record keeping, as well as examples from two families. See: Record Keeping Ideas — NCHENZ

So, the most significant responsibility of a home educating parent is the daily and on-going teaching, guiding and supporting of your learner, with all that that implies including resourcing, reviewing progress, maintaining appropriate records that serve you etc. Your other responsibilities include:

• Signing and returning the 6 monthly declarations
• Being able to give the Ministry an update if requested
• Being able to provide ERO with evidence of your child's learning programme and progress if requested. ERO ask questions, but also look for evidence to support your answers. Which is where records of some kind and/or samples of work come in. 

The Education and Training Act 2020 sets out the laws around gaining (and keeping) an exemption, and the powers of ERO as it applies to homeschooling. 
I've written a more detailed post regarding all sections of the Act that may be relevant to home educators HERE; for the purposes of this post, I'll quote two ,main parts:

Once an exemption has been granted, the on-going monitoring of a home education programme primarily rests with the parents, who have chosen to accept responsibility for their own children's education. The vast majority do an excellent job (which is why the government felt justified in de-funding routine ERO reviews). On the other hand, the Ministry does check up on families via 6 monthly declarations, and when a complaint/concern is brought to their attention, via a request for an update and/or an ERO review. 

ERO (the Education Review Office) is charged under law with conducting review of home educating families, when requested to do so by the Ministry of Education. Under current government policy, up to 35 reviews per year are funded, and these are (usually) only requested on a complaints basis. (Note however, there are other reasons an ERO review might be conducted. See HERE.)

This means that if someone (it could be anonymous) complains to the MoE that your child is not being suitably educated, then they may request an ERO review. For a while that was the automatic result, but now the MoE first investigates the complaint, by contacting the family concerned, letting them know of the complaint, and giving them the opportunity to respond. If the response is such that the MoE decides that there is no real reason to be concerned, they don't request an ERO review. Otherwise, they will. However, if this is a second complaint, and the first one did not result in and ERO review, the Ministry is inclined to go straight to ERO the second time.

The other most common time that an ERO review is called for is if a declined exemption application is appealed, but that is quite a different process, not involving visiting the family, which I will address in another post.

I will also post separately about responding to complaints and preparing for reviews -  here, a brief look at the history and statistics of ERO reviews for home educators.

In 1989, under Lange's Labour Government, the Tomorrow's Schools education reform happened, and from it the 1989 Education Act was born. There was also a report known as the Picot Report (proper name "Administering for Excellence") which contained recommendations for what should be carried out. For our purposes here, the results were:

• 1989 introduction of the law requiring families who wished to home educate to apply for a long term exemption from enrolment from the Secretary of Education (Prior to this, parents approached their local school principal and asked for an exemption. The MoE had no idea of how many children were being home educated)
• Routine reviews of home educators by ERO began
• The supervision allowance was introduced

In 1994, National's then Minister of Education, Lockwood Smith, stopped routine reviews of home educators. Quoting from Craig Smith's "A Brief History of Home Education in NZ":
"In July 1994 Lockwood Smith stopped the regular reviews of HEs by the ERO. He stated that he could not justify the expense of Review Officers travelling all over the country to review one or two children, virtually all of whom were doing excellently. All ERO annual reports have stated that HEs are a very low-risk group. Lockwood may have had another motive for dropping the reviews: the regular reviews were actually being conducted outside the parametres of the Education Act, which only provided for two occasions when reviews could take place on HEs: when a problem with a specific HE family came to the MoE’s attention; and when the MoE turned down a parent’s application for exemption, and the parent requested a review."

In 1996, the MoE asked home educators to write a self-evaluation report in lieu of reviews. Some did, some refused. There was a huge national mobilisation of home educators against this idea (one of the few times the majority have managed to agree enough to move together), and it was short-lived.

In 1997, the National goverment was in coalition with NZ First (after the first ever MMP election). NZ First wanted greater accountability for home educators, and pushed for an amendment to the Education Act which made routine review of home educators legal, and then reintroduced routine reviews. 

In 2009, under the National government (no longer in coalition with NZF), routine reviews of home educators were again scrapped. Craig and Barbara Smith wrote:
Echoing then Minister of Education Dr Lockwood Smith in 1994, that he could not justify the expense of regular reviews on such a low-risk group as home educators, Chief Review Officer Graham Stoop wrote in February this year that reviews of home educators are not efficient or effective. Posted on the ERO website is the following: “From 1 July 2009 ERO will carry out reviews only when requested by the Secretary for Education, or in other particular circumstances.”
This is in line with the present central government’s drive to cut bureaucratic costs. Minister in charge of the ERO, Anne Tolley, said in February: “I have asked ERO to identify schools that are performing consistently well and, accordingly, from March 1, these schools will be exempt from the current three-yearly ERO reviews and will instead be reviewed every four to five years.”
In December 2008, the Finance Minister advised Cabinet to do a line-byline review of expenditure. Home Education reviews were found to account for $283,000 out of a total budget of $28,675,000 or 0.987% (less than 1%). Graham Stoop wrote: “This programme is considered to be low risk to the education priorities of the Government. In 2007/08 ERO completed 644 homeschooling reviews from a total of 6,169 homeschooled students [at an average cost of $439.44 per review]. ERO could not provide assurance that the terms of exemption were being met in only 35 of the 644 reviews [a 5.4% “failure” rate]. This has been the pattern over many years.”

Since that time, funding for up to 35 reviews per year has remained in place. The number of actual reviews conducted per year has varied. ERO's year runs 1st July-30th June, and the stats kept are on that basis. Number of reviews per year are shown in the table below. The funding is for the review of individual students, so a family with, say, 3 exempt students, if reviewed, would account for funding and statistics reflecting this number. Therefore, 4 reviews does not necessarily mean 4 families were reviewed. In the 2016/2017 year, 9 students were reviewed from 5 families.

Note that in early 2014, the National Council of Home Educators (NCHENZ) took up with the MoE the issue of automatically referring to ERO any complaint recieved, when the complaint may be completely baseless. As a result, they instituted the current practice of giving families an opportunity to address the complaint, and not automatically referring on. You can see this reflected in the drop in numbers of reviews subsequently.

Keep in mind that there are currently around 5,800 exempt students in NZ. On the most recent statistic, that means the chances of your child being reviewed in any given year are 9:5800, or about 0.1%, and half that if you use the previous 2 year's stats. Of course, if you happen to know you have family or "friends" who are opposed to homeschooling and are the sort to complain about you to the MoE, your odds would go up.

So, while it is valuable to know you have sufficient material to put together what you need if you do have an ERO review one day, this should not be the primary focus of your home education program, and should not be too burdensome. 

Families are often afraid of the idea of an ERO review, and of course, if it happens, preparing for one does inevitably add stress. However, overall, most families report that it turned out to be a mostly positive experience, and it can be quite affirming to have a report that confirms your children "are being taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school." [2026 update: This can change over time though; currently most reviewers have little experience with homeschooling, and there are issues with the way in which some reviews are being conducted.]

One more thing to note: ERO do NOT decide whether an exemption is to be revoked or not. They simply review and write a report which they send to the MoE. It is up to the MoE to then make decisions. If the review states the children ARE being taught as regularly and well, then the exemption continues with no further action. If it states that they are NOT, then the Ministry can choose either to revoke the exemptions, or to allow the family a period of time in which to address the areas of concern, after which another review may be conducted. 

I will be posting more articles about these things, but for now, if you would like to know your rights and how to prepare for an ERO review, see the excellent information on the NCHENZ website HERE.