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Reaching Higher Newsletter from |
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Footprints - Endorsed but Not Accredited |
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New homeschooling parents frequently ask if Footprints or other homeschool curriculum packages are accredited by the Department of Education (DBE).
The answer is “No.” At this point in time (2015), the Department of Education does not even have a set of criteria by which to evaluate homeschooling curricula.
In March 2011, it was confirmed in die Pretoria High Court that the state curriculum is not binding on independent schools and parents who educate their children at home. This means that private educators, including homeschoolers, need not follow the state curriculum.
However, certain curriculum providers, particularly those which provide CAPS-compliant, graded text book packages from Grade R to 12 are working hard to get their products approved and accredited by the DBE, as this would be a huge marketing feature for them.
They would be able to boast that their product is ACCREDITED with the DBE and they would use this to try to attract parents who want to replicate school at home.
FOOTPRINTS WILL NOT!
Our products have been ENDORSED BY HOMESCHOOLERS in South Africa and 15 countries around the world, since 2003.
Read the reviews here: Footprints Customer Reviews
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Even if we wanted to try to have Footprints approved by the DBE, it is unlikely that our products would fit their still-to-be-drafted criteria. Our most important goals are unlikely to match those of the DBE and we have no intention of changing them!
- Our Footprints products are not aligned to CAPS.
- Our products are not graded and we do not offer one package per grade. Instead we offer three multi-age, literature-based unit studies.
- Footprints does not deliver information via a text book, which must be copied into a workbook and regurgitated in a test, according to traditional school methodology, instead, children learn by listening to stories and reference material and being encouraged to explore themes or topics arising from the stories, in a flexible, open-ended approach. The focus is therefore on learning on the part of the learner, rather than teaching done by the parent.
- With Footprints, you are not just reading a book to your children, you are sharing a story and a learning adventure together. Parents are not teachers but co-learners.
- Our products express a Biblical worldview, while acknowledging that there are alternative views on controversial issues such as the age of the earth, evolution versus natural selection etc. (Clients of other faiths or no faith have had no problem with this aspect of our programme because it is not prescriptive.)
Benefits of Footprints for Parents
Reduce Parental Anxiety: Our products are created with the intention to help reduce the fear and insecurities of (new) homeschooling parents, by providing them with rich resources and creative ideas for (optional) learning activities.
Convenience: Parents don’t have to spend huge amounts of time sourcing the internet, libraries and second-hand book stores and then create a systematic programme about South Africa. We’ve done that for you!
Providing Out of Print Books: Parents would struggle to find many of the great stories and resources included in our packages as many of them are now out of print. We have managed to obtain copyright permission to reprint limited quantities of certain books so that we can provide them to our clients.
Customised Learning Experiences Facilitated: We do not encourage a one-size-fits-all approach to learning but encourage parents and children to pick and choose those topics which delight them and explore them as deeply as they desire. The flexibility of our programme allows for families to spend as much time investigating subjects which interest them, as they choose. No stressful schedules, timetables and deadlines.
Build your Confidence: As you discover that your children are learning and that they are discovering their own unique interests and passions, you will become more confident about choosing your own path for each child, to facilitate their education and help them reach their full potential in the future.
Benefits of Footprints for Children
Emotionally Safe: Footprints encourages learning in a comfortable, emotionally warm, safe environment. Since a considerable amount of time is spent reading aloud, parents and children can cuddle up on a couch or bed together or wherever they are comfortable.
Healing: The non-authoritarian approach to learning may help children who need to heal from negative school experiences such as bullying, labelling and abuse of authority.
All about SA: Footprints exposes children to the diversity of life in South Africa – rural versus urban life, different cultural groups and settings, the natural heritage of our country, awareness of conservation efforts, awareness of poverty and political struggles, both past and present etc.
Character-building lessons focus on matters such as obedience, respect for parents, kindness, sharing, helping the needy, forgiveness etc.
Relationship-building: Footprints promotes relationship building between parents and siblings as they can all explore the same subject-matter together, making a mother’s life simpler and keeping the family together.
How Do Parents Know if their Children are Learning?
Footprints does not offer formal testing. However, holistic assessment by parents is possible and encouraged.
Most parents are highly skilled at assessing various significant aspects of their children’s development and well-being. Parents will generally notice if a child is not feeling well or if a child is emotionally upset, withdrawn, excited or manifesting any other positive or negative emotion or mood.
Likewise, home educating parents are easily able to assess a child’s attitude, interest-levels, engagement and progress or lack of progress with respect to anything that he or she is learning.
Home educating parents have the opportunity to assess and evaluate their children on a minute-by-minute basis each and every day, unlike teachers who are responsible for large classes of children and therefore have to rely on testing to measure performance, to report back to the parents.
Homeschooling parents who have submitted their children to testing by third parties usually acknowledge that the tests did not reveal anything that they didn’t already know about their children.
Footprints Helps You Assess Progress:
In our Footprints parent guides, we explain to parents how to use various forms of expression by the children to assess and evaluate their learning, for example:
- Narration – the art of telling back what has been read or learned.
- Discussion and debate – talking about or arguing about topics of interest helps children to really grasp what they have discovered
- Creative writing – freedom to express their own ideas
- Small assignments and projects to express learning
- Drawing – a picture can speak a thousand words
- Hands-on activities – children can often demonstrate aspects of what they have learned by building models, creating crafts, performing experiments or even dressing up, acting or role-playing etc.
Footprints was specially created by homeschoolers for homeschoolers who choose a style of elective, parent-facilitated, delight-directed home education. We have not taken a school-system and adapted it for homeschooling and we will never try to adapt our programmes to conform with the school system or the restrictive, administrative requirements of the DBE. And that is why Footprints is and will always be ENDORSED by HOMESCHOOLERS and probably never approved or ACCREDITED by the DBE! |
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