Traveling with primary school age kids

I would suggest that you ask the school.

Being an ex-WA school principal and teacher and someone who travelled with two kids around Aus I might be able to help.

By law children are required to participate in an educational program between Pre-Primary (the year they turn 5? yrs of age) and Year 12 (the year they turn 17? yrs of age).

The educational program is, in most cases, delivered at a school site.

Having said that it the WA Ed Dept operates a distance education (correspondence) school for children of all ages that delivers the WA curriculum world-wide. This is one option available to you.

The problem with distance education/correspondence is that it takes significant time to complete and intrudes on the 'holiday' aspects of what you do.

We bumped into a Vic couple & their kids during our travels Their kids were studying via distance education and the commitment required by all parties was overbearing. That is not a knock on the Vic model - IMO WA's obligations are equally onerous when travelling

Another option is to apply to 'home-school' your child. This too comes with obligations and commitments. We chose to 'home-school' our 2 kids and modified the curriculum to suit their needs. Being ex school principal and teacher this was a straight forward process for us.

A key factor you'll need to consider is the ages of your kids and how they perform academically. While they will learn a lot on the road there are key components to the curriculum they need to keep up with.

Your school principal will be able to assist.

Mark, you may be able to find something relevant in the WA Dept of Education website -their policy area.

Heres the link

Dept of Education - Policy Section

Hi Mark, 15 years ago we took our 3 kids out of primary school for 12 months to travel around oz.we were living at Denmark wa at the time.We did no set schoolwork the whole time but we all learnt and experienced a great deal.the 3 of them have all done uni and still talk about their trip around oz to this day.You really only get one maybe 2 chances to do something like that with ur kids and I am so glad we did.rgds Phil

Some people are so rude! My eldest sons school (which I work at) was not able to answer this question for me so many other schools will be the same. Each state has a different age in which children must be enrolled in school however from what I can understand for this time period in any state you will need to enrol in distance ed. the only exception to this would be if your child is younger than 6 (or whatever the age of compulsory enrolment in your state. I looked into home schooling but they said you need to have a room set up in your house to be able to do it so distance ed was the only option for travelling. We are lucky as our son is still under the compulsory schooling age. Happy travels!!!