Why I Home School: Reclaiming Authority & Restoring Family
One of the most common reasons families in Australia turn to home education is this: they come to realise that the school system displaces their authority.
It displaces the authority of the parent.
It displaces the freedom of the family.
And worst of all, it displaces the very intimacy of family life, fracturing the natural bonds between siblings, parents, grandparents and even cultural heritage itself.
Let me share with you how I came to that realisation in my own journey — not as a teacher, but as a mother.
The Moment It Shifted: Preschool “Programming”
When my children were little — just five and six years old — I enrolled them in a local preschool, attending one day a week. But the preschool introduced a policy requiring a minimum of two days per week, explaining that it was part of their new “school readiness programming.”
That word — programming — hit me hard. Suddenly, I realised that I was voluntarily handing over the power to shape my child’s mind and worldview to an institution designed to train children for a system I wasn’t even sure I believed in anymore.
From that point, I began questioning everything.
Now, I’m well aware of the irony here. At Coach House, I design programs too — educational programs, tailor-made for home educated children. But there is a world of difference between programming a child and designing a program of learning. One is about control; the other is about guidance.
When I heard that preschool had introduced a “school readiness programming” requirement, what struck me wasn’t just the semantics — it was the shift in intent. That kind of programming is about moulding a child to fit into a predetermined system. It’s top-down, institutional, and usually assumes sameness — a one-size-fits-all mould.
At Coach House, by contrast, our programs are responsive. They begin with the child — their interests, their strengths, their pace — and are built outward from there. Yes, we work within the NSW syllabus. Yes, we meet official outcomes. But we do so in service of the child, not in service of the system. Our programs are not about getting children “ready” for school — they’re about helping them thrive outside it.
My Children Were Already Learning — Why Hand Them Over?
By age six, both of my children could:
Read and spell
Do basic maths
Explore history, science and geography through books
Engage deeply with the world around them
And that was without a single day of formal schooling.
I thought: Why would I stop now? Why would I hand over the work I had lovingly and successfully done for six years — teaching them to speak, use the bathroom, share, respect animals, explore nature, and ask big questions — only to have that work outsourced to someone else?
And worse — to someone who didn’t share our family’s culture, beliefs, values, or priorities?
The School System Weakens Family Bonds
School places children in age-segregated groups for six hours a day, five days a week. Often, they're further separated by academic streaming. This may be administratively convenient, but the result is catastrophic:
Siblings grow apart
Time with parents is limited to evenings and weekends
Grandparents and extended family have minimal influence
Family culture is replaced with institutional messaging
Over time, children begin to identify less with their families and more with their peer group or the institutional system. And that’s no accident — it’s by design.
A System Built for Programming, Not Flourishing
The history of education reveals the uncomfortable truth: modern schooling was modelled on military-style training, influenced by the Prussian system, and intended to create compliant workers and obedient citizens — not flourishing, independent human beings.
When I realised this, I started digging deeper. I watched a compelling presentation that referenced a longitudinal study of children's creativity from birth to age five — and then again at ages eight to ten.
The result? A staggering decline in creativity in 95% of children by age eight.
And what happens between ages five and eight? School.
School Teaches Passivity. Home Teaches Possibility.
In school, children are taught to:
Wait for instructions
Suppress questions
Seek validation through grades
Follow schedules and external deadlines
Copy answers rather than discover them
Treat collaboration as “cheating”
At home, those same actions are called growth, teamwork, creativity, and initiative.
The Realisation That Changed Everything
Eventually, I realised that if I placed my children in school, I would be handing over:
My role as their primary teacher
My freedom to shape their daily life
My ability to pass on my family's heritage, faith and moral compass
I would also be allowing the state to define:
What my children should learn
When they should learn it
What version of truth they should accept
This decision — to keep my children home — became the most empowering and logical next step in their development.
Homeschooling Restores What Matters
When you educate at home, you’re not just removing children from an ineffective or stressful system. You’re doing something far more profound:
Restoring parental authority
Strengthening sibling bonds
Reviving intergenerational connection
Reclaiming your family culture
Passing on faith, values, and traditions
You’re reclaiming the natural structure of the family, and with it, the right to determine how, what, and why your children learn.
Influenced by Giants: Holt and Gatto
I owe much of this shift in thinking to John Holt and John Taylor Gatto, two of the most compelling and courageous critics of mainstream schooling in modern history.
They revealed what so many parents already feel instinctively:
The system is not broken. It is working exactly as it was designed to.
And that design has very little to do with children’s wellbeing or true education.
The Coach House Commitment
At Coach House, our programs reflect this core truth:
Home is the best place for learning.
We don’t deliver “school at home.”
We empower families to rediscover what learning looks like when it’s built around love, freedom, and values that matter.
If you feel the call to do the same — we are here to help.
📞 Book a free call
📚 Explore our custom programs
Let’s reclaim your family’s story, together.
