HOME About Home Education FAQ ORDERS Grade 10 to 12 Newsletter Disclaimer     

1. What is home education? Home education is the education of children by their parents in their own home.
2. Is home education legal? Yes. In 1996 it became legal for parents to teach their own children at home. The education department acknowledges that parents cannot know everything there is to know about every subject, so parents are permitted to call in the services of tutors and facilitators where necessary.
3. Is it legal for a mother, who is not a teacher, to teach her children? Yes, but she may not teach other people’s children.
4. How long has Clonard been in existence? Prior to 1996 Clonard existed for the purposes of providing parents with material to teach their children to read before going to school. As soon as home education became legal in 1996, we joined the market. We employed qualified, experienced teachers and launched Grades 1 to 7 in the first year, and then added Grades 8, 9 and 10 in subsequent years. We have now discontinued Grade 10.
5. How many students does Clonard have? We have approximately 700 students from Grade 1 to Grade 9. The number increases every year as home schooling becomes more and more popular.
6. How is home education monitored by the government? Parents are required to register their children with their own provincial education department, of which there are nine in South Africa. We have students in all of the nine provinces in South Africa and some living out of the country and on yachts. The government stipulates that only children living within the country should be registered as home schoolers. Department officials visit these families in their homes to see that education is taking place. Some families have had visits but to our knowledge there has never been a problem with children using our curriculum. They have always found the department officials very co-operative.
7. Is it necessary to sign up with a curriculum provider e.g. Clonard? No. Parents are entitled to educate their children at home without buying a curriculum. They must however register their child with the local education department and be open to inspection by department officials.
8. Does the education department recommend one curriculum over another? No. Parents are free to choose the curriculum that suits them best. Parents can use curricula from England, America, Europe or any other country. Some parents do not even use a curriculum at all. As long as the department officials satisfies themselves that the children are being educated, the department is happy. The children are their primary concern, and they regard the parents as the teachers, not us. We are there to assist parents and are looked upon as a type of bookshop. The department does not register us as a school because there are no children on our premises. We do however have visits from the education department and they do communicate with us and call us to meetings from time to time.
9. What assistance does Clonard provide for parents? Clonard is directed by qualified teachers, each with wide experience in the schools. In Grades 1 to 3 parents are told exactly what to do and a large quantity of reading books, number workbooks and writing worksheets are provided. Parents are required to fill in an ongoing assessment book and the children do tests in reading, writing and number at the end of the year. Our qualified teachers write an assessment and a report and then issue a certificate. In the higher grades all the necessary textbooks, workbooks, worksheets and answer books are provided. The Parents Guide and the Teacher’s Manual give teaching instructions for each subject and a weekly schedule for Grades 4 - 9.
Parents can contact the teachers by fax, email or telephone if they experience problems. Exams are set and marked twice a year and reports are sent.
10. How much time should a child spend on school work? Most parents choose to follow the school terms so that the children will be on holiday when other children are off school. We do not recommend the system of working from Monday to Thursday and taking Fridays off for outings. The education department lays down the following number of hours per grade:
Grades 1 and 2 : 22 hours per week
Grade 3 : 24 hours per week
Grade 4 - 7 : 26 hours 30 minutes per week
Grades 8 and 9 : 27 hours 30 minutes per week.
11. If children work quickly, can school hours be reduced? No. All children within a grade should work for the same number of hours. If they work quickly, they should be given extra work. If children work slowly, they are expected to put in the same number of hours. If the work provided in the weekly schedule is too much, reduce the pace and delay writing the exams. Perhaps spread one week’s work over two weeks.
12. Is the Clonard curriculum suitable for children living out of the country? Yes. We have always had students living overseas, in Africa and on yachts. The full curriculum for a particular grade is provided in a box weighing about 8 kilograms. The learning material is in the form of textbooks, workbooks and worksheets with CDs provided for reading and science experiments. Exam papers are sent twice a year and are written at any time when the child is ready to do so. Parents return the papers to us for marking, and reports are sent.
13. Is it important to start the curriculum in January? No. The curriculum can be ordered at any time in the year. The child starts at week 1 and works steadily week by week up to Week 18 when half-year exams are written. Work then continues until week 36 when final exams are written.
14. Is it permissible to take a break or a holiday at any time in the year? Yes. We have several junior Springboks on the curriculum and this suits them very well, as they work when they are at home and take a break when they are out of the country. Sometimes it takes them more than a year to complete one grade. Parents can take their children on holiday at any time of the year as long as they continue from where they left off and do not leave gaps.
15. How can parents deal with the problem of socialisation? Parents must take this aspect of home education very seriously. Children need friends of their own age whom they see regularly. In larger centres there are sometimes organised groups of home schoolers who get together for outings. Some schools allow home schooled children to join the school sport in the afternoons. They charge a fee and the child gets to play matches with the team. School sport is becoming more and more problematic because of a lack of funds. Some schools provide no sport and children join the junior division of local sports clubs e.g. soccer, rugby, cricket, tennis, swimming. This suits home schooled children well because the coaching is usually of a high standard. It is important to study your child and decide where his or her talents lie e.g. music, art, craft, skating, sport etc and then organise weekly lessons. Church groups provide plenty of social activities for the family on a regular basis. The advantage with home schooling is that parents get to do the choosing of friends, unlike normal school where they might link up with unsuitable mates. Parents need to realise that their child does not need a hundred friends; four good friends is about as many close friends he or she would have in a normal school. In addition, children have brothers, sisters, cousins and neighbours whom they see often.
16. Do home schooled children need to do homework? This is a decision to be taken by the parents. Many parents feel it is a good habit to develop in case the children go back to school. It also discourages them from watching too much TV. Other parents feel that all work should be completed in the school day and the evenings should be left for family time and recreation.
17. How is schooling in South Africa divided up? Schooling in South Africa is divided into four phases:
Foundation Phase - Grades 1 - 3
Intermediate Phase - Grades 4 - 6
Senior Phase - - Grades 7 - 9
Further Education and Training (FET) - Grade 10 - 12
18. Why does Clonard not go to matric? The last three years of schooling fall into the Further Education and Training phase. The FET phase is very well catered for by several large institutions e.g. all FET Colleges, schools, Midrand FET College, British Distance Education College.
19. Does Clonard plan to do the FET in years to come? No. Our teachers are qualified to do the matric years, but we feel that our students will benefit from a larger organisation, which can offer more subjects than we do. Some students go back to school if they want to do practical subjects e.g. Art, Home Economics, Technical Drawing. Others become career-directed and attend various colleges, and become apprentices. There are so many choices at this level that it seems pointless for us to do the FET.
20. Where does Clonard's strength lie? We feel our strength lies in the quality of our teachers and the material produced by them. The examinations are set and marked by the teachers, who write a detailed report for each paper they mark. The teaching of reading is another strength. We have a very comprehensive set of phonetic reading books that take a child from knowing nothing about reading to reading anything in the library. With the one-on-one attention from their parents and a system that works, young children learn to read very quickly and easily.
21. Is home schooling suitable for a remedial child? We introduced a Remedial Stream recently but there were very few takers so we have discontinued it. We have concluded that the success or failure depends more on the parents as the teachers than on us as the curriculum providers. Home schooling has not proved to be the best system for dealing with remedial children because these children need a very specific hands-on approach from a trained remedial teacher in a one-on-one relationship. Parents are not necessarily the best people to provide this - they are emotionally involved with their own children and tend to get frustrated and impatient. What we have seen working from time to time is a trained teacher taking on a few remedial children in her own home. In the present climate there are plenty of unemployed teachers who would like to keep their hands in.
22. What languages are provided in the curriculum? English is the medium of instruction from Grade 1 to 9 and is studied at first language level. Afrikaans is studied by the majority of the students at second language level but is also available as first language Afrikaans on request. Zulu is provided in Grades 5 and 6 for all students.
23. Is Clonard a self-study curriculum? No. it is not self-study. It is a parent-directed curriculum. The parent must be in the house but not necessarily sitting over the children when they are working.
24. Is it possible to pass material down to younger siblings in the family? Yes. The textbooks can be passed down but parents are called upon to register these children with us for exams and to purchase new workbooks for the grade as these cannot be re-used from year to year. Fax us a list of the books you have and we will give you a price.
25. How do I find out more information about Clonard? Contact us by telephone, fax, email or letter and we will send you a current brochure. You are welcome to view the material at our premises in Kloof by appointment.
26. How do I get the curriculum?

If you are satisfied with what you see when you visit us. You may pay for it and take it away. Otherwise you can pay the amount into our bank account and then fax us the deposit slip with the order form. Your material can be posted to your address for a small fee.
27. How do I apply for registration with the Education Department? Parents should write to their local education department and ask for the forms. This can be a lengthy process so parents are advised to get started with the work and then apply to the department. There have never been problems with this system in the past and it is unlikely to cause problems now. We have had parents who have waited for months for a reply from the department. Education is provincial so there are at least nine different education departments, each with different rulings.
28. Can material for individual subjects be purchased? No, we only provide full curriculums.