For those looking for an alternative to a student card, there are a number of options. For each of these, you’ll need to show a copy of your VRQA registration letter. The pros and cons for each and which one will suit [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Financial' Category
School Start Bonus 2012
Registered Victorian home educators with a Centrelink card (or a temporary foster parent) are be eligible for the School Start Bonus. Parents are granted this money to assist with the costs (books, equipment etc) involved with starting school or starting secondary school.
The bonus applies to grade prep and year seven levels or, in ungraded situations, as [...]
Immunisation
From the Victorian Health Department:
Immunisation for secondary school aged students
Free immunisations are offered to all adolescents in secondary school Year levels 7 (aged about 12) and 10 (aged about 15). Immunisation is recommended for protection against hepatitis B, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and human papillomavirus (HPV).
Year 7 recommended vaccines
Þ Hepatitis B vaccine is [...]
Metlink concession cards
(Also known as a Victorian Public Transport Card)
Children up to the age of their 17th birthday are not required to have a student concession card when travelling on a concession fare on public transport. However, any child who is travelling on a concession fare may be required to provide proof of age upon request by an authorised officer [...]
Youth Allowance
At the end of 2007, home education students who were receiving the Youth Allowance received letters from Centrelink stating that their registration with the VRQA was now deemed insufficient evidence of study in a suitable course. Consequently their payments ceased.
The problem is one of two different levels of government – the VRQA is a state [...]
Welfare Payments Linked to School Attendance
The federal government has introduced a controversial bill to link welfare payments to school attendance. They intend to trial this system in WA and NT before rolling it out in other states.
Home education is not truancy so this should have no effect at all on registered home educators but will be a problem for [...]
Money Matters
Home education need not be expensive. You can home educate with a library card, the resources you already have at home and free resources in your community. An Internet connection is also extremely useful if you can afford it. Many commercial homeschooling supplies are available if families choose to use them and prices vary. So [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Education Tax Refund (all States)
Home educators are eligible for the Education Tax Refund if they are also entitled to Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A for the relevant financial year and are registered with the relevant state organisation (e.g. The VRQA in Victoria).
Eligibility for the rebate will also be extended to families in which a child would be eligible [...]
HEN Insurance
HEN has Public Liability Insurance to $10,000,000. Members can access this insurance for the purposes of:
Venue or camp hire ($10,000,000 is the usual amount required by most venues)
Small group activities involving up to 150 people
Volunteers working on behalf of HEN
There are exclusion clauses for adventure activities; volunteers who are drunk and disorderly; and so on. Members [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Centrelink Parenting Payments – All States
Registered home educators are exempt from the Welfare to Work laws which apply to parents with children over the age of six.
Registered homeschooling is one of the exemption categories along with large families (four or more children aged between 6 and 16), parents caring for foster children and children with significant disabilities.
For more information contact [...]