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Good morning Bhavna,

For once, I will not answer your questions. Because I believe that home schooling is the worst thing to do except in some truly exceptional cases.

This is the best way to lock up a child in a cultural / social / religious ghetto ...

hi,
i have ready the your message  so i am searching job only. i you need help to me.

jeodinesh wrote:

hi,
i have ready the your message  so i am searching job only. i you need help to me.

This has nothing to with this topic. Please start a new thread/topic off.

I would love to follow this thread as I have a dilemma.

We are South Africans who will move to Belgium this year.

I have a 16year old who only speaks English, she wont be able to integrate to a Dutch speaking school so late in her schooling and we cant afford international schools right now.

I would like for her to do Online schooling for the next 24 months in English, whilst learning Dutch part-time.

Once she has graduated secondary school, she can apply for University in Belgium which would work great.

• What Belgium online secondary schools are there currently?
• If she were to complete online secondary schooling through a reputable South African platform (CAPS curriculum), whilst living in Belgium will this be accepted on her application to University in Belgium?

Any advice welcome!!

@nicjossub Good afternoon!

I don't know if you are already here or what sort of info you have already collected. We are also South African and have been living in Belgium for about 5 years now. We know a lot of others too, through church here in Antwerp. I will say, ons of the things all of them are most surprised by is the quick rate at which their children were able to learn the Dutch language, although it seems daunting, it is not. Also, lessons are free here for foreigners.

That said, there are also specific schools that cater for foreign students in english I believe, you just need to search for them. You can home school by doing an online-distance school things also here, they don't really see it as homeschooling then but online school, so then your child will most likely be free from required to write the dutch high school exams (middelbar), if the curriculum she is doing is shown to be of equal value or better, and accredited. I have not found Belgium specific online schools but there are some european ones, which uses UK standards, but yes can quite be expensive, other ones are then American international online schools, can be expensive but does not tend to be as expensive as the UK ones.

The CAPS curriculum is not as good as their curriculum here, I would recommend you try to follow a more relevant one here. At least check with the universities now whether or not they accept SA's CAPS.

As long as she followed an accredited curriculum the university requires it should be fine. She might be able to follow more courses in Belgium University if she does the courses here in dutch in stead of english only, might cost less also. Trying more things in dutch will count a lot towards her proof of integration, which they want to see every few years depending on your permit type.

They help a lot with integration here, she will be able to integrate with the dutch quickly, we know it seems daunting, children and teens adapt much easier to new language because they are younger.

Hope the information can help you somehow.

If you ever want some help you can reach out at *** My husband and I are both South African as well

I'm in favour of home schooling and practised it until last school year.

My 9 yrs old daughter has severe dyslexia and dysphasia, and the schools in France are not good for disabled children. They want these children to follow the official program, even if they can't and get more and more lagging behind as the school years go by. They put in the same class children with different disabilities (dys,hyper active, autists, and various mental health problems) but these different disabilities each require some specialised form of tuition, depending upon the type of disability. There can be up to 35 children in the same class, supervised by one teacher and one helper.

In France, home schooling has become subjected to authorisation, and this authorisation is based upon a yearly test. My daughter failed this test because she has dyslexia. Even though I had medical certificates proving her problem, the authorisation to pursue home schooling was denied to us. Reason given : the instruction she's receiving won't enable her to master the "common competence requirements" by the age of 16. Quite right, it won't. But neither would school tuition! She learns much slower than other children in language-related topics. I'll be happy if she masters the "common competence requirements" when she'll be 18.

In Belgium, there are very good specialised schools. Children are grouped together according to the form of tuition they require, there are around 10 children per class and they are not required to follow the official program. An individual program is put in place for each child. For example, my daughter receives slow and adapted tuition in French but normal tuition in maths because she has the same abilities for maths as other children her own age.

My daughter is currently schooled in the CPESM (in Ghlin, one mile from Mons), said to be the best French-speaking school of Europe for children with dyslexia. So, in Belgium the need for her to be home-schooled was reduced.

Other children have different problems with school. Some suffer from school phobia or school harassment. There can be plenty of good reasons why some children and parents choose home schooling.