A parent's guide to Queensland home education in the ACARA Version 9 era.

Queensland registration: what you actually do

In Queensland, home education is a parent-led pathway administered by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA). Parents notify, deliver the program, and keep a record of learning. ParkSyde supports families who choose home education — we are not a registered school, we do not enrol learners, and QCAA's notification stays between you and the Authority.

• You lodge a notification of intent to home educate with QCAA — typically before the start of each school year, or within a defined window if you begin mid-year.
• You write a short written program plan describing the intended learning for the year, in language that suits your child's stage.
• You deliver a minimum of 100 days of instruction across the year, with a plan that covers the broad learning areas expected for the learner's age.
• You maintain a record of learning — samples, reflections, log entries — that you can show to a QCAA review officer if asked.

What ACARA Version 9 changes for parents

Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 came into effect as the base for teaching in Queensland state schools, with phased implementation. Many parents notice the change earlier not from a glossy announcement but from classroom resources, second-hand textbooks, and occupational conversations. The biggest practical shifts matter most at the Foundation end of schooling.

• A more explicit phonics sequence in the English curriculum — clearer expectations for systematic decoding in the early years, which makes home picks easier.
• A restructured numeracy sequence in Mathematics — what used to be spread across content strands is reorganised to give progression in number, measurement, and reasoning more cleanly.
• Slightly trimmed content lists overall — the revision explicitly aims to reduce overcrowding, so a parent-led program can spend more time on depth than coverage.
• Full implementation across Queensland state schools during the transition window — useful to know because term-by-term alignment with your child’s peers may now shift.

Support, not school — and how that compares

Other providers such as Euka operate as prescribed-curriculum distance-education schools; parents enrol the child, the provider issues reporting, and the school is the registering institution. ParkSyde works on the other side of that line. We support parents who have already chosen home education in Queensland — supplying weekly lesson prompts, pacing guidance, scope-and-sequence maps, and optional educator check-ins — without ever issuing reports, taking over the QCAA notification, or substituting for the parent's program.