Post-Covid anxiety, bullying: More than 6000 Qld kids homeschooled

Covid may have subsided but the impacts of the pandemic continue to be felt. This is the reality.

Private homeschooling providers are seeing Queensland registrations jump by as much as 3000 per cent as families move overseas and post-Covid anxiety in schoolchildren soars.

The Department of Education’s home education data shows Queensland families choosing homeschooling through government-run providers has tripled since the pandemic.

The main reasons are skyrocketing school refusal rates linked to post-Covid anxiety, the severe impacts of bullying inside and outside of school, and expat Queensland families wanting their children to continue with the state’s curriculum from overseas.

Brett Campbell – chief executive of Queensland-based national private homeschooling provider, Euka – said the provider had around 200 Queensland families registered in 2019.

This number soared to more than 6200 in 2023 – an increase of roughly 3000 per cent – and the provider has had 1300 further Queensland registrations in 2024 already.

Seven-year-old Lola Dickson does her Year 2 schoolwork from the beach sometimes. Photo: Supplied.

Mr Campbell believes a variety of reasons are behind this trend, with post-pandemic mental health issues a major factor.

“There’s massive amounts of families with children refusing to go to school for a plethora of reasons including bullying, just not feeling comfortable at school anymore, or not wanting to learn in the way learning is provided right now,” he said.

“We can’t turn a blind eye to what social media is doing to children and their mental health.

“It is quite scary when you hear about why families are coming to us and the mental trauma they have been through.”

Mr Campbell said Queensland expats were also playing a part.

“More people are getting exposed to the flexibility of homeschooling – families are realising they can travel around the country, or go to live in Bali for six months to a year,” he said.

“We’ve also got children who are professional athletes preparing for the Olympics or X Games and fit their schooling around their training.

“There are also parallels to the flexibility of the business world with the normality of working from home in this post-Covid world.”

Depending on whether parents pay quarterly or upfront for the year, Euka Remote Schooling costs $565-$756 annually for Year 1-6, and $674-876 annually for Years 7-10.

The Dickson family moved from Townsville to Bali and their three school-aged children now do Euka homeschooling. Photo: Supplied.

For Years 11-12, parents are looking at $1749-$2196 annually for a non-university pathway course, and $2397-$2788 annually for a university pathway course.

Chad and Mia Dickson moved from Townsville to Bali in December with their four children – three of whom are still school-aged.

The children continue their education based on the Queensland curriculum through Euka.

“We don’t know how long we are going to be here, the idea that the kids can keep up with the Queensland curriculum and we know they can slot straight back into a Queensland state school if we choose to move back, is really appealing,” Mrs Dickson said.

“They’re loving it. The kids get their schoolwork done first thing, then we can head out for a walk and they have the rest of the day to go down to the beach or do whatever they like.”

Mr and Mrs Dickson both work from home on their own business, Chia Digital, which specialises in app development and social media marketing for small businesses.

“We didn’t want to dump the kids in a foreign country and in a new school, and we want to get out and do things without waiting until they finish school at 3pm,” Mr Dickson said.

The couple have been impressed by their children’s new way of learning.

“I think every parent has concerns – I am going to be good enough to be the teacher and be responsible for my kids’ education,” Mrs Dickson said.

“But we’ve let the kids go down rabbit holes and explore more, while still following the curriculum. I don’t think there would be enough time in a traditional classroom for that.

“I feel like they are getting way more one-on-one attention than they would in a classroom and they can ask us anything.”

Private homeschooling provider Cluey Learning has seen a corresponding national increase in registrations since 2018.

Academic adviser Dr Selina Samuels said families wanting to travel was one of the anecdotal reasons behind Cluey’s continued spike in numbers.

Cluey Learning’s Dr Selina Samuels. Picture: Supplied.

She also said parents are looking for greater flexibility, or some families are part of religious groups which require the children to be educated separately.

Dr Samuels said the pandemic had certainly played a part, with some children realising they work better at home in their own space, than they did in traditional classrooms with others.

“On one hand, we saw how terrible the school shutdowns were for kids during Covid. But there was a group – not a large number, but enough to pay attention to – of kids who found learning from home wonderfully liberating,” she said.

“We saw when schools went back, there were children who did not want to go back to school. “We’re also seeing more neurodiverse students for whom mainstream school is very difficult and stressful, and compounds the issues they are going through.”

Dr Samuels believes the shift towards homeschooling and remote learning is “the next evolution of education”.

“We are understanding far better that every students is different and every child learns differently,” she said.

“It is extremely hard to deliver an individualised approach to each student in a mainstream classroom, and that is not the fault of the teachers, it is just the nature of the way in which education has evolved.”

Cluey has a variety of learning and payment plans. If a student opts for 10 sessions per term, their annual education cost would be around $2800.

HOME EDUCATION REGISTRATIONS

2019: 3411

2020: 4297

2021: 5008

2022: 8461

2023: 10,048

*Queensland Department of Education data