Homeschool Reports

Families who have registered their children for home education with the DBE are asked to submit homeschool reports as a record of their children’s learning. Get tips for creating homeschool reports for record-keeping purposes. What should you report and how do you give scores as a reflection of your children’s learning?

According to the national website of the Department of Basic Education, home educating parents must keep the following:

• record of attendance
• portfolio of the child’s work
• up- to- date records of the child’s progress
• portfolio of the educational support given to the child
• evidence of the continuous assessment of the child’s work
• evidence of the assessment and or examination at the end of each year
• evidence at the end of grade 3,6 and 9, that shows whether your child has achieved the outcomes for these grades”

This is part two of a three part series about how to assess learning as a homeschooler, how to create reports, for your own records and if required, for the DBE and finally, it’s about how discerning when to comply and when to resist unlawful requests and overreach by government officials.

In Part 1 – Homeschool Assessments we looked at what assessment is and how parents can use both informal and formal assessments to ensure that their children are learning effectively and making good progress in their development.

What does CAPS say about reporting?

CAPS is the abbreviation for the national Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement issued by the Department of Basic Education to guide teachers and schools about what they should teach and assess.

The CAPS documents state:

In home education, the parent is the teacher, so the need for reporting is vastly different to the school scenario. Parents usually know exactly how their children are performing in any given subject, so they seldom need reports with scores. However, if you need to report on your child’s progress to the Department of Basic Education, the Department of Social Welfare or the other parent (when parents are divorced or not living together), you might find it useful to record scores in a schoolish manner.

The table below is from the CAPS document.

Rating Code	Description of Competence	Percentage
7	Outstanding achievement	80-100
6	Meritorous achievement	70-79
5	Substantial achievement	60-69
4	Adequate achievement	50-59
3	Moderate achievement	40-49
2	Elementary achievement	30-39
1	Not achieved	0-29

To create a short report with scores, you could produce a table something like the sample one below, unless your provincial department of education sends you a form that they prefer you to use. For example, this form, from the Eastern Cape Department of Education:

Name: Jason	Grade 4 (approximately)
Subject	Rating Code (Percentage)	Comments
English	6	Jason reads and speaks fluently and has good writing and spelling skills. He is an avid reader, reading well above his grade level.
Afrikaans/Zulu/Other	5	Jason has made good progress in reading and writing Afrikaans. He speaks it regularly with friends.
Maths	7	Jason enjoys Maths and regularly scores top marks on his maths tests.
Natural Sciences	6	This is his favourite subject and he often explores new topics on his own.
Social Studies	5	Jason loves listening to the stories we read, but he is less enthusiastic about written projects and practical assignments,
Life Skills	5	Jason enjoys physical activities but isn’t always keen to do creative arts.

Create a Homeschool Report for your own Records

Here is an outline of how to create a written record of your child’s learning for your own records. This is a written description of the resources for each subject/skill to which you can add notes about the child’s progress, enjoyment, attitude or struggles in each. Any test scores or your own rating can be recorded too. Here is a template we created to help you do this: Homeschool Assessment.

Standardised Tests

Until 2015, the Department of Basic Education used Annual National Assessments (ANA Tests) for Grades 3, 6 and 9, to evaluate learning in schools across the country. Although these tests are based on the CAPS curriculum, some homeschoolers use these downloadable tests at home as a benchmark to assess their children’s abilities in Home Language, Second Language and Numeracy. You can find these tests online on the Department’s website here: Annual National Assessments

If you use these tests or any other standardised tests, keep in mind that your children may not have been taught or learned some of the terms, topics or skills on these tests as your curricula or learning resources might not present the topics or skills in the same sequence as the school system, based on CAPS.
Children do not all learn the same things on the same day or in the same way. Whatever the results, hold them loosely and remember that they are very limited in what they measure. Your child is so much more that a test score may reflect on any given day.

Professional Assessments For Home Educators

Finally, if you would like to get a professional to assess your child’s progress, for a reasonable fee, you can use the services of Dr. Holman, a psychologist who offers remote assessments to homeschool parents through the sahomeschoolers.org website.
Note – The assessments are administered at home under parental supervision. The parent will receive a report within a week. These assessments are confidential and will not be shared with third parties. 

According to a parent, the tests are only available in English.

Some of the tests on offer that may interest you are:

CAPS aligned curriculum checks (gr 1 – 9) that help parents benchmark homeschool learners’ progress against the CAPS national curriculum. These tests are not intended to be an in-depth test of knowledge and abilities, as would be found in end-of-year exams. Rather, they “skip lightly” over the curriculum, identifying whether the most important aspects have been dealt with. 

Curriculum independent Academic Abilities Assessment (gr 1 – 12). Thinking abilities like reasoning, grouping information, etc, and the ability to handle information in number, words, and symbol form are being assessed and compared with what most people score. Suggestions are given on how to improve academic abilities.

Read more at SA Homeschoolers

Below is an example of a report, issued after a child completes a series of tests, based on the CAPS curriculum.

Example of a Report – Grades 1-3

Home Educators usually outperform School-going Children

We understand that for new home educators, record-keeping and reporting might seem daunting. You may worry that you are not doing enough. Let us reassure you that all home educating parents worry, “Am I Doing Enough?” If your child’s progress is slow, this may be exactly why home education is in this child’s best interests. The child needs the freedom to progress at his or her own rate.

You are the best person to be in charge of your child’s learning because you have your child’s long-term best interests at heart. Read Moms are the Best Teachers. The evidence of standardised testing in schools shows that millions of children in the school system are unable to read and do maths at their expected grade level, which suggests that the system is failing them and the teachers’ reports and assessments are probably not an accurate reflection of each child’s ability. (International research shows that in South Africa 81% of grade 4 children can’t read for meaning!) 

In contrast, research from the US shows that home educated learners consistently outperform public schooled children on standardised tests by far!

“The home-educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests (Ray, 2010, 2015, 2017, 2024). (The public school average is roughly the 50^th percentile; scores range from 1 to 99.)” ~ Brian Ray, Ph.D. Research Facts on Homeschooling, Homeschool Fast Facts, 9 February 2024

There is no similar research from South Africa, but we predict that the results would reflect the same or similar outcomes. 

As a parent, you are much more likely to be diligent and ensure that your child develops these skills successfully. Don’t stress that you won’t do as good a job as a paid professional. The evidence shows otherwise.

In conclusion, by observing your child’s progress on a daily basis, you will know how well he or she is doing or where a child is struggling. As your confidence grows and you see your children are learning, test scores will become less and less important. In fact, some parents have reported that independent test results did not reveal to them anything that they did not already know about their children’s progress in various subjects or skills.

If the purpose of learning is to score well on a test, we’ve lost sight of the real reason for learning ~ Jeannie Fulbright

The lesson of report cards, grades and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth. ~ John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing us Down, 1991

Do you need a report to return a child to school after homeschooling?

The Department of Basic Education prefers to receive a report as it enables them to ascertain a child’s grade level more easily. However, the policy for admission to public schools allows a parent to submit an affidavit instead. A school may not refuse to admit a child if it is not full. Read more at Removing and Returning a Child to School.

Part 3 – Should You Submit Homeschool Reports? Next, we will look at the law and policy that apply to home education and discuss the standards for compliance, which should always be based on the best interests of the child.

Last updated 1 October 2024