Australian & NZ Homeschooling Summit

Australian
& New Zealand Homeschooling Summit

Reimagining Learning. Together.

12 Months access to summit recordings

Just $37 AUD

Watch the workshops

The live summit portion of the summit has concluded. But don’t worry! You can still access the replays for another…

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DAYS

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HOURS

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MINUTES

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SECONDS

only $37 AUD – $1.70 per workshop

Have you ever found yourself with so many questions your head is spinning?

Are we choosing the right curriculum?
How do we keep learning joyful and meaningful? What about socialisation? What does progress really look like? And how do we keep going when we’re feeling a little exhausted?

That’s exactly why the Australian & New Zealand Homeschooling Summit exists!

Grab Your Replay Acces

Packed with…

Inspiring Workshops

Fresh ideas from experienced homeschoolers and educators who have walked this path before you — sharing what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what learning can really look like at home.

Practical Ideas

Not just theory. Real strategies, tools, and perspectives you can take straight back into your homeschool the very next day.

Community & Connection

A space where homeschool families come together to share ideas, experiences, and encouragement.

Helping you grow a learning life
that truly fits your family.

What happens at the summit?

Across four days you’ll hear workshops, conversations, and inspiring stories from homeschool families across Australia and New Zealand.

Grab Your Replay Access

Download Summit Schedule Flyer

Something for the whole family!!

The Workshops…

Four Days of Learning, Inspiration, Community & Connection

Opening the Summit: A Gathering of Learning and Connection

Micarlé Callea

Opening

Description

Join Micarle as she opens the summit with a heartfelt welcome, setting the tone for a space of learning, connection, and shared experiences. This session invites you to ground into the journey ahead and be part of a supportive and inspiring community.

Creating Connected Learning Communities

Penny Graham

Bonus Workshop

Description

If you dream of your children learning alongside others and your family being part of a supportive homeschool community, this workshop will help turn that vision into reality. Together, we’ll explore how to build a connected learning community from the ground up with other like-minded families. You’ll receive a simple framework and practical tips to help you confidently create a community where you share your values and learning with others.

What we know about homeschooling – the research we have right now

Rebecca English

Description

Have you ever wondered what we know about homeschooling? What the pros are? What the outcomes are? What the benefits are? What the young people say about their experience? This session looks at what we know, to reassure, to help you see the pathway you’re on is the right one, and one that works!

Self-directed mastery: Empowering your Child to Drive their own Learning

Richard Wilson

Description

A major goal in homeschooling is to raise a child who can drive their own learning. In this session, we explore how to support your child’s autonomy by using adaptive tools like Maths Pathway Homeschool and Lingo Home. Discover how to move into a deeper partnership where your child uses real-time feedback to set their own goals, master challenges, and see their own growth. By leaning on technology for the technical feedback, you can focus on being your child’s mentor and advocate as they take the lead in their education.

The Power of Stories to Transform Your Child’s Academic Trajectory

Shirley Erwee

Description

What if the key to unlocking your child’s academic confidence, curiosity and long-term success is not a new curriculum, stricter schedules or more assessments, but stories?
In this inspiring session, Shirley Erwee will explore how story-driven learning reshapes the way children think, process information and engage with the world around them.

Drawing on her 29 years of experience in home education as a parent and curriculum creator, she will show how stories strengthen language development, deepen comprehension, build attention and critical thinking skills and create meaningful connections across subjects.
Parents will discover how reading aloud, living books and narrative-rich learning can reignite motivation, especially in reluctant learners and have a lifelong impact on a child’s academic trajectory. This session will equip families in Australia and New Zealand with simple, powerful strategies to transform stress-free, everyday learning moments into lasting intellectual growth.

Character and Competency – Striking a Balance

Sheena Harris

Description

What does it look like for our homeschool students to be both academically capable and grounded in integrity? The Latin roots of education offer a clue: educare (to train or mold) and educere (to lead out into the fullness of life). If we want our children to become confident, capable adults, they need more than just a curriculum; they need a framework of values.

Join Sheena for an inspiring session filled with real-life stories and practical examples of what this looks like in the day-to-day of home education. Discover how true success is found not just in academic grades, but in the “soft” skills that are highly prized by the world and in particular, future employers.

What am I: parent, teacher, or burnt-out wreck?

Aimee Engler

Description

But I’m not qualified to teach!’

‘I’m scared of losing our relationship.’

‘There’s so much to do/cover/consider that I can only handle one or the other.’

These common fears can not only plague new homeschoolers but have a nasty tendency of never going away, causing even the most experienced to lose confidence. In this seminar we’ll discuss how it’s not an either/or situation and encourage one another in our common pursuit of being the very best parents and teachers to our kids. Whether you’re a newbie or an old hat, by the end you’ll:

Understand and embrace your role as a learning director.
Visualise how this will play out in YOUR unique situation.
Gain awareness of supports and strategies to avoid burnout.

This seminar will be a combination of presentation and chat, so feel free to either sit and listen or share your own experiences and ideas.

Unpacking the Science of Learning

Krystel Watts

Description

Join me to learn about what the Science of Learning is uncovering and how we can apply it to our own families. Let me turn teacher speak into mum speak. Getting the foundational basics solidly in place – no matter what age your child is – is going to set them up for success for more advanced learning as they progress. This is NOT school at home but is about understanding how our brains work efficiently and effectively to get the best out of our kids and reduce their stress and ours. Come learn with me what the Science of Learning looks like on a practical everyday basis.

Structure, Choice, and Letting Go: The Gradual Shift of Responsibility

Amanda Bartle

Description

Homeschooling evolves as children grow.
In the early years, parents often provide more structure and direction. Over time, responsibility for learning gradually begins to shift toward the child.
This workshop explores how to navigate that transition — finding the balance between guidance and freedom so children can develop confidence, independence, and ownership of their learning as they move toward the teen years.

From Ideas to Reality: Planning History and Social Studies for Older Kids

Erin Parkinson

Description

History and social studies are often overlooked in homeschooling, yet they help children and teens make sense of the world: why events happen, how societies change, and how people see the same events differently. They build critical thinking and the background knowledge needed to understand current events and everyday cultural references.
In this workshop I’ll share the simple framework I use to plan history and social studies topics so they naturally include the key ideas and skills important at the intermediate and high school level. Parents will leave with a practical template, topic ideas, and the books, websites, films, and field trips I use to turn topics into engaging learning.

Regional Homeschooling: Finding Your Steady

Jillina Whitaker

Description

Out here in wide country, fences need strong posts to hold the line — without them, everything sags. Regional homeschooling can feel the same, with isolation, limited support, and a broader community that does not quite understand home education.
In this workshop, we’ll explore the “guide posts” that keep families steady — clear decisions, helpful input, and recognising real progress — along with how to navigate educational gatekeeping by asking different questions.
A short, reflective session to help you feel more confident and steady in your homeschooling.

The Plot Twist: Your Child Is Studying You

Micarlé Callea

Description

How your curiosity quietly becomes their curriculum

Have you stopped to consider the hidden messages your approach to learning might be sending? In this workshop, we explore how your curiosity, playfulness, frustration, and joy in learning quietly shape your child’s motivation and the learning culture of your home.

In this workshop we’ll explore:

•⁠ ⁠The powerful ways children absorb our attitudes toward learning
•⁠ ⁠How curiosity, playfulness, and joy influence motivation and confidence
•⁠ ⁠What modelling learning looks like at different ages and stages
•⁠ ⁠Understanding what play looks like at different developmental stages
•⁠ ⁠The hidden messages we send when we face challenge, mistakes, and uncertainty
•⁠ ⁠Simple ways to bring more curiosity and playful learning into your homeschool

Meeting Kids Where They Are At

Tracy Forbes

Description

Children learn on their own timelines and bloom in their own time. Traditional schooling doesn’t suit every child, but homeschooling offers the flexibility to reduce pressure and truly meet children where they are.
Join Tracy, a homeschooling mum of three and experienced teacher turned tutor, as she shares why it’s so important to work with a child’s readiness. If you’ve experienced learning battles, frustration, or meltdowns, this session will explore practical ways to adjust and adapt learning to better support your child’s unique journey.

The Living Home: Shifting from curriculum to culture

Patricia Fitzgerald

Description

Whether you are brand new and trying to replicate the classroom, or a veteran feeling ‘trapped’ by lesson plans that got out of hand, this session is for you. We’re exploring how to move from a curriculum-led home to a culture-led one. This isn’t about throwing away your resources; it’s about putting them in their proper place as tools that serve your family’s connection, rather than masters that dictate your days. Learn how to build a collaborative ‘We’ culture, curate a home atmosphere that invites learning, and find the courage to pivot when the ‘school way’ isn’t the ‘family way’.

Rethinking Learning for Different Brains

Marissa Taylor

Recorded Workshop

Description

Many of us were raised to believe that learning is about motivation, behaviour, or effort. But what if learning actually starts with safety and regulation?
In this workshop, we’ll gently explore what we now understand about the developing brain, nervous system regulation, and why different brains need different approaches. We’ll talk about why some kids can think clearly one moment and completely shut down the next, why pressure can backfire, and why regulation is not a reward, it is a prerequisite for learning.
We’ll also look at what adjustments can look like in real life. Not theory, but practical changes you can make at home or in your learning environment, especially when supporting neurodivergent learners, including PDA profiles and non-speaking kids.

The Unlikely Guide to Home Education

Adele Leach

Recorded Workshop

Description

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Welcome. You’ve either stumbled upon this guide because you’re considering home education, you’re neck-deep in it and need to know someone else is also hanging on by a thread, or you’re here for the jokes. All are valid. All are welcome.
This is not a guide that will tell you which curriculum to buy, how to structure your perfect morning basket, or what to say to your registration officer to make them weep with admiration. Plenty of those guides exist. They are beautiful. They have never met my children.

This is the guide for the rest of us

Workshops for the kids…

Brilliant Bird Beaks

Tracy Forbes

Description

It’s time to take a close look at birds in this hands-on session where we find out all about this feathery group of vertebrates. Carry out a hands-on scientific investigation to see for yourself how their beaks help them to compete for food in the wild. From the tiny hummingbird to the huge ostrich, birds have unique adaptations which help them to survive. Join us for Brilliant Bird Beaks and let’s have fun with a bird beak investigation!
The bird beak investigation is optional so if you don’t have all of the resources, you can still join us and follow along as I demonstrate the investigation.

Optional Resource List
Recording sheet printable
A binder clip
A fork
Tweezers
A slotted spoon with small holes
Chopsticks
1 cup (per child)
20 small gum drops (or something of a similar size)
20 grains of rice
20 marshmallows (or something of a similar size)
20 peas or beans in water
20 pieces of pasta in water

Awesome ANZACS

Heather Kalisch

Description

Join Heather Kalisch from Bake With Me in an exciting, live bake-along to make ANZAC biscuits. We’ll together go step by step in a fun and engaging way and by the end of the session you’ll have your very own ANZAC biscuits in the oven! These buttery, crunchy treats are so yummy and so easy to make.

Baking Tool Kit
bowl for melting butter
bowl for biscuits
spatula/wooden spoon
measuring cups & spoons
baking paper
baking tray
cup/mug

Ingredients:
½ cup flour
¼ cup white sugar
½ cup coconut
¾ cup rolled oats
50g butter
1 Tbsp golden syrup
½ tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp boiling water

Method:
Step 1: Get ready! Preheat the oven to 180˚C, line a baking tray with baking paper. Get all of your
ingredients ready.
Step 2: Mix together flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats in a medium bowl and set aside.
Step 3: Melt the butter and golden syrup together in a small pot on the stove. Or place in a small microwave bowl and melt in the microwave. Set aside.
Step 4: In a cup, dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water. Add this mix to the butter and golden syrup.
Step 5: Stir well and then pour butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Use a wooden spoon (or your fingers!) to mix together really well. It is usual for the mixture to feel quite dry. As you continue to mix it, you should find it comes together more. When you press it together firmly, it should form a ball. If it doesn’t, add a tablespoon of water and mix again.
Step 6: Roll about a tablespoon mixture in to a ball and place on tray. Flatten slightly with a fork. Ensure there is a good amount of space between each biscuit on the tray- about 5cm. They will spread a wee bit so better be safe than sorry!
Step 7: Place a tray in the oven for about 15 minutes or until nicely browned. The biscuits will be still soft but will firm up more as they cool.
Step 8: Cool completely on a wire rack. Enjoy!
Tip: Make sure your oven is hot before placing the ANZAC biscuits in.
As an extra step, you can melt a little bit of chocolate and drizzle it over. Yummy!! Allow for room for them to spread, don’t overcrowd the tray!

Sing with Micarlé

Micarlé Callea

Description

TBA

Sketch Sunday

Jillina Whitaker

Description

Join Jillina for Sketch Sunday — a fun, all-ages art session for every skill level. This isn’t a traditional class, but a relaxed workshop where you’ll create around a surprise theme revealed on the day. Bring your favourite materials—paper, pencils, paints, or a digital device—and let’s sketch together.

Join the Summit

April 17-20, 2026 | Online
Replay Access $37 AUD

Grab Your Ticket

Join families from across Australia and New Zealand as we explore what learning can look like outside the traditional system.

The FAQS

Do I need to go anywhwere?

No it’s all online.

Do I have to attend live?

Nope.
You’ll get access to any live recordings soon after the workshops.
But we recommend you come live to be part of the live chat during the workshops and to ask your questions to the expert speakers.
Recorded access will remain available for 12 months.

When is the summit?

The summit will be held online from April 17 to 20, 2026.
Workshops will be held Friday to Monday.
Workshops will be held daily at 10am, 2pm and 7pm AEST. With a couple of 4pm and recorded sessions as well.
All summit times are in Australian Eastern Standard Time

How long is my access?

12 months.
After this time workshops will me moved into the Fearless Membership themed workshops libraries for continued housing.

Is the summit for new homeschool families?

Well yes and no!

Whilst the summit will be the perfect head start if you’re new to homeschooling, our workshops will cover an extensive range of topics aimed at all different types of homeschoolers.

Been homeschooling for while? Got teens? Have a neurodiverse child? Transitioning your kids out of school?
All good… we’ve got you covered.

Is the summit only for Australians and New Zealanders

Nope… all are welcome here!

Whilst some of the topics covered are more relevant to Australian homeschoolers (ie registration and state specific items), the vast majority of our workshops will be applicable worldwide.
We have attendees from US and many European Countries.

Supporting our children’s journey is UNIVERSAL!

Australian & New Zealand Homeschooling Summit

Reimagining Learning. Together.

12 Months access to summit recordings

Just $37 AUD

The live summit portion of the summit has concluded. But don’t worry! You can still access the replays for another…

only $37 AUD – $1.70 per workshop

Have you ever found yourself with so many questions your head is spinning?

Are we choosing the right curriculum?How do we keep learning joyful and meaningful? What about socialisation? What does progress really look like? And how do we keep going when we’re feeling a little exhausted?

That’s exactly why the Australian & New Zealand Homeschooling Summit exists!

Packed with…

Inspiring Workshops

Fresh ideas from experienced homeschoolers and educators who have walked this path before you — sharing what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what learning can really look like at home.

Practical Ideas

Not just theory. Real strategies, tools, and perspectives you can take straight back into your homeschool the very next day.

Community & Connection

A space where homeschool families come together to share ideas, experiences, and encouragement.

Helping you grow a learning life that truly fits your family.

What happens at the summit?

Across four days you’ll hear workshops, conversations, and inspiring stories from homeschool families across Australia and New Zealand.

Something for the whole family!!

The Workshops…

Four Days of Learning, Inspiration, Community & Connection

Opening the Summit: A Gathering of Learning and Connection

Micarlé Callea

Opening

Creating Connected Learning Communities

Penny Graham

Bonus Workshop

What we know about homeschooling – the research we have right now

Rebecca English

Self-directed mastery: Empowering your Child to Drive their own Learning

Richard Wilson

The Power of Stories to Transform Your Child’s Academic Trajectory

Shirley Erwee

Character and Competency – Striking a Balance

Sheena Harris

What am I: parent, teacher, or burnt-out wreck?

Aimee Engler

Unpacking the Science of Learning

Krystel Watts

Structure, Choice, and Letting Go: The Gradual Shift of Responsibility

Amanda Bartle

From Ideas to Reality: Planning History and Social Studies for Older Kids

Erin Parkinson

Regional Homeschooling: Finding Your Steady

Jillina Whitaker

The Plot Twist: Your Child Is Studying You

Micarlé Callea

Meeting Kids Where They Are At

Tracy Forbes

The Living Home: Shifting from curriculum to culture

Patricia Fitzgerald

Rethinking Learning for Different Brains

Marissa Taylor

Recorded Workshop

The Unlikely Guide to Home Education

Adele Leach

Recorded Workshop

Workshops for the kids…

Brilliant Bird Beaks

Tracy Forbes

Awesome ANZACS

Heather Kalisch

Sing with Micarlé

Micarlé Callea

Sketch Sunday

Jillina Whitaker

Join the Summit

April 17-20, 2026 | OnlineReplay Access $37 AUD

Join families from across Australia and New Zealand as we explore what learning can look like outside the traditional system.

The FAQS

Presented byFearless Homeschool

Bringing homeschool families together to share ideas, encouragement, and inspiration.

Australian
& New Zealand Homeschooling Summit

Are we choosing the right curriculum?
How do we keep learning joyful and meaningful? What about socialisation? What does progress really look like? And how do we keep going when we’re feeling a little exhausted?

Helping you grow a learning life
that truly fits your family.

April 17-20, 2026 | Online
Replay Access $37 AUD

Presented by
Fearless Homeschool