The Choice That Wasn’t - Homeschooling by Default.
The hidden reality of “voluntary” homeschooling for families whose children feel pushed out of systems that were never designed for them.
Ever tried to get support for your disabled child’s education and found yourself bounced between the school and the NDIS like a hot potato?
Welcome to the “not our responsibility” Olympics — where every system applauds your advocacy while quietly stepping back and blaming someone else.
The school or kinder says they’re doing everything they can. The NDIS says that they are too.
And somewhere in the middle are carers and parents, and by parents I mostly mean mums — exhausted, unsupported, and trying to hold it all together while being told their last-resort decision to homeschool was a personal preference.
Yet when speaking to the NDIS about additional support at home, you get what feels like a kick in the guts, being told that as your child hasn’t been expelled, in their eyes appear to be choosing to home school.
This article isn’t just about policy. It’s about what happens when both systems retreat behind the red tape — and leave families holding everything.
We’re going to walk through the key legal instruments and human rights frameworks — so you have real facts to bring to NDIS planning meetings, Student Support Group meetings and discussions with the Education Department, and a clearer understanding of your child’s rights. Because knowledge isn’t just power — it’s protection.
This also isn’t about attacking schools or individuals - most educators care deeply and are doing their best in over stretched environments. But top-down systems aren’t built for flexibility. Schools are expected to ‘do inclusion’ without the resources to do it in an authentic and person centred way. When a child’s support needs are nuanced, standardised systems just don’t work. And no matter how much a teacher cares, they can’t bend a system that wasn’t designed to flex, adjust, and grow alongside individual support needs.
This is a deep dive into the legal, emotional, and bureaucratic burden behind so-called ‘voluntary homeschooling’ that parents find themselves in when a growing cohort of children falling straight through the cracks between mainstream education and specialist systems that were never designed for their needs in the first place.
Because when the NDIS refers to homeschooling as a "parental choice," it fails to acknowledge the quiet, heavy truth: for many families, they feel there was no real choice at all.
Parents of disabled children often aren’t pulling them from school to pursue Pinterest-worthy lesson plans or lifestyle freedom. They’re doing it because the system — or systems — have failed. Usually not just once, but repeatedly.
Legal and Policy Frameworks: What Should Be Happening
Before we unpack how things are going wrong, and what steps you can take, it’s worth understanding what’s meant to happen — legally, ethically and systemically.
There are several key documents and frameworks that live rent free in my head these days. They define the rights all children have to an education, and clarify what schools and the NDIS are each responsible for:
NDIS Act Section 10: Support Lists (Definition of NDIS Supports)
We’ll break each of these down in the following sections to explain where responsibilities begin, where they’re supposed to end — and what actually happens on the ground.
And a reminder - This isn’t legal advice and I am not a lawyer. It’s not a substitute for professional advice. It’s information to help you feel a little less lost in a system that can have you questioning reality harder than that time you tried to explain crypto to your grandpa. For formal guidance or advice specific to your situation, always seek qualified legal support.
1. Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA)
The DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person with disability in areas including education. This includes both;
direct discrimination (e.g. excluding a child due to disability) and
indirect discrimination (e.g. applying a policy that seems neutral but disproportionately impacts a disabled student, like rigid attendance policies).
When we speak about Direct Discrimination, it can look like fairly obvious like;