Homeschooling can be tough sometimes, but we love it because it’s worth it.
Seeing it through to the end of grade 9, where home education officially ends, takes long term effort and planning, and the buy‑in of everyone involved .

Over the last few decades, although homeschooling is legal, the sector has faced many challenges that have sometimes distracted us from our primary purpose: ensuring our children have fun, learn new skills, and build positive childhood memories while preparing for an uncertain yet exciting future.

Achieving this is possible, even when circumstances seem to work against you.

We hope to show you how to make it work, even on a shoestring budget, even without tertiary education, even without family support, even if you still need to earn a living, and even if homeschooling was not your first choice.
If any of that rings true for you, then this is the space you have been looking for.

Our team at HSSA has long been thinking about the idea of a central platform for our in‑person and online groups, our various pages and channels, and our registered email correspondents, now comprising just over 30,000 members. We have relied on many arms of contact to share up‑to‑date information, exchange what we find and know, and bring together the best that formal and informal education can offer our children. Although this idea was born decades ago, my leadership efforts have focused on the nuts and bolts of daily interaction, much of it aimed at preserving our freedoms through awareness and moral support. When I first thought to put something together, our volunteer group was still young, raising and educating small children while managing family life on limited means. Some branched into micro schooling, some opened their own schools, and some became private consultants for homeschooling.

One thing remained constant: we all love and cherish the notion of independence in education and the pioneering of new genres of unique learnerships for our children. As it is for most homeschooling families, we also operate from small ports, where one income must shelter and anchor a large family. We have grown through our trials and storms, and have even more to offer now than we thought we did before.

Our volunteers give because they care, and because they find joy in giving. They worry about the future of education in a fast‑changing world, and they act with courage and faith, believing that good will prevail when someone stands up against injustice.
That is how we arrived here. We are among those who stood up.

Each of the homeschooling parents who built HSSA over the years has contributed personal visions, perspectives on learning, and lived experience in raising families. Between us, we have well over a century of combined experience and research. More importantly, we are experts in what not to do, and together we have built an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge on what works, when, how, and why.

We often wished for a platform like this ourselves when we started out, but it was in those pioneering years of South African home education that Homeschooling in South Africa was born. HSSA is already known for its collaborative and focused way of unpacking our wins and woes, and we now wish to consolidate these in one place.

Welcome! Please continue to help us grow from strength to strength.

The original idea remains: to offer more than collaborative support, encouragement, and inspiration to homeschooling parents. We want to bring together practical tools and usable resources that fit family life and the realities of raising and educating children at home.

Your journey does not need to be another trailblazing effort that leaves your children adrift without your focused attention. We will share what we did, how it worked, and why some things are harder than others. If you are willing to listen and learn, we invite you to use what you find here to do the very best for your children and for your own future. Homeschooling eventually ends, and part of that journey should prepare you for what comes next – once your role as homeschooling parent is complete. We want to encourage you set up something for yourself too, so that you remain relevant in ways over and above what you have poured into your family and children during your parenting years.

You are the reason we do this. We are parents united, moms and dads, grandparents, uncles and aunts, even older siblings who have had to take on the leadership role in their home. We see you, I see you.

You are not alone, and this can and has been done successfully. You will be okay, and if you are okay, your children will be more than okay.

This website is the long‑time dream of many parents who have poured their energy into creating a safe space for those who follow in their wake. After the many hours of volunteer work, over a period of 2 decades, we are finally consolidating what we know and continue to learn alongside you. Help us keep this harbour safe – use what we share responsibly, support if you can, and protect the work so it remains available to all.

We hope to share our experience and insight and to create and offer as much free material as is humanly possible, without sinking our own boats in the process.

Thank you for seeking, finding, and doing. Your children will benefit from everything you learn and put into practice for their sake.

Yours in Homeschooling, Rebekka.

info@hssa.co.za