Podcasts about datepublished

An important note for NSW families: nothing is in effect yet, and the current guidelines still apply until the policy is finalised. The draft keeps the three things registration has always asked of you: an education plan based on the NSW curriculum, records showing that plan is being delivered, and an assessment by an Authorised Person. It still doesn’t say exactly what’s required or how much evidence is enough. A key concern is that no urgent pathway has been added for families who can’t wait for the 12-week registration processing times. Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown work through what the draft means in practice. What counts as evidence, where Authorised Persons come from and whether they must visit your house, how likely approval really is, and what you can do if you need to remove your child from school while awaiting registration. Key points from this episode Nothing has changed yet. The Department has published drafts. The existing Guidelines remain in effect until a final policy lands. Parental choice survives into the new framework. The draft Policy states plainly that education is primarily the responsibility of the child’s parents. The draft does not say how much evidence is enough. It lists ways you can show learning, such as journals, checklists, excursions and digital portfolios, but sets no quantity for any of them. That leaves the judgement to your Authorised Person, and their approach can vary significantly. Refusal is rare. Families may get stressed thinking their application is unlikely to get approved, but if you have a plan, it is very likely your application will be approved. An audit recommended NSW speed up registration a year before the draft was written. The draft sets an indicative timeframe of up to 12 weeks, which is too long for some families. You can still act if your child cannot wait. An exemption from attendance comes from your school principal, not the Department, and taking your education plan to that meeting makes it much easier for a principal to say yes. Nothing has changed yet for NSW homeschooling families Homeschooling registration in NSW moved from NESA to the NSW Department of Education, and the drafts released on 27 July 2026 are the Department’s first framework. Consultation ran as a short survey and closed on 10 August 2026. The Department has confirmed that the current Guidelines remain in effect until the new policy is finalised. If you are registered, or partway through an application, nothing about your obligations has changed. What the NSW draft policy gets right about parental choice The draft Policy states that the education of a child is primarily the responsibility of the child’s parents, and that parents may choose either school enrolment or homeschooling registration. Ellen believes this is really important, because the policy language preserves parents’ right to homeschool. The second is flexibility. Parents write the education plan, decide how it is delivered, and can amend it during a registration period so it stays fit for purpose, including for children with disability or additional needs. Brett points out you do not need a diagnosis in the family to benefit from the flexibility. The plan is meant to bend around the child in front of you, whoever that child is. Both hosts agree that flexibility and structure are not opposite. Having a base to work from makes it possible to be flexible, try new things, and know you’re within the guardrails and ticking off all the boxes. What evidence of learning means under the NSW draft This is where there is some uncertainty, and Ellen states it is one of the things that makes parents most nervous. The draft requires parents to keep records demonstrating how the child’s education plan is being implemented, and how the requirements and conditions of registration are being met. That is a broad requirement, and the FAQs confirm there is no mandatory quantity or format of evidence. Learning journals, checklists, excursions and digital portfolios are offered as examples rather than requirements. The states handle this differently. Queensland tells you exactly how many pieces of work to supply and what they should look like. NSW gives you no number or format of evidence at all. Why no set amount of evidence can be unsettling “Broadness is wonderful, but it can also be unsettling, because it then comes down to your Authorised Person to say, actually, this is too much, or this isn’t enough. That’s where parents can start to feel a little bit like it’s shifting sand.”— Ellen Brown Brett’s read is that breadth leads to ambiguity, and ambiguity leads to frustration and anxiety. He wants the Department to publish a minimum, so families know whether they are meeting the mark. As a result, the NSW homeschooling community often fills the gap itself, comparing notes in forums about what different APs expect. It should be a lot clearer for families. What an Authorised Person is checking for When an AP turns up, it is not just to see what has been done, but to ensure that you’ve ticked the boxes aligned to the curriculum. Euka is built around this. Every lesson carries the curriculum code it maps to, families can upload work into the portal for safekeeping, and the registration and reporting service turns completed lessons and parent comments into one report you can hand over. Ellen homeschooled in NSW for 12 years, with different APs, and knows what it’s like to prepare reporting. The services at Euka reflect her experience and are built to help families feel confident in what they are putting forward. Who your Authorised Person is and what the home visit involves Once you apply, the Department organises your first meeting with an Authorised Person for your area. They review your plan and make a recommendation. Most APs come out of the mainstream school system. Retired principals, experienced teachers, people who know what a good education looks like from the inside of a classroom. Ellen has never met one who came from a homeschooling background and says it will be nice when that finally happens. Whether you are visited at home depends on the AP. In Ellen’s experience, some APs need to come to the house, and others are happy with a video call or a meeting at a library or community centre. It is worth asking rather than assuming. Ellen describes an AP as closer to a learning coach than an education inspector, and most turn up asking how they can support you. Other parents have told her they came away feeling judged rather than supported. Nobody is entirely comfortable when someone arrives to assess something they care about this much. If your child is highly anxious, the draft FAQs allow you to request that the AP does not sight your child, usually supported by information from their medical or allied health providers. Will my homeschooling registration be approved in NSW? It is highly likely, and the Department’s own numbers back this up. “If you’re stressing out about your approval, chances are you’ll be approved, because you’ve already thought it through.”— Ellen Brown In 2025, the Department refused 5.2% of applications. But most refusals (3.5%) were because the applicant could not be reached for assessment after repeated attempts over several weeks. Another 0.94% were refused because the child was not eligible, including living outside NSW or submitting an incomplete form. Applications refused because the requirements were not met were very low at 0.61%. If you have an education plan covering the NSW curriculum and you attend your assessment, you are in good shape. Euka has not had a family go through the process and fail to get approved. Some families are concerned about a shorter registration period. The draft Procedures allow an AP to recommend less than the full term where areas for improvement have been identified, or where there are current concerns about the child’s safety. Neither phrase is defined in any of the documents. Brett delves into both sides. A policy has to cover every household, including the small number where home is not a safe place, and you cannot write a rule for that without some breadth. What he wants is more clarity for families: if a family is given three months instead of twelve, tell them exactly what caused it and exactly what must change. There is a review pathway if a recommendation goes against you: an internal review by a different Authorised Person, then an external review at NCAT. Ellen notes that a review by a second person in the same role is limited on its own, and that the external step is what makes it a real safeguard. The audit recommendation the NSW draft did not act on A year before these drafts were written, NSW was told to speed up registration. The Auditor-General’s report Alternative school settings and home schooling, published on 25 September 2025, recommended that the Department of Education work with the homeschooling community on reform, including consideration of “expedited registration processing times to shorten transition periods”. The audit found the time to decide an application had already grown 63 per cent, from 40 calendar days in 2019 to 65 in 2024, while applications rose by around 125 per cent. The draft Procedures answer that with an indicative processing timeframe of up to 12 weeks, and the FAQs confirm that until registration is approved, the child must remain enrolled at school. A family worried about their child’s wellbeing is directed back to the school principal. Twelve weeks is 84 days. The audit’s figure for how long a decision was already taking in 2024 was 65, which makes the draft’s indicative ceiling longer than the problem the audit asked the Department to fix. Ellen recommends keeping the safeguards in place and adding a defined urgent or provisional pathway: the parent still lodges the application, still demonstrates an education plan, still provides information about the child’s circumstances, and the assessment still runs its course. The child gets a lawful bridge in the meantime. Brett’s frustration is with the evidence base underneath the decision. Euka asks every family their primary reason for choosing homeschooling. Around one in four name bullying, and one in three name bullying or social issues (which often have bullying as an underlying factor). The Department’s published 2025 data records bullying as the reason for 0.11% of applications. The explanation for that number is in how the survey is delivered. The application form offers tick boxes for philosophical, religious and special learning needs, and nothing else. Every other reason, including bullying, must be written by hand in a free-text box. In 2025, 33 per cent of applications landed in “other” and a further 21 per cent answered nothing at all. In the initial figure, bullying looks like a non-issue. But the reality is, it is skewed by how the data is collected, which may explain why the draft policy and procedures do not address bullying or provide an urgent pathway for homeschool registration. “As a parent, the last thing I would ever do is want to put my child back into an environment that I need them to be removed from.”— Brett Campbell How to take your child out of school while you wait for registration The route runs through your school principal, rather than the Department. The principal can grant an attendance exemption. It means your child stays enrolled but is lawfully absent, which is exactly the bridge families need while an application is processed. Ellen’s advice is to go to that meeting with your education plan in your hand. A principal carries legal responsibility for a child on their roll, and a parent who arrives with a clear plan for the term is much easier to say yes to than a parent who arrives with just a request. Many families join a program before they are registered for precisely this reason, because they need the plan anyway. If the school will not move, a letter from your GP, paediatrician, psychologist or counsellor explaining the impact of the school environment carries weight in that conversation. Some principals are genuinely good at this and will support you straight away. Some have never seen homeschooling done well and assume it means no schooling at all. Two things worth knowing once your child is home: Nobody expects lessons in week one. A child coming out of a stressful school situation needs time to decompress first. They don’t need to jump in and start doing their homeschooling plan straight away. Having lessons available still helps. What Euka sees is that children who know their peers are moving on without them get more anxious, not less. Knowing the same topics are there when they are ready gives them security. There is also a middle path a lot of families miss. If you are trialling a term away, or working through school refusal, you can stay enrolled under a partial attendance or exemption arrangement without registering for homeschooling. Schools are often willing to support that, particularly when there is a credible education plan behind it, and it leaves the door open for a staged return if the family wants it. If bullying is what brought you here, our guide to bullying and homeschooling works through the decision itself, and the signs a child is silently struggling at school covers what to watch for. If it is school refusal, our parent’s guide to the options and Episode 45 go further. If your child is struggling with how they are feeling, please talk to someone you trust. You can also reach Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or Lifeline on 13 11 14, free, 24 hours a day. Why this episode matters Most of the anxiety in NSW right now comes from not knowing what the rules mean for your family. The parts you control are the ones that decide your outcome: your education plan, the way you keep records, and what you take into a meeting with a principal or an Authorised Person. Get those right, and you’re very likely to be okay. The consultation has closed. The final policy isn’t written yet, and an urgent pathway is still worth pressing for. Start the free homeschooling course If you are working out what your own registration year looks like, our Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling covers registering legally in your state, choosing and structuring a program, building a daily rhythm, supporting a child who learns differently, and knowing your child is progressing. It is nine short video modules, about two and a half hours, hosted by Brett and Ellen. Free and self-paced. Start the free homeschooling course. Questions answered in this episode Have the NSW homeschooling rules changed? + Not yet. The NSW Department of Education released draft Policy, Procedures and FAQ documents on 27 July 2026, and consultation closed on 10 August 2026. The current Guidelines remain in effect until the new policy is finalised, so registered families and applications in progress carry on unchanged. What counts as evidence of learning for homeschooling in NSW? + Learning journals, checklists, excursions, digital portfolios, work samples, or a combination. The draft FAQs list these as examples and set no mandatory quantity or format. What your records have to do is show how your education plan is being delivered and how the work connects to the NSW curriculum, so keep that link visible as you go. How much work do I need to show my Authorised Person? + NSW does not publish a number, which is why experiences differ between areas. Keep enough to show coverage across the plan you wrote, with your own notes on how each part went. Who is the Authorised Person and do they have to come to my house? + An Authorised Person is authorised by the Department to assess your application, meet with you, and make a recommendation. Most come from mainstream teaching or school leadership backgrounds. Home visits are the default, but some APs will meet at a library or community centre or by video call, so it is worth asking. Does the Authorised Person have to see my child? + Usually yes, the AP is required to sight the child during the visit. The draft FAQs allow you to request approval for your child not to be sighted, and the Department will generally want supporting information from your child’s medical or allied health providers explaining why a visit could affect them. Will my homeschooling registration be approved? + Almost certainly, if you apply with an education plan covering the NSW curriculum and you are contactable for your assessment. Why would I be given a shorter registration period? + The draft Procedures allow an Authorised Person to recommend a shorter period where the assessment identifies areas for improvement, or where there are current concerns about the child’s safety. Neither term is defined in the draft. Can I appeal a homeschooling decision in NSW? + Yes. You can request an internal review, which goes to a different Authorised Person, and you are entitled to one internal review of the same decision. If that affirms the original recommendation, you can apply to NCAT for an external review, generally within 28 days of being notified. Can I take my child out of school before my registration is approved? + Not through the registration process itself. Under the draft, your child must remain enrolled until the Certificate of Registration is issued. The available route is an exemption from attendance or a partial attendance plan, granted by your school principal, and a GP or psychologist letter can support that request. Do I need to register if we are only taking a term off school? + Not if your child stays enrolled. Schools can support a partial attendance plan or an exemption without you registering for homeschooling, and that is common for families trialling a term or working through school refusal. Having a clear education plan makes those conversations much easier. About the hosts Ellen Brown is Euka’s co-founder and Head of Education. She is a qualified teacher, a mother of five, and has homeschooled in NSW for 12 years across many different Authorised Persons. Brett Campbell is Euka’s co-founder, Chairman and CEO. This article is general information about NSW homeschooling registration, not legal or clinical advice. The NSW Department of Education sets registration requirements, and the draft documents discussed here are not yet in force. If you are worried about your child’s mental health, please speak to your GP or a registered psychologist. Read the full episode transcript Ellen: We always want to keep at the centre of homeschooling, that parents have the choice to homeschool, and that it should be the same choice as if you were in public school, or you’re deciding to go to private school. Deciding to homeschool is a legal choice in our country. And so they got that right. And that’s important in the definitions. Sometimes we find that APs are coming with a lot of experience. And they’ve been and they’re really you know, I love to think of them, like I said before, as a bit of a coach, and they’re walking alongside you with enthusiasm saying, okay, how can I support you? And that has been my experience. But I have heard from other parents that they have had an experience that is a bit more challenging. Brett: The decision itself to homeschool for the majority is a major decision, and it and it puts this pressure on and people are like, am I going to get accepted? Am I not? You know, it’s not your final exam where, you know, yeah, the likelihood of you getting accepted is low. It’s actually the opposite. The likelihood of you getting accepted is very, very high. Narrator: Welcome to the Future Learners podcast, the home for parents and students thriving with homeschooling in Australia. Your hosts, Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown, are the co-founders of Euka Future Learning, Australia’s largest online K-12 homeschooling provider. Join them as they guide you from uncertainty to complete confidence. Let’s get into it. Brett: Hello and welcome to another episode of Future Learners. I am your host, Brett Campbell, CEO and co-founder of Euka Future Learning. I’m joined by my amazing co-founder and co-host and our Head of Education, Ellen Brown. How are you today, Ellen? Ellen: Very well, thank you. Brett: You have us set up for this topic. So this is this is a juicy topic. So I’m going to hand it straight to you. Set us up. What are we in store for today? Ellen: Today we’re going to be talking about the draft policy documents that the New South Wales Department of Education have produced. So we know that there’s been a change. Home schooling has moved from NESA to the Department of Education. They’ve provided a draft about how they might change some policies, and we’re going to talk about that today. Brett: Excellent policies, policies. Although sometimes the policy conversations may not be the most exciting or exhilarating for, um, whether it’s people speaking about it and or the participants listening. And I just want to double tap on the importance of this. Um, and whilst this might not be the most exciting topic of conversation for you to indulge in today, definitely stick with us. We’re going to we’re going to unpack it to the best of our ability. And as Ellen said, is this is a draft policy. And we’ll talk a little bit more about what that means, because we’re getting a lot of families reaching out to us with questions, queries, concerns, etc. And we’re going to try and do our absolute best to, um, talk to those points today. So over to you, Ellen. Ellen: One of the reasons that we want to talk about this is really to provide support to families as there especially families that are already in homeschooling and they’re thinking, okay, what’s going to change? How will this affect me? And it’s quite natural for people to begin talking. And then the it starts to snowball. And so it’s really just to provide support and let you know that we are watching and we’re trying to work through how to best support you as we make these changes. Brett: I think it would be a good idea if you actually set up and share that, you know, obviously, Euka one of our, uh, roles as we see it in the industry is, you know, we want to be a voice, uh, and also a seat at the table for, you know, the tens of thousands of families homeschooling. And if can you maybe share a little bit just to start on how this even originated, like how we even got to where we are now with these policies, draft policies? Ellen: Yes. Well, look, NESA was, um, having homeschooling under their umbrella for the last 15 years. And so earlier in the year that the movement of homeschooling under the New South Wales Department of Education happened. And then it was quiet and everybody wondered, well, maybe no changes will happen. And that sort of everybody continued along on their merry way until all of a sudden and of course, in the background, the Department of Education was saying, okay, how are we going to manage this? You know, when NESA had homeschooling, it grew and grew and grew. The numbers grew. So this was an opportunity for the Department of Education to say, okay, fresh air, a fresh voice, I suppose. Also good to keep in mind that nearly actually just over a year ago or nearly a year ago, in September last year, there was a review into homeschooling in New South Wales and audit. And some of those recommendations would have been also being looked at when they came to drafting these policies. And we’ll be able to talk about that, because one of the glaringly obvious ones that didn’t change is part of our discussion this morning as well. I’m going to run through a few different things that we can see haven’t changed first, or where New South Wales, the policy, the draft policy of has got it right. And then we’ll get into some of the topics that are causing a bit of concern from homeschooling families and from Euka as well. So let’s start by looking at where the draft policy got it right. And one of the things that we could say they definitely got it right is where they talk about parental choice and responsibility. We always want to keep at the centre of homeschooling that parents have the choice to homeschool, and that it should be the same choice as if you were in public school or you’re deciding to go to private school. Deciding to homeschool is a legal choice in our country. And so they got that right. And that’s important in the definition. So they say parents have the primary responsibility for education of their children. So we’re happy about that. It’s a big deal. It’s one of those things that can be argued about in policy where they start changing the language. But we’re really happy with that language. Brett: Yeah. And just to that, there’s in the actual the draft of the policies, you know, to give a little bit more clarity. And I think where their angle of it was and how they’re making that decision has actually helped the wider, broader audience of homeschooling. And I’ll get to that and says the education plan must be based on New South Wales curriculum, which is obvious for New South Wales, and be suitable to the child’s learning needs as identified by the applicant, which is the parent. Parents may amend the plan during a period of registration to ensure it remains fit for purpose, including to meet the needs of children with disability or additional needs and that needs to be carved out in there because not all children are created equal, but what it also does by having this, this caveat in, in that point is that you don’t necessarily even need to have special needs in your family or your household. What it does is it gives you the ability to be able to, um, yeah, fit for purpose. Right. And, and a lot of these drafts and a lot of, um, regulations that get laid down, um, whether it be in homeschooling or just in general, everyday life is there’s always nuance to the meaning and the definition of it. Unfortunately, I’ve read too many agreements and I’ve looked at all these things. And what you quite quickly find is that someone’s interpretation of that could be very different than another ten people who read it, and they all interpret it differently. So this is still very much open for interpretation, because the real question then, if you dig on that a little bit deeper and it’s like, well, what does fit for purpose even mean, right? Like there’s there’s barriers and laneways into all of that. But at a very high level, what it does for us is and again, Euka is built on this concept of flexibility, obviously, whilst we provide the entire curriculum and so forth, you know, we absolutely have that built into our product and program, where you can ideate and stretch and even remould, or even recreate a lesson if you desire, which is which is fantastic for the family. So. Ellen: Yeah, absolutely. So, so the two things that we’re really happy to see in there, that parents have the responsibility for making a choice around their program, their education program. And as you are mentioning, the flexibility for parents to be able to choose how that’s delivered to their child. And we want to see that kind of flexibility. Like you were saying, Brett, it’s really important to not see structure as an opposite to flexibility in actual fact. And we’ve talked about this before in a podcast. Having some structure allows you then to be flexible and springboard off over here and off over there, but you’re still ticking those boxes at the lowest level. Brett: So and just and just for those families who are reading that point and going, oh no, I don’t want to have the flexibility. I just want to be like, I just want a program that I can follow. I totally hear you and understand that. And again, that’s that is the beauty of a program like Euka is that there is that structure there if you need it to keep you in the, in the guardrails. But, um, the beauty about that point, though, is if you do desire to have flexibility, that is your prerogative. Ellen: Mhm. Absolutely. So this is an area now evidence of learning. That is one of the things that makes parents most nervous because especially in New South Wales you know Euka have students all around the country. So we work very closely and look very closely at what the Department of Education is doing in every state. And New South Wales is a state where there’s a lot of personal opinion. When you’ve got an authorised person who’s kind of like we used to call them, your learning coach, rather than the education police, who is someone who is actually your direct support person when you’re homeschooling. And so evidence of learning is a big one for parents. What do we actually have to provide to the department? And in some states they’re very prescriptive, like in Queensland, when they say exactly how many pieces of work and what you need to provide. New South Wales isn’t like that. And so there’s no so the actual from the draft that we can see in the frequently asked questions, which is where actually a lot of the noise has come from parents. It actually says that the department states there’s no mandatory quantity or format of evidence. It gives examples of learning, learning, journals, checklists, excursions, digital portfolios. But and broadness is wonderful. But it can also be unsettling because it then comes down to your authorised person to say, well, actually, this is too much, this isn’t enough. And so that’s where parents can start to feel a little bit like it’s shifting sand. Brett: Yeah. And the draft that states parents must keep records demonstrating how the child’s education plan is being implemented and how the requirements and any conditions of registration are being met. That’s a that’s a big sentence on the surface. It’s like, oh, it makes sense. Like you should be keeping some records and demonstration of how your child’s education is being rolled out. Um, but then there’s the how is that meeting the requirements of the registration, which when you register, you have to obviously follow a syllabus as well, which is one of the detailed points here is, you know, you must, um, follow the New South Wales syllabus, which is very important. And out of all the states, New South Wales is the only one that has its general like these guidelines around you must follow the New South Wales versus, you know, the rest of the states are happy to follow the Australian curriculum as well. So there’s a few nuances in there. But the to your point on this broadness can lead to ambiguity, which can lead to frustration, anxiety and a whole heap of different things because in certain times of need. Sometimes you just need to be. Or you want to be told exactly what to do. Like you point there around Queensland, House says, you know you need to provide this many. This many of this, this many of that. Like then you know where you are. You’re either hitting the mark or you’re not hitting the mark because where it falls back to an individual person and, you know, touchwood, everyone in the department who is, who has these AP roles, they’re doing the best that they can with what they know to be true, right? However, not everyone governs the exact same stipulations, like if they had in their rule book. That are your guidelines are there must be a submission of 23 pieces of work. Like if they’ve got that because they must have a gauge to work from if they have that, then you know I would. My personal opinion is like, how about we just share with the families going, this is a minimum requirement. Like I think having minimum baselines is a very important place to start from, because if you don’t, you have no expectation because and I say this, you know, constantly in Euka when we’re speaking to the team, it’s like if someone goes, it’s going great. I’ll be like, what does great mean? Like exactly how great, how many this, how many that, what’s this mean? Etc. So very, very important to not be lackadaisical. When is such an important outcome for a family who’s whether you’ve been in homeschooling for some time, you’ve been doing it a specific way. It might really shake up the way you’ve been doing things, because what you think might hit the mark. Now, the new regulations, under their own personal definition, whether it’s currently being hidden right or it hasn’t been shared, um, then it can lead to lead to, you know, a lot of ambiguity and possible frustration because, yeah, it’s a it’s an ungoverned thing right now. Ellen: It is. It’s actually quite stressful. I love that the homeschool community get together very quickly. They know their AP from their area. They talk on their homeschooling forums about, oh, did you know, did you have so-and-so as your AP? What did they expect? And but it’s kind of a shame that it has to be like that, that it can’t be a bit clearer. I’m certainly not one for let’s have three of those and four of those, because the flexibility is really fantastic when you’re homeschooling that you can work with your child to demonstrate them their learning in a way that fits them. And, you know, as an organisation and our role to support you as parents, that’s something we’ve really struggled with. How can we support you so that then you’ve got lots of options to show your learning. So, you know, it might be a good opportunity just to mention these new assignments that we’ve added to the program now, so that if you want to keep those as work samples, you know where the curriculum is being covered. You know, everything that you know that that you’re going to be asked and at least you’ve got that freedom to say, well, look here, I can see there’s an assignment on such and such. Actually, my child likes to do something different, but I’m going to adapt that. So, you know, like I said before, structure and flexibility can go really well together. If you’ve if you’ve got a base to move from. So it is a tricky one. And we certainly do hear some big differences between what different authorised people actually ask for. Brett: Yeah. And for those who are homeschooling and not using a platform like Euka, you know, keeping records and demonstrating how your child’s, you know, actual education plan is being implemented and met like it’s not an easy thing to try and solve for if you don’t have structure. Right from Euka’s perspective is we have the ability you can do the structured assignment air quotes that we have. Right. It’s it’s a very detail like it’s a detailed plan for that lesson that we know will absolutely be applicable and get the automatic tick of approval from any AP. Because of the way that we’ve built it and structured and so forth. You can do that. You can take photos, you can upload, you can hold it in our platform and in our portal, um, for safekeeping, because I don’t know about you, but, you know, you get paper and you’re writing on it. You’re gonna have filing cabinets and look for some people, they’re very, very diligent like that. So, um, that’s a skill I wish I had a little bit more of, but, you know, having the ease of a digital platform, you do the lesson, you click through, you’ve got the report, you can add context because that’s another thing as well. Um, you know, with our, with our reporting that we provide, um, that that comes with Euka, you can put uh, specific. So you finish the lesson is specific questions about how did you go, what did you find work this that, that. And you can add context to it because that’s what the APs are effectively looking at. Right. They’re coming to your, your home. Um, and we’ll talk about this in a minute as well because I think that’s, that’s a, um, something that needs to be discussed is they’re coming to you and saying, look, Demonstrate what you’ve done and how have you done it, and how does that then meet the curriculum? That’s where it gets. It’s not a someone’s not turning up and just showing, asking to show some work. And what have you done and drawn and pictures and this and that is it. Like but have you actually ticked the boxes that are aligned to the curriculum? Hence, you know, every lesson with, with our platform is directly connected to a specific curriculum code. And you can see that in the lesson itself. But the beauty of, again, and I don’t want us to sort of sound like a bit of a pitch fest for Euka, but it certainly is, because everything we’ve built is for these reasons, because we know all of these things that we’re going to discuss and go through. The tension that families have can be obliterated and not even there if we just sort of follow the process, you know, to be able to do each lesson, upload it at the end of the year. Yeah, well, when required, press a button. It compiles an entire report that you just hand to them and go, here you go. And they’re like, oh wow, how’d you do that? And you know, it’s it’s magic. Ellen: Absolutely. I think knowing that that comes from experience. I’ve been homeschooling in New South Wales for 12 years, and I’ve had a lot of different APs that I’ve had to work with, and so having that experience, knowing what it feels like to think, okay, someone’s coming and they’re going to have a look and they’re judging me. Um, it really is reflected in how we prepare what we do at Euka to make sure that families can feel confident in that, having been there ourselves. Brett: We’ve mentioned the word AP a handful of times, and I think now would be a good time. Can you fill in the gaps of for those who are like, I’m not sure what an AP is, I’m looking to get started or I’ve just started and I’m not sure what’s going on. Like, talk about the role of the AP as it relates to New South Wales, and then maybe provide context of that’s not the case for the rest of the country. Ellen: In New South Wales, we have an authorised person that’s in charge of your area of homeschooling and that authorised person, AP, will come and visit you. There are some APs that are very happy to meet with you at the local library or at the community centre instead of your actual house? But that’s something that you’ll be able to negotiate directly with the AP. So once you enrol in or you applied for your application to become a homeschooler, you’ll receive information back in an email back organising for that first meet up with an AP to come and see you and discuss what your plan is for homeschooling. Brett: So let me ask this, Ellen, for the for the people who are curious like do, why do they have to come to your house? Why can’t they do a zoom meeting? Do they do zoom meeting? Do they meet online? Do they do phone calls? Or does everyone have to have someone literally turn up to their place of living? Ellen: Well, that’s going to be remains to be seen with this new umbrella of the Department of Education. In the past, I’ve had them. I’ve had certain APs that need to come to my house, and other times I’ve had some that are very happy to do a zoom meeting. So it really is dependent on the person. Most of the time the APs are coming out of the mainstream school system. Sometimes they’re principals who’ve retired or teachers that have been teaching. So they’re coming with that kind of background and most in, I have never actually found an AP that’s actually come from the homeschooling background yet. That would be nice when that finally happens. But at this stage, sometimes we find that APs are coming with a lot of experience, and they’ve been and they’re really, you know, I love to think of them, like I said before, as a bit of a coach, and they’re walking alongside you with enthusiasm saying, okay, how can I support you? And that has been my experience. But I have heard from other parents that they have had an experience that is a bit more challenging, where they haven’t felt quite so supported and they’ve felt nervous. So it’s hard to know whether that’s come from the actual AP or whether it’s, you know, an internal one ourselves. But it’s always uncomfortable when something’s coming to judge what you’re doing. No one feels comfortable in that situation. Brett: That’s right. Yeah. And because of the decision itself to homeschool for the majority. Is a major decision. And it and it puts this pressure on. And people are like, am I going to get accepted. Am I not? Can you talk to that as well that we might be able to add a little bit of, um, flavour to on the. You know, it’s it’s not your final exam where, you know, you know, the likelihood of you getting, um, accepted as low. It’s actually the opposite. The likelihood of you getting accepted is, is very, very high. Obviously you have to meet many different, you know, box ticks, etc. But can you speak to that to try and like lower the temperature of some families, like really stressing out prior to the specific meeting? Ellen: If you’re stressing out about your approval, chances are you’ll be approved because you’ve already thought through. Oh, I hope my plan is good enough. So you’ve got a plan and you’ve thought through and you’ve, you know, made some decisions. You’ve got some information. You’ll be okay as long as you’ve got a plan that’s covering the New South Wales curriculum, you’ll be okay. One of the things that has been an area of concern within this draft policy, again, is, um, where they say in the policy that says a short period of registration may be recommended. Now, this isn’t new, where instead of being given your 12 months or your 24 months, sometimes in your homeschooling approval, you’re given a shorter term. And that’s concerning because of the language around that, that there’s areas of improvement that have been identified that need to be reassessed or current concerns about the child safety. So that’s some sort of very vague language that’s causing concern for parents. Like what you were just saying, Brett. It’s a very small percentage of people that are ever told, actually, you can’t homeschool like it’s, you know, less than 2% because people have got a plan. They don’t just say, I’m going to homeschool and then put click on, you know apply and off we go. They’ve done some thinking. They’ve got a plan. Uh, but sometimes we do find that people will not be given the full 12 months. And that’s where parents want to see some a bit clearer language on what those, those what areas of improvement might be meaning. Brett: Correct. And that’s that ambiguity where it’s it’s in any, any contract. There’s always the let’s keep this vague so that we could claw back something if we need to. And here’s something as well that I think is important to touch on because it’s also important not like to consider that the department is that when they’re creating policies like this, they need to try and do a catch all net. Right. And there are cases where, you know, and this is the minority of course by a lot. But there are cases where children are in households where we would probably deem probably not a great idea to be in, or hope like, you know, is not the best environment for them. Right. And this is where it can get difficult at times because these type of policies, they have to have the vagueness in there for protections. And again, I’m not speaking for the department here myself. I’m just reading through between the lines. Right. Um, but I personally if I’d sort of steelman the opposite side, if I go well, I’d want that in there simply because there needs to be these allowances. And it’s hard because a lot of people go, well, I’m not impacted. So I don’t even want to be in that classification either. I don’t want that rule applied to me. But it’s like when you’re trying to apply a rule to an entire sort of industry standard. There’s always the nuances that need to be considered. And a lot of times, unless there’s a specific stipulation directly attributed to families with specific violence or reasons as to being whether it’s not a safe environment for children. It has to be, uh, it has to be umbrella underneath a much broader, broader piece. But it still doesn’t negate that there should, I believe, be a little bit more specifics around that. Because if you give a family look, we’re going to give you three months or six months. It’s like, what exactly is the reasons for that? And what exactly must change in order to get 12 months? Right. And why wouldn’t you give me 12 months? Yeah. Um, so those there’s, there’s lots of considerations to that. Ellen: Yeah, absolutely. I think when it comes to the child safety part, we already know the authorised person coming in to check on your family is, um, a person that’s a mandatory reporter. So to have it written there like that, I don’t know. I, I know there was a case in Queensland, and the fact that I even know that there was a case in Queensland where a child was unsafe and that caused the reviewing Queensland means that it’s it’s a to to make the decision to homeschool is a big decision for a family. And you put the spotlight on yourself. And most educators who are even in mainstream school would agree that children who are in an unsafe learning environment, the parent wouldn’t do that. It’s like they’re generally there a child that’s registered in school and just don’t go, um, that those children would be far more unsafe situation than someone who’s made that decision to homeschool. Um, so that’s probably where the fear is coming from. Why is it in there? And then you’ve got an authorised person, just the one person coming and making decisions. So that brings us to the next part, which is about the review process. So if a family is given a shorter period of time, there’s no discussion in the policy about how we can get a review from an independent AP on that. That is just a line in the sand by the one AP if by a small, you know, situation that you. Have your homeschooling approval knocked back then the policy says that then another AP can then make a review. Thankfully it doesn’t end there because a peer review doesn’t make much sense. As far as, um, real clarity around a decision that’s being made. There is actually a review process after that. So, um, you know, it’s like you said, it’s it’s an unusual thing to be knocked back for your approval. You’ve really got to have no plan and no idea. And, um, you know, it’s it’s definitely what Euka is created for, to make sure that families are well supported and very confident going into their meetings with their AP. And as far as, uh, approval is concerned, we’ve never, ever had anybody who hasn’t had their approval given the stamp of approval. Brett: Mm. Absolutely. Um, so the other one is one where we were talking before about the review last year in September, the audit. Ellen: The Auditor-General’s report. Yeah. So I wanted to talk about that. So back in September of 2025 there’s a recommendation recommendation 2b. And it says that the Audit Office recommends that reform of homeschooling regulation consider expedited registration processing times to shorten transition periods. So that’s one of the recommendations that’s come through. And what we’ve seen in this new draft is that there is no special, um, expedited process for children that are really in need of, um, instant removal from school. Brett: And that’s something that. This is this is what the, the, um, draft procedure actually stipulates. Says and this is step 5.1 for those reading at home, aims to finalise the application within the indicative processing time frame of up to 12 weeks. And then it says in the draft FAQs, until your registration is approved, your child must remain enrolled at school. And this is something that, um, yeah, we have some very strong opinions around Ellen. Ellen: Yes, absolutely. Because we see that people who are true, uh, and I was going to say choosing to homeschool. Yes, sure, they’re choosing to homeschool, but many times they’re moving into homeschool because that is the safest thing for their child. You know, we know about the bullying rates and the anxiety and mental health issues and reasons why removal from school is an urgent thing, and that actually is quite common. So it’s kind of an oxymoron. So we’re choosing to homeschool when often it is really the only option at that point. Brett: Well Ellen, I’ve been doing some digging around that because, as you know, I love I love data and I like to speak to the truth as in the closest approximation, I can get to the truth governed by data and actual real life happening. So and this is something that that has really highlighted for me, where I feel that there’s, there’s something not right. Okay. And what I mean is you mentioned that, um, yeah, about bullying and so forth. So we ask every family who comes to Euka, what’s your primary reason for homeschooling? And then we have we have multiple options that people can choose. Right. Um, and again I’ll preface this by saying data is as only as good as the way in which it is collected. Okay. You can very easily create a data set that is very ambiguous and probably not accurate. By leading a specific question to get someone to choose a specific answer and I’ll I’ll say that first. But we asked directly primary reasons and then we got secondary reasons, etc. As we’ve been reporting back since 2021, you know, circa 25% of families, their primary reason is bullying. And then we add in other social element reasons. We go we go all the way up to 30 percent just for bullying and social, um, reasons and so forth. Anxiety. And so that’s our data that we’ve collected amongst a whole heap of other data points and different reasons and so forth that we’ve got as to why families homeschool and choose homeschooling. I looking at the 2025 data report from the New South Wales Government in 1st of January, 2022 to the 31st of December, are we doing calendar year here? They are reporting. Wait for this. Don’t fall off your chair. But just for those playing along at home. At this period, we reported 25%. It was about 24.7 to be exact, right. But circa 1 in 4 children. Their primary reason was bullying. The New South Wales government data says he gave reason for homeschooling. They have philosophical, religious, special learning needs, bullying, other and nil response. Those are the options you have, right? Bullying comes in at 0.68% right now. You’ve got the New South Wales government and this is probably my voice is starting to raise here because I’m getting passionate about this. But I’ll tone down. My voice is probably busting out on the podcast, but we’ve got 0.68% now. Keep in mind other comes in at 31.69% and nil response comes in at 22.91%. This is why I said the way in which you ask and collect your data is very, very important because I would have to. If I’m making an assumption on being a data analyst here, I would have to say there would be a lot of people in the other and the no response it would have to fall under bullying. Right now that’s an assumption because I don’t have the facts there. However, what the problem I have with this is that the department or the government itself is showing. So if you’re the New South Wales premier and you’re on TV and you go, oh, look, bullying rates is 0.68%, there’s no bullying. What do you mean, bullying? It’s not even a thing. Right. So and check this out. If we fast forward to January 2024 to December 24th, low and behold, the bullying rate has decreased to 0.45%. We’ve noticed an increase, which is interesting. And this is where the nail in the coffin for me and I just can’t understand this. And I need to. We need to do something about. This is from January 1st, 2025 to December 2025. The bullying rate has reduced to a staggering 0.1. You might as well say, ah, there’s no such thing as bullying, right? And if this is how they’re collecting their data one the collection method is abhorrent and it needs to be fixed because I get the concept of having other and nil. And look, there’s families who might not want to report that. And I totally get that as well. Right. But here’s where the problem is. They’re going to be looking at these reasons, right? If I’m in the department I’m like, okay guys, I’m here to reform the homeschooling unit and how homeschooling works across the country. I’m not going to go, oh, here’s an opinion. I’m going to go show me the data. Okay. Bullying 0.1. That’s great. Amazing. Okay. We probably don’t need to do too much about bullying. Right. And it sets up a series of decisions that are. Based off a very shaky, to say the least. Foundation of data collection. Right. So with their stating, in the last four years, there’s been a decline from 0.7% to 0.1. That’s a huge decrease. But that’s not what we’re seeing in our data. And again, I’m not I just want to stipulate that I’m reporting the data in which I have been able to see and view and the way in which we collect those pieces of data as well. Now, the reason why I dig in on this topic so much is the issue we have with this, and this came out of the Auditor-General’s report that families just can’t wait 12 weeks, especially if you’re one of the children who had finally, because I’ll tell you this, I would hands down, almost guaranteed the majority of families who put their child into homeschooling their child has been bullied, not yesterday, but they’ve been bullied for a very long period of time. That has now gone to a point that you can no longer continue this on. It’s gotten to a point where the mental health has declined so badly that you’re like, I’m, I’m at my last option, right? They’ve had enough and they need to make change. And we’ve got data saying this. We’ve got 12 weeks and this is in the draft policy off the back of the Auditor-General’s report. It’s almost like it fell on slightly deaf ears. Almost. It’s like to even say that we aim to finalise the application, like it says, aims to. And I get why. Because there’s not a lot of APs and there’s tens of thousands of students homeschooling. Like it’s just the math isn’t math thing when you’re trying to really put this together because it says aims to finalise the application, meaning we may or may not. You may be up to 16 weeks, you might be 20 weeks, you might be two weeks. We don’t know. But we’re going to aim to have it done. And again, this is not a I’m not trying to push at the APs themselves either, or trying to do the best they can. And I could only imagine, you know, these visits for, for a lot of absolutely exhilarating and they love it. But it’s slow to go from house to house to house. You know, you go from probably three visits locally when you could do probably 20 on a zoom, 30, 50 a day on a zoom meeting. Right. Um, which could expedite it. I spoke about this with the Auditor-General’s report. It’s like a solution is quite easy, is let’s just say you give them a temporary a temporary registration pass. And when your AP can actually catch up to go and visit them, they might have already been homeschooling for 12 weeks, and they’ve already done a complete term versus sitting in limbo. Because I’ll tell you what, as a parent, the last thing I would ever do is want to put my child back into an environment that I need them to be removed from. And then it says here, and this is the I’ll, I’ll wrap up on this point, Ellen, until your registration is approved, your child must remain enrolled at school. Now, let me ask you this, Ellen, because I’m not one for breaking rules. I’m not one. I’m always I’m always looking at the nuance of how something says. Does that specifically mean like they can remain at school but can under these rules or under this draft because you can still be enrolled at school, but you’re just not turning up the school and you can start your homeschooling, talk to talk to that nuance. Ellen: Yeah. So this is another area where they’re frequently asked questions of the draft policy come into effect. So can my child exit school? Um, and the response is no, you need to stay in school unless given permission by the principal. Now, this is where the problem is. A principal is not in a position most of the time to be able to say, oh, you’ve been bullied, okay. Because it’s their job to ensure there’s no bullying. So the only option they’ve got to legally do what the department has said here is to go to the principal and say, we’d like to remove the student because they’ve been bullied and they’re having a mental health crisis or whatever’s going on, we need to remove them immediately. And the principal has to say, not a problem at all. Here’s an exemption, which means, yes, you’re not in. You’re still enrolled in the school, but you don’t have to go. That’s a really. Some principals are wonderful and they’ll say yes, you know, if that’s what your child needs, that’s what we’ll do and will support you in that. And we do hear that because more and more principals are educated now about what homeschooling can look like. But sometimes you hit a principal that doesn’t have any idea what homeschooling can look like. And they think that it means no schooling, you know, and so they are very opposed to homeschooling. So it just depends, you know, who you get. Um, the most important thing to know here is, um, a doctor certificate or a psychologist or a counsellor can support you in getting that exemption and taking your child out. It’s very important to know that your that you don’t have to be a passive passenger. And if your child is at risk, you need to act. Brett: Yeah. Great. And I stay steadfast on that. Your child is the most important thing. Not what the school says or doesn’t say either. But to your point, Ellen, you know, um, I always give benefit of the doubt. And of course, there’s lots of schools out there and principals that totally understand we’re in a world now where you as a parent, you need to look after the most important thing and that’s your children. And, uh, if you are in a position where you’re extreme, you because we get feedback and this is coming from lots of pieces of feedback that we get and lots of, um, you know, from families who are asking questions, you know, saying, look, I want to start now, but I’m not registered, can I what should I do? And the advice there is go and speak directly to your principal. Let them know that look, I fear for whatever reasons, x, y, z, um, and based on these decisions and the mental health of my child, we are removing them from the school currently. And we request from you written permission that we, uh, we get an exemption right now whilst we undertake because whilst removing my child from the scenario, it’s not like you’re going to put them on a six week holiday per se. It’s like you want to continue their learning on and then you can you can go and have that. So when the time comes and you do have a visit, you’ll be able to show that here’s the exemption, etc.. Ellen: And you know one thing that would be helpful, actually two things that popped into my mind there is sometimes when you go to a principal with an exemption, what the feedback we’ve had is if you can go with an education plan. So a lot of the families that join Euka are without yet having been approved, which is a lot of families will join Euka prior because they need that plan anyway. When they’re registering, they’ll take that with them. The scope and sequence or educational learning. Plan with them to the principal and say, we need an exemption. Here’s what we’re going to do. And going with something like that just means that the principal can feel comfortable because, you know, he has a legal responsibility when you’re on his books as one of his students or her students. So you want to be able to help them make the decision for that exemption. So taking a plan is very helpful. The other thing is, you know, yes, you want your child to be able to, you know, move out of the school system and have a plan in place. It doesn’t mean from the first week that we would even dream of expecting that your child jumps straight in and starts doing their homeschooling plans straight away. There is a time that is needed for a child to be able to just decompress after going through that kind of stressful environment, but what we have found is that if there is some an education that’s there for them to be able to go on with at lessons and additional stress that can happen when they are removed from school. All of a sudden they see their peers moving forward. And that can actually heighten the fear and the anxiety that the child is having. So knowing that, yes, you know, here’s your lessons. These are the same topics that are being done in school that can just give them a, ah, while they’re taking that time to get the support that they need and the mental health support they’ve got, that educational foundation that gives them security. Brett: And a nuance to that as well. Ellen. And for those families who are like, well, my child isn’t being bullied and there are no sort of social reasons as to why we just want to change in our life. And we’d like to make that change now. It’s been the school holidays. We’ve thought about it, we’ve sat down, we’ve been considering it for some time. We’ve but we’ve we’ve stayed at school. And now’s the time to make the decision. The last thing you want to do as a family as well go. You know what? I’m going to put our entire life on hold for 12 weeks until we get a registration. Ellen: But if your child hasn’t had any issues, going to the principal and saying, look, this is what we would like to do, they’re usually okay with that too. So don’t think that there has to be a problem. There’s more and more people saying, you know what, we just would like to take a little bit more of an active role in our child’s education. It’s not unusual now. So that’s something you can. Brett: Yeah. And something we find as well

This episode delivers good news for parents, whether you’re already homeschooling or still considering it: the research is on your side. Homeschooled kids tend to do as well as or better than their peers, both socially and academically. Dr Rebecca English has spent 15 years studying homeschooling, and she also homeschools her own children. She is one of Australia’s most respected researchers in home education. In this episode, Dr Rebecca and Ellen dive into key things that allow homeschooled children to succeed. This includes giving children a say in how they learn, the freedom to stay with a topic until it clicks, and the choice to lean into what genuinely interests them. Meet Dr Rebecca English, home education researcher Rebecca did not set out to research home education. Her first degree was in business, majoring in advertising, and she moved into teaching after deciding advertising was not for her. She taught in schools serving low socioeconomic communities, then completed a PhD on international students in Australian secondary schools. While pregnant with her first child, she discovered homeschooling was an option in Australia. She proposed it to her university as a research topic and began interviewing families in 2011. Her perspective matters to a parent weighing this up because she can speak from both sides. She has read the studies, and she has homeschooled her own children. In the full episode, she gets specific about the parts families worry about most. What the research actually shows about social and academic outcomes and the importance of agency for successful learning. Key points from this episode Why homeschooled students do as well as or better than their mainstream-schooled peers. Homeschooled students actually can go to university. Agency is a child’s ability to control their own learning experience. Why agency is important for intrinsic motivation. Running the day based on tasks not time. Parent engagement is one of the strongest predictors of educational success. Homeschooling allows a child to work towards mastery. Teachers are leaving mainstream school for the same reasons students are. What the research says about homeschooled children’s academic outcomes This is the part most parents want and rarely get straight. Rebecca’s answer is that the research shows homeschooled young people are advantaged both socially and academically. The size of that advantage varies. At one end of the range, the effect is mild, and schooling and homeschooling make little measurable difference. At the other end, homeschooled students are clearly ahead of their mainstream schooled peers. The evidence comes from meta-analyses, which pool the findings of every available study on a topic. Across the key learning areas, homeschooled students tend to do as well as or better than their peers in school. Maths sometimes trails English and the social sciences, but in the main these young people are outperforming their mainstream schooled peers. Our guide to whether homeschooling is as high quality as traditional school covers this topic in more detail. Homeschooled students can still go to university Rebecca names university entry as the second misconception, and her answer is direct. Homeschooled students can go to university, and there are many ways in. The example she gives is vocational. At the university where she works, a Certificate IV in any subject is enough to be accepted into teaching, which means the pathway does not depend on an ATAR. Our guide to how homeschooling affects university admissions sets out the Australian pathways in detail. Why homeschooled students tend to do better Two things in the conversation explain the pattern, and neither is about the curriculum. The first is parent engagement. Engagement with a parent is one of the best predictors of educational success we have, and no cohort is more engaged than a parent sitting down one-to-one with their own child. Rebecca’s example is a child stuck on squared numbers. A parent can trace it back to shaky times tables, fix that, and then explain that the small two does not mean multiply by two. Then they can keep going, because no bell is going to end the lesson. The second is mastery. In a timetabled day, a subject stops after 70 minutes regardless of where a child is up to. “We work towards mastery in homeschooling. We don’t work towards mastery in school. After 70 minutes, maths stops mattering.”– Dr. Rebecca English At home there is no rule about how long anything takes. If geography is going well, there is no reason to stop at Australia’s capitals; you could move on to other countries. On the other hand, if a particular topic is not working, you can leave it and come back to it later. More on this in our guide to learning at your own pace. Does homeschooling affect social skills? What the research says Socialisation is the other half of what Rebecca describes as advantaged, and it is the misconception she hears most often. Some of it comes down to how safe a child feels asking a question. As Rebecca puts it, admitting you do not know your eight times tables at home is not shameful, because there is nobody to be embarrassed in front of. Ellen’s experience matches, and she is direct that there is no environment as nurturing as home. Families often arrive worried that a child is a year behind in a subject, which is a strange idea in homeschooling, because a child is simply where they are. Once that child is free to say they do not understand something, they frequently go scooting ahead. What Ellen values most is the change in children’s beliefs about themselves. A child who has decided they are hopeless at maths has usually just missed some steps. That belief is no longer set by who else is in the room. As Ellen puts it, these children are no longer limited by who is in their class or by what a teacher thinks they are capable of. More on this in our guide to homeschool socialisation. What learning agency means, and why it drives motivation Agency is an academic word for something most parents already understand. Rebecca defines it as your ability to control your world and your surroundings, which in education means your learning experience. Her view is that this has been steadily withdrawn. Over the past two decades, curriculum and teaching methods have both been overly centralised and standardised. “When we’re talking about agency in an academic sense, what we mean is your ability to control your world and your surroundings. And in terms of education, it’s your learning experiences.”– Dr. Rebecca English The reason it matters is motivation. Intrinsic motivation is what gets a child to start something difficult that they do not particularly feel like doing, and Rebecca’s believes that control and choice feed it directly. Tasks, not time: how to give a homeschooled child some say over their day The practical version is simple enough to try this week. Rather than running the day by the clock, you agree what needs to be done and let the child have some say in the order and the pace. Her recommendation is to set out the work for the day and leave how they arrange their time up to them. Ellen recognises the pattern from her own parenting. The moment you tell a child they have to do something, it becomes the last thing they want to do. Give them the same list with room to move, and it tends to get done. Choice can also sit inside the learning itself. Rebecca gives the example of a child who must cover algebra but can do so through something they care about, whether that is cooking, bikes, or anything else. At Euka, this shows up in how a lesson is built. Alongside the content, there is usually a hands-on activity, a digital activity and a downloadable sheet, so a child has some say in how they learn something and how they show what they know. The same applies at the weekly level. Families can follow a week plan that moves across subjects, or a subject plan that lets a child stay with science for three weeks if that is where their interest is. Why working to tasks prepares children for real workplaces Schools run on time. Most workplaces now run on tasks. Rebecca’s example is that if you finish your work early while working from home, nobody minds if you put a load of laundry on. The work is done, and that is what is being measured. Her conclusion is that in many ways homeschooling prepares a child better for the world we live in. It reframes one of the most common objections families hear: what happens when the child gets to the real world. A child who has spent years managing their own workload against deadlines has been practising the exact skill most jobs require. Our guide to how homeschooling prepares children for the real world goes through the other skills that carry across. How to give choice to a child coming out of school Ellen raises the obvious complication. A child arriving from school may have had very little say in anything, and handing them a blank day is not a plan. Rebecca’s answer is that it is gradual, and she compares it to teaching a child to ride a bike. You hold on, you hold on, and eventually you let go. She names three things that help in the meantime. Allow time to adjust to a workflow that is not organised around a bell, target learning towards things the child is genuinely interested in, and set some limits on screen time. In her own house, free time does not start until half past three, and only if the day’s tasks are finished. A child can do them first thing in the morning or half an hour before the deadline, and either is fine. Some children need a deadline to get moving. Others prefer to start immediately and clear it. The point is that they learn which one they are. When an anxious child needs to settle before starting schoolwork For many families, the first stretch is not about workload at all. Rebecca notes that school refusal is strongly correlated with anxiety and neurodivergence, so many children arrive carrying a good deal of stress. A significantly anxious child is not going to move straight into formal lessons that look like school. What they need first is space and time to heal after a very stressful experience. She is direct that it does not have to look like school. Older, more integrated models have a lot to offer, where a child interested in bikes can reach maths, science, English and history through that one subject. She is equally clear that this is not something to manage alone. Government data shows that neurodivergence is more common among homeschooled children than in the school population, so working with psychologists and therapists matters. Our guides to special needs homeschooling and homeschooling with ADHD go further into the practical side, and our episode on school refusal covers what sits underneath it. If that is where your family is right now, our parent’s guide to school refusal in Australia walks through the options, and bullying and homeschooling covers the case where that is the trigger. Why teachers are leaving the profession, and how it connects to school refusal The conversation then turns to a group nobody applies this lens to. Rebecca points out that teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and her reading is that many are unhappy for the same reasons the children are. As she puts it, we do not talk about teachers as school refusing, or as “school can’t”, but in many ways they are. They are just as anxious as the young people in their care. She traces it back to agency. Teachers have lost the capacity to shape learning around the children actually in front of them, which is the one thing home educators can still do. That takes her somewhere unexpected. If a government genuinely wanted fewer families choosing home education, she argues the answer is not aimed at families at all: re-engage teachers with their classes and give them room to manage learning the way home educators do. She is careful not to lay this at the feet of schools or teachers. The settings have narrowed for everyone inside them, and her view is that teachers would do this differently if they could. Ellen notes the ground is already shifting. In Queensland, education authorities now meet with homeschooling families regularly and ask how they can support them, and families there describe the relief of no longer feeling like the educational police are on their back. We have covered the student side of this in far more detail elsewhere. School refusal: unlocking the potential of homeschooling for anxious learners looks at what changes when an anxious child comes home, and our earlier episode asking whether you should force a child to go to school sits alongside it. What a good education means, according to a home education researcher Ellen closes by asking Rebecca for her own definition. Her answer is to meet a child in the moment, and to understand that those are just moments and that those moments will change. It is about showing a young person how to love learning. She does not believe there is a child who cannot learn something, and she has a story that explains why. While teaching a certificate class, she was writing her master’s thesis, and one student, the one flagged on the roll as the hardest to teach, asked what she was working on. She explained the theory she was using: that your life experiences prepare you to succeed in some settings and not others, so some children arrive at school with what that setting rewards and some do not. The student immediately connected it to his own life and moved into a genuinely thoughtful account of his own path through school. This was a child who could barely write his own name, engaging with philosophical thought. “There is no young person who can’t learn. We just need to communicate with them in the right way. And that’s what education is, it’s communication.”– Dr Rebecca English Questions answered in this episode Is homeschooling better than school? + The research Rebecca cites points that way on average. Homeschooled students do as well or better than their mainstream schooled peers, socially and academically. She is careful about the size of that advantage, which ranges from negligible to large depending on the study. The two things she credits are parent engagement and the freedom to work towards mastery. Do homeschooled students perform better? + Meta-analyses show homeschooled students performing as well as or better than their mainstream schooled peers across the learning areas. The size of the advantage varies between studies. Does homeschooling affect social skills? + Rebecca names socialisation as one of the two biggest misconceptions about home education. Her reading of the research is that these young people are advantaged socially as well as academically. Can homeschoolers go to university in Australia? + Yes, and Rebecca is clear there are many pathways in. She gives the example of a Certificate IV in any subject being enough to be accepted into teaching at the university where she works. Why do homeschooled children tend to do better? + Two reasons come up in the episode. Parent engagement is one of the best predictors of educational success, and homeschooling allows a child to work towards mastery rather than stopping when a bell rings. What does “agency” mean in education? + It is a child’s ability to control their own learning: the order in which they work, how they use their time, and, where possible, how they approach a topic. Rebecca ties this directly to intrinsic motivation. How much choice should I give my child? + Enough that they are managing something, and not so much that the day has no shape. The usual starting point is to assign what has to be done and let the child decide when and in what order. My child has never had a say in how they learn. Where do I start? + Slowly. Allow time to adjust to a day that is not run by a bell, focus the learning on things they are actually interested in, and set some limits on screens while the habit forms. What if my child finishes their work in two hours? + That is normal, because the day is no longer padded with bells, recess, lunch, library and handing out sheets. The measure is whether the work is done, not how long it took. Our guide to how many hours a day you should spend homeschooling gives typical ranges by grade. Does this work for an anxious or neurodivergent child? + It can, but Rebecca is clear that the first stretch should focus on settling rather than academics, and that families should work alongside psychologists or therapists where needed. Why this episode matters For a parent lying awake, wondering whether they are doing the right thing, this episode offers something specific to hold on to. The research on social and academic outcomes points one way, and the reasons behind it are not mysterious. A child who has some say in how they learn, works alongside an engaged parent, and isn’t cut short by a bell tends to do well. It also gives families an answer to the two questions asked most often, about socialisation and about university. Start the free homeschooling course If this episode has you thinking about what your own week could look like, our Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling covers registering legally in your state, choosing and structuring a curriculum, building a daily rhythm, supporting a child who learns differently, and knowing your child is progressing. It is nine short video modules, about two and a half hours, hosted by Brett and Ellen. Free and self-paced. Start the free homeschooling course Related episodes. Do I need to be a teacher to homeschool? and Preparing your children for the real world. Related reading. Our guide to the signs a child is struggling at school. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "alternateName": "Euka", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/themes/euka/assets/images/euka-future-learning-logo.svg" }, "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717947259", "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC", "https://www.youtube.com/@eukafuturelearning" ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-AU" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown", "name": "Ellen Brown", "jobTitle": "Founder & Head of Education", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#rebecca-english", "name": "Dr Rebecca English", "description": "Home education researcher who has studied homeschooling families since 2011 and homeschools her own children." }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#primaryimage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Ep-52-_-The-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-_-Thumbnail-_-16_9-1.png", "contentUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Ep-52-_-The-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-_-Thumbnail-_-16_9-1.png", "width": 1920, "height": 1080 }, { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series", "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "webFeed": "https://euka.edu.au/podcast/", "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717947259", "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC" ] }, { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#video", "name": "The Social and Academic Advantages of Homeschooling | 052", "description": "Ellen Brown talks with Dr Rebecca English, a home education researcher who has studied homeschooling families since 2011, about what the research actually shows on social and academic outcomes, parent engagement, mastery, and giving a child agency over their own learning.", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Ep-52-_-The-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-_-Thumbnail-_-16_9-1.png", "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aIE4s2NLLmc/maxresdefault.jpg" ], "uploadDate": "2026-09-01", "duration": "PT34M26S", "contentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIE4s2NLLmc", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/aIE4s2NLLmc", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "AudioObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#audio", "name": "The Social and Academic Advantages of Homeschooling | 052", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "duration": "PT34M26S", "contentUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIE4s2NLLmc", "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/id1717947259?i=1000787085345", "https://open.spotify.com/episode/55yc6xfePil8B0NpFEn1jM" ] }, { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#episode", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/", "name": "The Social and Academic Advantages of Homeschooling | 052", "episodeNumber": 52, "datePublished": "2026-09-01", "dateModified": "2026-09-01", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "partOfSeries": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series" }, "associatedMedia": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#audio" }, "video": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#video" }, "author": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" }, "actor": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#rebecca-english" } ], "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "image": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#primaryimage" }, "description": "Ellen Brown talks with Dr Rebecca English, a home education researcher who has studied homeschooling families since 2011, about what the research actually shows. Rebecca explains why homeschooled students tend to do as well as or better than their mainstream-schooled peers, why that is not really about curriculum, and how giving a child agency over their own learning drives motivation.", "abstract": "Dr Rebecca English, a home education researcher who has studied homeschooling families since 2011 and homeschools her own children, tells Ellen Brown that the research shows homeschooled students are advantaged both socially and academically compared with their mainstream-schooled peers, though the size of that advantage varies by study. She credits two factors: parent engagement, one of the strongest predictors of educational success, and the freedom to work towards mastery rather than stopping a subject when a timetabled lesson ends. Rebecca explains agency, a child's ability to control their own learning experience, as the key driver of intrinsic motivation, and describes how families can hand a child more say by setting tasks rather than fixed times. She also notes that school refusal is strongly correlated with anxiety and neurodivergence, and that teachers are leaving the profession for many of the same reasons students are struggling in mainstream classrooms.", "timeRequired": "PT34M26S", "keywords": "advantages of homeschooling, is homeschooling better, do homeschooled students perform better, homeschool socialisation, can homeschoolers go to university, homeschooling research, Rebecca English, Future Learners Podcast", "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling academic outcomes" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Learning agency and motivation" } ], "mentions": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Agency", "description": "Rebecca's term for a child's ability to control their own learning experience, including the order and pace of tasks, which she ties directly to intrinsic motivation." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Tasks not time", "description": "Rebecca's practical framework for giving a child agency: setting out what needs to be done for the day and letting the child decide the order and pace, rather than running the day by the clock." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Working towards mastery", "description": "Rebecca's observation that homeschooling lets a family keep going on a subject until it is understood, unlike a timetabled school day where a subject stops after a fixed period regardless of progress." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Teachers as school refusers", "description": "Rebecca's argument that teachers are leaving the profession for similar reasons to why students struggle in mainstream school, having lost agency over how they teach the children in front of them." } ], "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#webpage" } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#faq", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#webpage" }, "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is homeschooling better than school?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The research Rebecca cites points that way on average. Homeschooled students do as well as or better than their mainstream schooled peers, both socially and academically. She is careful about the size of that advantage, which ranges from negligible to large depending on the study, and credits two things: parent engagement and the freedom to work towards mastery." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Do homeschooled students perform better?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Meta-analyses show homeschooled students performing as well as or better than their mainstream schooled peers across the learning areas. The size of the advantage varies between studies." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does homeschooling affect social skills?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Rebecca names socialisation as one of the two biggest misconceptions about home education. Her reading of the research is that homeschooled young people are advantaged socially as well as academically." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can homeschoolers go to university in Australia?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, and Rebecca is clear there are many pathways in. She gives the example of a Certificate IV in any subject being enough to be accepted into teaching at the university where she works." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why do homeschooled children tend to do better?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Two reasons come up in the episode. Parent engagement is one of the best predictors of educational success, and homeschooling allows a child to work towards mastery rather than stopping when a bell rings." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What does "agency" mean in education?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It is a child's ability to control their own learning: the order in which they work, how they use their time, and, where possible, how they approach a topic. Rebecca ties this directly to intrinsic motivation." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How much choice should I give my child?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Enough that they are managing something, and not so much that the day has no shape. The usual starting point is to assign what has to be done and let the child decide when and in what order." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "My child has never had a say in how they learn. Where do I start?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Slowly. Allow time to adjust to a day that is not run by a bell, focus the learning on things they are actually interested in, and set some limits on screens while the habit forms." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What if my child finishes their work in two hours?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "That is normal, because the day is no longer padded with bells, recess, lunch, library, and handing out sheets. The measure is whether the work is done, not how long it took." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does this work for an anxious or neurodivergent child?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It can, but Rebecca is clear that the first stretch should focus on settling rather than academics, and that families should work alongside psychologists or therapists where needed." } } ] }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "The Social and Academic Advantages of Homeschooling | 052", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/" } ] }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#webpage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/", "name": "The Social and Academic Advantages of Homeschooling | 052", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#primaryimage" }, "datePublished": "2026-09-01", "dateModified": "2026-09-01", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/the-social-and-academic-advantages-of-homeschooling-052/#episode" }, "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling academic outcomes" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Learning agency and motivation" } ] } ] } The post The Social and Academic Advantages of Homeschooling | 052 appeared first on Euka.

If you are considering homeschooling, have just started and are feeling overwhelmed, or have been at it a while and hit something unexpected, this episode is about finding support and navigating the questions and challenges that may arise. Most families come to Euka for the thing that sits at the centre of homeschooling: the curriculum. As Australia’s largest online K-12 homeschooling provider, we cover the full range of grades, and our team is where families bring their questions about lessons, progression, reporting and getting registered. Alongside that sits a different kind of help. The Home Education Association is an independent, volunteer-run member body offering advocacy with state authorities, local community connections, member resources and work experience insurance. Many Euka families are also HEA members. This episode covers both. How to choose between a structured program and building your own, and what to do if your school resists letting your child go. It also covers how children rebuild their confidence socially, which is often what brings experienced families looking for answers. Ellen Brown talks it through with Tina Smith, who homeschooled six of her own children and now helps other families through the same problems as Treasurer of the Home Education Association. Her sixth child is now at university. Meet Tina Smith Tina is Treasurer of the Home Education Association, a volunteer-run member organisation that supports homeschooling families across Australia. She is answering from both sides. She has been the parent working it out across six children, and through HEA she has helped other families through the same problems: getting a family registered, working through the options with a parent who had been told homeschooling was her only remaining choice, and helping a family rebuild their child’s social confidence after they left school. In the full episode, she gets specific about the practical parts. Which office to contact when a school will not release your child, what a structured program is genuinely good for, and the work experience insurance most families do not know is available. Key Points Key discussion points: Tina recommends Euka to families who want structure. Asked what she tells a family looking for a structured program, her answer is direct: go to Euka. Schools vary. Some actively recommend homeschooling. Others resist releasing a child at all. If a school resists, you have another avenue. State education departments and their home education units have become more open to helping families register. A structured program does a specific job. It is often what families use while a child settles; it is also helpful if you’re considering putting your child back into mainstream school down the line. Bullying is often a symptom. Underneath it, there is frequently a diagnosis or an unmet need the school setting could not accommodate. Social confidence can be rebuilt. Interest-based groups place a child among people who have chosen to be there, across a range of ages. Work experience insurance starts earlier than most families expect. Insurance is usually a key obstacle, and HEA covers members from age 12. Where families can find homeschooling support The questions Tina hears open in much the same way. Where do I find information? How do I start? I am overwhelmed because there is so much out there. And underneath them, the one that carries the most weight: I am a parent, and I have no idea what I am doing. Her approach with a new family is to hand over two or three things to look at rather than sending them off to survey everything. That matters because there are no guarantees. Every child is different, every family dynamic is different, and what works well for one child may not suit yours. Ellen’s own start was much the same, with everyone she met certain their way was the right one. What she took from it is that there are many great ways to do this, and that in the end, you are the only one who will know the right fit for your child. Tina names the comparison trap directly. “You look at a family and go, oh, I wish I could do that. But that’s not your family. So you have to work out your own rhythm, and the resources that work for you.”— Tina Smith, Treasurer, Home Education Association Finding a homeschooling community Tina points new families towards other homeschoolers, as connecting with other families is how you start to see the breadth of what is out there, and what works and what does not. Local support groups are the usual route in, and the Home Education Association runs homeschool community groups by area. Our guide to forming a community with other homeschoolers covers how families do it in practice. What if the school pushes back when you withdraw your child? Tina has seen it go both ways. She describes one family in which the school and the education department worked through the alternatives, found none viable, and told the parent directly that homeschooling was the right path. She also sees the opposite happen. Some schools do not accept homeschooling as a legitimate option, and some see releasing a child as a matter of authority rather than a family’s decision. In her experience, it can get quite heated. Who to contact when the school says no The school is not your only avenue. State education departments and the home education units within them have become more open to helping families who are being obstructed, and they can intervene. As Tina puts it, it comes down to knowing who to talk to. HEA publishes state-by-state registration information, and its advocacy work is currently focused on making registration a smoother experience with each state authority. Ellen adds the reframe worth holding onto. Choosing homeschooling is in the same category as choosing a public school, a private school, or distance education. It is a choice you are entitled to make as a parent. If the difference between those pathways is still unclear, our episode on homeschooling versus distance education sets them side by side, and our guide to whether homeschooling is legal in Australia covers the registration requirement. Structured program, or build your own? Some families arrive certain they could never write their own program, and a structured one removes that worry. If that sounds familiar, our episode with a teacher trainer on what actually makes a good teacher is worth a listen, since the answer has very little to do with formal qualifications. Tina also sees families use a structured program for another reason: to help steady a child. Time to reassess, re-ground them, and settle their emotional state. In her experience, those families often return to school afterwards, which is a legitimate outcome rather than a failure. Asked what she tells a family in that position, her answer is direct. “If you want to use a program that is structured, go to Euka.”— Tina Smith, Treasurer, Home Education Association The example she gives is a family who arrived from another country, were not confident with an English curriculum, and needed something structured while they moved between states for work. She recommended them to Euka. They kept using it as they changed states, and when they eventually moved back overseas, they did so knowing their children’s education had been properly covered. That continuity is the point. A complete K-12 curriculum means a family can move house, change states, or travel without the program restarting, and Ellen notes that families use it either way: some take the full program, others take a subject or two as their foundation and build the rest themselves. Cover the base, then add your own Tina built her own program at first. By the time her children reached the middle years, she was less confident, so she bought a program that covered the foundation skills and added her own material on top. This option worked well for her family, as they layered in what her children were actually interested in, which, for her family, was the part that mattered most. She is clear that this depends entirely on the child. Her children were academically inclined, and she knows families with very creative children for whom that same core-work approach did not work. A prescribed curriculum is useful. Being able to flex it is better, because it opens up everything else: nature, museums, libraries, the internet, and the history and geography a family picks up while travelling. Ellen adds that the curriculum is the base, not everything. Why more families are homeschooling for bullying and neurodivergence Ellen asks about bullying, noting a significant increase in students coming in because of it. Tina confirms she is seeing the same and then adds more context. Bullying happens for many reasons. As Tina puts it, it could be racism, health, disability, or just because you exist. Our guide to the signs your child may be struggling at school covers what this can look like before it becomes obvious. She describes bullying as a big proportion of the calls. Still, she says an even bigger one now comes from families whose children are managing a diagnosis such as autism or ADHD. Our tips for homeschooling with ADHD go further into the practical side of this. What those parents describe is the social side of school becoming overwhelming, in ways the setting could not accommodate. Ellen draws out the consequences of how this gets reported. Bullying and school refusal are the labels the media reaches for, but they are frequently the visible end of something else. A child managing anxiety or autism inside a system that cannot flex will often find that school becomes very difficult. Read that way, school refusal describes a setting that is not a good fit for that child, at that time. Withdrawal, in Tina’s account, buys back what was missing: time to stop, regroup, and learn to manage emotions and triggers in a safe place. Two episodes cover this from the family’s side. Episode 43 follows a mother who left school-based bullying behind, and Episode 45 specifically addresses school refusal. Episode 23 is one mother’s account of homeschooling with dyslexia, ASD and ADHD. How homeschooled children build social confidence The worry that stops families here is that leaving school means leaving socialising behind. The episode answers it with a worked example. Tina describes a family whose child was not fitting in socially at school. They withdrew, then rebuilt from what the child actually liked: art and board games. The child joined a board games group and an art class, and the parent enrolled in the art class alongside them. That produced an environment the classroom rarely does. The child was learning alongside adults, so they practised interacting with older people. In the board games group, they were among children of different ages, so they learned to build relationships with peers of different ages. The parent went along too, joining the art classes, which meant the child was building these skills somewhere they already felt safe. Tina’s point is that these skills travel. A child who has learned to interact with people of different ages carries that into a workplace or a course, along with the ability to recognise a trigger and step away from it. Ellen adds the observation that reframes the whole concern. “When you’re in school, your friends are only your friends because they happen to be the same age. That’s why you’re in that group.”— Ellen Brown Adult life does not work that way. You find people through shared interest, and you choose them. For a child who has been struggling, being good at something in front of people who care about it can be a platform they have not had before. Ellen also names something she saw as a teacher. In a classroom, the child who disrupts an activity is often the one with no interest in it, and the cost falls on the interested child. More on this in our guides to homeschool socialisation and special needs homeschooling. Other support available to homeschooling families There is more homeschooling support out there than most families realise, including free resources. It helps to know who handles what. Euka covers the curriculum and everything attached to it, with lots of free resources available for families: choosing a program, the lessons themselves, tracking progression, reporting, enrolment and your account. Our Help Centre answers the day-to-day questions, and the support team is there for anything it does not. If registration paperwork is the sticking point, our Registration Service prepares the learning plan and documents your state requires, ready for you to submit. HEA is a great complementary resource: independent advocacy with state authorities, local community connections, member resources and work experience insurance. Tina notes that HEA has been working alongside Euka and other organisations to make registration a smoother experience with the state bodies. The Home Education Association runs a free national helpline on 1300 72 99 91, weekdays 9 am to 5 pm. Callers speak with experienced homeschoolers, and the call covers registration, re-registration, and issues with the state department you are registered with. That is worth knowing about whether or not you ever join anything. Membership adds a set of teaching and learning resources on top of that, including software and reading materials for younger children. The current list is on HEA’s member benefits page. Some of their resources will add additional value for Euka families. Ellen picks out one example on air: Story Box Library, HEA’s reading resource for younger children, works well with Euka’s bring-your-own-novel option, where a family swaps the term’s set novel for a different book while keeping the same skills work. One item is worth calling out because so few families know it exists. Work experience placements usually stall on insurance, since an unpaid student is not covered by an employer’s policy. Some state education departments offer their own coverage, though Tina notes that in certain states it only starts at age 14. HEA covers members from age 12, across all states, with an agreement signed by the parent and the supervising employer. Details are on their insurance page. Ellen’s point is that this opens up something school-rationed. She had one week of work experience in Grade 10. A homeschooled student who wants to try several different workplaces during their senior years can, and our episode on when to do work experience covers how to time it well. Questions answered in this episode How do I start homeschooling in Australia? + You register with the education authority in your state or territory, then choose how your child will learn: a structured program, your own plan, or a mix. Requirements differ by state, so check yours first. Our guide to homeschooling in Australia covers registration, and our episode on registration and reporting goes through it in detail. Where can I get homeschooling help and advice in Australia? + Start with whoever provides your curriculum, since most day-to-day questions are really program questions. Euka families have the support team, the Help Centre and our free homeschooling course, which walks through registering, structuring a program and building a daily rhythm. For the things that sit outside a curriculum, the Home Education Association runs a free national helpline on 1300 72 99 91, staffed by experienced homeschoolers, covering advocacy, re-registration and disputes with the state department you are registered with. How do I find a homeschool community or support group near me? + Local homeschool community groups and support groups are the usual starting point, and they are worth joining early. Tina’s point is that meeting other homeschooling families shows the range of what actually works, rather than assuming the first approach you saw is the only one. Can a school refuse to let me withdraw my child for homeschooling? + Some resist. If that happens, the school is not your only avenue: contact your state education department or its home education unit, both of which have become more willing to step in. HEA can tell you which office to approach. Should I use a structured program or build my own? + Both work, and the choice depends on your child. A structured program suits families who want the core covered without having to write it themselves, and Tina’s approach was to buy a program for the foundation skills and add her children’s interests on top. Will my child miss out socially if we leave school? + Not necessarily. School groups children by age, whereas interest-based activities group them by their choices across a range of ages. The catch is that it does not happen on its own, so you will need to put one or two regular activities in place. Does homeschooling work for a child with ADHD or autism? + It is one of the biggest reasons families are now calling HEA. The value is the ability to adjust the pace and social load in ways a classroom cannot, and to spend the first stretch on regulation rather than academics. My child is being bullied. Is homeschooling the answer? + It removes the immediate problem, which is sometimes exactly what a child needs. Tina’s caution is to look at what sat underneath the bullying as well, because an unmet need travels with the child if it goes unaddressed. Can homeschooled students do work experience? + Yes, and often earlier than in school. Insurance is the usual obstacle since employers do not cover unpaid students, and HEA covers its members from age 12 across all states with a signed work experience agreement. Why this episode matters This episode is for the practical questions that arrive when you’re considering or starting out homeschooling: what to do when a school will not let your child go, whether to use a structured program or build your own, and how a child who struggled socially at school starts to rebuild. The answers are specific. Which office to contact when the school digs in, what a structured program is genuinely good for, and why a board games group did more for one child’s confidence than the classroom did. It maps out how to find support and build confidence in your homeschooling decisions. More support for getting started If you want to go further on the questions this episode raises, these are the places to start. The free course. Our Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling covers registering legally in your state, choosing and structuring a curriculum, building a daily rhythm, supporting a child who learns differently, and knowing your child is progressing. It is a set of nine short video modules, hosted by Brett and Ellen, free and self-paced. Start the free course. If you enrol with Euka. Our Registration Service prepares the learning plan and registration documents your state requires, ready for you to download and submit. It is an optional add-on for enrolled families, not a general registration service. Reach HEA directly. The free helpline is 1300 72 99 91, weekdays 9 am to 5 pm. Membership plans are on the pricing page, and a set of free resources is available to everyone. Related reading. Our guides to exploring your homeschooling options in Australia and when bullying makes homeschooling the right move. Related episodes. The Ultimate Getting Started Guide, and what you need to know about registration and reporting. figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element { background-color:#fffdf5; } figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element .has-fixed-layout td{ padding:2em 2em; border:none; border-left:.2em #e8a838 solid; } figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element .has-fixed-layout td em{ display: block; margin-bottom: -1.1em; } figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element .has-fixed-layout td strong{ font-size:.8em; } h3{ font-size:16px !important; font-weight:900; } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "alternateName": "Euka", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/themes/euka/assets/images/euka-future-learning-logo.svg" }, "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717947259", "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC", "https://www.youtube.com/@eukafuturelearning" ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-AU" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown", "name": "Ellen Brown", "jobTitle": "Founder & Head of Education", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#tina-smith", "name": "Tina Smith", "description": "Treasurer of the Home Education Association who homeschooled six of her own children and now helps other families with registration, program choices, and rebuilding social confidence." }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#primaryimage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Ep-51-_-finding-support-on-your-homeschooling-journey-_-Thumbnail-_-16_9.png", "contentUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Ep-51-_-finding-support-on-your-homeschooling-journey-_-Thumbnail-_-16_9.png", "width": 1920, "height": 1080 }, { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series", "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "webFeed": "https://euka.edu.au/podcast/", "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717947259", "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC" ] }, { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#video", "name": "You're Not Alone: Finding Support on Your Homeschooling Journey | 051", "description": "Ellen Brown talks with Tina Smith, Treasurer of the Home Education Association and a mother of six homeschooled children, about finding support on the homeschooling journey, choosing between a structured program and building your own, and how children rebuild social confidence after leaving mainstream school.", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Ep-51-_-finding-support-on-your-homeschooling-journey-_-Thumbnail-_-16_9.png", "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ncSsN_5vxGg/maxresdefault.jpg" ], "uploadDate": "2026-08-20", "duration": "PT34M22S", "contentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncSsN_5vxGg", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/ncSsN_5vxGg", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "AudioObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#audio", "name": "You're Not Alone: Finding Support on Your Homeschooling Journey | 051", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "duration": "PT34M22S", "contentUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncSsN_5vxGg", "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/youre-not-alone-finding-support-on-your-homeschooling/id1717947259?i=1000784711468", "https://open.spotify.com/episode/2VJSFQDKPwVv2tUd83OqAS" ] }, { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#episode", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/", "name": "You're Not Alone: Finding Support on Your Homeschooling Journey | 051", "episodeNumber": 51, "datePublished": "2026-08-20", "dateModified": "2026-08-20", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "partOfSeries": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series" }, "associatedMedia": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#audio" }, "video": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#video" }, "author": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" }, "actor": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#tina-smith" } ], "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "image": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#primaryimage" }, "description": "Ellen Brown talks with Tina Smith, Treasurer of the Home Education Association and a mother of six homeschooled children, about finding support on the homeschooling journey. Tina covers choosing between a structured program and building your own, what to do if a school resists releasing your child, and how children rebuild social confidence after leaving mainstream school.", "abstract": "Tina Smith, Treasurer of the Home Education Association, who homeschooled six of her own children, tells Ellen Brown how families find support once they start homeschooling. She covers choosing between a structured program such as Euka and building your own, what to do when a school resists releasing a child, why bullying is often a symptom of an unmet need such as autism or ADHD rather than the root cause, how children rebuild social confidence through interest-based groups across mixed ages, and practical supports many families do not know about, including a free national helpline and work experience insurance for homeschoolers from age 12.", "timeRequired": "PT34M22S", "keywords": "homeschooling support, homeschool community, homeschool support groups, homeschool registration, homeschooling and bullying, school refusal, work experience homeschool, Future Learners Podcast", "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling support and community" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling and neurodivergence" } ], "mentions": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Structured program vs building your own", "description": "Tina's view that a structured program such as Euka suits families who want the core curriculum covered, while building your own works well once a parent is confident, and many families do both by using a structured base and adding their child's own interests on top." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "The comparison trap", "description": "Tina's warning against comparing your family to another homeschooling family, since every child and family dynamic is different and there is no single right way to homeschool." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Rebuilding social confidence through interest groups", "description": "Tina's example of a child who had struggled socially at school rebuilding confidence through a board games group and an art class, learning to interact with both adults and children of different ages." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Work experience insurance from age 12", "description": "The Home Education Association covers members for work experience insurance from age 12 across all states, addressing an obstacle most families do not know has a solution." } ], "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#webpage" } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#faq", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#webpage" }, "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do I start homeschooling in Australia?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "You register with the education authority in your state or territory, then choose how your child will learn: a structured program, your own plan, or a mix. Requirements differ by state, so check yours first." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Where can I get homeschooling help and advice in Australia?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Start with whoever provides your curriculum, since most day-to-day questions are really program questions. Euka families have the support team, the Help Centre, and a free homeschooling course covering registration, structuring a program, and building a daily rhythm. For questions outside the curriculum, the Home Education Association runs a free national helpline staffed by experienced homeschoolers, covering advocacy, re-registration, and disputes with the state department a family is registered with." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do I find a homeschool community or support group near me?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Local homeschool community groups and support groups are the usual starting point, and they are worth joining early. Tina's point is that meeting other homeschooling families shows the range of what actually works, rather than assuming the first approach you saw is the only one." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can a school refuse to let me withdraw my child for homeschooling?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Some resist. If that happens, the school is not your only avenue: contact your state education department or its home education unit, both of which have become more willing to step in. The Home Education Association can advise which office to approach." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Should I use a structured program or build my own?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Both work, and the choice depends on your child. A structured program suits families who want the core covered without having to write it themselves, and Tina's own approach was to buy a program for the foundation skills and add her children's interests on top." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Will my child miss out socially if we leave school?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Not necessarily. School groups children by age, whereas interest-based activities group them by their choices across a range of ages. The catch is that it does not happen on its own, so a family needs to put one or two regular activities in place." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does homeschooling work for a child with ADHD or autism?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It is one of the biggest reasons families are now calling the Home Education Association. The value is the ability to adjust the pace and social load in ways a classroom cannot, and to spend the first stretch on regulation rather than academics." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "My child is being bullied. Is homeschooling the answer?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It removes the immediate problem, which is sometimes exactly what a child needs. Tina's caution is to look at what sat underneath the bullying as well, because an unmet need travels with the child if it goes unaddressed." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can homeschooled students do work experience?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, and often earlier than in school. Insurance is the usual obstacle since employers do not cover unpaid students, and the Home Education Association covers its members from age 12 across all states with a signed work experience agreement." } } ] }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "You're Not Alone: Finding Support on Your Homeschooling Journey | 051", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/" } ] }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#webpage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/", "name": "You're Not Alone: Finding Support on Your Homeschooling Journey | 051", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#primaryimage" }, "datePublished": "2026-08-20", "dateModified": "2026-08-20", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-support-for-families-51/#episode" }, "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling support and community" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling and neurodivergence" } ] } ] } The post You’re Not Alone: Finding Support on Your Homeschooling Journey | 051 appeared first on Euka.

Dupree Financial Group  Blog & Podcast The Tom Dupree Show The Financial Hour · Hour 2 · August 8, 2026 Is the AI Rally a Bubble? What Retirees Should Watch For The Tom Dupree Show | Dupree Financial Group | dupreefinancial.com | 859-233-0400 By Tom Dupree, Founder, Dupree Financial Group III     Ii               I iiI.  Is this AI Rally Built to Last? Turn on any market report lately, and you’ll hear the same story: a handful of AI-linked names are doing most of the heavy lifting. On this week’s Financial Hour, Tom sat down with analyst James Dupree and market analyst Michael Dawahare to talk through what’s actually driving that rally — and it’s a more complicated story than “AI stocks are up.” The conversation opened with reshoring: American companies bringing manufacturing back from overseas, and the market slowly absorbing the idea that this makes more sense than the offshoring wave of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. From there it moved into the AI infrastructure buildout, the old industrial companies suddenly catching a second wind because of it, and a cautionary tale about a leveraged AI hedge fund that lost 78% of its value in three weeks. Tom, James, and Michael walked through the Gold Rush and dot-com parallels, why diversification matters more than ever in a fast-moving sector, and where Dupree Financial Group is finding value right now — financials, insurance, mortgage REITs, and energy. The short version: something real is happening in AI and in American manufacturing. But a real trend and a sure thing are two very different things, and knowing the difference is the whole job. “There’s gonna be people riding high on AI right now who in four years may not be. Don’t just focus on the new technology — ask what are the derivative trades, what can go wrong. Because something will.” — Tom Dupree Topics Covered Why the market is absorbing the reshoring of U.S. manufacturing — and why that’s different from a tariff headline The AI infrastructure buildout, and which “old economy” companies (Johnson Controls, Cummins) are catching a second wind from it The Leopold Aschenbrenner story: how a 4x-leveraged AI fund went from $45 billion to a forced $10 billion sale in about three weeks Gold Rush and dot-com parallels — and who actually made the money when a boom goes bust Regional mall traffic and the return of in-person, live entertainment spending as a signal worth watching Why financials, insurance, and mortgage REITs are on Dupree Financial Group’s radar right now The capital gains tax cost of trying to “sell at the top” and buy back in lower Why a “set it and forget it” approach is especially risky in a fast-moving sector like AI Security concerns as new AI models test the limits of their own guardrails Key Takeaways Reshoring is showing up in the data, not just the headlines. Manufacturing activity has expanded for several consecutive months, and reshoring initiatives have driven a meaningful number of announced U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2010 — a trend the show connected directly to the “picks and shovels” companies benefiting from it. AI infrastructure spending is running far ahead of AI revenue. The largest tech companies are on pace to spend hundreds of billions on AI infrastructure this year alone — spending that, by some estimates, is outpacing the revenue AI products are currently generating. That gap is exactly what Tom, James, and Michael were pointing to when they said “something will go wrong.” Leverage turns a good idea into a forced sale. The Leopold Aschenbrenner fund didn’t lose money because AI was a bad bet — it lost money because a 4x-leveraged position can only absorb so much of a pullback before it’s liquidated. That’s a lesson about position sizing, not about AI. History says the “picks and shovels” companies often outlast the flashiest players. Tom’s Levi Strauss story from the Gold Rush isn’t just a fun aside — it’s the show’s real thesis. When a boom happens, the companies supplying the boom sometimes outlast the speculative names chasing it. Diversification is what protects you when some AI names don’t make it. Nobody on the show argued AI is fake. The argument was that not every AI company will succeed, and a portfolio built around five or ten concentrated bets is a very different risk profile than one spread across sectors. Trying to time a pullback can trigger its own tax bill. Selling a highly appreciated position to avoid a possible drop means paying capital gains tax on the gain — which, as James pointed out, can functionally act like selling at the top even if the stock never actually drops that far. Dividend-paying sectors remain the core of the plan, regardless of what AI does next. Financials, insurance, mortgage REITs, and energy were named as areas of current focus — companies tied to real, ongoing economic activity rather than to a single technology cycle. “Set it and forget it” is the riskiest approach in a fast-moving sector. The show’s closing message: stay alert, stay informed, and know what you own — because in a sector that can move 10-15% in a day, being asleep at the wheel is exactly when it costs you. The Reframe: What This Means for Your Portfolio Here’s where we’d push the conversation a step further than the show had time for. The AI story and the reshoring story aren’t really two separate topics — they’re the same story told twice. Both are examples of real, durable economic activity attracting an amount of capital that may or may not be justified by what it produces. The five largest U.S. tech companies are on pace to spend somewhere in the range of $660–690 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone, nearly double the year before, according to industry analysis from Futurum Group. Other estimates put the ratio of AI infrastructure spending to AI software revenue at close to eighteen-to-one, per S&P Global research reported by ETF Trends. That doesn’t mean the technology is fake — it means the payoff isn’t set to arrive on the same timeline as the spending, and it may not arrive on that timeline at all. The Bank for International Settlements — essentially the central bank for the world’s central banks — has already flagged the scale of this spending as a risk worth watching, noting that combined AI capital expenditure across 2025 and 2026 is outpacing the free cash flow of the companies funding it, per Fortune’s reporting. Fidelity’s own research team has taken a more measured view, noting that as of early 2026 they aren’t yet seeing some of the classic bubble warning signs, like shrinking free cash flow among the AI leaders — but they’re watching closely, and so should you (Fidelity). Both things can be true at once, which is exactly what Tom, James, and Michael said on air. This is precisely the environment dividend-focused, diversified investing was built for. Research from Hartford Funds, using data going back to 1973, has found that companies that grew or initiated a dividend have historically delivered higher returns than the broader market with meaningfully less volatility than non-dividend payers (Hartford Funds). That’s the case for owning financials, insurance, and energy alongside — not instead of — exposure to the AI and reshoring trends. You get to participate in the buildout without betting the whole plan on any single piece of it working out on schedule.     Related Reading Listen to this episode and browse past shows on the Podcasts page Learn more about our approach and team on the About Us page Schedule your own complimentary portfolio review from the DFG homepage About The Tom Dupree Show The Tom Dupree Show is hosted by Tom Dupree, founder of Dupree Financial Group and a 48-year veteran of the investment business. Each episode covers the financial topics that matter most to retirees and those approaching retirement — in plain English, without the Wall Street spin. Dupree Financial Group is a fee-only, fiduciary Registered Investment Advisory firm based in Lexington, Kentucky. The firm manages separately managed accounts focused on income-generating, dividend-paying portfolios — no products sold, no commissions, no conflicts of interest. Past episodes are available at dupreefinancial.com under the Podcast tab. TD Tom Dupree Founder of Dupree Financial Group and host of The Tom Dupree Show. Tom started in the investment business in 1978 as a municipal bond salesman, and has spent 47 years building an income-first, fee-only approach to retirement investing in Lexington, Kentucky. Schedule a Complimentary Portfolio Review If you’re not sure whether you know what’s actually driving your portfolio’s gains right now — and whether it could unwind as fast as it built — we’ll take a look. No charge. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about what you own and whether it’s working for you. Call: 859-233-0400 | Visit: dupreefinancial.com { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "Is the AI Rally a Bubble? What Retirees Should Watch For", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/is-the-ai-rally-a-bubble-what-retirees-should-watch-for/", "datePublished": "2026-08-08", "description": "Tom Dupree, James Dupree, and Michael Dawahare discuss the AI market rally, reshoring, and where Dupree Financial Group sees value for retirement portfolios right now.", "partOfSeries": { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "The Tom Dupree Show", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/podcasts" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tom Dupree" } } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is the AI stock rally a bubble?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It's too early to say for certain. AI infrastructure spending is running well ahead of AI revenue, which is a real warning sign, but the underlying technology and demand are also real. The honest answer is: parts of it may be a bubble, and parts of it may not be — which is exactly why diversification matters." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is reshoring, and why does it matter to investors?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Reshoring means bringing manufacturing and industry back to the U.S. from overseas. It matters to investors because it's benefiting a range of established industrial companies, and manufacturing activity data has shown consistent signs of expansion." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What happened with the Leopold Aschenbrenner AI hedge fund?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "A hedge fund that was leveraged roughly 4-to-1 on AI infrastructure stocks was forced to sell at a steep loss after the market moved against it, dropping from about $45 billion in net asset value to roughly $10 billion in about three weeks. It's a reminder that leverage, not the underlying investment thesis, is often what causes forced losses." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Should retirees own AI-related stocks?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "There's no one-size-fits-all answer, and this isn't individualized advice. Generally speaking, exposure to a trend like AI works best as part of a diversified, income-generating portfolio rather than as a concentrated bet, especially for retirees who need their money to last for decades." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is Dupree Financial Group's approach to sector risk like AI?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Dupree Financial Group focuses on dividend-paying stocks and bonds across a range of sectors, including financials, insurance, and energy, rather than concentrating in any single trend. The goal is income and growth investors can understand, not a bet on any one technology." } } ] } The post Is the AI Rally a Bubble? What Retirees Should Watch For | Dupree Financial Group appeared first on Dupree Financial.

Dupree Financial Group Blog  ·  The Tom Dupree Show From This Week’s Episode Retirement Investing  ·  August 1, 2026 Is Your Retirement Portfolio Too Concentrated? A 25-year-old hedge fund manager lost roughly $35 billion in a matter of days this week. Here’s what his leverage and the market’s concentration in seven stocks have to do with your retirement account. By Tom Dupree, Founder, Dupree Financial Group  |  dupreefinancial.com  |  859-233-0400 This week, a 25-year-old former OpenAI researcher named Leopold Aschenbrenner watched roughly $35 billion disappear from his hedge fund in a matter of days. Two years ago, he wrote a 165-page essay predicting the future of artificial intelligence with such confidence that Silicon Valley treated it like scripture. This week, his fund — built on borrowed money layered on top of a handful of AI stocks — got forced into a fire sale to Ken Griffin’s Citadel at a steep discount. It’s a dramatic story. But here’s the direct answer to the question that actually matters for your retirement: if most of your money sits in a plain S&P 500 index fund, you may be more concentrated in a handful of the same stocks than you realize — and that concentration, not any single hedge fund’s collapse, is the real thing worth understanding before your next portfolio review. You don’t need borrowed money or a 165-page manifesto to be exposed to this. You just need to own “the market” and assume that means you’re spread across 500 different companies. Key Takeaways Leverage magnifies both directions. Borrowing money to buy investments can boost gains on the way up, but it can wipe out capital just as fast on the way down. That’s the entire story of this week’s hedge fund collapse. Seven stocks now make up a large share of the S&P 500. Depending on the week you check, the “Magnificent Seven” technology stocks account for somewhere between a third and roughly 40% of the entire index’s value. Owning an index fund is not automatically owning a diversified portfolio. A market-cap-weighted index gives its biggest companies the biggest influence — so when those companies wobble, so does “the market.” Know what you own and why you own it. That’s not a slogan — it’s the single most useful question a retiree can ask before the next headline-grabbing selloff. Why This Week’s Story Is Bigger Than One Hedge Fund Every generation produces an investor who seems untouchable — brilliant, early to a trend, riding a wave everyone else is still arguing about. Aschenbrenner’s fund, Situational Awareness, reportedly grew from roughly $200 million to as much as $45 billion in under two years, largely on concentrated bets in AI infrastructure names. Then, using leverage reported as high as 400% — meaning roughly four borrowed dollars for every dollar of the fund’s own capital — a sharp pullback in a handful of semiconductor and AI stocks triggered margin calls his prime brokers couldn’t ignore. That’s the mechanical part, and it’s worth understanding in plain English: when you borrow against an investment and that investment drops in value, your loan doesn’t shrink with it. At some point the lender requires more collateral — a margin call — and if you can’t provide it, your shares get sold for you, often at the worst possible moment. There’s no easy way around that math. It requires diligence, not confidence. Most retirees reading this aren’t using 400% leverage. But there’s a quieter version of the same concentration problem sitting inside a lot of 401(k)s and IRA rollovers, and it doesn’t require a single dollar of borrowed money to hurt you. What the Numbers Actually Show According to CNBC’s reporting on the collapse, Aschenbrenner’s fund held roughly $45 billion in assets at its peak, before margin calls forced the sale of its leveraged public stock positions — including major holdings like SK Hynix and CoreWeave — to Citadel at a discount, with the fund’s overall assets falling to around $10 billion within about 30 trading days (CNBC). TechCrunch’s coverage confirms Aschenbrenner had no prior professional trading experience before launching the fund in 2024, and that the losses came from both AI stocks falling and short positions in software companies moving the wrong way at the same time (TechCrunch). Meanwhile, the broader market has its own version of this concentration story. Reporting from Forbes notes that the “Magnificent Seven” technology stocks made up roughly a third of the S&P 500’s total market capitalization heading into 2026, with some advisors calling the resulting concentration risk a “legitimate concern” (Forbes). Separate reporting from CNBC put the figure as high as 35% to 40% of the index in recent trading, prompting some strategists to recommend equal-weighted alternatives to reduce that concentration (CNBC). The SEC’s own investor education office has published plain-language guidance on why borrowing to invest carries risks that go beyond the investment itself — including the fact that a broker can sell your securities to meet a margin call without waiting for you to act, and can do so without advance notice (SEC Investor.gov). It’s the kind of guardrail worth reading once, even if you never plan to use margin yourself. “Leverage is a thing to be used very judiciously and very carefully, because if you use it in a way that’s irresponsible, it can cost you everything.” — Tom Dupree The Reframe: This Isn’t a Bet on Whether AI Wins or Loses Dupree Financial Group’s Take Most of the commentary this week has been framed as a debate: Is AI spending going to pay off, or is it a bubble? That’s an interesting argument, and reasonable people disagree about it — Microsoft’s stock jumped double digits on one earnings report this year, while Oracle’s bonds have drawn scrutiny over its own AI-related spending. But that debate is largely beside the point for a retiree building income for the next 40 or 50 years. The actual lesson isn’t “buy AI stocks” or “avoid AI stocks.” It’s that when a market’s returns get concentrated in a small number of companies, your risk gets concentrated right along with it — whether you meant it to or not. That’s exactly why our approach starts with cash flow analysis, not headlines: dividend-paying companies across sectors like insurance, telecommunications, and financials keep generating income whether or not seven technology companies are having a good month. You get paid to wait, in good markets and choppy ones, instead of hoping a narrow slice of the market keeps carrying the whole index. What This Looks Like in Practice We build separately managed accounts around companies with a history of paying and growing their dividends, purchased when they’re out of favor and less expensive — not around chasing whichever seven stocks are dominating the headlines that quarter. Bonds play a role too: current income, lower volatility, and dry powder to buy good companies when the market temporarily marks them down for reasons that have nothing to do with their underlying business. None of this means avoiding growth, and it doesn’t mean the S&P 500’s biggest companies are bad businesses — several of them are genuinely excellent. It means not letting one basket, however impressive, decide the outcome of your retirement. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal, and no strategy removes that risk entirely. The goal is to understand it, size it appropriately, and build income you don’t have to sell into a downturn to access. Five Things to Check in Your Own Portfolio 1Pull up your 401(k) or IRA’s top ten holdings. Most plan providers list this on your statement or online dashboard. If you don’t see it, call and ask — it’s your money, and you’re entitled to know. 2Add up what percentage those top ten represent. If it’s a plain S&P 500 index fund, expect a meaningful chunk of your total to be concentrated in a handful of names, most of them technology companies. 3Ask whether that concentration matches your risk tolerance at your stage of life. A 35-year-old accumulating wealth can absorb more concentration risk than someone drawing income in retirement. 4Check whether you’re using any form of leverage or margin, even indirectly through certain funds or products, and make sure you understand exactly what happens if those positions move against you. 5Get a second set of eyes on the whole picture. It’s easy to know your account balance and much harder to know what’s actually driving it. That’s the gap a complimentary portfolio review is built to close. Frequently Asked Questions What is “concentration risk” in a stock market index? Concentration risk means a large share of an index’s total value — and therefore its performance — comes from a small number of companies. In a market-cap-weighted index like the S&P 500, the biggest companies carry the most influence, so a downturn in just a handful of names can drag down the whole index. Why did Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund lose so much money so quickly? Reporting indicates the fund used leverage as high as 400% on concentrated AI stock positions. When those stocks declined, the borrowed money amplified the losses, triggering margin calls that forced a distressed sale of the fund’s holdings within about a month. Should retirees stop investing in S&P 500 index funds? Not necessarily — index funds remain a legitimate, low-cost building block. The point is to understand what you actually own inside that fund, including how concentrated it has become, rather than assuming “index fund” automatically means “diversified.” What does “leverage” mean in plain English? Leverage means borrowing money to increase the size of an investment beyond what your own capital could buy. It can amplify gains, but it amplifies losses the same way — and if the investment’s value drops enough, the loan doesn’t shrink to match it. How can I tell how concentrated my own retirement portfolio really is? Start by looking up your fund’s top ten holdings and what percentage of the total they represent — most providers publish this. If you’re unsure how to interpret it, a portfolio review with an advisor can walk through what you actually own and why. The Close By the time you read this, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s fund will likely have faded from the headlines, replaced by whoever’s turn it is next — because, as history keeps showing us, there’s always a next one. But the question his week left behind isn’t really about him. It’s about whether you know what you own, and whether you’d be able to answer calmly if your own portfolio had a bad week. That’s the whole point of retiring on income instead of hope: you don’t need to guess right about which seven stocks win. You need a plan that keeps paying you regardless. Keep Learning Listen to the full episode — hear Tom, James Dupree, and Michael Dawahare walk through the Mag Seven earnings debate and this week’s market moves in more detail. Learn more about Dupree Financial Group — our fee-only, fiduciary approach and the team behind it. Schedule a complimentary portfolio review — see exactly how concentrated your own accounts are today. Tom Dupree Tom Dupree is the founder of Dupree Financial Group, a fee-only, fiduciary Registered Investment Advisory firm based in Lexington, Kentucky. He has spent 48 years in the investment business, starting as a municipal bond salesman in the late 1970s, and hosts The Tom Dupree Show, a weekly radio and podcast program covering the financial topics that matter most to retirees. About The Tom Dupree Show The Tom Dupree Show is hosted by Tom Dupree, founder of Dupree Financial Group and a 47-year veteran of the investment business. Each episode covers the financial topics that matter most to retirees and those approaching retirement — in plain English, without the Wall Street spin. Dupree Financial Group is a fee-only, fiduciary Registered Investment Advisory firm based in Lexington, Kentucky. The firm manages separately managed accounts focused on income-generating, dividend-paying portfolios — no products sold, no commissions, no conflicts of interest. Past episodes are available at dupreefinancial.com under the Radio tab. Schedule a Complimentary Portfolio Review If you’re not sure whether your retirement account is more concentrated in a handful of stocks than you’d like — we’ll take a look. No charge. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about what you own and whether it’s working for you. Call: 859-233-0400  |  Visit: dupreefinancial.com All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past market performance discussed above refers to historical index and company data, not to the performance of any Dupree Financial Group account. Dupree Financial Group  ·  Fee-only. Fiduciary. Lexington, KY  · dupreefinancial.com  ·  859-233-0400 { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "Is Your Retirement Portfolio Too Concentrated?", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/sp500-concentration-risk-retirement-portfolio/", "datePublished": "2026-08-01", "description": "Tom Dupree, James Dupree, and Michael Dawahare discuss this week's hedge fund collapse, Magnificent Seven earnings, and what S&P 500 concentration risk means for retirement portfolios.", "partOfSeries": { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "The Tom Dupree Show" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tom Dupree" } } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is "concentration risk" in a stock market index?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Concentration risk means a large share of an index's total value comes from a small number of companies. In a market-cap-weighted index like the S&P 500, the biggest companies carry the most influence, so a downturn in just a handful of names can drag down the whole index." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why did Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund lose so much money so quickly?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Reporting indicates the fund used leverage as high as 400% on concentrated AI stock positions. When those stocks declined, the borrowed money amplified the losses, triggering margin calls that forced a distressed sale within about a month." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Should retirees stop investing in S&P 500 index funds?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Not necessarily — index funds remain a legitimate, low-cost building block. The point is to understand what you actually own inside that fund, including how concentrated it has become, rather than assuming an index fund is automatically diversified." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What does "leverage" mean in plain English?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Leverage means borrowing money to increase the size of an investment beyond what your own capital could buy. It amplifies gains, but it amplifies losses the same way, and the loan doesn't shrink if the investment's value drops." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How can I tell how concentrated my own retirement portfolio really is?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Start by looking up your fund's top ten holdings and what percentage of the total they represent. If you're unsure how to interpret it, a portfolio review with an advisor can walk through what you actually own and why." } } ] } The post Is Your Retirement Portfolio Too Concentrated? A $35B Hedge Fund Lesson | Dupree Financial Group appeared first on Dupree Financial.

Is homeschooling worth it? It’s the question almost every parent on the fence keeps asking, and in this episode of the Future Learners podcast, Ellen Brown puts it to someone with eight years of answers. David Smith, a long-time Euka parent, talks through what it was really like to homeschool three children. David’s family didn’t come to homeschooling looking for something better on paper. They came looking for a way out of a school where his eldest son, who is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD, was being bullied and wasn’t thriving. David covers the whole journey: deciding to leave, telling the school, the first six to twelve months, keeping learning fluid rather than recreating school at home, discovering hidden strengths in subjects like maths, using AI as a patient tutor, and watching an eldest son who once “wasn’t working at all” move confidently into the workforce. He also shares the small, practical things that worked for his family. A whiteboard maths race with his middle son. Letting the kids build their own timetable. Staying involved even after a long day at work. Want to have a positive impact on thousands of families like you? Leave us an audio question or share your homeschooling journey — anonymously if you like. Real questions from real families help us bring more value to every episode.  Send us a message We're listening Send us your voice message Up to two minutes. Speak in your own words Your name Email ● Tap the red dot to start Re-record Download I'm happy for Euka to keep this recording and to share it (or part of it) on the Future Learners Podcast. See our privacy policy. Yes, let me know when new episodes drop. Fresh conversations every week — unsubscribe any time. Send to the Future Learners team Thanks — we've got it. Brett, Ellen and the team will give it a listen. Keep an ear out — we'll let you know if your message features in an upcoming episode. Key Points David’s homeschooling journey, in brief: Why they started: persistent bullying and an eldest son on the autism spectrum with ADHD who wasn’t fitting in, with a year-three teacher warning he wouldn’t thrive at high school. Telling the school: the family quietly ran homeschooling in parallel at first, and found the school more supportive than they’d feared. The first six to twelve months: hidden strengths surfaced fast, including an undiscovered passion for maths, once the pressure of the classroom was gone. Keeping it fluid: letting the kids choose subjects and build their own timetable so homeschooling never felt like “school again.” AI and the internet as tools: using ChatGPT to break maths down step by step, and giving kids the freedom to research anything. From homeschool to the workforce: an eldest son who “nailed it” from day one in a customer-facing job, and a middle son mapping a pathway towards becoming a GP. Advice for parents on the fence: you know your kids better than anyone, so don’t leave the decision too long. Practical ideas from David’s family: Use a whiteboard “who can solve it first” race to make maths feel like a game rather than a chore. Let a child keep going in a subject they love rather than holding them to one week at a time. Use “misdirection” when a subject stalls. Switch to PE, the park, or arts and crafts, then come back to it. Learn alongside your child when a subject scared you at school, instead of pretending to know it all. Where the homeschooling journey started Like a lot of families, David’s homeschooling journey didn’t begin with a plan. It began with a problem the school couldn’t solve. His eldest son, a “beautiful, beautiful kid” who is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD, was being bullied, wasn’t fitting in, and David was being called into the office a lot. (If that’s your family’s starting point too, our guide to homeschooling on the spectrum and special needs homeschooling walks through what it can look like.) David describes a trap many parents fall into: assuming that because someone trained to be a teacher, they must be able to teach your child better than you can. When he searched online, most options overwhelmed him with “oodles and oodles of material” that wouldn’t work around his job and his wife’s day at home. Then the family found Complete Education Australia, which evolved into Euka, with the work laid out in manageable weekly chunks. Once his son started working through it, David could see a change straight away. He was focussed and giving far more of himself than before. “The outcome was phenomenal… we could see that he was focussed, that he was actually giving a lot more of himself to his work.”— David Smith, Euka parent They applied for homeschool, and, as David puts it, “the rest, literally eight years later, here we are now.” Telling the school One of the most common worries for parents leaving mainstream school is how the school will react. David’s family were concerned enough that they ran homeschooling in parallel at first, without telling the school, worried that fighting the system would only invite roadblocks. In the end, the school was more supportive than they expected. David believes that, deep down, the teachers had his son’s best interests at heart and could see this was something they couldn’t control. The moment that made the decision for him was a teacher warning that his son, leaving year three, wouldn’t thrive at high school. It was the kind of comment that makes alarm bells ring and sends a parent into overdrive, asking what they can do to make sure their kids get a good education, and a safe one. Ellen is careful to add that a supportive response isn’t a given for every family. But she reframes the underlying issue warmly: schools often do care, yet the system simply isn’t built for the individual child, with one teacher and 28 children in a classroom. Where a family can share their concerns and get a supportive response, she says, it’s a wonderful thing. Making homeschooling fluid, not another school The turning point in David’s story is a mindset shift. Homeschooling only worked once the family stopped trying to recreate school at home. The kids didn’t want to do maths every Monday, David explains, because if they knew maths was coming every Monday, it suddenly became almost like school again. So they let the children choose their subjects and build their own timetable. Ellen connects this to a deliberate design choice in the Euka program. The lessons are grouped into weeks rather than pinned to named days. There are five maths lessons and five English lessons a week, with no days attached, precisely so families can flow with what suits their child. David is honest that the first couple of weeks are an adjustment for everyone, and it’s easy to hit the panic button. His advice is to persevere, and to use what his wife calls “misdirection.” If maths isn’t working, go outside, do PE, or get the arts and crafts out, and come back to it later. Nothing, he says, is set in stone. When maths stops being scary Maths is the subject that scares parents most, and it’s where David’s story offers the most hope. At school, his eldest was “average, borderline on everything,” and sometimes below. At home, within weeks, a completely different picture emerged. “We found out he had a passion for maths that had gone undiscovered.”— David Smith Two things made the difference. The first was time and patience, without the classroom rushing on to the next thing. The second was technology. Where a school lesson moves on whether or not a child understood it, AI will wait. David describes sitting down with ChatGPT and asking it to “hold you by the hand,” breaking things down very easily with no rush, especially where maths is concerned. Ellen builds on this for parents who fear maths themselves. Missing one “little nugget” in maths snowballs, she explains, because maths needs its building blocks, which is why so many adults wrongly decide they’re “hopeless” at it. Her encouragement is to model curiosity instead of certainty. Even saying to your child, “I actually don’t know that either, let’s have a look together,” is a fantastic lesson in itself. David’s own family lived this out. His wife, who’d also been left behind in maths at school, learned alongside the kids. And for his middle son, the tool that worked best was low-tech: two whiteboards and a race to see who could solve the question first, because kids love the bragging rights. (For more hands-on ideas along these lines, see our 8 tips for homeschooling with ADHD.) Fostering a love of learning Beyond any single subject, what David values most is that homeschooling fostered a love of learning “everything and anything.” His middle son now gets on his laptop after school finishes and researches whatever he’s curious about, something David says would have been far harder to nurture in mainstream school. That freedom produced one of the episode’s most charming stories. David’s middle son came up with his own theory of time travel off his own back, ran it past AI, and the AI gave the playful theory a name of its own: the Van Gogh paradox. It’s a fun anecdote rather than a scientific claim, but David’s point is serious. Homeschooling gives kids the freedom to look at a problem and go and research it themselves. Ellen loves the contrast with a classroom where the teacher is “the facilitator of all knowledge.” Seeing David’s eldest shift from average school reports to blossoming at home, without other kids asking “what are you learning that for?”, is, she says, remarkable. David is equally clear that this doesn’t happen on autopilot. The program does a lot for you, but a parent still needs to play a part where they can. It isn’t as simple as handing kids the work and letting them do it all themselves. From homeschool to the workforce The proof of the journey, for David, is watching his eldest son move into the workforce. Given how his son started, “literally not working at all,” the family wondered how he’d cope with full days in a customer-facing role. He exceeded everyone’s expectations. On day one, after his interview, the manager told David, “Yeah, he nailed it. I don’t know who you’re worried about.” His son now has no issues with customer service or talking to anyone, and the job is giving him life experience and the means to fund whatever he chooses next, whether that’s university or study from home. His middle son, meanwhile, is mapping a pathway towards becoming a GP, and even asked AI to help plot the subjects and states involved. Ellen reflects on why the transition went so smoothly. You can never change “sliding doors,” she says, but making the decision early gave David’s son all these years to build confidence, self-worth, and communication skills away from the situation he’d been in at school. That’s probably part of why he’s been able to adapt so nicely into the workplace. Advice for parents on the fence Asked what he’d say to a parent still deciding, David keeps it simple. No one knows a child better than their parent, so trust that and take the step. “You know your kids better than the educator. You’ve birthed them, you’ve raised them, you see them on a regular basis. You’ve got to go and just take that plunge.”— David Smith He frames the decision not as a leap out of school forever, but as a chance to see how a child responds to learning where their voice is heard and they’re not stuck at the back of the classroom. His strongest advice for families already living what his family lived through: don’t leave it too long. David also points parents to community. His details are on the Euka Facebook group, where he’s happy to answer questions, and his kids have documented years of their work on the family’s Happy Homeschool page on Facebook, which he offers as a resource for parents unsure how far the program can take a child. His closing message to parents who can is to be part of it, even if it’s just five or ten minutes after a long day’s work. Give it that time, have a look through, and be amazed. Answered Questions Real questions Australian parents ask about homeschooling children with additional needs and whether it’s worth the leap. Can you homeschool a child with autism and ADHD? + Yes. David’s eldest son is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD, and homeschooling gave the family a way to move him out of an environment where he was being bullied and wasn’t thriving. Within weeks at home, hidden strengths surfaced, including a passion for maths that had gone undiscovered. Years later, that same son has moved confidently into the workforce. What do you do if your child is being bullied at school? + Ellen notes that schools often do care and have rules requiring action, but the system isn’t built for the individual child, so a supportive response isn’t a given. In David’s case, the family decided homeschooling was the safest course after a teacher warned his son wouldn’t thrive at high school. Ellen’s wider point is that bullying should be taken as seriously as it would be in any adult workplace. How do you stop homeschooling from feeling like school at home? + David’s answer is to keep it fluid. His family found that scheduling maths every Monday made homeschooling feel like school again, so they let the kids choose subjects and help build their own timetable. When a subject stalls, his wife uses “misdirection,” switching to PE, the park, or arts and crafts, then returning to it later. How can AI help with homeschooling maths? + David uses AI as a patient tutor. Where a classroom moves on whether or not a child understood the lesson, he says you can sit down with ChatGPT and ask it to “hold you by the hand” and break a concept down step by step, with no rush. Ellen adds that parents who fear maths can ask AI to explain a topic “as though I was 10 years old,” and keep it simple until it clicks. Is homeschooling worth it, from a real parent’s experience? + After eight years and three children, David’s biggest regret is not starting sooner. He wishes he’d known “it would have been this simple,” and his advice to parents on the fence is that no one knows a child better than their parent, so don’t leave the decision too long. Does homeschooling prepare children for the workforce? + In David’s family, yes. His eldest son went from “literally not working at all” to a customer-facing job where, in the manager’s words, he “nailed it” from day one. Ellen suggests the years spent building confidence and communication skills away from a difficult school environment are part of why he adapted so well. Why This Episode Matters Most conversations about homeschooling stay theoretical. This one doesn’t. David Smith offers eight years of lived experience, including the hard parts: the doubts, the adjustment, and the fear that a child with autism and ADHD might not cope. Then he shows what became possible on the other side. For any parent whose child is struggling in a system that can’t be built around the individual, David’s story is a reminder that a different path exists, that hidden strengths often surface once the pressure lifts, and that the hardest part is often simply deciding not to wait. Your Family, Your Journey David’s biggest regret was not starting sooner. He wishes he’d known “it would have been this simple.” If you’re on the fence, the hardest part is usually just knowing where to begin, and that’s exactly what our free Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling is built to solve. It’s a free online course that walks you through everything a new homeschooling parent needs to feel confident from day one: how to legally register, how to choose and structure a curriculum, how to build a daily rhythm that fits your family, how to support a child who learns differently, and how to know your child is progressing. No guesswork, no wading through “oodles and oodles of material,” just clear, step-by-step guidance from the team that has helped thousands of Australian families make the leap. You don’t need to have it all figured out before you start. You just need a first step. Enrol in the free Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling and give yourself the same head start David wishes he’d had eight years ago. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "alternateName": "Euka", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/themes/euka/assets/images/euka-future-learning-logo.svg" }, "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717377273", "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC", "https://www.youtube.com/@eukafuturelearning" ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-AU" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown", "name": "Ellen Brown", "jobTitle": "Founder & Head of Education", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#david-smith", "name": "David Smith", "description": "Long-time Euka parent who homeschooled three children over eight years." }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#primaryimage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/V2-Episode-48-1920x1080-1.png", "contentUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/V2-Episode-48-1920x1080-1.png", "width": 1920, "height": 1080 }, { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series", "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "webFeed": "https://euka.edu.au/podcast/", "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717377273", "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC" ] }, { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#video", "name": "Is Homeschooling Worth It? David's Story of Homeschooling Three Kids Over 8 Years | 048", "description": "Ellen Brown interviews long-time Euka parent David Smith about eight years of homeschooling three children, including an eldest son on the autism spectrum with ADHD.", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/V2-Episode-48-1920x1080-1.png", "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/14plEjsYy_o/maxresdefault.jpg" ], "uploadDate": "2026-07-22", "duration": "PT37M12S", "contentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14plEjsYy_o", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/14plEjsYy_o", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "AudioObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#audio", "name": "Is Homeschooling Worth It? David's Story of Homeschooling Three Kids Over 8 Years | 048", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "duration": "PT37M12S", "contentUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/", "sameAs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14plEjsYy_o", "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of/id1717947259?i=1000777840507", "https://open.spotify.com/episode/2gHNnVNqx1hzrXDQqF05TI" ] }, { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#episode", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/", "name": "Is Homeschooling Worth It? David's Story of Homeschooling Three Kids Over 8 Years | 048", "episodeNumber": 48, "datePublished": "2026-07-22", "dateModified": "2026-07-22", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "partOfSeries": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series" }, "associatedMedia": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#audio" }, "video": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#video" }, "author": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" }, "actor": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#david-smith" } ], "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "image": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#primaryimage" }, "description": "Is homeschooling worth it? After eight years homeschooling three children, Euka parent David Smith shares the honest journey — leaving a school where his son was being bullied, keeping learning fluid, discovering a hidden passion for maths, using AI as a patient tutor, and watching his kids move confidently towards the workforce.", "abstract": "Ellen Brown interviews long-time Euka parent David Smith about eight years of homeschooling three children, including an eldest son on the autism spectrum with ADHD who was being bullied at school. David covers deciding to leave, telling the school, keeping learning fluid, a hidden passion for maths, AI as a patient tutor, and the move into the workforce.", "timeRequired": "PT37M12S", "keywords": "is homeschooling worth it, homeschooling autism ADHD, homeschooling three kids, school bullying, AI homeschooling maths, homeschooling and the workforce, homeschooling Australia, Euka", "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling children with autism and ADHD" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Preparing children for the workforce" } ], "mentions": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Keeping homeschooling fluid", "description": "Letting children choose their subjects and build their own timetable so homeschooling never feels like school again. The Euka program groups lessons into weeks (five maths, five English) rather than fixed days." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Misdirection", "description": "David's family's technique for a stalled subject: switch to PE, the park, or arts and crafts, then return to it later, because nothing is set in stone." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "AI as a patient tutor", "description": "Using ChatGPT to break maths down step by step with no rush, so a child can master building blocks a busy classroom would move past." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Whiteboard maths race", "description": "A low-tech game using two whiteboards to see who can solve a question first, making maths feel like a game rather than a chore." } ], "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#webpage" } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#faq", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#webpage" }, "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can you homeschool a child with autism and ADHD?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. David's eldest son is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD, and homeschooling with Euka let him learn at his own pace without the pressure of a busy classroom. Within weeks, hidden strengths surfaced — including a previously undiscovered passion for maths. Keeping learning fluid, using patient tools like AI, and giving the child a say in their subjects and timetable helped him thrive over eight years and move confidently into the workforce." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What do you do if your child is being bullied at school?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Persistent bullying was the reason David's family began homeschooling. His son wasn't fitting in and wasn't thriving, and a year-three teacher warned he wouldn't cope at high school. The family quietly ran homeschooling in parallel at first and found the school more supportive than expected. David's advice is to trust that you know your child better than anyone and not to leave the decision too long." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do you stop homeschooling from feeling like school at home?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The turning point in David's story was letting go of trying to recreate school at home. Instead of fixed subjects on fixed days, the family let the kids choose their subjects and build their own timetable. The Euka program supports this by grouping lessons into weeks rather than named days — five maths and five English lessons a week with no days attached — so families can flow with what suits their child. David also uses "misdirection": if a subject stalls, switch to PE, the park, or arts and crafts, then come back to it." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How can AI help with homeschooling maths?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Where a classroom lesson moves on whether or not a child understood it, AI will wait. David used ChatGPT to "hold you by the hand," breaking maths down step by step with no rush. This patience helped reveal his son's hidden passion for maths. Ellen adds that missing one "little nugget" in maths snowballs because maths needs its building blocks, so a patient, step-by-step tutor can be transformative for children and parents alike." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is homeschooling worth it, from a real parent's experience?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "After eight years homeschooling three children, David's answer is yes — his biggest regret is not starting sooner. Homeschooling let his kids' hidden strengths surface once the pressure of the classroom lifted, fostered a genuine love of learning, and built the confidence and communication skills that helped his eldest son move smoothly into the workforce. His advice to parents on the fence: you know your kids better than anyone, so don't leave the decision too long." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does homeschooling prepare children for the workforce?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "In David's experience, yes. His eldest son — who started out "not working at all" — exceeded expectations in a customer-facing role, with the manager saying after his interview, "he nailed it." Making the decision to homeschool early gave his son years to build confidence, self-worth, and communication skills away from a difficult school environment. His middle son is now mapping a pathway towards becoming a GP." } } ] }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Is Homeschooling Worth It? David's Story of Homeschooling Three Kids Over 8 Years | 048", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/" } ] }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#webpage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/", "name": "Is Homeschooling Worth It? David's Story of Homeschooling Three Kids Over 8 Years | 048", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#primaryimage" }, "datePublished": "2026-07-22", "dateModified": "2026-07-22", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/is-homeschooling-worth-it-davids-story-of-homeschooling-three-kids-over-8-years-048/#episode" }, "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling children with autism and ADHD" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Preparing children for the workforce" } ] } ] } The post Is Homeschooling Worth It? David’s Story of Homeschooling 3 Kids Over 8 Years | 048 appeared first on Euka.

  What Does This Week’s Market Volatility Mean for Your Retirement Portfolio? By Tom Dupree, Founder, Dupree Financial Group Inflation cooled. The big banks beat expectations. And somehow, it was still a wild week in the market. If you’ve been watching your account balance bounce around and wondering whether any of it has anything to do with the actual value of what you own, here’s the short answer: usually not. Most of what moved the market this week wasn’t new information about businesses — it was leverage, technical trading, and forced selling. That distinction matters more for your retirement than almost anything else you’ll read this month, because it tells you when to act and when to simply hold on. This week’s episode of The Tom Dupree Show walked through four separate stories — cooling inflation, strong bank earnings, a leveraged-ETF blowup on the other side of the world, and a regulatory fight over how often companies should report earnings — that all point to the same lesson: know what you own, know why the price is moving, and don’t confuse someone else’s forced selling with your own emergency. Key Takeaways Inflation cooled to 3.5% year-over-year in June, but the Fed’s new chair has questioned whether the 2% target is even the right one — the ground rules for bonds and rate-sensitive investments could shift. Bank profits this quarter came mostly from paying less on deposits, not from a borrowing boom — a reminder that cash flow, not headlines, tells the real story. A leveraged single-stock ETF collapse in South Korea forced hundreds of thousands of retail accounts into liquidation — a case study in what daily-compounding leverage does to a portfolio. Semiconductor stocks have swung hard on technical signals, not fundamentals — which can create real opportunity for patient, long-term owners. A federal proposal to let companies report earnings twice a year instead of four times has reignited a real debate about transparency versus short-termism. Why Does the Market Feel So Unpredictable Right Now? If you’re 55, 65, or 75 and watching a retirement account that’s supposed to fund the next 30 or 40 years of your life, a week like this one is unsettling. The headlines contradict each other: inflation is cooling, but chip stocks are getting hammered one day and ripping higher the next. Banks are thriving, but somewhere on the other side of the world, hundreds of thousands of retail investors just lost their entire trading accounts overnight. It’s a lot to hold at once, and it’s reasonable to wonder whether any of it should change what you do with your own money. Here’s the honest answer: for most retirees holding a diversified, income-producing portfolio, almost none of it should. But understanding why requires pulling apart what actually happened this week — and separating the noise from the signal. What Actually Happened This Week — The Data Start with the good news. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that headline inflation cooled to 3.5% year-over-year in June, with core inflation (which strips out food and energy) coming in at 2.6% — both below what economists expected, and producer prices actually declined for the month. That’s a meaningfully better inflation picture than markets were braced for. But the Fed’s target isn’t necessarily fixed anymore. Kevin Warsh, who was sworn in as Federal Reserve chairman this spring, has openly questioned the assumptions behind the central bank’s longstanding 2% inflation goal and launched a broader review of how the Fed operates. For retirees who own bonds or rate-sensitive income investments, that’s not a footnote — it’s a reason to pay attention to what “the target” even means over the next few years, rather than assuming the old rules still apply. Meanwhile, bank earnings came in strong — but not for the reason most people assume. The lift came primarily from banks paying less to fund themselves (short-term deposit rates have fallen faster than the loans on their books have repriced), not from a fresh wave of borrowing. It’s a good environment for financial stocks, but it’s a funding-cost story more than a booming-economy story, and that distinction matters if you’re trying to judge whether the rally has legs. Then there’s the semiconductor sector, which has been the market’s most volatile corner. Taiwan Semiconductor, the company that manufactures the vast majority of the world’s advanced AI chips, reported June revenue up nearly 68% year-over-year, a genuinely extraordinary number driven by AI infrastructure demand. And yet chip stocks broadly have been whipping up and down for reasons that have very little to do with numbers like that one. A lot of that action is technical: when a stock breaks below a widely watched moving average, institutional trading algorithms are programmed to sell, regardless of what the underlying business is doing. That selling then triggers more selling. It looks like panic. It’s often just mechanics. The starkest illustration of what leverage does in a downturn came out of South Korea this month, where a wave of new single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to semiconductor giants Samsung and SK Hynix triggered margin calls on more than 1.2 million retail trading accounts, with roughly 320,000 to 360,000 of those accounts fully liquidated in a matter of days. These products were designed to move twice the daily price swing of a single stock — which sounds appealing on the way up and is devastating on the way down, because the losses compound daily rather than tracking the stock’s actual return over time. It’s an ocean away from Lexington, Kentucky, but the lesson travels: leverage doesn’t just add risk, it changes the math entirely. Finally, there’s a quieter but genuinely important story developing in Washington. The SEC has proposed letting public companies choose to report earnings twice a year instead of four times, a change championed by President Trump and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins as a way to reduce short-term pressure on management teams. The idea splits reasonable people: less frequent reporting could free executives to run their businesses for the next several years instead of the next ninety days, but it could also mean investors — including retirees who depend on knowing exactly what they own — get less information, less often. This week’s news cycle also included a primetime presidential address in which Trump alleged that newly declassified intelligence showed foreign interference — including from China — in the 2020 election, along with claims of voter registration fraud in Michigan. Election security officials, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have said they’ve found no evidence that any votes were altered in past elections. Whatever your read on the speech, it fed into a broader theme running through the whole hour: how much can you trust the numbers an institution hands you, whether that’s a vote count or a government inflation report? It’s why we do our own research instead of relying solely on government statistics or Wall Street’s sell-side analysts, and it’s the same instinct that should guide how you evaluate any claim, official or otherwise. The Reframe: Manufactured Volatility vs. Real Risk Here’s the framework we come back to on nearly every episode of the show, and it’s the one thing we want you to take from this week’s news: there is a real difference between manufactured volatility and real risk, and confusing the two is one of the most expensive mistakes a retiree can make. Manufactured volatility is what happens when a stock’s price swings because of leverage unwinding, algorithmic trading around technical levels, or funds racing to exit ahead of a quarterly number — not because the underlying business got worse. The Korean ETF collapse is manufactured volatility in its purest form: a Samsung or SK Hynix shareholder holding actual shares, with no leverage, watched the same news and the same earnings power, just without the forced-selling spiral. Real risk is different. Real risk is a company losing its competitive position, cutting its dividend, or piling on debt it can’t service. Real risk should change what you own. Manufactured volatility, more often than not, should not. The trouble is that from the outside, both look identical on a stock chart. A share price falling 10% doesn’t come labeled “manufactured” or “real.” Telling the difference requires actually knowing the business you own — its cash flow, its dividend history, its balance sheet — well enough to judge whether this week’s headline changed anything about that story. That’s the diligence part of the job, and there’s no shortcut around it. How Should Retirement Investors Respond to This Kind of Volatility? At Dupree Financial Group, this is exactly why our approach centers on dividend-paying stocks and bonds rather than chasing whatever sector is moving fastest. When you own a company for the income it generates — not for a price target — a week of manufactured volatility becomes far less threatening, and sometimes it becomes an opportunity. When institutions are forced to sell a good company for reasons that have nothing to do with its fundamentals, the price drop that scares one investor is simply a better entry point for another. That’s not a guarantee of a favorable outcome — all investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal — but it’s a fundamentally different posture than reacting to every headline. Seven Steps to Retirement-Proof Your Portfolio Against Manufactured Volatility Know what you own, line by line. Pull up your statement and be able to explain, in one sentence each, why you own every major holding. If you can’t, that’s the first thing to fix — not the market. Separate the headline from the business. Before reacting to a price move, ask whether anything actually changed about the company’s earnings, dividend, or balance sheet — or whether it’s a technical or leverage-driven move like the ones described above. Keep leveraged and single-stock ETFs out of retirement money entirely. These products are built for daily traders, not long-term holders. The Korean ETF collapse is a real-world example of what daily compounding leverage can do to an account in a matter of days. Read past the quarterly headline number. Whether or not the reporting-frequency rules change, judge a company on multi-year cash flow and dividend trends, not a single quarter’s beat or miss. Keep a watchlist of quality companies for when panic creates a discount. When forced selling knocks a good business down for reasons unrelated to its fundamentals, that’s the moment long-term investors get paid for their patience. Revisit your income plan, not just your account balance. A retirement portfolio’s job is to produce cash flow you can live on for 30 to 40 years. Judge a volatile week by whether your income stream held up — not by the number on the login screen. Get a second set of eyes on your portfolio. If you’re not sure whether what you own is built to withstand this kind of volatility, or whether you’re carrying more leverage or concentration risk than you realize, that’s exactly what a portfolio review is for. Frequently Asked Questions Is a leveraged ETF a good way to boost my retirement returns? No. Leveraged ETFs reset and compound daily, so their long-term return can diverge sharply from the underlying stock’s actual performance — including large losses even when the stock has technically risen over time. They’re built for short-term traders, not retirement accounts. Does cooling inflation mean the Fed will cut interest rates soon? Not necessarily. While June’s cooler CPI reading supports the case for rate cuts, the Fed’s new chairman has signaled openness to rethinking the central bank’s approach to its inflation target, adding real uncertainty to the timeline for any rate decisions. Why do stock prices swing so much when a company’s earnings didn’t change? Much of the day-to-day movement in popular stocks comes from technical trading, algorithmic strategies tied to chart levels, and leveraged funds being forced to buy or sell — not from new information about the business itself. That’s manufactured volatility, not real risk. What does the debate over quarterly earnings reports mean for individual investors? If the SEC’s proposal is adopted, some companies may report financial results only twice a year instead of four times. That could reduce short-term pressure on management, but it may also mean investors get less frequent, less detailed information about what they actually own. How do I know if my retirement portfolio is built to handle volatility? Start by confirming you can explain why you own every major holding and that none of your retirement money sits in leveraged or single-stock products. A complimentary portfolio review with a fee-only fiduciary advisor is the fastest way to get an honest, unbiased answer. The Bottom Line Weeks like this one will keep happening. Leverage will keep building up somewhere and unwinding somewhere else. Traders will keep reacting to chart levels instead of cash flow. What won’t change is the difference between a business that’s actually worth less than it was last week and a stock price that simply got caught in someone else’s forced selling. Learn to tell those two things apart, build your income around companies you understand, and a volatile week stops being a threat to your retirement — it starts being background noise, or even opportunity. Schedule a Complimentary Portfolio Review If you’re not sure whether your portfolio is built to take advantage of volatility like we saw this week — instead of getting knocked around by it — we’ll take a look. No charge. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about what you own and whether it’s working for you. Call: 859-233-0400  |  Visit: dupreefinancial.com You Might Also Like Catch up on past episodes of The Tom Dupree Show — our full podcast archive, updated every week. Meet the team at Dupree Financial Group — learn about our fee-only, fiduciary approach and the people behind it. [PLACEHOLDER — link to a prior show notes/blog post on dividend investing fundamentals once a confirmed URL is available] About the Author: Tom Dupree is the founder of Dupree Financial Group and host of The Tom Dupree Show, heard weekly across Central Kentucky radio and podcast. With 47 years in the investment business, starting in municipal bonds in 1978, Tom built DFG’s investment philosophy around one idea: retirement money should generate income you can see, not just a balance you hope holds up. Dupree Financial Group is an independent, fee-only fiduciary Registered Investment Advisor based in Lexington, Kentucky. REGULATORY DISCLAIMER: This material is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice, nor is it a solicitation to buy or sell any security. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance of any market index or security is not indicative of future results. Dupree Financial Group is a fee-only fiduciary and does not receive commissions on any products or securities discussed. Please consult a qualified financial, tax, or legal professional before making any investment decision. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "What Does This Week's Market Volatility Mean for Your Retirement Portfolio?", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/market-volatility-retirement-portfolio/", "datePublished": "2026-07-18", "description": "Cooling inflation, strong bank earnings, and wild swings in chip stocks — what this week's market moves mean for retirement investors.", "partOfSeries": { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "The Tom Dupree Show", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/podcasts/" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tom Dupree" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Dupree Financial Group", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com" } } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is a leveraged ETF a good way to boost my retirement returns?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "No. Leveraged ETFs reset and compound daily, so their long-term return can diverge sharply from the underlying stock's actual performance — including large losses even when the stock has technically risen over time. They're built for short-term traders, not retirement accounts." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does cooling inflation mean the Fed will cut interest rates soon?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Not necessarily. While June's cooler CPI reading supports the case for rate cuts, the Fed's new chairman has signaled openness to rethinking the central bank's approach to its inflation target, adding real uncertainty to the timeline for any rate decisions." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why do stock prices swing so much when a company's earnings didn't change?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Much of the day-to-day movement in popular stocks comes from technical trading, algorithmic strategies tied to chart levels, and leveraged funds being forced to buy or sell — not from new information about the business itself. That's manufactured volatility, not real risk." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What does the debate over quarterly earnings reports mean for individual investors?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "If the SEC's proposal is adopted, some companies may report financial results only twice a year instead of four times. That could reduce short-term pressure on management, but it may also mean investors get less frequent, less detailed information about what they actually own." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do I know if my retirement portfolio is built to handle volatility?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Start by confirming you can explain why you own every major holding and that none of your retirement money sits in leveraged or single-stock products. A complimentary portfolio review with a fee-only fiduciary advisor is the fastest way to get an honest, unbiased answer." } } ] } The post What Does Market Volatility Mean for Your Retirement Portfolio? appeared first on Dupree Financial.

Is the Federal Reserve’s New Shake-Up Good or Bad for Your Retirement Income? By Tom Dupree, Founder, Dupree Financial Group Short answer: it’s genuinely both, and which one matters more depends on whether your retirement income is built to keep pace with rising costs. New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has launched a formal, five-part review of how the Fed operates — covering everything from how it talks to markets, to how it collects the inflation data that moves interest rates, to whether artificial intelligence is quietly reshaping the economy in ways the old playbook never anticipated. On this week’s episode of The Financial Hour, James Dupree, Mike Johnson, and Michael Dawahare sat in to break down what this shake-up actually means — and, more importantly, what it means for anyone relying on their portfolio to produce real, spendable income in retirement. Key Takeaways A new Fed chair is auditing the Fed itself — five task forces are reassessing communications, the balance sheet, data quality, and the inflation target. The Fed’s own bond portfolio carries an unrealized loss in the hundreds of billions — proof that duration risk applies to everyone, including the Fed. AI is cutting both ways on inflation — boosting productivity in some areas, raising input costs like memory chips in others. A tariff-driven price bump and true monetary inflation are not the same thing, and the difference matters for how policymakers respond. Income that doesn’t grow — money markets, CDs, old bonds — quietly loses ground to rising costs every year it sits still. Who Is Kevin Warsh, and Why Is He Changing How the Fed Operates? Kevin Warsh has been a student of the Federal Reserve for most of his career, and one of his first moves as chair was to launch five task forces to reassess the institution’s core functions: communications, balance sheet policy, data quality, productivity and jobs (including AI), and the inflation framework itself. According to CNBC’s reporting on the review, the task forces are directed to start from first principles and question existing practice rather than simply fine-tune it — Brown Brothers Harriman strategist Scott Clemons described the approach as “regime change, but in a velvet glove.” The philosophy behind it is simple: stop, assess, and pivot where needed — the same discipline any well-run company applies when a board challenges management on why things are done a certain way. Warsh is asking the Fed to do that to itself, publicly, for the first time in a long time. What Did the Federal Reserve Get Wrong in 2008 and 2021? To understand why this review matters, it helps to look at the Fed’s actual track record. In 2006 and 2007, as the housing market was cracking, the Fed’s regional offices were on record saying there was no housing problem. There was. Then, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed held interest rates near zero for over a decade — a policy commonly called ZIRP — creating what our team described on-air as a “wet blanket” over markets that made honest price discovery difficult. The more recent example is fresher: in 2021, as trillions in pandemic stimulus moved through the economy, the Fed described the resulting price increases as “transitory.” They weren’t. Prices rose at the fastest pace in decades, and by the time policy caught up, households had already absorbed the damage — a miss the current review is squarely aimed at preventing from happening again. Why Does the Fed Have a Balance Sheet Loss in the Hundreds of Billions? Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, System Open Market Account (SOMA) Annual Reports, 2022–2025. Here’s a detail that surprises a lot of listeners: the Fed itself is sitting on a large paper loss. During the zero-rate years, the Fed bought enormous quantities of bonds with very low coupon payments as part of a policy known as quantitative easing. When interest rates rose in 2022, the market value of those bonds fell — the same way any bond’s price falls when rates rise. According to the New York Fed’s own 2025 System Open Market Account report, the unrealized loss on the Fed’s securities portfolio stood at $844.2 billion at the end of 2025 — down from over $1 trillion the year before, but still historically enormous. The Fed can’t easily sell these bonds without disrupting the very bond market it’s trying to stabilize, so for now, it’s simply absorbing the loss. It’s a useful, if uncomfortable, reminder: interest rate risk doesn’t spare anyone — not even the institution that sets interest rates. The Reframe: What the Fed’s Own Mistake Teaches Retirees About Bonds Here’s the part of this story that doesn’t show up in the news coverage of Warsh’s review: the Fed’s $844 billion paper loss isn’t just a Washington curiosity. It’s a live demonstration of the exact risk that quietly erodes many retirement portfolios. The Fed bought long-duration bonds when rates were near zero, on the assumption that those rates — and the value of those bonds — would hold. They didn’t. If the most sophisticated balance sheet in the world can misjudge duration risk that badly, it’s worth asking whether a retirement plan built around the same assumption — that a fixed-rate bond bought today will still meet your needs in ten or fifteen years — is really as safe as it feels. A bond doesn’t know what a gallon of milk costs in 2035. It just pays what it promised to pay in the year you bought it. This is precisely why our firm’s approach leans on dividend-paying, financially strong companies rather than a bond-heavy “set it and forget it” allocation. A healthy company’s board can raise its dividend as costs rise — a bond’s coupon is frozen the day you buy it. The Fed just proved, at a scale of nearly a trillion dollars, what happens when income doesn’t adjust to a changing rate environment. Retirees don’t have the option of just holding to maturity and calling the loss “unrealized.” That gap has to show up somewhere in a household budget. Is Artificial Intelligence Good or Bad for the Economy? One of Warsh’s five task forces is specifically looking at how AI affects productivity and jobs, and our hosts see it as a genuinely mixed picture. On one hand, AI is already making certain kinds of work dramatically more efficient; our hosts pointed to real examples of complex technical projects being completed in a fraction of the time they used to take. Historically, technology has tended to be deflationary — it lowers the cost of producing things over time. On the other hand, the buildout of AI infrastructure is pushing some costs up right now — memory chips being a clear example, which in turn affects the price of consumer electronics. So the net effect on inflation isn’t a simple yes-or-no answer. It depends on which part of the economy you’re looking at, and over what timeframe. What’s the Difference Between a One-Time Price Increase and Real Inflation? This distinction came up repeatedly in the episode, and it matters more than it sounds. A tariff, for example, can raise the price of a specific good once — that’s a one-time adjustment, not ongoing inflation. True inflation, by contrast, is a monetary phenomenon: more money in the system chasing the same amount of goods and services, which pushes prices up broadly and persistently. Our hosts noted that both the current Fed and Treasury leadership seem comfortable with modest inflation as long as wages are rising faster — a meaningfully different posture than in years past, and one that, if it holds, could support the kind of broader economic growth the country hasn’t consistently seen since before the 2008 financial crisis. How Can Retirees Protect Their Income From Inflation? This is where the conversation gets most practical for anyone at or near retirement. Money markets, CDs, and bonds purchased years ago don’t adjust for rising costs — the income they produce today is the same as it was when you bought them, even as your expenses climb. That’s not a flaw in those tools; it’s simply not what they’re designed to do. An income approach built around dividend-paying, financially strong companies works differently. When the underlying businesses are healthy, they have the ability to grow their dividend payments over time — even during flat or difficult markets — because a board’s decision to raise a dividend is separate from where the stock market happens to be on any given day. That’s the mechanism our team described as the foundation of an inflation-aware retirement income strategy: income with the potential to rise, rather than income that’s frozen in place. Frequently Asked Questions Is a little inflation actually a good thing? Fed and Treasury leadership have signaled comfort with modest inflation as long as wages are rising at a faster rate. The concern isn’t inflation existing at all — it’s inflation outpacing the income people rely on to cover their expenses. Why did the Fed call 2021 inflation “transitory” when it clearly wasn’t? The Fed’s framework at the time treated the post-pandemic price spike as temporary, tied to supply chain disruptions expected to resolve quickly. Instead, inflation persisted and accelerated well into 2022, now viewed as one of the Fed’s most consequential misreadings. Does AI cause inflation or reduce it? Both, depending on where you look. AI-driven productivity gains tend to be deflationary over time, the way most technology has been historically. But the current buildout of AI infrastructure is pushing up costs in specific areas, like memory chips, in the near term. Why don’t bonds and CDs keep up with inflation? A bond or CD generally pays a fixed rate of interest set at the time of purchase. As the cost of living rises afterward, that fixed payment buys less — there’s no built-in mechanism for the income to grow along with your expenses, the same dynamic that produced the Fed’s own unrealized loss. What should I actually do if I’m worried my retirement income isn’t keeping pace? Start by getting a clear picture of what you currently own and what income it’s actually producing versus what your expenses look like today. A complimentary portfolio review is designed to give you exactly that picture, with no obligation attached. The Bottom Line The Fed rethinking its own playbook is genuinely good news — a clear-eyed institution is better than a defensive one. But the more useful question isn’t what Washington does next. It’s whether your own income is built to grow, or built to sit still while everything around it gets more expensive. That’s a question worth answering before the next rate cycle makes it more urgent, not after. Ready to See Whether Your Portfolio Can Keep Up? If you’re not sure whether your portfolio’s income is actually keeping up with what things cost these days, that’s exactly the kind of question a complimentary portfolio review is built to answer. No charge, no pressure — just an honest look at what you own and whether it’s working for you. Call 859-233-0400 or schedule your complimentary portfolio review. You can also listen to more episodes of The Financial Hour, and learn more about our fee-only, fiduciary approach on our About Us page. About Tom Dupree: Tom Dupree is the founder of Dupree Financial Group and a 47-year veteran of the investment business. He hosts The Financial Hour, covering the financial topics that matter most to retirees and those approaching retirement in plain English, without the Wall Street spin. Regulatory Disclaimer Dupree Financial Group is a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The information presented here is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Listeners and readers should consult with a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "Is the Federal Reserve's New Shake-Up Good or Bad for Your Retirement Income?", "datePublished": "2026-07-11", "description": "New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is auditing the Fed's own playbook. Here's what the shake-up means for inflation, AI, and your retirement income.", "partOfSeries": { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "The Financial Hour", "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/podcasts" }, "url": "https://www.dupreefinancial.com/fed-shake-up-retirement-income/" } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is a little inflation actually a good thing?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Fed and Treasury leadership have signaled comfort with modest inflation as long as wages are rising at a faster rate. The concern isn't inflation existing at all — it's inflation outpacing the income people rely on to cover their expenses." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why did the Fed call 2021 inflation "transitory" when it clearly wasn't?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The Fed's framework at the time treated the post-pandemic price spike as temporary, tied to supply chain disruptions expected to resolve quickly. Instead, inflation persisted and accelerated well into 2022, now viewed as one of the Fed's most consequential misreadings." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does AI cause inflation or reduce it?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Both, depending on where you look. AI-driven productivity gains tend to be deflationary over time, the way most technology has been historically. But the current buildout of AI infrastructure is pushing up costs in specific areas, like memory chips, in the near term." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why don't bonds and CDs keep up with inflation?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "A bond or CD generally pays a fixed rate of interest set at the time of purchase. As the cost of living rises afterward, that fixed payment buys less — there's no built-in mechanism for the income to grow along with your expenses, the same dynamic that produced the Fed's own unrealized loss." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What should I actually do if I'm worried my retirement income isn't keeping pace?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Start by getting a clear picture of what you currently own and what income it's actually producing versus what your expenses look like today. A complimentary portfolio review is designed to give you exactly that picture, with no obligation attached." } } ] } The post Is the Fed’s Shake-Up Good for Your Retirement Income? | Dupree Financial appeared first on Dupree Financial.

In this episode of the Future Learners podcast, Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown tackle the question underneath almost every parent’s worry right now: how do I prepare my child for a world that is changing faster than the one I grew up in? The short answer is that preparing children for the real world is less about facts and figures and more about the skills a curriculum alone rarely teaches, and homeschooling gives families the time and space to build them. Brett and Ellen walk through six real-world skills the Euka program is built to develop: financial literacy and entrepreneurship, independent thinking, self-awareness and reflection, hands-on real-world experiences, connecting learning to the world around them, and responsibility and self-management. Along the way they share practical, do-it-today ideas any parent can use, from letting a five-year-old scan the groceries to understand money, to a nightly gratitude check-in, to the simple “this or that” trick that helps a child feel ownership over their own choices. Want to have a positive impact on thousands of families like you? Leave us an audio question or share your homeschooling journey — anonymously if you like. Real questions from real families help us bring more value to every episode.  Send us a message We're listening Send us your voice message Up to two minutes. Speak in your own words Your name Email ● Tap the red dot to start Re-record Download I'm happy for Euka to keep this recording and to share it (or part of it) on the Future Learners Podcast. See our privacy policy. Yes, let me know when new episodes drop. Fresh conversations every week — unsubscribe any time. Send to the Future Learners team Thanks — we've got it. Brett, Ellen and the team will give it a listen. Keep an ear out — we'll let you know if your message features in an upcoming episode. Key Points The six real-world skills covered Financial literacy and entrepreneurship, Grade 7 and 8 business studies where students run their own small business, building into a practical Grade 9 and 10 financial literacy program covering budgets, tax, and how money actually works. Developing independent thinkers, lessons written directly to the student, plenty of hands-on activities, and a “why this lesson matters” section so children see the relevance before they start. Building self-awareness and reflection, a reflection section at the end of every lesson, achievement certificates, and an upload space so students can look back on what they have made with pride. Creating space for real-world experiences, volunteering, work experience, and the everyday curiosity that the slower pace of homeschooling makes room for. Connecting learning to the real world, teaching children to weigh opposing views, question a single source, and stay curious about the world around them. Developing responsibility and self-management, age-appropriate ownership, from doing their own washing to organising their own weekly timetable. Practical ideas any parent can use today Let young children scan a few grocery items to learn how money and barcodes work. Give a small daily reward tied to completed lessons so children learn the value of earning something. Run a nightly gratitude check-in, and lead by sharing your own first. Use “this or that” choices so a child feels ownership over their decisions. Why preparing children for the real world starts outside the curriculum The starting point Ellen and Brett keep returning to is that the world today’s students are entering is not one where memorising facts is the thing that makes them successful. It is about how they think, not just what they think. “The world that our students are going into isn’t a world where facts and figures and things like that are going to be the thing that they need to take with them to become successful in their future. So it’s about looking outside of the curriculum.”— Ellen Brown, co-founder and Head of Education, Euka Brett frames the urgency around change. As the world moves into an AI-infused future, he argues families will see more change in the next three years than many have seen in decades. That can feel daunting for a parent, but he is clear it is an opportunity, not a doomsday, and the job is to prepare children to think and adapt rather than simply to remember. Financial literacy and entrepreneurship The first skill starts in Grade 7 and 8 business studies. Rather than only learning how a business works in theory, Euka students start their own small business and look at a different part of running it each week, from marketing one week to budgets the next. Ellen shared a real example from a parent she spoke to recently, whose Grade 7 daughter runs a ragdoll cat breeding program from home and applies what she learns in her business subject directly to it. Brett is careful to say this is not about turning every child into a business owner. It is about the lessons entrepreneurship teaches, whether that is a lemonade stand or simply understanding how commerce works. His everyday example is letting his five-year-old scan a few items at the shops to learn how money and barcodes work, and where the food on the plate actually comes from. “When you pay, you pay attention.”— Brett Campbell, CEO and co-founder, Euka That principle carries into the Grade 9 and 10 financial literacy program, which covers the practical money knowledge many of us wish we had been taught: what tax is, what happens when you buy a car, and how to build and stick to a budget. “It’s that real practical financial literacy that, I guess we all take for granted, and then of course when you’re a young person you’ve got no idea.”— Ellen Brown Developing independent thinkers The second skill is built into the way Euka lessons are written. From the foundation program, lessons are written directly to the student, even before they can read, so the child feels ownership over their learning rather than being talked at through a textbook. Two other design choices support this. Plenty of hands-on, practical activities give children room to try things with their hands and develop their thinking without a boundary around it. And a “why this lesson matters” section in the introduction helps a student see the value of what they are about to learn before they start. Brett connects this to a bigger idea: children who have everything done for them can end up unprepared for adult life. He shares the memory of a friend whose parents did everything for him, and who struggled with the basics of running a household when he finally moved out. “Anything that your child can do, you should probably get them to try it and do it and practice it.”— Brett Campbell His caution to parents is that giving a child everything, without any ownership attached, can quietly build entitlement. The more useful question is not what you can give them, but whether they understand and are prepared for the real world. Building self-awareness and reflection The third skill is one Brett describes under the umbrella of emotional intelligence: helping a child first understand how they feel, and then learn to regulate it. Ellen points to the practical tools inside the Euka program. Every lesson ends with a reflection section where the student picks an icon for how they felt, happy, frustrated, bored, and that small habit helps them notice patterns and act on them. “It’s about getting them to think of themselves as learners and reflect on their learning experience and improve it, because that’s the kind of thing they’ll take on into the workforce.”— Ellen Brown There is also an upload space after practical activities, so a student can look back on a diorama or poster they built and feel genuine pride in it, plus achievement certificates each term. The slower pace of homeschooling, Ellen notes, is what gives families the time to reflect together in the first place. Brett’s at-home version is a nightly gratitude check-in with his daughter. The key, he says, is to lead by sharing your own first rather than forcing gratitude, because that models the behaviour instead of demanding it. Creating space for real-world experiences The fourth skill is about the experiences that time makes room for. For Ellen, this was one of the biggest draws of homeschooling, and her family did Meals on Wheels together when her children were little. “What the kids got out of that was seeing where people live, how much just spending a few minutes talking to somebody can mean to someone.”— Ellen Brown She contrasts the packed after-school schedule of soccer, dance, homework and bed with the breathing room homeschooling can offer, room for volunteering, work experience, or a child simply pulling things apart to see how they work. Brett’s thread is that real-world experiences quickly show a child where their real interests and abilities lie. He wanted to be a professional athlete growing up, but experiencing it taught him the gap between natural ability and the work required to break through. “Putting yourself in real world experiences quickly shines a spotlight on where your areas of opportunity lie.”— Brett Campbell His encouragement to parents is to pay close attention to what their children are drawn to, even a video game, and ask why they love it, because there are usually clues in it worth pulling a thread on. Connecting learning to the real world The fifth skill builds on the first two. Brett describes how, as children grow into independent and critical thinkers, they start to question a single source of information rather than accepting it at face value. His practical tool is teaching children to look at the “steel man” of the opposing view, so they learn there is usually more than one side, and that beliefs can and should change when new evidence appears. “Being able to be fluid and not rigid and dogmatic on your thinking is a very, very important skill to bring into the big wide world.”— Brett Campbell Ellen’s example is meeting her first homeschooled teenager, who had a strong sense of self and an awareness of local issues that surprised her. She sees homeschooling as an opportunity to live in the real world rather than being cocooned from it, so young people grow up engaged with what is going on around them. Developing responsibility and self-management The sixth skill is responsibility, and Ellen’s view is that children often love the ownership it gives them. Her kids have done their own washing since they could press a button, and by their teenage years that responsibility was simply part of who they were. “If the worst thing is you can’t find some clean knickers, then you’ve learned that lesson the hard way and you’ll work that one out.”— Ellen Brown That same principle extends into managing their own weekly timetable when homeschooling, and reflecting on what did and did not get done. Brett’s practical trick for younger children is “this or that”: offering two choices rather than an instruction, so the child feels ownership over the decision. “She’s not being told what to do. She’s now making the choice herself, which feels like she’s got this ownership over it and it’s her decision.”— Brett Campbell Answered Questions Real questions Australian parents ask about preparing their children for life beyond the curriculum. What life skills does homeschooling teach that a standard curriculum might miss? + Brett and Ellen focus on six: financial literacy and entrepreneurship, independent thinking, self-awareness and reflection, real-world experiences, connecting learning to the world around them, and responsibility and self-management. Their argument is that these skills, more than facts and figures, are what prepare a child to think and adapt in a fast-changing world. How does Euka teach financial literacy and entrepreneurship? + In Grade 7 and 8, students take business studies and start their own small business, looking at a different part of running it each week. This builds into a Grade 9 and 10 financial literacy program covering practical money knowledge like budgets, tax, and what happens when you buy a car. How can I teach my young child about money at home? + Brett’s suggestion is to let them scan a few items at the shops so they learn how money and barcodes work, and where things come from. He also gives his daughter a small daily reward tied to completed lessons, so she learns the value of earning something rather than being given everything. “When you pay, you pay attention.”— Brett Campbell How does Euka help children become independent thinkers? + Lessons are written directly to the student, even before they can read, so the child feels ownership over their learning. Plenty of hands-on activities and a “why this lesson matters” section help children see the relevance of what they are learning before they start. What is a simple way to build self-awareness in my child? + Every Euka lesson ends with a reflection section where the student picks how they felt, which helps them notice patterns over time. At home, Brett suggests a nightly gratitude check-in, and leading by sharing your own gratitude first rather than forcing it. How does homeschooling create space for real-world experiences? + The slower pace of homeschooling gives families time for volunteering, work experience, and following a child’s curiosity, experiences that a packed after-school schedule can crowd out. Both hosts see these experiences as one of the fastest ways for a child to discover where their real interests and strengths lie. Why This Episode Matters Preparing a child for the real world is not mainly about how much they can memorise. In a world changing as quickly as this one, the skills that matter are how a child thinks, reflects, and takes responsibility, and those are exactly the skills a curriculum alone rarely has time to build. Homeschooling gives families the time and space to build them deliberately, from financial literacy and independent thinking through to real-world experience and self-management. And most of it starts with small, everyday moments any parent can create. Your Family, Your Journey Choosing to homeschool for your senior year is a genuinely viable option with Euka Future Learning. The assessed university pathway can guarantee you entry into over 100 universities across 18 countries without the requirement of an ATAR. For those students not seeking to go to Uni, our assessment-free path can be a breath of fresh air. Students still receive their Grade 12 certificate, but have the freedom and stress-free environment to learn in. New to homeschooling? Start here with our Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "alternateName": "Euka", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/themes/euka/assets/images/euka-future-learning-logo.svg" }, "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/id1717947259", "https://www.youtube.com/@eukafuturelearning" ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-AU" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell", "name": "Brett Campbell", "jobTitle": "CEO & Co-founder", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown", "name": "Ellen Brown", "jobTitle": "Co-founder & Head of Education", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series", "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "webFeed": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/id1717947259" ] }, { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#video", "name": "Preparing Your Children for the Real World: 6 Life Skills Homeschooling Can Teach | 047", "description": "Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown walk through six real-world skills the Euka program is built to develop, with practical, do-it-today ideas any parent can use.", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Episode-47-1920x1080_web-scaled.png" ], "uploadDate": "2026-07-07", "duration": "PT51M27S", "contentUrl": "https://youtu.be/UCJKRbACtn8", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/UCJKRbACtn8", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "AudioObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#audio", "name": "Preparing Your Children for the Real World: 6 Life Skills Homeschooling Can Teach | 047", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "duration": "PT51M27S", "contentUrl": "https://traffic.libsyn.com/8dfa0ad1-0218-4adc-a5ae-0a5e78ec6ee9/Episode_47_-_Preparing_Your_Children_for_the_Real_World_AUDIO_ONLY_v02.mp3", "sameAs": [ "https://youtu.be/UCJKRbACtn8" ] }, { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#episode", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/", "name": "Preparing Your Children for the Real World: 6 Life Skills Homeschooling Can Teach | 047", "episodeNumber": 47, "datePublished": "2026-07-07", "dateModified": "2026-07-07", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "partOfSeries": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series" }, "associatedMedia": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#audio" }, "video": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#video" }, "author": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" } ], "actor": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" } ], "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "image": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Episode-47-1920x1080_web-scaled.png", "description": "Six real-world life skills homeschooling can build, and practical do-it-today ideas any parent can use, with Euka co-founders Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown.", "abstract": "Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown explain why preparing children for the real world is less about facts and figures and more about skills a curriculum alone rarely has time to build. They walk through six skills the Euka program develops — financial literacy and entrepreneurship, independent thinking, self-awareness and reflection, real-world experiences, connecting learning to the world, and responsibility and self-management — with practical ideas any parent can use today.", "timeRequired": "PT51M27S", "keywords": "homeschooling life skills, preparing children for the real world, financial literacy for kids, independent thinking, self-awareness in children, responsibility and self-management, homeschooling Australia, Euka", "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Life skills education" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Preparing children for the real world" } ], "mentions": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Financial literacy and entrepreneurship", "description": "Practical money knowledge and business thinking. In Grade 7 and 8 Euka students take business studies and run a small business, building into a Grade 9 and 10 financial literacy program covering budgets, tax, and how money works." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Independent thinking", "description": "Reasoning, questioning a single source, and taking ownership of learning, supported by Euka lessons written directly to the student and a why-this-lesson-matters framing." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Self-awareness and reflection", "description": "Emotional intelligence and reflecting on how you learn, supported by a reflection section at the end of every Euka lesson and achievement certificates." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Real-world experiences", "description": "Hands-on experiences such as volunteering and work experience that the slower pace of homeschooling makes room for, helping children discover their interests and strengths." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Connecting learning to the real world", "description": "Weighing opposing views, questioning a single source, and staying curious and adaptable rather than rigid in your thinking." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Responsibility and self-management", "description": "Age-appropriate ownership, from a child doing their own washing to organising their own weekly timetable." } ], "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#webpage" } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#faq", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#webpage" }, "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What life skills does homeschooling teach that a standard curriculum might miss?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Brett and Ellen focus on six: financial literacy and entrepreneurship, independent thinking, self-awareness and reflection, real-world experiences, connecting learning to the world around them, and responsibility and self-management. Their argument is that these skills, more than facts and figures, are what prepare a child to think and adapt in a fast-changing world." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does Euka teach financial literacy and entrepreneurship?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "In Grade 7 and 8, students take business studies and start their own small business, looking at a different part of running it each week. This builds into a Grade 9 and 10 financial literacy program covering practical money knowledge like budgets, tax, and what happens when you buy a car." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How can I teach my young child about money at home?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Brett's suggestion is to let them scan a few items at the shops so they learn how money and barcodes work, and where things come from. He also gives his daughter a small daily reward tied to completed lessons, so she learns the value of earning something rather than being given everything." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does Euka help children become independent thinkers?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Lessons are written directly to the student, even before they can read, so the child feels ownership over their learning. Plenty of hands-on activities and a "why this lesson matters" section help children see the relevance of what they are learning before they start." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is a simple way to build self-awareness in my child?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Every Euka lesson ends with a reflection section where the student picks how they felt, which helps them notice patterns over time. At home, Brett suggests a nightly gratitude check-in, and leading by sharing your own gratitude first rather than forcing it." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does homeschooling create space for real-world experiences?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The slower pace of homeschooling gives families time for volunteering, work experience, and following a child's curiosity, experiences that a packed after-school schedule can crowd out. Both hosts see these experiences as one of the fastest ways for a child to discover where their real interests and strengths lie." } } ] }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Preparing Your Children for the Real World: 6 Life Skills Homeschooling Can Teach | 047", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/" } ] }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#webpage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/", "name": "Preparing Your Children for the Real World: 6 Life Skills Homeschooling Can Teach | 047", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website" }, "primaryImageOfPage": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Episode-47-1920x1080_web-scaled.png", "datePublished": "2026-07-07", "dateModified": "2026-07-07", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/homeschooling-life-skills-ep-047/#episode" }, "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Life skills education" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Homeschooling" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Preparing children for the real world" } ] } ] } The post Preparing Your Children for the Real World: 6 Life Skills Homeschooling Can Teach | 047 appeared first on Euka.

In this episode of the Future Learners podcast, Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown put the lens on the senior years. As families near Term 3, the pressure of Grade 11 and 12 climbs, and so does the anxiety. The short answer they keep coming back to: yes, you can switch to homeschooling as a senior student, even mid-year, and you can do it without losing a year of progress. Brett and Ellen walk through how Euka’s Grade 11 and 12 program works, the assessed and non-assessed streams, the university pathway recognised by over 100 universities across 18 countries, and the flexible fourth term that gives senior students room to breathe, work, and explore what comes next. They also answer the fear underneath almost every senior enquiry: without an ATAR or HSC, is the door to university closed? Ellen’s answer is that it is the opposite, and this episode explains why. Want to have a positive impact on thousands of families like you? Leave us an audio question or share your homeschooling journey — anonymously if you like. Real questions from real families help us bring more value to every episode.  Send us a message We're listening Send us your voice message Up to two minutes. Speak in your own words Your name Email ● Tap the red dot to start Re-record Download I'm happy for Euka to keep this recording and to share it (or part of it) on the Future Learners Podcast. See our privacy policy. Yes, let me know when new episodes drop. Fresh conversations every week — unsubscribe any time. Send to the Future Learners team Thanks — we've got it. Brett, Ellen and the team will give it a listen. Keep an ear out — we'll let you know if your message features in an upcoming episode. Key Points How the senior program is built Euka runs a full Grade 11 and 12 program with two streams: assessed (upload assessments, get teacher feedback, resubmit to lift your mark) and assessment-free (same subjects and assessments, self-directed, just no ATAR exams). English is the only mandatory subject; students choose five more from around 20 options, and external exams like piano or ballet can earn credit towards a subject. Subjects are one-year courses, so a student can change a subject a few weeks in, or start fresh with new subjects in Grade 12, which mainstream school rarely allows. Switching mid-year You can switch mid-year, including in Term 3 of Grade 12. Euka does not carry over school marks, but the student’s knowledge comes with them, and they can still finish the year with a full academic transcript. Euka does not run exams, which removes the ATAR and HSC pressure at the exact point in the year it usually peaks. The pathway beyond Grade 12 Euka’s university pathway is recognised by over 100 universities across 18 countries, with no ATAR required for entry. Senior students complete a diploma in their first year at the university’s college, which guarantees entry into second year of the degree and stands on its own if they choose not to continue. Grade 12 runs across three terms, leaving a flexible fourth term for work experience, volunteering, or exploring a passion before the next step. The single most asked question: can a senior student switch mid-year? The fear that holds most senior families back is timing. If Grade 12 has been hard, there is a strong pull to just finish the year, then make decisions off results that came from a difficult stretch. Ellen sees the pattern often. A student has been unwell, or a family situation has knocked Grade 12 off course, and by Term 3 the stakes and the pressure are both climbing. The student starts to withdraw, and the parent is left asking how to help. Switching mid-year breaks that bind. Students can start with Euka in Term 3, bring their existing knowledge with them, and still complete enough assessments and feedback to finish the year with a full academic transcript. “Whatever they’ve done in Term 1 and 2 at school can be brought forward in that they’ve got their knowledge. We don’t take their marks.”— Ellen Brown, co-founder and Head of Education, Euka The result is that a student who has had a rough first half of the year still gets the same opportunity at the end of it as if Grade 12 at school had gone well. How Grade 11 and 12 work at Euka Euka offers a full senior curriculum with two streams. The assessed stream is the one most students choose: they complete the same subjects and assessments, upload their work, and get feedback from the teaching team. The assessment-free stream covers the same content as a self-directed journey, finishing with a completion certificate rather than an academic transcript. Most families pick the assessed stream for the feedback, not because university is the goal. At school, feedback can feel like a verdict, a mark out of 100 with a list of what went wrong. At Euka, feedback is part of the learning. A student uploads an assessment, gets a mark alongside their strengths and the areas to improve, and can redo and resubmit the work to lift the result. “A student’s final results are up to the student, not up to what they know on a particular day.”— Ellen Brown English is the only mandatory subject. Students then choose five more from around 20 options, and Euka can credit external exams like piano or ballet. Because the subjects are one-year courses, a student who finds a subject is not the right fit a few weeks in can change it, and a student who did not enjoy their Grade 11 subjects can start fresh in Grade 12. The university pathway: over 100 universities, no ATAR needed There is a common assumption that without an ATAR or HSC, competitive university courses are closed. Ellen is emphatic that the opposite is true. Euka has a partnership recognised by over 100 universities across 18 countries, as well as every state around Australia. The university colleges have had their academic teams review Euka’s program and recognise it as equivalent to Grade 12, so students who meet the benchmark, around 70 per cent in the relevant subjects, have guaranteed entry. Here is how it works. In the first year, the student completes a diploma at the university’s college, sitting in the same lecture rooms but with smaller tutorial groups and extra academic support. Finishing the diploma guarantees a place in the second year of the degree. If they decide partway not to continue, they still hold a diploma, which sits higher than a Grade 12 certificate or a Cert III or IV. “You’re not picking a degree when you’re going on this Euka pathway, you’re actually picking a route.”— Ellen Brown Because the major is chosen at the end of first year, students do not have to lock in a decision before they even start. Ellen contrasts this with a student who goes straight from Grade 12 into first-year university, picks the wrong major, and leaves with nothing but a debt. Euka also handles the university applications, so families are not left navigating that part alone. The flexible fourth term: room to breathe, work and explore Grade 11 runs across four terms, building the foundation for the senior years. Grade 12 is structured over three terms, with assessments uploaded when the student is ready rather than against fixed due dates. That leaves a flexible fourth term, and Brett argues the breathing room it creates is one of the most underrated parts of the senior program. That space can go into work experience, a passion project, or volunteering. A student curious about a trade can spend a month in a workshop and learn quickly whether it fits. A student drawn to photography can chase that interest far enough to know if it is a path worth pursuing. Ellen points out a practical detail that often stops parents: work-experience insurance. It is simple to arrange, covers a three-month period, and costs less than $100, enough for a full term of trying something out. “There isn’t a door that has not opened for my own children when they just simply sent off an email saying, this is what I’m interested in doing.”— Ellen Brown Brett’s own thread through this is work ethic. It is not a subject you study, it is a behaviour you build, and he argues it is the single attribute he and other business owners look for most when hiring. His encouragement to senior students is direct: put your hand up, offer to help, and be willing to start on the broom before you build the house. Answered Questions Can I start homeschooling in Grade 11 or 12 mid-year? + Yes. Senior students can switch to Euka mid-year, including in Term 3 of Grade 12. Euka does not carry over school marks, but the student keeps their knowledge and completes enough assessments and feedback to finish the year with a full academic transcript. Can my child get into university after completing Grade 12 with Euka? + Yes. Euka has guaranteed-entry arrangements recognised by over 100 universities across 18 countries. The university colleges recognise Euka’s program as equivalent to Grade 12, so students who reach the benchmark, around 70 per cent in the relevant subjects, are guaranteed entry. No ATAR is required. “We guarantee that students who are keen to get into uni are able to do that anywhere in the country, or even if they want to go study in the US, they can do that too.”— Ellen Brown Does Euka provide a report card or academic transcript for Grade 11 to 12 students? + Yes. Assessed-stream students receive an academic transcript with their grades. Non-assessed students receive a completion certificate confirming they have finished Grade 11 and 12. Do Grade 11 and 12 students have to sit exams? + No. Euka does not run high-stakes exams. Assessments are uploaded for feedback and can be resubmitted. Removing exams is one of the ways Euka takes the ATAR and HSC pressure off senior students. Can my child change subjects between Grade 11 and 12? + Yes. In homeschooling the senior subjects are one-year courses, not the two-year lock-in of mainstream school, so a student can start fresh with different subjects in Grade 12 if Grade 11 was not the right fit. Why This Episode Matters A hard Grade 11 or 12 at school does not have to define what comes next. Senior students can switch mid-year, keep their progress, and finish with a full transcript, without the exam pressure that usually peaks in Term 3. The university door is wider than most families think. With guaranteed-entry pathways recognised by over 100 universities across 18 countries, and no ATAR required, a homeschooled senior student keeps every option open, and gains a diploma in the first year either way. Your Family, Your Journey Choosing to homeschool for your senior year is a genuinely viable option with Euka Future Learning. The assessed university pathway can guarantee you entry into over 100 universities across 18 countries without the requirement of an ATAR. For those students not seeking to go to Uni, our assessment-free path can be a breath of fresh air. Students still receive their Grade 12 certificate, but have the freedom and stress-free environment to learn in. New to homeschooling? Start here with our Complete Guide to Confident Homeschooling. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "alternateName": "Euka", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/themes/euka/assets/images/euka-future-learning-logo.svg" }, "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/id1717947259", "https://open.spotify.com/episode/1vrHXmKPNZ0Ct3N4uDZDCC", "https://www.youtube.com/@eukafuturelearning" ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-AU" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell", "name": "Brett Campbell", "jobTitle": "CEO & Co-founder", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown", "name": "Ellen Brown", "jobTitle": "Co-founder & Head of Education", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series", "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "webFeed": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/id1717947259", "https://open.spotify.com/episode/1vrHXmKPNZ0Ct3N4uDZDCC" ] }, { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#video", "name": "Starting Homeschooling Mid-Year in Grade 11 or 12: Senior Pathways Available at Euka | 046", "description": "Brett Campbell and Ellen Brown explain how senior students can switch to homeschooling mid-year with Euka, the assessed and assessment-free Grade 11 and 12 streams, and the ATAR-free university pathway recognised by 100+ universities across 18 countries.", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Episode-46-1920x1080_web-scaled.png" ], "uploadDate": "2026-07-01", "contentUrl": "https://youtu.be/8Itx4I34cP0", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Itx4I34cP0", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, { "@type": "AudioObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#audio", "name": "Starting Homeschooling Mid-Year in Grade 11 or 12: Senior Pathways Available at Euka | 046", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "contentUrl": "https://open.spotify.com/episode/1vrHXmKPNZ0Ct3N4uDZDCC", "sameAs": [ "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior/id1717947259?i=1000775087942", "https://open.spotify.com/episode/1vrHXmKPNZ0Ct3N4uDZDCC" ] }, { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#episode", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/", "name": "Starting Homeschooling Mid-Year in Grade 11 or 12: Senior Pathways Available at Euka | 046", "episodeNumber": 46, "datePublished": "2026-07-01", "dateModified": "2026-07-02", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "partOfSeries": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#series" }, "associatedMedia": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#audio" }, "video": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#video" }, "author": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" } ], "actor": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#ellen-brown" } ], "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "image": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Episode-46-1920x1080_web-scaled.png", "description": "Switching to homeschooling in Grade 11 or 12 mid-year, without losing a year. Euka's senior pathway is recognised by 100+ universities, no ATAR required.", "abstract": "Euka offers a full Grade 11 and 12 homeschooling program that students can join mid-year, including Term 3 of Grade 12, without losing the year. It provides assessed and assessment-free streams, an academic transcript, no ATAR or HSC exams, and a university pathway with guaranteed entry recognised by 100+ universities across 18 countries.", "timeRequired": "PT8M", "keywords": "homeschooling Grade 11, homeschooling Grade 12, mid-year homeschooling, senior homeschooling Australia, university without ATAR, no-ATAR university pathway, homeschooling academic transcript, Euka senior program", "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Mid-year homeschooling enrolment" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Senior secondary homeschooling (Grade 11 and 12)" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "University entry without an ATAR" } ], "mentions": [ { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Assessed stream", "description": "Euka Grade 11 and 12 stream where students upload assessments for teacher feedback, can resubmit to lift their mark, and finish with an academic transcript." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Assessment-free stream", "description": "Euka Grade 11 and 12 stream covering the same subjects self-directed, finishing with a completion certificate rather than an academic transcript." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "University pathway", "description": "Guaranteed-entry arrangement recognised by 100+ universities across 18 countries; students complete a diploma in first year that guarantees entry into second year of the degree, with no ATAR required." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Academic transcript", "description": "Record of grades issued to assessed-stream students on completion of Grade 12." }, { "@type": "DefinedTerm", "name": "Work-experience insurance", "description": "Simple three-month cover for under $100 that lets senior students undertake work experience in the flexible fourth term." } ], "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#webpage" } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#faq", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#webpage" }, "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can I start homeschooling in Grade 11 or 12 mid-year?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Senior students can switch to Euka mid-year, including in Term 3 of Grade 12. Euka does not carry over school marks, but the student keeps their knowledge and completes enough assessments and feedback to finish the year with a full academic transcript." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can my child get into university after completing Grade 12 with Euka?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Euka has guaranteed-entry arrangements recognised by over 100 universities across 18 countries. The university colleges recognise Euka's program as equivalent to Grade 12, so students who reach the benchmark, around 70 per cent in the relevant subjects, are guaranteed entry. No ATAR is required." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does Euka provide a report card or academic transcript for Grade 11 to 12 students?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Assessed-stream students receive an academic transcript with their grades. Non-assessed students receive a completion certificate confirming they have finished Grade 11 and 12." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Do Grade 11 and 12 students have to sit exams?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "No. Euka does not run high-stakes exams. Assessments are uploaded for feedback and can be resubmitted. Removing exams is one of the ways Euka takes the ATAR and HSC pressure off senior students." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can my child change subjects between Grade 11 and 12?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. In homeschooling the senior subjects are one-year courses, not the two-year lock-in of mainstream school, so a student can start fresh with different subjects in Grade 12 if Grade 11 was not the right fit." } } ] }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Starting Homeschooling Mid-Year in Grade 11 or 12: Senior Pathways Available at Euka | 046", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/" } ] }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#webpage", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/", "name": "Starting Homeschooling Mid-Year in Grade 11 or 12: Senior Pathways Available at Euka | 046", "inLanguage": "en-AU", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#website" }, "primaryImageOfPage": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Episode-46-1920x1080_web-scaled.png", "datePublished": "2026-07-01", "dateModified": "2026-07-02", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#breadcrumb" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/starting-homeschooling-mid-year-in-grade-11-or-12-senior-pathways-available-at-euka-046/#episode" }, "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Mid-year homeschooling enrolment" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Senior secondary homeschooling (Grade 11 and 12)" }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "University entry without an ATAR" } ] } ] } The post Starting Homeschooling Mid-Year in Grade 11 or 12: Senior Pathways Available at Euka | 046 appeared first on Euka.

{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "The Nike Cautionary Tale: What Happens When Leadership Loses Touch With Its Customers", "description": "Tom Dupree and analyst Michael Dawahare examine Nike's dramatic decline — from dominant global brand to a stock trading near 10-year lows — and draw clear parallels to retirement portfolio management.", "url": "https://dupreefinancial.com/blog/nike-cautionary-tale-leadership-lessons-retirement-investing", "datePublished": "2025-06-11", "inLanguage": "en-US", "partOfSeries": { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "The Tom Dupree Show", "url": "https://dupreefinancial.com" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tom Dupree" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Dupree Financial Group", "url": "https://dupreefinancial.com", "telephone": "859-233-0400", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressLocality": "Lexington", "addressRegion": "KY", "addressCountry": "US" } } }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What caused Nike's stock to fall from $180 to around $44?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Nike's decline was driven primarily by a strategic pivot under CEO John Donahoe, who took over in 2020 and aggressively reduced the company's reliance on wholesale partners like Foot Locker and specialty running stores in favor of a direct-to-consumer digital model. This freed up shelf space for competitors like HOKA and On Cloud, whose products consumers tried, preferred, and stayed with. Nike also took its eye off technical product innovation — the foundation of the brand — and the combination proved very difficult to reverse." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What leadership lessons can retirement investors take from Nike's decline?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The Nike story illustrates several principles that apply directly to managing retirement assets: proven strategies should not be abandoned in favor of untested new models; losing touch with core fundamentals — in business or in a portfolio — creates compounding damage over time; and when someone tells you the old approach is outdated, the right question is always whether the new approach has been tested and who benefits from your belief in it." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why did Nike's wholesale withdrawal strategy fail?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Nike believed consumers would migrate online and that eliminating wholesale intermediaries would improve margins. What actually happened was that the vacated shelf space went to competitors — HOKA, On Cloud, New Balance, ASICS, and Brooks — who used it to earn consumer loyalty. Once runners found a shoe they loved from another brand, they did not switch back. Nike also lost the critical feedback loop that specialty running retailers provided, making it slower to detect that its technical product was falling behind." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Who is Elliott Hill and can he turn Nike around?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Elliott Hill replaced John Donahoe as Nike CEO in September 2024. Unlike his predecessor, Hill spent his entire career at Nike, starting at the lowest rungs and earning his way up — giving him deep institutional knowledge of the business. He is widely regarded as credible and clear-eyed. However, nearly two years into his tenure, Nike has not yet been able to regain meaningful traction, illustrating how much harder recovery is than the original damage." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is Dupree Financial Group's investment approach for retirement income?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Dupree Financial Group is a fee-only, fiduciary SEC-registered RIA based in Lexington, Kentucky. The firm builds retirement income strategies around dividend-paying, income-generating separately managed accounts — with no products sold, no commissions, and no conflicts of interest. They specialize in helping adults 50 and older build portfolios designed to generate income that can keep pace with inflation over time." } } ] } ] } The Nike Cautionary Tale: What Happens When Leadership Loses Touch With Its Customers The Tom Dupree Show | Dupree Financial Group | dupreefinancial.com | 859-233-0400 Nike spent decades building one of the most recognized brands on the planet — the Swoosh, the Air Jordan, high-heat basketball shoes that consumers lined up for, and a presence in every major sporting goods retailer in the world. Then, in 2020, the company handed its future to a CEO who believed physical retail was a dying model, and what followed became a business school study in how quickly a great company can lose its way. In this episode of The Tom Dupree Show, host Tom Dupree and analyst Michael Dawahare walk through the full arc of Nike’s rise and decline — from its origins in a track coach’s garage to a stock that traded at $180 and has since fallen to around $44. They examine the strategic decisions that caused the damage, the board failures that let it compound, and the hard-won lesson that consumer loyalty, once transferred to a competitor, is almost impossible to reclaim. And for anyone managing retirement assets, the parallels are direct: proven strategies should not be abandoned for untested ones, fundamentals matter more than narratives, and the cost of a foundational error can take years to undo. You cannot put your own lenses on the lenses of your customer — you have to ask how they see the world, not how you see it. — Tom Dupree How Nike Built the Brand — and What It Was Actually Built On Nike was founded on performance athletics. Phil Knight, a runner at the University of Oregon, partnered with legendary track coach Bill Bowerman — who famously experimented with a waffle iron to create better running soles — and built a company that stood for technical innovation and athletic credibility. The brand’s cultural ascent accelerated in 1984 with the signing of Michael Jordan, and from there, Nike became what everyone knows: the dominant force in athletic footwear and apparel, consistently ranked among the world’s most recognized brands. At its peak, Nike operated across multiple business lines — high-heat basketball, lifestyle and streetwear, performance running, and endorsement deals with some of the most iconic athletes in the world. Its Jordan Brand alone eventually grew to represent 25–30% of total business. But that success carried a hidden fragility: the Jordan Brand was built on a generational talent, and there was no clear plan for what would carry that brand forward once Jordan’s cultural relevance inevitably faded with younger consumers. The 2020 CEO Transition and the Fatal Pivot When Nike’s board appointed John Donahoe as CEO in 2020, it elevated someone who had served on the board since 2014 and who had an exceptional track record — at eBay and ServiceNow. But his entire professional background was in direct-to-consumer digital commerce, and he arrived at Nike with a conviction that physical retail distribution was a slowly melting ice cube. His plan: reduce Nike’s dependence on wholesale partners — Foot Locker, Dick’s Sporting Goods, specialty running retailers — and shift the business toward a pure direct-to-consumer model. Margins would improve by eliminating the distribution layer. And the consumer, Donahoe believed, would simply find Nike on their phone rather than in a store. The pandemic made it look like a genius. Physical retail was disrupted, Nike’s direct channels surged, the stock reached all-time highs around $180, and the board was enthusiastic. Beneath the surface, the strategy was already creating irreversible damage. The Shelf Space Problem — and the Competitors Who Said Thank You When Nike told its wholesale partners they would be receiving significantly less product going forward, those partners did not fight back. They simply filled the space with someone else. HOKA — already a credible running brand — accelerated its growth dramatically. On Cloud, a Swiss performance running brand, began one of the most remarkable growth runs in the industry, expanding into running, tennis, golf, and multiple other categories simultaneously. New Balance, ASICS, and Brooks also claimed their share of the newly available retail real estate. The consumer who walked into a Foot Locker or Dick’s and encountered a wall of Nike was now encountering a much more competitive set of choices. They tried the alternatives. Many of them preferred what they found. And once a runner builds loyalty to a particular shoe platform — especially in a category where consumers replace their shoes every 90 days — that loyalty is remarkably durable. Nike also lost something less tangible but equally important: the feedback loop. Specialty running retailers were the ground-level intelligence network that told Nike week by week what runners wanted, what was working, and where the product needed to improve. When Nike walked away from that channel, it walked away from its early warning system. The Board Failure — and the Groupthink That Let It Happen One of the most striking aspects of the Nike story is not that one CEO had a flawed conviction — that happens — but that an entire board of accomplished executives approved and sustained a strategy that was, in hindsight, obviously misaligned with how Nike’s business actually worked. By some accounts, Tim Cook of Apple was on that board during part of this period. It is difficult to imagine Cook making an analogous argument that Apple did not need its retail stores. The dynamic Tom and Michael describe is familiar to anyone who studies large organizations: board members are generally reluctant to challenge a CEO too forcefully, because the social and professional cost of being the dissenter is real. The result is groupthink — a board that validates a strategy long past the point where the data should have prompted hard questions. By late 2022 and into 2023, the numbers made it undeniable. Nike attempted to reverse course, reaching back out to wholesale partners and offering them premium product. The response was polite — and firm. Retailers were glad to take the high-demand items that consumers queued for. The rest of Nike’s moderate catalog? They had already replaced it, and they were satisfied with what they had. Where Nike Stands Today The board replaced Donahoe with Elliott Hill in September 2024. Hill’s story is genuinely different from his predecessor’s: he started in a Nike stockroom and built his entire career inside the company, earning credibility at every level. He speaks clearly and credibly about what went wrong and what needs to happen. And nearly two years into his tenure, Nike’s stock remains near $44 — roughly 75% below its peak —, and the company has not yet found its footing. In running — the category that gave Nike its identity — the brand no longer consistently appears in the top 10 for preferred shoes among dedicated runners. In China, sales are down 20–30% in recent quarters. On Cloud continues to grow at roughly 50% per quarter. The chart, as Tom notes throughout this episode, always tells the story: if a real recovery is underway, you will see it in the price action. The current chart does not yet show that. What This Means for Your Retirement Portfolio Tom closes this episode with a point that connects the Nike story directly to retirement investing: when someone tells you that a proven model is outdated — that index funds are so last century, or that some new product captures market upside without any downside — the right questions are always the same. What is the process? Has it been tested across different market conditions? And who benefits when you believe in it? The investor who abandons a sound income strategy during a period of volatility, convinced by a compelling narrative, is making the same error Donahoe made. The fundamentals that built something durable do not become wrong because someone new arrived with a different set of lenses. Key Takeaways Know what your business — or portfolio — is actually built on. The moment Nike shifted focus from technical performance products, competitors filled the gap. Investors face the same risk when strategies drift from the principles that made them work. Never surrender your shelf space. Giving up distribution is almost impossible to reverse. The same principle applies when investors abandon a proven income strategy during volatility — re-entry is rarely seamless. Leadership bias is one of the most expensive mistakes in business. Donahoe was an outstanding digital executive who ran a physical consumer company through a digital lens. Bias in a CEO or a portfolio manager costs real money. Boards exist to prevent catastrophic decisions. Most don’t. Nike’s board approved a strategy that effectively fired its wholesale customer base. Institutional oversight is only as good as the willingness to ask uncomfortable questions. Consumer loyalty, once transferred, is remarkably sticky. Runners who found HOKA or On Cloud did not come back. When you give a customer a reason to try something else, and they love it, you may have lost them permanently. Recovery from a foundational strategic error takes far longer than the error itself. The damage from a few years of bad decisions can take a decade to undo — in business and in retirement portfolios. Proven strategies deserve skepticism about replacement, not abandonment. When a new model sounds compelling, the questions are always: what’s the process, has it been tested, and who benefits from your belief in it? Frequently Asked Questions What caused Nike’s stock to fall from $180 to around $44? Nike’s decline was driven primarily by a strategic pivot under CEO John Donahoe, who took over in 2020 and aggressively reduced the company’s reliance on wholesale partners in favor of a direct-to-consumer digital model. This freed up shelf space for competitors like HOKA and On Cloud, whose products consumers tried, preferred, and stayed with. Nike also lost focus on technical product innovation — the foundation of the brand — and the combination proved very difficult to reverse. What leadership lessons can retirement investors take from Nike’s decline? The Nike story illustrates several principles that apply directly to managing retirement assets: proven strategies should not be abandoned in favor of untested new models; losing touch with core fundamentals creates compounding damage; and when someone tells you the old approach is outdated, the right question is always whether the new approach has been tested and who benefits from your belief in it. Why did Nike’s wholesale withdrawal strategy fail? Nike believed consumers would migrate online and that eliminating wholesale intermediaries would improve margins. What actually happened was that vacated shelf space went to competitors — HOKA, On Cloud, New Balance, ASICS, and Brooks — who earned consumer loyalty through it. Once runners found a shoe they preferred, they did not switch back. Nike also lost the critical feedback loop that specialty running retailers provided. Who is Elliott Hill and can he turn Nike around? Elliott Hill replaced John Donahoe as Nike CEO in September 2024. Unlike his predecessor, Hill spent his entire career at Nike, starting at the lowest rungs and earning his way up. He is widely regarded as credible and clear-eyed about the challenges. However, nearly two years into his tenure, Nike has not yet regained meaningful traction — illustrating how much harder recovery is than the original damage. What is Dupree Financial Group’s investment approach for retirement income? Dupree Financial Group is a fee-only, fiduciary SEC-registered RIA based in Lexington, Kentucky. The firm builds retirement income strategies around dividend-paying, income-generating separately managed accounts — with no products sold, no commissions, and no conflicts of interest. They specialize in helping adults 50 and older build portfolios designed to generate income that can keep pace with inflation over time. Schedule a Complimentary Portfolio Review If you’re not sure whether your portfolio is built on the same principles Nike abandoned — proven strategy, staying close to what works, and never losing sight of the fundamentals — we’ll take a look. No charge. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about what you own and whether it’s working for you. Call: 859-233-0400  |  Visit: dupreefinancial.com Dupree Financial Group is a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The information presented on this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Please consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions. The post Nike’s Fall: Leadership Lessons for Retirement Investors appeared first on Dupree Financial.

What happens when your child trains 20 hours a week, flies overseas to get a shot in the Premier League, and still has to get a great education along the way? In this episode of the Future Learners podcast, Brett Campbell (CEO and co-founder of Euka) sits down with Melvyn Wilkes, Sporting Director and Global Operations Manager of Sunshine Coast FC, Australia’s only full-time youth football academy, to talk about how young athletes are training at an elite level without losing the education behind them. Melvyn shares the inside view of full-time academy life: 7:15 AM sport-science testing, 12:30 PM on the field, gym sessions woven through the school day, and a new international pathway sending 32 athletes a year to play in elite UK youth competitions. He also speaks plainly about what mainstream education does (and doesn’t) handle well for high-performance kids, why mental load matters as much as training load, and what changed for his athletes once they switched to Euka’s flexible learning model. If your child trains, performs, competes, or travels at a level that does not fit a 9-to-3 desk, this episode is for you. Key Points: What Euka is making possible for young athletes: A real education pathway for kids whose week does not fit a 9-to-3 desk Lessons that travel with the athlete across states, across countries, across competition calendars The Australian Curriculum delivered the same way regardless of where the athlete is training that month A partnership with Sunshine Coast FC that has unlocked Australian players competing in elite UK youth football Why Euka students are outperforming their peers: “You would be shocked at how well a Euka Future Learning student performs.” Quote from Melvyn, Sporting Director of Sunshine Coast FC Flexible timing means lessons fit around training, not the other way around, and the brain that learns is a brain that has not been worn down by a rigid timetable Athletes on Euka land the same Australian Curriculum outcomes as peers in mainstream school, but are visibly less stressed Self-paced learning builds time management as a side effect, a skill that pays off long after the playing career Why mainstream school stops working for serious athletes: Rigid school timetables pile mental load on top of training load Moving interstate or overseas for sport resets the curriculum every time Even a single inflexible class can hijack a child the night before training and the day after Exam-condition rules are built for a 9-to-3 student, not a kid in a different city every fortnight How the Euka and Sunshine Coast FC partnership came together: Sunshine Coast FC needed an education partner who could align athletes from multiple states into a single squad heading overseas Mainstream and distance-education models could not solve the state-to-state curriculum mismatch Euka’s self-paced, curriculum-aligned model meant every athlete arrived in the UK on the same academic page The partnership now supports athletes training in Australia and competing in the UK in elite youth leagues When this matters for your family: Your child is training, performing or competing at a level that needs daytime hours Your week already does not fit inside 9 to 3, and you are tired of forcing it You want the education to keep up with the sport, not the other way around You want your child to perform better at school, not in spite of the sport, but because of how the model is built Australia’s only full-time youth football academy: how it started When Sunshine Coast FC went full-time in July 2020, the rest of the country thought they were mad. The pandemic had just turned the world upside down, and here was a football club on the Queensland coast tearing up the part-time academy model and committing to something nobody else in Australia was doing. Five years later, the bet has paid off. What started with 26 student athletes in a single building has grown into 180 full-time athletes across four sporting codes (football, basketball, netball and dance) with academic tuition delivered through their partner school, Peregian Beach College. Sunshine Coast FC funds the academic side. The sporting operation funds the school. It is the only setup of its kind in the country. For Melvyn, the model copies what works at the sharp end of European football. “We worked closely with the academic team and the principal to devise a timetable which could encompass training within the day without cutting any corners on the education,” he explained. The point was never to be a school with extra footy on the side. It was to mirror Premier League youth academies, where training and learning sit beside each other from the start. Australia as a whole has got some exceptionally talented young people, particularly in the football fraternity. We wanted to open the network up and give them an opportunity. — Melvyn Wilkes, Sunshine Coast FC What a week at the academy actually looks like Monday is recovery. The athletes have competed on the weekend, so the first coaching contact comes Monday afternoon. There is a strength and conditioning session during the day, but the body is the priority. Tuesday is the heaviest day. Athletes report at 7:15 AM for sport-science testing. Heart-rate variability, thermal muscle scans, baseline data collection. The team uses platforms like Polar and Apollo Sciences to track recovery and readiness across the week. After testing, academic lessons run until lunchtime, then the athletes are on the field from 12:30 PM through to roughly 4:30 PM. Wednesday opens with a 7:15 AM technical session on the field, then academic lessons through the middle of the day, then back on the field from mid-afternoon until 5 PM. Thursday is the “lighter” day, where the athletes report to school as normal, do academic lessons until early afternoon, then complete a final field session by 4:30 PM. Friday is a deliberate taper. One short session at midday so the body is fresh for competition on Saturday or Sunday. “We worked closely with the academic team to devise a timetable that could encompass training within the day, without cutting any corners on the education.”— Melvyn Wilkes, Sunshine Coast FC Australian football meets the English FA: the international pathway In 2023, Sunshine Coast FC made the call to take Australian players to where the elite youth competition actually is. Melvyn, originally from the UK and still well-connected through the football fraternity there, legally affiliated the club in the United Kingdom under the name Sunshine Coast FC UK. That gave the program access to some of the most robust youth competitions in the world at Under-16, Under-18 and Under-23 level, with a senior men’s space launching soon. The response from Australian families was enormous. 167 applications for 32 spots in last year’s intake. Players came from Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Cairns, regional Queensland and even New Zealand. For an aspiring footballer in Australia, this is genuinely the closest pathway to Premier League football most kids will ever get. It is also the moment Sunshine Coast FC ran headfirst into the problem that mainstream schooling could not solve for them: every state runs a slightly different version of the Australian Curriculum, and Year 11 to Year 12 progression rules differ from one state to the next. When you are recruiting 32 athletes from five states and trying to send them to the UK as a single squad, that fragmentation makes coordination almost impossible. “You can sense it when you’re around these athletes. The ones doing the future learning program have a more relaxed persona.”— Melvyn Wilkes, Sunshine Coast FC Why mainstream school stopped working for high-performance athletes This is the part of the conversation Melvyn was most direct about, and worth quoting carefully. Sunshine Coast FC was not built to knock mainstream education. They still have athletes enrolled in mainstream programs in the UK, and many do well. The point is more honest than that. The athletes on Euka’s flexible learning model are observably less stressed than the athletes still navigating mainstream timetables, exam conditions, and rigid attendance rules. Melvyn lives with these kids for stretches at a time when they are in the UK. He sees the difference. For a child who is already carrying the mental load of competing at an elite level, a single inflexible class on a Wednesday morning can become the thing they think about for 24 hours either side. Multiply that across a week, and the cumulative cost on performance and wellbeing is real. “You would be shocked at how well a Euka Future Learning student performs, compared to those learning distance-ed or in person, because it’s a more relaxed environment.”— Melvyn Wilkes, Sunshine Coast FC This is consistent with what Euka has seen across its own family base. Approximately 5 percent of Euka students are aspiring athletes, including Olympic athletes, world champions, and the next wave of professional-track competitors. The pattern is the same: flexibility in when and how the learning happens removes a layer of stress that no amount of resilience training can replace. How Euka fits a full-time training schedule Three things in particular make Euka’s program work for the Sunshine Coast FC model It travels. An athlete in Brisbane, Adelaide or rural Queensland gets the same curriculum as an athlete on a UK road trip in November. The state of residence stops being a constraint. So does the country. It is self-paced. When training takes precedence on a Tuesday afternoon, the lessons do not vanish. They sit there waiting for the athlete, ready to be picked up on Sunday evening or in the back of the team bus. There is no penalty for movement. It is rigorous. This is the point Melvyn and Brett both stressed. Flexibility does not mean lower standards. Athletes are still ticking the same curriculum boxes, the same Australian Curriculum standards, the same Grade 12 outcomes. The path through is just shaped around their lives instead of forcing their lives into a single shape. For families considering a similar move, Euka’s flexible learning page is the right place to start understanding what that looks like in practice. Key Insights for Families If your child is on an elite sporting pathway, learning needs to travel. Mainstream school is built around a fixed time and a fixed place. Aspiring athletes train in the day, compete on weekends, and increasingly travel between states or countries. The education system you choose has to accommodate that, not the other way around. Mental load is part of training load. Coaches now talk about cognitive recovery the same way they talk about physical recovery. If a class, an exam, or a teacher conflict is hijacking the night before training, performance suffers. Removing avoidable stressors is part of athlete care, not a soft preference. Curriculum alignment beats curriculum location. The reason Sunshine Coast FC chose Euka was not because the academic content was different. It was because the Australian Curriculum is delivered the same way to every athlete regardless of which state they walked in from. For families moving between states for sport, performing arts or work, that alone is the unlock. Not every child is going to be a professional. The model still works for them. This is the honest reframe Brett brought into the conversation. Even if the elite-sport pathway does not pan out, an athlete graduates with a complete Australian Curriculum education, real-world time-management skills built from running their own schedule, and the confidence that comes from years of high-performance training. Those are durable assets either way. “Euka was built for students who want to aspire to bigger, better things — kids who can’t sit at a desk all day.”— Brett Campbell, Euka Future Learning Your Family, Your Journey If your child trains, performs or competes at a level that demands daytime hours, this episode is the clearest look yet at what an alternative could feel like. You do not have to be aiming at the Premier League to benefit from a model that travels with you. Many Euka families come to us simply because their week does not fit inside 9 to 3. If you are curious about how this might work for your family, the Future Learners podcast has plenty of other episodes from families who have made the switch, including Travel Schooling with The Slow Road and Travel Schooling: Everything You Need to Know. And if you would like to know more about Sunshine Coast FC’s full-time academy or international pathway, head to sunshinecoastfc.com.au. figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element { background-color:#fffdf5; } figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element .has-fixed-layout td{ padding:2em 2em; border:none; border-left:.2em #e8a838 solid; } figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element .has-fixed-layout td em{ display: block; margin-bottom: -1.1em; } figure.wp-block-table.testimonial-element .has-fixed-layout td strong{ font-size:.8em; } h3{ font-size:16px !important; font-weight:900; } { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#episode", "name": "How Young Athletes Train Full-Time Without Falling Behind in School", "episodeNumber": 42, "description": "Brett Campbell and Melvyn Wilkes, Sporting Director of Sunshine Coast FC (Australia's only full-time youth football academy), discuss how young athletes train 16–20 hours a week, travel to the UK for elite youth competitions, and still complete a full Australian Curriculum education using Euka's flexible learning model.", "datePublished": "2026-05-16", "dateModified": "2026-05-15", "duration": "PT33M17S", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/euka-future-learners-podcast-episode-42-how-young-athletes-train-without-falling-behind-in-school-thumbnail-1024x536.png", "width": 1024, "height": 536 }, "partOfSeries": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#podcast-series" }, "associatedMedia": [ { "@type": "AudioObject", "url": "https://open.spotify.com/show/7g35PbIHMXHV6hRVMIHhkC", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "name": "Future Learners Podcast — Episode 42 on Spotify" }, { "@type": "AudioObject", "url": "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717947259", "encodingFormat": "audio/mpeg", "name": "Future Learners Podcast — Episode 42 on Apple Podcasts" } ], "video": { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#video", "name": "How Young Athletes Train Full-Time Without Falling Behind in School | Future Learners Podcast Ep 42", "description": "Brett Campbell and Melvyn Wilkes discuss elite youth athlete education, the Euka and Sunshine Coast FC partnership, and the international pathway to UK youth football.", "thumbnailUrl": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/euka-future-learners-podcast-episode-42-how-young-athletes-train-without-falling-behind-in-school-thumbnail-1024x536.png", "uploadDate": "2026-05-16T00:00:00+10:00", "duration": "PT33M17S", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/GeRob6s5ATk", "url": "https://youtu.be/GeRob6s5ATk", "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" } }, "author": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, "actor": [ { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#melvyn-wilkes" } ], "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-AU", "keywords": [ "homeschooling for athletes", "flexible learning Australia", "youth football academy", "Sunshine Coast FC", "elite athlete education", "Australian Curriculum", "homeschool sport", "Future Learners Podcast" ], "transcript": "Brett: Hello and welcome to another episode of Future Learners. I am Brett Campbell, co-founder and CEO of Euka Future Learning, and today we have a special episode. I am joined by Melvyn, who is the Sporting Director and Global Operations Manager of Sunshine Coast FC, a partner of ours and a partnership we are really excited about. We brought Melvyn in today to tell us and tell you about the academy and what they are doing. Brett: At Euka, we believe we are a very pioneering organisation, and we only partner with people who are working in a very similar field. What Sunshine Coast FC are doing, I wish was available in Melbourne when I was a kid. So we want to talk about this opportunity, and also check in on how a lot of our students have been going and how it really works when you are an aspiring athlete trying to get your schooling completed as well. Melvyn, welcome to the episode. Melvyn: Thanks for having me, Brett. It is really interesting. Brett: Let us start by giving our listeners an overview. What is Sunshine Coast FC? Melvyn: The FC obviously stands for Football Club, but we have many facets to our operation. We are more of a sporting club, Brett. Football is our core business, but we also have a basketball program, a netball program, and a dance academy. All of them are full-time. By full-time I mean the students combine their academic studies with full-time training, and full-time training is between 16 and 20 hours per week during the working day. Brett: And for those who are unsure of what football is, the running joke, it is soccer. I will do the interpretation. One of the things that was really exciting when you reached out to Euka is that we accommodate a very wide variety of needs. One of our largest growing cohorts is the aspiring athlete arena. Close to about 5 percent of our students are in that space. We have Olympic athletes, world champions, aspiring athletes from dance through to football. We are living in a very different world now than when I was at school. Brett: When you talk about 16 to 20 hours of training, how have you currently set up the process? How does it operate? You have been operating prior to reaching out to Euka and adopting a very different education philosophy. Talk to me about how that looks from the schooling element. Melvyn: We transitioned our program from part-time to full-time bang in the middle of the pandemic in July 2020. People thought we were crazy, but it is a similar sort of story to yourselves with Euka. You have to be innovative and you have to be bold. We currently have a partner college, Peregian Beach College, based on the Sunshine Coast. They deliver mainstream education from prep to Year 12 which is stock standard for any educational institution. Melvyn: What we wanted to do was mirror what the academies were doing in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. We worked closely with the academic team and the principal to devise a timetable which could encompass training within the day without cutting any corners on the education. We went from piloting the program with 26 student athletes when we kicked off in July 2020, to 70-odd within eight or nine months, to over 100 within 12 months, and as we speak today we are about 180 full-time student athletes based at Peregian Beach College. That is funded academic tuition by our sporting operation. Melvyn: Let me talk through what a working week looks like in our full-time academies. Generally, we do not have access to the athletes on a Monday morning because they have had competition on the weekend and they are still in their recovery process. Our first point of contact is Monday afternoon at 2:45 PM. They report for school on Monday morning, do lessons through the day, and there is a gym session during the day with our strength and conditioning team. We have full-time S&C coaches and full-time sports scientists. Melvyn: Tuesday is our main contact day. Athletes report at 7:15 AM for sport-science testing and data collection. We have many platforms including Polar and Apollo Sciences. We do heart-rate variability testing, thermal muscle scanning, and various data collection to get everybody's baseline recovery status for the week. After testing they go into academic lessons up until lunchtime, then we have them on the field from 12:30 PM through to roughly 4:30 PM. Melvyn: Wednesday morning we have them back in at 7:15 AM until 8:30 AM for another technical session on the field. They have quite a big break where they go into academic lessons up until about 2:30 or 3:00 PM, and then we have them back out until 5:00 PM. Thursday morning we do not touch them. They report for school as normal, have academic lessons until about 12:30 or 1:00 PM, and then we have them back out until 4:30 PM. There are gym sessions, performance analysis, and practical elements throughout. Melvyn: Friday is more relaxed. We will do one component around midday because a lot of the players are preparing for competition on Saturday or Sunday. We taper the training on Friday to help maintain them or prepare them for the weekend. And then they have games on the weekend. Brett: My back-of-the-napkin maths says they are doing 50 percent school, 50 percent training. Melvyn: Yeah, but it is still not enough training for us, Brett. We are greedy people. Sport people are greedy people. That is how we came across you. Melvyn: We had some challenges in our state within the football fraternity. We could see them coming, but we wanted to grow our operation and provide additional pathways which would make the competition more robust and produce more talented players for the Australian nation. When we started looking at this in 2018, that did not sit well with various organisations that govern football in Queensland. That did not deter us. In 2023 we decided to expedite the process of our pathway from Australia to other parts of the world. Melvyn: I am originally from the UK, albeit an Australian citizen now. I still maintain my contacts in the UK football fraternity. That enabled us to legally affiliate our football club in the United Kingdom under the name Sunshine Coast FC UK, and to participate in extremely robust youth competitions, some of the best in the UK at their specific age groups of Under-16, Under-18 and Under-23. We are about to develop and move into the senior men's space. Melvyn: What we required was another unique opportunity from an educational perspective. Rather than just pulling from our academy, we opened the network up across Australia. Last year we had around 167 applications vying for 32 spots to play in the United Kingdom. Players came from Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Cairns, regional Queensland. We had contact from New Zealand. Melvyn: Each state has a national education curriculum, as you know, but there are slight variations in different states. That provides complexities to try and get everybody on the same page. When you have students enrolled in Year 11 going into Year 12 who have already done their elective subjects, Year 11 has to marry up with Year 12, and different states are delivering Year 11 to Year 12 differently. Melvyn: Our partner school, Peregian Beach College, were having some of these challenges trying to align Year 11 and Year 12 across states. That is when we did our research, our due diligence, whatever you would like to call it. We found you guys at Euka and made contact. I think it was Jake at the offset, and then it was full steam ahead. The service we have had from Euka has been top class. The support, the guidance, even working with our academic institution at Peregian Beach College. There has been communication back and forth, and even with the parents. It has been seamless. Melvyn: It is important to bring the truth to the table. A lot of people who do podcasts mask things over and paint rosy pictures. We had real challenges, and the challenges came from mainstream education. There is a large element of rigid learning attached to mainstream education. I am certainly not knocking it, because it has a place, and it is horses for courses for parents and guardians. We support all of our athletes whether they are on mainstream education or on the future learning platform. Melvyn: Our preference is to have all of our athletes with Euka on the homeschool program. We are replicating what the very sharp end of football is doing in the United Kingdom, the Premier League. The vast majority of Premier League clubs run their youth program as full-time and school them inside the football club. This is the closest any kid will ever get from Australia to Premier League football, by embarking on this with us in football, and also jumping on with Euka Future Learning. Melvyn: We still have a number of athletes on mainstream education in the UK, and as much as they are doing well in football, they have a lot of challenges in terms of the education. They have to be in contact with the teacher, they have exams, certain parameters, exam conditions. We have provisions in place to deliver the program as prescribed. But the online platform with Euka is less rigid, which means there is less stress on the students. Melvyn: You can tell the ones on mainstream education and the ones on future learning. You can sense it when you are around these athletes. We live with these athletes. I have spent significant time with them over the last six months. You can feel and sense that some of the athletes are under pressure with the mainstream education program, and the ones doing the future learning program have more of a relaxed persona. Melvyn: I am the one doing all the recruitment for student athletes going to the UK. I am the first point of contact, and I am also the person who, for want of a better word, is selling the program. I have to talk about the Euka program and the mainstream education program, and offer the holistic package. I always lean towards steering parents to look at the future learning platform, because of the stress and strain mainstream education can lay on a young person at a critical stage in their life when they are vying to get into a professional football club. Brett: I always look at things through the outcome we are trying to solve for. In your case, you are wanting to give your students the best possible shot at becoming a professional athlete. What that means is that education is not the first cab off the rank in terms of when it happens. It still has to happen, but it has to fit around the sport. We now live in a world where unless you are going down specific routes like medicine or law, the rigidity of school as the first priority does not always serve the child. Aspiring athletes are a clear example. Brett: Even if they have one class on a Wednesday at 10 AM in a subject they are not great at, or they do not enjoy, or they are behind on, or they do not like the teacher, that one thing can be the thing that hijacks them the night before and stays with them the day after. We are trying to create high-performing athletes here. Euka was built for that. We say we are the backbone for students who want to aspire to bigger, better things and who cannot sit at a desk all day to do their schoolwork. Brett: I want to reframe that, because we absolutely still believe in education. Not all of these athletes are going to become professionals. That is the reality. But the beauty of what you have built is that you have set it up around the outcome of a student aspiring to be a professional, and at the same time making sure they are ticking the boxes and getting an education. Because that is still required. Melvyn: I tackle it as a parent. My own kids have been through mainstream school education in the UK and Australia. The world is evolving. I always say to parents, the words future learning mean exactly what they say. This is the way the world is going. When I am talking to parents now, the conversation is always related to the health and wellbeing of the young person, particularly mental health. A lot of stress and anxiety is centred around exams, assessments, going to school, dealing with people face to face. Melvyn: I used to be a post-16 lecturer in the UK, so I can speak from experience as an educator. What appeases or alleviates parents concerns is when I explain the online platform. It is done at their own pace. If you put two athletes in a room, one doing future learning and one doing mainstream, they will both come out with the same certificate of education. But one is sitting in a classroom being directed, while the other is at their own pace with support. You would be shocked at how the future learning student performs because it is a more relaxed environment. Melvyn: With future learning, they are managing their own time. Indirectly, this is setting young people up for time management in how they conduct themselves through the online platform. You do not need a bell telling you when to start and when to stop. You do not need to move from one classroom to the next. You really do manage your own time. Brett: This is the way the future is moving. There are options now, which is what I love. There are options for families to choose whatever path they want. If you want your child to be an aspiring athlete, or an aspiring actor, or anything, you have to ask how do we put them in the best position possible. Not everyone learns the same way, at the same time, or at the same pace. Until recently there has not been a real option for parents. Now there is.", "citation": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "You would be shocked at how well a Euka Future Learning student performs, compared to those learning distance-ed or in person, because it is a more relaxed environment.", "spokenByCharacter": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#melvyn-wilkes" } }, { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "You can sense it when you are around these athletes. The ones doing the future learning program have a more relaxed persona.", "spokenByCharacter": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#melvyn-wilkes" } }, { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "We worked closely with the academic team and the principal to devise a timetable which could encompass training within the day without cutting any corners on the education.", "spokenByCharacter": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#melvyn-wilkes" } }, { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "Euka was built for students who want to aspire to bigger, better things — kids who can't sit at a desk all day.", "spokenByCharacter": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" } } ] }, { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/#podcast-series", "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/", "description": "The Future Learners Podcast explores the evolving world of education — homeschooling, flexible learning, elite athlete pathways, and raising children who are ready for the future. Hosted by Brett Campbell, CEO and co-founder of Euka Future Learning.", "image": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/euka-future-learners-podcast-apple.svg", "author": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell" }, "publisher": { "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization" }, "webFeed": "https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/future-learners/id1717947259", "inLanguage": "en-AU" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#brett-campbell", "name": "Brett Campbell", "jobTitle": "CEO and Co-Founder, Euka Future Learning", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "image": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/euka-future-learners-host-brett.png", "sameAs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettocampbell/", "https://www.facebook.com/brettcampbellfan", "https://www.instagram.com/itsbrettcampbell/" ] }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#melvyn-wilkes", "name": "Melvyn Wilkes", "jobTitle": "Sporting Director and Global Operations Manager, Sunshine Coast FC", "url": "https://sunshinecoastfc.com.au/" }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/#organization", "name": "Euka Future Learning", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://euka.edu.au/wp-content/themes/euka/assets/images/euka-future-learning-logo.svg" }, "sameAs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/EukaFutureLearning/", "https://www.instagram.com/eukafuturelearning/", "https://www.linkedin.com/company/euka/", "https://www.tiktok.com/@eukafuturelearning", "https://www.youtube.com/@eukafuturelearning" ] }, { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Future Learners Podcast", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/future-learners-podcast/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "How Young Athletes Train Full-Time Without Falling Behind in School", "item": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/" } ] }, { "@type": "FAQPage", "@id": "https://euka.edu.au/all-episodes/how-young-athletes-train-full-time-without-falling-behind-in-school-42/#faq", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does my child need a flexible education if they are on an elite sporting pathway?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Mainstream school is built around a fixed time and a fixed place. Aspiring athletes train during the day, compete on weekends, and increasingly travel between states or countries. The education system you choose has to accommodate that — not the other way around. Euka's flexible learning model travels with the athlete, delivering the Australian Curriculum regardless of where they are training or competing that month." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does mainstream school affect a young athlete's performance and wellbeing?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Mental load is part of training load. Coaches now talk about cognitive recovery the same way they talk about physical recovery. If a class, an exam, or a teacher conflict is hijacking the night before training, performance suffers. Removing avoidable stressors is part of athlete care, not a soft preference. Athletes on Euka's flexible learning model are observably less stressed than those navigating rigid mainstream timetables and exam conditions." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why does curriculum consistency matter more than curriculum location for travelling athletes?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Sunshine Coast FC chose Euka not because the academic content was different, but because the Australian Curriculum is delivered the same way to every athlete regardless of which state they came from. Each Australian state runs a slightly different version of the curriculum, and Year 11 to Year 12 progression rules differ state to state. When recruiting 32 athletes from five states to compete in the UK as a single squad, that fragmentation makes coordination almost impossible. Euka's model solved it." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Does flexible homeschool learning still work if my child does not become a professional athlete?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Even if the elite-sport pathway does not pan out, an athlete on Euka's program graduates with a complete Australian Curriculum education, real-world time-management skills built from running their own schedule, and the confidence that comes from years of high-performance training. Those are durable assets either way. The model is built around the outcome of a student aspiring to be a professional, while still ensuring they tick every curriculum box." } } ] } ] } The post How Young Athletes Train Full-Time Without Falling Behind in School | 42 appeared first on Euka.

Monster’s favorite sandwich shop has vanished, replaced by a mysterious boba ball establishment! Chaos ensues as the gang tries to secure their first sponsor while Monster mourns his lost lunch spot. You should send us an email to bumperpodcast@nattybumpercar.com. We’re here and we’re listening! Podcast: Download | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | RSS | subscribe {"@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "Bumperpodcast #470 u2013 Season 3 u2013 Monster", "url": "https://www.nattybumpercar.com/bumperpodcast-470-season-3-monster/", "datePublished": "2026-03-06", "episodeNumber": 470, "partOfSeries": {"@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "Bumperpodcast", "url": "https://www.nattybumpercar.com/bumperpodcast/"}, "description": "Monster's favorite sandwich shop becomes a boba place, causing chaos as the gang tries to navigate potential sponsorships, legal threats, and everyone's food phobias in this delightfully absurd episode."} Podcast: Download | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | RSS | subscribe {"@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [{"@type": "Question", "name": "What is Bumperpodcast #470 u2013 Season 3 u2013 Monster about?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Monster's favorite sandwich shop becomes a boba place, causing chaos as the gang tries to navigate potential sponsorships, legal threats, and everyone's food phobias in this delightfully absurd episode."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "What topics are covered in Bumperpodcast #470?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "Bumperpodcast #470 covers: comedy, food, sponsorship, business, legal troubles, friendship, disappointment, boba."}}]} Podcast: Download | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | RSS | subscribe Explore More: Characters | About the Show | Episode Guide | All Episodes

"Certain formats consistently trigger AI Overviews: clear explainers and definitions, step-by-step how-tos, detailed comparisons and buying guides, and local discovery content with consistent business details," writes Laughlin Rigby, Digital Transformation & AI Director of Core Optimisation The search experience has fundamentally changed. Users no longer just scroll through ten blue links, they are reading answers. Google's AI Overviews, now reaching 1.5 billion users across 200+ countries, synthesise trusted sources into concise, cited summaries above the fold. Meanwhile, agentic browsers like ChatGPT Atlas, Perplexity's Comet, and Edge Copilot sit beside the page, comparing options and completing tasks on behalf of users. This shift demands a new approach: be citable, machine-readable, and action-ready. The classic pillars of SEO remain foundational. What's changed is how we express them, ensuring machines can reliably extract and act upon our information. The behavioural shift When AI-generated answers appear above the fold, click-through behaviour transforms. Traffic concentrates on pages offering canonical facts, original insights, and proprietary data, which is precisely what AI assistants quote. Expect fewer low-intent sessions but higher post-click quality. KPIs must evolve to emphasise assistant-layer visibility through citations and mentions, alongside completion metrics like enquiries and bookings. The content strategy follows: write answer-first, then layer in nuance. Address likely follow-ups on the same page. Becoming citation-worthy Earning citations from AI systems requires deliberate choices. Remain discoverable. Allow reputable AI crawlers like OAI-SearchBot in your robots.txt. Keep high-value pages indexable and track assistant-origin traffic. Structure for dual audiences. Employ semantic HTML and WAI-ARIA. Write one idea per paragraph. Use proper tables for data. Implement schema.org markup for Article, Product, FAQPage, Organisation, and Person, always including datePublished and dateModified timestamps. Clear headings and concise sections improve both human comprehension and machine extraction. Deploy focused FAQs. On high-intent pages, add four to six genuine questions marked up as FAQPage schema. Place direct answers first, then link to details. Demonstrate provenance. Feature named authors with verifiable credentials. Cite reputable sources and maintain claim consistency across channels. Maintain currency. Regularly update priority pages, eliminate duplicates, and establish a single canonical source for each claim, price, or specification. Provide reliable APIs. AI assistants act, not just read. Publish OpenAPI endpoints for dynamic information like prices and availability with stable IDs and clear errors. For complex interactions, develop an official integration. Measure rigorously. Track AI Overview presence, citation share, and SERP features. Monitor assistant referrals using server-side tagging. This is continuous, data-driven optimisation for the assistant era. Campaign strategy in the AI Era Use consented, verifiable sources and label AI-assisted copy where appropriate. Develop a concise brand style guide documenting preferred phrases and model summaries to help your tone survive AI paraphrasing. Establish a visible "source of truth" for prices, policies, and key figures. Position this prominently and mirror it in structured data, ensuring AI assistants quote your facts directly. Agent-friendly design Agentic browsers navigate via the accessibility tree, making inclusive design both ethical and strategic. Bind inputs with proper labels, use descriptive button text, apply ARIA landmark roles, keep states predictable, and design forms for autofill and programmatic submission. Your goal: the agent completes the intended action correctly, first time. Preparing for agentic commerce September 2025 brought two competing standards: OpenAI and Stripe's Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), now powering live...

1. Start & End Dates For Google Algorithm Updates Are Approximate - Netizens have asked Google for clarification as to why there is an unexplained gap in start and end dates for Google Algorithm updates on what is published on Google's official website and what is announced on social media. John Mueller of Google replied on Mastodon saying, "It's hard picking a date for some of these (especially afterwards). For many (not all) updates, the update rolls out, it takes a while to be visible (which is when we call it a start), and it takes a while to be in most queries / URLs / datacenters (which is when we call it done). There's no binary border for start / stop, it's more about "starts being visible" and "mostly settled down". It's a bit like timing when bread rises when you bake it."Later Alan Kent from Google tweeted, "Done" is a grey definition as systems roll out across multiple data centers and and process backlogs at different rates. So its really do we say done at 99.9% or 99.99% or ... (I'm done)”So do not take the dates literally. Just know that the updates are happening and take necessary proactive steps. 2. How Long It Takes To Recover From Google Penalty? - Like I always say that “prevention is better than cure.” But what if you accidentally get penalized by Google due to an oversight or by actions of a contractor or agency? Ever wonder how long it takes to recover from a Google penalty? Well you are in luck because in a recent Google SEO office-hours  Google's John Muller  said that it will be a “a couple of months, a half a year, sometimes even longer than a half a year, for us to recognize significant changes in the site's overall quality. Because we essentially watch out for …how does this website fit in with the context of the overall web and that just takes a lot of time.”Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. So your first step is to clean up your website, remove thin content, create good, helpful and relevant content before Google decides to penalize you.3. Google Recommends Multiple Date Signals On Webpages - Google's Search Liaison Danny Sullivan reminded the recommended practice of including multiple date signals on webpages to avoid Google picking up the wrong date on the search results page. After all, inaccurate or outdated dates can lead to confusion and dissuade users from visiting the site. To make sure Google has the correct information for your published articles, update your articles' structured data markup (“datePublished” or “dateModified” fields with the correct time zone). You can also use the “byline date” - the date that Google estimates that the web page was updated or published.4. Google Removes The 110 Character Limit For Headlines In Structured Data - Google updated the article structured data help documentation to remove the hard character limit for the headline property. Google says you should write “concise” article headlines. The 110-character limit has been eliminated.5. Don't Blindly Follow Google Ads Recommendations - The first thing we do when we start working with a new client is to turn off and pause all Google Ads recommendations. And now you have one more reason to keep these recommendations turned off. On Jan. 4, Google Ads announced that starting January 19 the “Remove redundant keywords” will suggest redundant keywords within the same ad groups and they will removing redundant phrase and exact match keywords in favor of broad. At marketANDgrow we eschew using “broad match” unless there is a specific reason (market research) for us to use it.When you choose broad match for a keyword Google will show your ad to people who type in all kinds of variations of your keyword, as well as the keyword itself. For example, let's say your keyword is ceramic pots. If you set this keyword to broad match, your ad won't just show up for people who type ceramic pots into the search bar. Google will also show it to people looking for blue ceramic pots, ceramic cooking pots, and cooking pot ceramic. Your ad can even show up when people type in synonyms of your keyword, like pottery cookware.6. Is Core Web Vitals (CWV) A Google Discover Requirement? - Google Discover is a mobile experience that lets you discover content you didn't even know you needed. It is a totally different search experience, meaning the searching is mostly gone. If the system learns enough about you, you can simply keep swiping to keep the fresh content flowing. Think of it as Instagram or Facebook feed but in text format. So a lot of people are interested in getting their content on Google Discover because it gets your content in front of your intended audience.Google John Muller wrote on Mastodon that “many people ask me if the site's loading speed must be high to enter Google Discover? Or should our urls be fine in CWV?" And then he went ahead and wrote “we don't have that connection documented anywhere. I'd be surprised if CWV were a requirement for Discover." If you are interested in getting your website, article or blog shown in Google Discover then review Google Discover content policies and the Get on Google Discover help documents.

Join Drew and Randy as they have an extended conversation with Sam from iUpdate as they recap 2020’s Apple news.The Tailosive Tech Podcast is now in video form on YouTube: https://youtu.be/01ACa3KW4c8If you are looking for the Tesla talk, tap this link to be taken to the Tailosive EV Podcast! https://apple.co/2YHJf2a-Please leave us a voicemail with comments or questions to be featured in next week’s show at: (855) 841-1277-Rate us in iTunes if you liked the show, or follow us on Twitter to provide us with recommendations and feedback:twitter.com/TailosiveCasttailosive.netDrew:https://twitter.com/TailosiveTechNic:https://twitter.com/NicAnsuini Randy:https://twitter.com/RandyVazquezSam:https://twitter.com/iup_datePublished: 11-30-2020, Recorded: 11-28-2020© Tailosive Podcasts 2020 | All Rights Reserved

Welcome to Episode 218 of the Yeukai Business Show. In this episode, Brad Blazar and I discuss how you can raise funds for your startup business fast. So if you want to expand your business, create an efficient selling system, elevate your brand and attract thousands of customers and investors, tune in now! In this episode, you'll discover: How to raise money for your business quicklyHow to activate your prey drive and transform your lifeWhy is proper branding a gamechanger for startup business owners About Brad Brad Blazar is a master ‘Lifestyle Architect’ whose accomplishments include: Successfully helping hundreds of business owners raise capital to grow their business, make acquisitions, and scaling using OPM (other people's money). Has raised in excess of $2 Billion US to datePublished author of two books, “Put Some Thrive in Your Hive,” and “On the Wings of Eagles.” Hosts Award-winning Beast Nation Podcast More Information Learn more about how to grow your own business with Brad Blazar Website: www.bradblazar.com You can also connect with Brad through Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradblazar/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brad.blazar Join: Facebook Group called Beast Nation LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradblazar/ Thanks for Tuning In! Thanks so much for being with us this week. Have some feedback you'd like to share? Please leave a note in the comments section below! If you enjoyed this episode on how to raise funds for your startup business, please share it with your friends by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates for our "Yeukai Business Show!" And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get. Please leave a review right now (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/yeukai-business-show/id1231475990) Thanks for listening!

In this episode, Mark Williams-Cook will be talking about: - Pagination problems There is a significant pagination bug present in the WPEngine system and Google have updated their best practise advise regarding pagination. - Date published abuse Google reaffirm best practise for articles using datePublished and dateModified as some SEOs cite concerns Google may not have a grip on this as publishers are abusing it for rankings - Google My Business fraud reporting In case you missed it, Google My Business as launched a new form which enables you to report competitors or fraudulent listings within Google My Business. You can get the full transcription and links for this episode in our show notes at https://search.withcandour.co.uk

Today's guests:Mark Traphagen, Content Strategy Director at Perficient Digital Marie Haynes, Owner at Marie Haynes Consulting, Gianluca Binelli, Founder at Booster Box Topics: 1:35 Google is now encouraging you to consider adding datePublished and dateModified to your structured data What value could this provide from an SEO perspective? In what type of scenario would you use this information? In what type of scenario wouldn’t you use this information? Does WordPress publish this as standard?   8:01  Google introduces ad strength indicator – and also reporting for responsive search ads What data feeds into the ad strength indicator? How can you improve your score? What impact will improving your score have? What reporting is available for responsive search ads?     16:43 Content Marketing Close-Up feature Today we’re looking at an article called “Mobile vs Desktop Usage in 2018: Mobile takes the lead” which was published on StoneTemple.com. This is part of a study series which has been quite successful for you in the past - why so? What our other guests would have done differently

by Questionable AudioPublication date 2017-12-11Topics x32, M32, Midas, Beringer, Audio-Technica, Wrapping CablesLanguage EnglishToday AaronG and Joe talk about the X32 and M32, cables, a new microphone, and soOoo much more.How to Wrap Cables: https://youtu.be/-VzZaJ1xJpYBe sure to visit QuestinoableAudio.comAnd add us on social media as QuestionableAudio and @QuestionableAUD(on twitter)Send questions to QuestionableAudio@gmail.com