Homeschool requirements by state are the only rules that matter
Parents searching for how to start homeschooling usually find national summaries. In practice, home education is regulated locally: by state in the USA, by province in Canada, by state and territory in Australia, and nationally with local monitoring in the UK and much of Asia.
Before you read a single curriculum review, find the official page for your jurisdiction and write down four things: whether you must notify, whether you must register, what records you must keep, and whether assessment is required.
Is homeschooling legal where you live?
Home education is legal in most of the world, but the compliance level varies enormously — from no notification at all to an annual education plan and external assessment.
- Low regulation: withdraw and teach; keep informal records anyway
- Notification: a written letter of intent, usually annually
- Registration and plan: submit subjects, outcomes and resources
- Assessment: standardised testing or an assessor visit each year
Withdrawing or deregistering without losing continuity
If your child is enrolled, send written notice, request the full school record, and ask for the most recent assessment data in maths and reading. That data is your placement baseline and saves weeks of guessing.
For the first term, keep the same subject sequence the school was following. Change the method, not the map — it makes the switch to homeschooling far less disorienting for the child.
Set up records on day one
Whatever your jurisdiction requires, keep attendance, a subject log, dated work samples and a reading log. Five minutes a day now prevents a weekend of reconstruction later, and it is what turns into a transcript when your child reaches high school.
- Attendance sheet, filled in daily
- Subject log with topics covered
- Two dated work samples per subject, per month
- Assessment results and any external test reports