My daughter, Lily, recently came to me because she was interested in getting her 10-year accreditation for homeschooling. My initial reaction was "Why?"

She's 16 and she's currently studying beauty therapy at TAFE after graduating from hairdressing. She doesn't really need the Year 10 certificate since she already has one Cert III, and is in the process of getting another one  - and these are MUCH more valuable if she ever decides to apply for tertiary education, but I get it. She's been homeschooling for 10 years and wants this certificate more as recognition - a 'right of passage'. Acknowledgement that she's done it. That's important a young person. And so, if it's important to her, then it's important to me.

As we were planning for this, I thought about the conversations that I've been having with Ortal Green, our guest on last week's podcast about Project-Based Learning (PBL), design thinking, and the PBL homeschool conference that we're organising together. We want to help parents and homeschoolers to take a more holistic approach to education and use design thinking as a framework for doing this.

But on the other hand, I'm always in the middle of trying out new, outside-the-box ideas in giving the best education for my children and what NESA requires of homeschoolers. That's why for this podcast episode, I'd like to share with you the homeschool plan that I did with Lily to help her with her interview and getting her certificate. You might find this useful for your own homeschool program.