They start with English in the morning, switch to maths after morning tea, then finish the school day by following their own interests.

Some days they meet up with other Yass home-schoolers and others they cross the border to do activities with Canberra's very active home education community.

Selena Guest didn't expect to swap her role as classroom teacher to become a home school educator to her four children, aged six to 13.

But when her eldest reached school age, he was diagnosed with selective mutism which meant he couldn't talk to anybody outside his immediate family, making it impossible for him to learn in a traditional school environment.

When the rest of the children got older they, too, wanted to stay home to learn. They love the flexibility and freedom of learning at their own pace.

"My seventh grade child is working at a ninth grade maths level and we've really enjoyed the flexibility to be able to extend that as we've gone along," Ms Guest said.

Home schooling has become an increasingly popular choice, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of students registered for home education in the ACT increased by 73 in the past year to a total of 395 in February 2021, a rise of about 22 per cent.

It's a similar story in NSW, where the latest data from December 2020 shows a 19 per cent increase in registrations from the previous year.

Home Education Association president Karen Chegwidden said the organisation noticed a three-fold increase in the number of call to its advice hotline during the first period of remote learning last year.

"A lot of [parents] ... were thinking about it but they were just a bit too scared to take the plunge and so they got this really risk-free trial and discovered that they loved it. And that group of people, they just absolutely haven't looked back," Ms Chegwidden said.

When Ms Chegwidden started homeschooling her now adult children, families sought out home education by deliberate choice because of their beliefs or philosophy. These days the majority of families are looking for an alternative to mainstream school because it doesn't suit their needs.

"There's lots of kids on the autism spectrum in our community, and kids with ADHD, because they just don't have the distractions at home that they would have in school. And so they're actually able to learn effectively and they're able to have that individualised education plan that everyone talks about but which is quite impossible to deliver in a class of 30 kids," she said.

Advocates say there are some common misconceptions about homeschooling. One is that home educators are morally conservative or, on the other end of the spectrum, are hippies who believe their children should run free.

Another is that it's a mostly white, middle-class, religious activity, an assumption Ms Guest is aiming to research further in her PhD at the Australian National University.

"The idea of the unsocialised, locked up at home home-schooler is a complete myth," Ms Chegwidden said.

"Maybe it's a compensation strategy but if anything we put more effort into socialising and socialisation for our children than average."

The Home Education Association heard from many parents who assumed homeschooling had not been affected by the pandemic.

"They think you were already at home so your life isn't changed. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Our kids get together every day of the week in all different ways," Ms Chegwidden said.

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There were periods where schools were open but home-schoolers couldn't gather at their local hall because they weren't a registered business with a Covid plan.

There's also no government support for home-schoolers. It's up to parents to juggle work and education duties. However, many home-schoolers are fiercely independent and are wary of any strings that could be attached to government funding.

The ACT is one of the few places in Australia that allows students to enrol part time at a mainstream school and spend the rest of the time in home education.

Home-schoolers are able to go to university through alternative pathways, including vocational qualifications and courses that require a portfolio of work.

Ms Guest was not concerned about her children being ineligible for the Higher School Certificate.

"We get so caught up in that whole HSC thing and the idea of an ATAR and this magic number that decides what you get to do," she said.

"There's so many pathways to university that you realise as a home-schooler how meaningless those numbers are."

Ms Chegwidden said there wasn't a one-size-fits-all solution to education.

"When we have more options and more choices then we can meet the needs of more of our students, and that's good for everybody because when they succeed, that's great for our country," she said.

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