More than six months ago, I received a letter from the home education assessors (Tusla) that I could expect a phone call shortly to set an appointment for home education review. For more than six months, I heard nothing.
A few days before the social workers came knocking on our door, the assessor called me to set up an appointment.
I asked him if we could postpone the appointment for a few weeks as we just moved house and we hadn't even started 'schooling' again or had anything ready. This was fine and he then set the date for the beginning of October.

They want complete transparency, but lie and cheat their way through their appointments

I spoke to one of the homeschooling women here in Ireland who knows all the ins and outs of homeschooling here and she agreed to sit in with the assessment. Two days before the appointment I called the assessor to ask if he was coming alone or with someone else. He told me he would bring a colleague.
This happens sometimes, however, they are supposed to tell us either in the initial letter, or when they call us at the latest.
He did neither so I didn't feel the need to tell him the other woman (Pippa) would be here for my support.
She arrived an hour before they did to go through what I had for them.
As we are unschooling, there is not much to show for really. The kids do most of their maths on the computer on a program called Khan academy. It keeps track of all they've done and whenever there is something new to learn or with any problems, I sit with them to explain. So far this has worked fine and they are both ahead of their peer group by approximately a year.
They both read a lot and writing is not a problem, but most writing is done on the PC, although they love to write stories in their copy books.
Besides maths and English, I try to keep up with Dutch with them because they both only speak English at the moment.
I do this by reading Dutch books to them and ask simple questions in Dutch.
We do a lot outdoors, find bugs to identify them, and plants.
The only way this is documented is by pictures.
They both love helping around the kitchen, so we grow some of our own veggies and we forage too.
Both kids help with cooking. Not all the time, but they're pretty good at making pasta, salad and baked goods.
I think that's more than we can say about most 8 and 9 year old kids in school.
A few weeks ago I was telling the kids a few stories of when I lived in Asia and they were very interested to hear what adventures I'd had. So with that in mind, I asked them if they would like to learn more about Asia. They liked the idea.
So we made this into a project.
Some of it was researching, writing, drawing and some other crafts.
Sinatra has shown interest in cryptocurrency and also Steemit, so she sits with me sometimes when I check crypto.
She knows a lot about it already, knows how to read the information about it, what to look for, when it has gone up or down and so on.
Both kids are into online games (Steam) and Keanu especially shows interest for computers, animation and even programming.
So I decided I would get him a raspberry pi for his birthday (next Sunday) so he can start from the beginning.
Again, we are unschooling, so we don't follow any curriculum in particular.
I believe, from what I see with them, that they do plenty and as long as they like what they do, they'll excel in it.
The assessor seemed to think differently...

Pippa looked through the journal that I made especially for their visit, because I really didn't do this at all.
I monitor their work and progress myself and I know them better than anyone so I also know their strengths and weaknesses and what needs more work and what doesn't.
Pippa agreed and told me the work I had to show was good.
Just before the two assessors came, she was telling me that she had a second assessor at her assessment and that she sent one woman out of her house. Pippa had accused her of misconduct in the past and wanted nothing to do with her.
And guess who came to my door? The same woman she was just telling me about.
After the usual greets with us and the kids, the second assessor was very quick to explain to her colleague who Pippa was.
When I asked her what her job description was she answered that she was only there to observe and she was his colleague.
Later I learned from Pippa that she was in fact their team-leader, so their boss, not a colleague.
And observing is not where her involvement stopped either, as she was asking questions as well.
So they lied through their teeth about that. Nice way to start.
Emer (the team-leader) was indeed just writing at first, but later started asking questions when Terry (the assessor) didn't.
What really annoyed me was that she held her one hand in front of the other when she wrote, like a 6 year old who doesn't want his classmate to copy his work. So she had things to hide.
Terry would ask questions and when I asked to explain again, she'd sometimes just repeat the question as if I was some kind of moron. I know my mother language is different from theirs, but I bet my English is better than theirs, especially written.
They somehow kept asking about Keanu's written work, because we had not much to show them as he just ripped up his copy because Sinatra had cut into it with scissors. I had explained this to them. Meanwhile in the background, Keanu kept hammering away on the keyboard of my computer, which in my opinion should have said enough about his writing skills.
But they tend to make everything into a problem. When I told them he could write them a story right there and then, it was ignored. The funny thing is: I could have asked my eldest to hand me her copies with writing done and presented it to them as Keanu's work and it would have been perfectly fine. But showing them right there was ignored.

Going through my journal, they noticed the part when I wrote about Sinatra learning about cryptocurrency and they asked me what it was. One goal for us! They had no clue and the fact that my kids knew more about it than they did, told me something about which rock they'd lived under all this time.
Then the subject of the Raspberry Pi came up and again, there were two blank stares.
An even older rock than I initially thought.
Keanu was explaining to them exactly what it was and what he planned to do with it.

Then they asked if they did any maths besides Khan academy at which point Pippa stepped in and told them that cryptocurrency involved a lot of maths. Again those blank stares and a lot of covered writing.
We showed them the work we'd done with the map and about Asia, which covered geography.
Towards the end we also spoke about their activities outside of the home, like their sports and our plan to start an art group here at our home and a music workshop nearby.
We also mentioned our planned trip to Portugal next month and how this was a great learning experience for them.
They would get in touch with me after deliberation and left.

When I asked Pippa how she thought it went, she said there was nothing she could see that would cause them to take me off the home education register. She also told me that she did a lot of the same kind of work with her kids and that she made it through the assessment fine.

The next day, the assessor called me to tell me that they wanted a comprehensive assessment. His reason was that he 'wasn't sure if my kids were learning enough.' That coming from a man who doesn't know anything about cryptocurrency or a raspberry pi...
A comprehensive basically means that they need to talk to the kids, see more work and need them to do some maths and writing/reading in front of them. A comprehensive assessment can go two ways, 50/50 really and it all depends on the assessor if he thinks it's enough. There are no special guidelines for it.
If he doesn't think the kids learn enough, we'll be taken off the register and this means I will have to send my kids to school or lose them....

I feel that the social worker has a very strong hand in this as she kept telling me how important it was for my kids to attend formal education and have social interaction there...Yeah, because they really get to interact a lot with all the homework they get. The fact that I didn't hear from them for more than six months but now suddenly I did, says enough about their involvement in this.

And this is not where it ends

The social worker pretty much told me that I had to put my youngest in playschool....
Because he had to interact with his age group.
So I decided to attend a mother/toddler group in the area instead to get them off my back.
Of course I have to bring the other two, since they're at home with me.
The group meets at an indoor playground, but the other kids can play outside or sit at the table with me.
There are a total of three other toddlers there with their moms and no one had a problem with the kids being there.
They even liked the fact that Sinatra would help their kids on the slide sometimes.
For two weeks there were no issues whatsoever.
Then I told the family support worker that we were going there when she asked me for the 100th time if I wouldn't consider having a look at the playschool.
The next day was another mother and toddler meetup and this time the lady at the play area told me that I wasn't welcome there anymore if I brought the two kids back there.
So for two weeks they are perfectly fine with them being there, and right after I speak to the family support worker, this happens. If this doesn't smell fishy then I don't know anymore.

What this is telling me is that they are trying their hardest, and with dirty games to try to force me into sending my kids to school. Lucky for me I have a friend nearby who offered to take the two hooligans for the hours when I take the little one to the mother/toddler group. So that's sorted.
But what worries me is their involvement in the assessment for homeschooling of the others.
If they force them to just take us off the register, they will possibly comply and that would make us an even bigger target.
The only school I would even consider is 20 miles away from us (as the others are Catholic schools) and this would put us in a very tough spot financially. So either way, we can't seem to win. Because if our finances are down, this will be over the backs of the children (clothes, food, trips to (sports)clubs, memberships etc.) and they'll have an other reason to keep their foot in the door.
They probably understand exactly the kind of stress they're causing, and I suspect they do it on purpose to see if they can break me.
Not so quick though.
I haven't got the answers to all my questions yet, but hopefully it will come to me soon...

Ho'oponopono