Hello,

Moving to our house in Italy with my 3 children in January and i'm going to homeschool them.
Anyone else doing this in Italy?
Coming from Dubai and leaving a private international school.

Hi, and welcome to BE.

Home schooling is legal in Italy. It is known as 'Scuola Paterna'. You need to follow the Italian curriculum.

Here's a link. http://www.controscuola.it/english/

As we are only going to go for a year at a time to see how things go we will follow the english curriculum, or maybe even UNschool.

But thank you for the link 37100 it was very interesting and some good contacts as there is a network of homeschoolers/UNschoolers in Italy but its a small one!

You can't do that legally. Not that anyone would probably notice. What are the ages of your kids?

they are 10,7, and 18 months.
I am going to be in a remote area in a tiny village with no local school except in the next town 15 minutes away so we should be left alone fingers crossed

You should very careful indeed. As 37100 has pointed out, what you're proposing is illegal, and the Italian authorities would take this very seriously. Unless you keep them in total isolation, your children will wish to make friends with other children, meaning contact with other parents. The word might get 'round and you could get a knock on the door from the social services. (I live in a small mountain village in Piedmont and would say that gossip can travel fast!) Although the services in Italy are relatively uncoordinated, you would, by law, as a non-resident, have to advise the Carabinieri of your presence in the country. And then there may be occasions where your children may have to visit medical and dental professionals. Ultimately, the children could get taken into care – and even if you 'did a runner' the Italian authorities could then go after you. This may sound terribly negative and all doom and gloom – but you would be taking serious risks in knowingly breaking the law like this.

(Imagine if an Italian family turned up in a remote Northumberland village and tried to home educate their children – illegally without following the National Curriculum – hoping that the authorities would never find out?)

Interesting point.

I agree you are doing a worst case scenario, but homeschooling is NOT illegal in Italy.
If a Italian family turned up in a remote northumberland village then they are legally entitled to homeschool there children,in any curriculum.
I said i was thinking about Unschooling which i know is a very unpopular idea and illegal in italy.
I will look at the italian curriculum so thanks for the heads up on that

Good luck, and very best wishes to you and your children in whatever you decide to do. It would no doubt be prudent to double check your facts (and the law) before making any such decision.

If EU, you don't have to do anything for the first three months.

Thanks Lorna thats good to know, we are from the U.K, we are currently in Dubai where we have been living for 12 years, our house in Italy, which we have owned for 5 years will be finished with renovations by november so hoping to be in place after xmas.
Was hoping to meet some other Homeschoolers which is why i posted here.

Here's the legal blurb if you need it:

"se intende soggiornare per meno di tre mesi, non è obbligata a dichiarare la propria presenza. Il diritto di soggiornare per meno di tre mesi, infatti, si esercita senza alcuna formalità ."

http://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/10387/


I'm afraid we don't have any home-schoolers here, not that I know of anyway. I think most of them tend to be Americans. Most of the Brits that have been or still are part of our forum decided to put their kids into Italian schools with the idea that it would help them learn Italian quickly and make friends. Italians don't start "proper" primary until age 6 anyway (though most of them do 3 years of pre-school) so your 7 old might be ahead of them depending on the school in Dubai and when he/she started there. Best of luck with whatever you do. I know I couldn't do it everyday ..... not enough patience.

That's interesting, a French friend of mine has just started homeschooling (or unschooling I think) her two boys in Canada. She is a member of a national network of homeschoolers, perhaps something like that exists in Italy?

I don't know if you read Italian but this link says you have to make an official declaration of your intent to homeschool:

Dovete presentare una lettera d’intento al dirigente scolastico del vostro circolo dove dichiarate che vi occuperete dell’istruzione di vostro figlio/a. A volte bisognerà dare testimonianza delle proprie capacità tecniche o economiche (dipende dal dirigente).

http://www.controscuola.it/faq/

Good luck!