Homeschool best option for some neurodivergent children
A family dealing with a child who refused to go to school has found the perfect place to promote a love of learning. A café in South Australia’s farming town of Mallee has become a unique classroom and brought the community together.
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00:00There's always trucks rolling through the small grain and sheep farming town of Lameroo.
00:08To 8-year-old Jake, it's the best place on earth.
00:11I can hear trucks from ages away and I can tell what truck it is. But it's not only that,
00:17it's because what exhaust they also have and the engine.
00:22About 800 people call Lameroo home, but for Jake, it's also his classroom. The adventurous
00:29country kid is autistic, has ADHD and dyslexia. He was living in Taylum Bend, about an hour
00:36east of Adelaide, when he started school.
00:39I would take him and he would be screaming and I would have to pull him in and he would
00:44be pulling away and then the front office would be holding him in and it was just awful,
00:49it was so emotional.
00:50His grandmother Jodie, who's also neurodivergent, says nothing helped until they started homeschooling
00:57in August last year.
00:59It took at least two months of what they call unschooling for Jake's anxiety levels
01:04to drop enough that he could even look at a book.
01:07For Jake, a play-based and child-led approach to his education has changed everything.
01:13He left school when he was in Year 2 and he still couldn't read a story or read anything,
01:18but now he can read and he can type.
01:21Jake's family made the move to Lameroo after friends and fellow neurodivergent families
01:26Sarah and Nathan Chapman bought the local cafe late last year.
01:31It became Jake's base for learning maths, English and everything in between and beyond.
01:38They're extremely supportive here at the cafe and we could not do this without them.
01:43Like many rural communities, Lameroo is isolated from major health services, but the people
01:49in this community have each other's back.
01:52The coffee shop is the heart of a town and we want to make sure that our place is somewhere
01:57safe that people can come in and have a chat.
02:00Jake's education is adapted for his needs.
02:03There's no bells and no structured lessons.
02:07It's helped Jake find a way to love learning and in Lameroo, he's reaching new heights.
02:15As for Jake's future...
02:16When I grow up, I want to be a truck driver.
02:19Sophie Landau, ABC News.