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BELA by province

Home education registration in Free State

Applications for home education in this province go to the Head of Department of the Free State Department of Education, whose head office is in Bloemfontein.

  • Department Free State Department of Education
  • Seat Bloemfontein
  • Deemed approval 60 days
  • Rule set bela v1

Where to apply

Most Free State families speak Sesotho at home. A child whose Home Language is Sesotho can be taught to read in it from the start, and the Education Plan should say which language is the Home Language and which is the First Additional Language.

Before you apply, read the department's own requirements on its website or ask its office, and ask whether it wants the application at the head office or at your district office.

The steps

  1. Read what the Free State Department of Education asks for, on its website or by asking its office.
  2. Complete the Education Plan for this phase and download it.
  3. Gather the documents in the list below.
  4. Fill in and sign the Free State Department of Education's application form for home education.
  5. Submit the application to the Free State Department of Education and keep proof of the date it was received.
  6. Record the date you applied in Selemo, so Selemo can count the days with you.
  7. If you have heard nothing after a month, write to the Free State Department of Education to ask about progress and keep a copy.

The documents

A copy of the child's birth certificate, a copy of each parent's or guardian's identity document, proof of address, the Education Plan for this phase, a weekly timetable and the child's most recent school report, if they were at school.

The 60-day clock

If the Free State Department of Education has not answered a complete application within 60 days, Selemo's reading of the rules is that it may be treated as approved, so keep proof of the date you applied. For example, an application received on Monday 12 October 2026 reaches its 60th day on Friday 11 December 2026.

Planning the school day in Free State

The Free State is high, open grassland with hot summers, afternoon storms and hard winter frosts.

In June and July, outdoor lessons wait until the sun is well up, and a main lesson that begins at nine suits most of the year.

On the wide Free State plains a summer storm can be watched long before it arrives, a natural lesson in counting the seconds between lightning and thunder, from indoors.

Around Bloemfontein, Selemo's season engine finds grassland with summer rainfall. On the shortest day the sun rises at 07:08 and sets at 17:25; on the longest it rises at 05:13 and sets at 19:13.

That is 10 hours 17 minutes of daylight in June against 14 hours 1 minutes in December, and at the spring equinox the sun rises at 06:04 and sets at 18:11: a main lesson that starts an hour or two after sunrise works in every season, and the Education Plan's section on the week and the day records when it begins.

Home Language and First Additional Language

The languages most spoken at home in Free State include Sesotho, Afrikaans and isiXhosa. The Education Plan names your child's Home Language and First Additional Language, and the CAPS comparison follows that choice.

Assessment at the end of the phase

A competent assessor looks at your child's progress at the end of each phase: the Foundation Phase towards the end of Grade 3 and the Intermediate Phase towards the end of Grade 6. Arrange the assessor early in the final year, and share the assessor pack before the meeting.

  • Contents
  • The learner
  • Outcome coverage
  • Comparison with CAPS
  • Selected main lesson book pages
  • Termly reports
  • Milestone checklists
  • Evidence chain verification

Seasons near you

Grassland

The year in Bloemfontein

Bloemfontein lies on the open grassland plains of the Free State, under a very wide sky, with a single hill, Naval Hill, rising above the city.

Summers are hot, with rain mostly in thunderstorms from November to March. Winters are dry and cold, with hard frosts on many nights and bright, still days.

Places to walk near Bloemfontein: Naval Hill and the Franklin Game Reserve and Free State National Botanical Garden.

Sources and status

  • The department, steps, documents, deemed-approval period and assessment points come from Selemo's compliance rule set bela v1, in effect from 1 January 2026 and awaiting legal review; the BELA Act and the South African Schools Act govern home education, and the Free State Department of Education's own requirements come first.
  • The home languages are the most widely spoken in Free State in Statistics South Africa's census, and sunrise and sunset are computed by Selemo's season engine for Bloemfontein, rounded to about 5 km, for the solstices of 2027.

Registering in Free State, without the worry

Selemo builds the Education Plan from your record, counts the days after you apply and gathers the assessor pack when Grade 3 ends.

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