South African homeschooling families - The Erwees and the Youngs

About Us

Footprints on Our Land is a much loved homegrown South African homeschooling curriculum, used and loved by thousands of families around the country. Footprints offers a ‘living book’, Charlotte Mason approach to learning about South African history, geography, natural sciences and more. 

Our various programmes are multi-grade, literature-based unit studies about South Africa so that families with children of different ages can learn about their country together in a fun and engaging way. The authors, Wendy Young and Shirley Erwee are veteran homeschooling mothers who also offer support, encouragement and advice to homeschooling families via webinars, private consultations and various social media platforms.

About us - South African homeschool curriculum authors
Shirley and Wendy, Cape Town homeschool expo 2018

Footprints on Our Land was established in 2002.

Since then we’ve worked together to encourage and equip other homeschooling families, through our collective experience and expertise.

We have been homeschooling since 1997 (more than 20 years) and we have 4 and 6 children each. Our children have all been homeschooled all the way: some have graduated and are working in their career fields, some are still at university and some are still homeschooling. 

We created Footprints for our own children, as we needed South African resources but also to fill the need for a home-grown literature-based curriculum in South Africa.  Here is Our Story in more detail. We think it’s close to miraculous!

Erwee and Young families
Erwee and Young families, June 2013
I also just wanted to really thank both you and Shirley for the Footprints series, what an awesome way to learn. It is a very high standard against which I compare all our other learning material.”
~ Pam, Sedgefield

Our Footprints homeschooling products have been used in over 15 countries, which means that families and from all around the world have recognised the value of teaching their children about South Africa using our materials. Read our customer reviews – they love Footprints!

Wendy and Shirley are also regular speakers at homeschool expos and were speakers at the 2020 Global Home Education Conference.

Leaders in homeschooling in South Africa

As home education experts, we’ve served or been consulted by these organisations and media publishers on matters relating to home education in South Africa and globally. We support freedom in education.

South African homeschooling organisations logos and media organisations

Our products have also been used in private schools in Cape Town, Johannesburg and even in a school in the United States of America. An Australian school also wrote and commended us on our programme after an expatriate family showed them the materials their children had been using.

More and more home schooling families are enjoying South Africa’s rich heritage through the curriculum that has emerged from our collaboration and they are raising up children that desire to make a difference in their country’s future.

This website is a continuation of that vision to encourage and equip both South African families and families in other countries who choose a homeschooling lifestyle.
For more specific information about Shirley and Wendy, use these links.

Read more about The Benefits of a Footprints Curriculum.

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