The duty, and where it sits
In England and Wales the governing provision is section 7 of the Education Act 1996. It places on the parent a duty to cause the child to receive efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs they have — and it says this may be done "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise". Those last two words are the whole basis of home education.
What follows from that is a short list of things people assume and which are not true. No qualification is needed to teach a child at home. The national curriculum does not have to be followed, in any of the four nations. There is no requirement to sit any examination. And in England and Wales, as matters stand, nobody's permission is required.
Taking a child off the school roll
Where a child is already at school in England or Wales, the step is a letter to the head teacher asking for the child to be removed from the roll. Strictly there is no statutory form of words, but putting it in writing and keeping a copy is sensible.
Two situations need more than a letter:
- A child subject to a School Attendance Order. The order has to be revoked or amended first; deregistering does not override it.
- A child at a special school placed there by the local authority. The authority's consent is required, and it must not be unreasonably withheld.
Scotland is different, and this is the thing people miss
Scottish law is the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, with the parental duty at section 30 — an efficient education suitable to the child's age, ability and aptitude, provided by school attendance or by other means.
The difference that matters is at section 35. A child already attending a local authority school cannot be withdrawn without the council's written consent. Consent should not be unreasonably withheld, councils aim to decide within six weeks, and a refusal can be taken to internal review, then the complaints procedure, then the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.
Two exceptions keep it in proportion. A child who has never been enrolled at a school needs no consent and no notification, though the council may write to ask about the arrangements, and a short written description of them is generally enough. And a child at an independent school can be withdrawn without consent.
Section 37 allows a council to act where the education is judged unsuitable. That is a backstop rather than routine inspection: Scottish councils have no statutory right to enter a home or to test a child.
What a local authority can and cannot do in England
Councils may make informal enquiries about the education a child is receiving. Where a council is not satisfied, it can serve a formal notice requiring the parent to show that suitable provision is being made, allowing at least fifteen school days to respond. If it remains unsatisfied, the next step is a School Attendance Order naming a school.
What a council cannot do, as the law stands, is enter a home without being invited, dictate what is taught, or require a child to sit tests.
What the 2026 Act changes, and when
The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act completed its parliamentary stages on 28 April 2026 and received Royal Assent the following day. Its home education provisions are not yet in force, because almost all of them depend on secondary legislation and statutory guidance that has not been published. The measures are not expected to be fully in place before 2027 at the earliest, and Wales is on a separate timetable.
When they do arrive, the main changes are these:
- Compulsory registers. Local authorities must keep a register of children in their area who are not registered at a school, with a corresponding duty on parents to provide certain information.
- Consent in specific cases. Council approval will be needed before withdrawing a child who attends a special school, or who is subject to a child protection plan or enquiry. A council must refuse where regular school attendance is in the child's best interests, or where no suitable alternative arrangements exist, and must otherwise grant it. A parent unhappy with a refusal can refer the decision to the government.
- Schools must notify. A school will have to tell its local authority when a parent states an intention to home educate.
- Home visits may be requested. Within fifteen days of a child being entered on the register, a council may ask the parent to allow a visit to the home.
- A duty to support. Councils must provide education support to home-educating parents who request it — the first general obligation of its kind, and the provision most clearly in families' favour.
- Mandatory meetings, piloted. A pilot of required meetings between council, school and parent before a withdrawal must launch by 2028.
- School Attendance Orders change procedurally.
The practical point, given how much of this is being discussed as though it had already happened: none of it applies yet. Existing law and guidance stand, there is no register to join, there is no new paperwork to produce, and records a family keeps for its own purposes remain private. Where a local authority asserts that the new rules are already in effect, it is entirely reasonable to ask which current law or guidance it is relying on.
Why families do it
The reasons divide roughly into two kinds, and the distinction matters because they need different things.
Some households choose it positively — a conviction about how children learn, a religious or philosophical position, a child whose interests or pace are poorly served by a class of thirty, or work and travel patterns that make school attendance awkward.
Others arrive at it because school has stopped working: unmet special educational needs, bullying that was not resolved, anxiety that has become school refusal, or a long illness. These families are not choosing an educational philosophy so much as taking the only remaining option, and the support they need is practical rather than ideological.
The approaches
Structured. An exam specification followed from the start, with the syllabus supplying the shape of the year. Most straightforward where qualifications are the goal.
Semi-structured. A core of maths and English kept going deliberately, with the rest assembled from free resources and topic work. In practice this is where most families end up.
Autonomous, or unschooling. Child-led, with no imposed curriculum, on the premise that learning does not have to be compelled — a position with a long intellectual lineage running from Aristotle's remark that all people by nature desire to know, through John Holt's writing in the 1960s. It is most common in the primary years, and it has one honest drawback: the further it is taken, the more work is needed later to reach a formal qualification, if one turns out to be wanted.
Montessori sits between them, letting a child proceed at their own pace while providing prepared materials and guidance, with an emphasis on self-correction rather than correction by an adult.
None of these is a commitment. Families move between them, usually towards more structure as examinations come into view.
Examinations
This is the part that needs planning years ahead and is the commonest source of unpleasant surprises.
No exam is compulsory. Where GCSEs or A-levels are wanted, a home-educated student sits them as a private or external candidate at a centre accredited by the Joint Council for Qualifications, since state schools will generally not enter them.
- Find the centre before choosing the subject. Centres do not all offer every component, and a subject chosen without checking can turn out to be unsittable locally.
- Cost is per subject, combining the exam board's fee with the centre's own charge, and it accumulates sharply across a full set. This is the single largest predictable expense of home educating a teenager.
- Entry deadlines run early. Entries for a summer series normally close the preceding autumn or winter, and missing one means a surcharge or a year's wait.
- Some subjects are genuinely difficult as a private candidate. Art and design portfolios, design and technology, drama and music require supervised coursework. Modern languages need a speaking exam conducted by qualified staff. Science practicals can be opted out of, though the centre must still offer them.
- Pick an exam board early — by the start of Year 10 is the usual advice, because specifications differ and switching late wastes work.
- GCSEs are not the only route. Functional Skills qualifications, BTECs and Access courses all lead somewhere, and further education colleges will often take students from the age of fourteen on a part-time basis.
What it costs, and what it asks
Home educating in England carries no entitlement to funding. Materials, tutoring, trips, group memberships and examination entries are met by the family, and the forthcoming duty on councils to provide support on request will be the first general exception to that.
The larger cost is usually an adult's working time. Most households that home educate do so on a reduced income, and that constraint shapes the decision more than any question of method.
Against which: for a child whom school has failed, it can be the difference between an education and none. That is not a small thing, and it is why the honest version of this subject neither recommends nor discourages it.
The day-to-day of it — the shape of a week, records, socialising, going back to school, and what to do when the real problem is the school's duty rather than the child — is covered under home education in practice.