Parents have a legal right to choose how their child receives a suitable education, be that at a school or otherwise, and so may declare Elective Home Education at any point while a child is of compulsory school age. However, parents must remember that in declaring Elective Home Education they assume the full legal and financial responsibility for arranging and/or providing their child with a suitable education. Failure to provide a child with a suitable education can result in legal action being taken, and/or impact a child’s ability to achieve further and higher education and employment aspirations. A decision to home educate a child should be carefully considered. Below are some questions you may want to think about, and which come from our experiences of both successful and unsuccessful home education provision.

Why do I want to home educate my child?

Have you decided to home educate because of a problem at the child’s school, or because the school system does not suit your child? If there’s a problem at the child’s school, have you spoken with the school and actively engaged in any support they have offered? Could a move to another school resolve any problems? Is your consideration of home education in the interests of your child, or because you believe it will make your life easier or enable you to avoid imminent or further legal action or fines?

• Our experience is that home education is most successful when in the best interests of the child and where the school system does not suit them, and where parents are able to provide an education which suits their child’s interests, aspirations, and preferred way of learning. This is a long-term commitment to educating the child. We find that home education is less successful when parents choose it as a means to avoid permanent exclusion, fines, or legal action, or because parents don’t want to accept alternative provision offered when their child is permanently excluded. We also find home education is less successful where parents declare Elective Home Education simply to remove their child from a school register but do not really want to home educate. This is typically where a parent has already applied for another school and believe it will only be a brief period of time before a place is offered, when the reality can sometimes be months on school place waiting lists - time during which the parent must deliver the home education which they have committed to.

Do I have the resources to suitably home educate my child?

Elective Home Education will require time and money. If you are employed, how will you fit your child’s education around your work commitments, and who will care for your child while you’re at work? 

• Children left home alone while their parents are at work may lead to child safety concerns and, from our experience, are less likely to complete education activities left for them to do unsupervised. 

What physical resources will your child need for their education (e.g., computer, internet connection, workbooks, stationery), and will they need particular exams and grades to achieve their post-16 education and employment goals? Do you have the financial resources to provide what your child will need?

How might home education affect my child?

Have you spoken with your child about home education, and what are their feelings? Have you considered the potential effect on their friendships and other social interactions with peers, and how will you ensure they do not lose these opportunities? Have you considered how your relationship with your child may change as you assume a teacher role as well as a parental role?

Can I meet my child’s needs?

If your child has special educational needs or challenging behaviour, are you confident that you will be able to meet your child’s needs while providing a suitable education? Will home educating your child make it more difficult to get them the help they need? Did your child engage in any support offered by their school for their needs, or are there any avenues which haven’t been explored? Have you sought advice from your SEND Case Officer or services such as Bexley IASS on what else could be considered to help your child remain at a school?

• We have experienced parents who declared home education because challenging behaviours their child was demonstrating at school were not seen at home, and so school was felt to be a trigger. However, those challenging behaviours came into the home when education started there, and parents found home education more challenging than they thought it would be. We have also experienced parents who declared home education as they felt the school was not meeting their child’s special educational needs, however they then found it challenging to get the help they felt their child needed due to difficulties in securing professional reports to support EHC needs assessment requests or annual reviews.

What’s my ‘plan B’?

What will you do if you find that home education isn’t working for you or your child, or if your circumstances change and you can no longer provide them with a suitable education? How will you ensure your child continues to receive a suitable education until a solution can be found?

• We have experienced parents who declared elective home education and found returning their child to a school was not as quick as they expected when home education was not working.

If your child is at school

If your child is registered at a school, even if they’re not attending, you should notify the school in writing, either by letter or email, that you wish to remove them from the school register as you are assuming full responsibility for their education through home education. If you do not notify the school in writing, it is likely that your child will be marked as absent which may lead to action being taken for non-attendance. Your child’s school will then notify us of your Elective Home Education declaration, and we will contact you.

If your child is not at school

If your child is not registered at a school and you are home educating them, you are under no legal obligation to let us know, but we ask that you do so we may be confident they are receiving a suitable education. This will also ensure we can pass on information which may be useful including health/vaccination programmes, opportunities to meet other home educating families, and arrange access to careers and education information, advice, and guidance when your child is in their last year of compulsory school age. To let us know you are home educating your child:

• email EHE@bexley.gov.uk
• or call 020 8303 7777 and ask for 'Elective Home Education'
   

There are several reasons where a declaration of Elective Home Education may not be immediately accepted.

The child is registered at a special school arranged by the Local Authority

If your child has an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP) and is at a special school arranged by the local authority, a declaration of Elective Home Education for the child will need to be approved by the local authority Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Panel before the child can be de-registered from the school for home education to start. If you have a child with an EHCP who is registered at a special school and you are thinking about home education, we strongly recommend that you discuss this with the school and your local authority SEND Case Officer before making a declaration of Elective Home Education so that your reasons for wanting to home educate can be explored and actions taken to resolve any related concerns.

The child is registered at a school under a School Attendance Order or is subject to other legal orders

If your child is registered at a school and required to attend under a School Attendance Order, you cannot declare Elective Home Education and remove the child from the school register unless the School Attendance Order is revoked by the local authority. If this applies to your child, you should contact the local authority service which imposed the School Attendance Order to discuss your wish to home educate. As School Attendance Orders are typically imposed where a local authority has not been confident in the past that a child is receiving a suitable education at home than at a school, you should seek to assure the local authority that arrangements are in place for your child to receive a suitable education from day 1 of home education, if approved.

If your child is required to attend a school as part of any other legal orders, such as those imposed by Courts, a declaration of Elective Home Education will not be accepted until the legal order is amended to allow for education other than at a school and a copy of the revised order provided to the child’s school.

The child is or becomes subject to a Child Protection Plan

If your child is or becomes subject to a Child Protection Plan, it is the policy of the London Borough of Bexley that Elective Home Education will not be agreed, and the child should remain or return to a school setting. If your child is subject to a Child Protection Plan and you wish to home educate, you should discuss your reasons for this with the child’s school, education welfare service, and Social Worker to explore what options may be available to resolve your reasons, including a change in school.

Within 15 working days of receiving notice of a parent declaring Elective Home Education, the London Borough of Bexley will:

• assign an EHE Officer to the family, who will attempt to make contact with the parents to ensure they understand the responsibilities they are assuming, that elective home education is their informed choice, and that they have not been led to the decision by other professionals
• update all electronic education records to show that the child is now being home educated
• write to the parents to request information on the education they are providing so the local authority can be confident the child is receiving a suitable education, and for that confidence to be secured within 13 weeks

Parents can choose how and what they share with their EHE Officer to enable confidence in their home education provision. They may supply a written report, complete and return an online questionnaire, or request a physical or online face-to-face meeting or telephone conversation with their EHE Officer to discuss the home education provision.

A reasonable analogy for what the EHE Officer would want from any information provided is that of a school parent’s evening.

• At parent’s evenings, parents can speak with teachers about the education their child is receiving, what they are good at, what they find challenging and what the teacher is doing to help the child overcome those challenges, what their child has learned recently from the education provided, what progress their child is making overall and, in the later years of schooling, how the education they are receiving will ready them for post-16 education and/or employment. If their child has any special educational needs, the parent will ask the teacher about how those needs are being met. The parent would likely also ask their child for their views or feelings about the education they are receiving.

Using this comparison, when a parent declares EHE they become the teacher, and the EHE Officer becomes the parent. The EHE Officer will want to know the same things a parent would likely want to know if someone else was providing education to their child.

Parents could think 'what would I want to know to be happy and confident that my child is receiving a suitable education if someone else was providing it', and then put themselves in the ‘teacher’ role and provide the answers to that question. This would be, at least, a good starting point to enable the EHE Officer to be confident the child is receiving a suitable education.

The EHE Officer will write to parents again after 6 weeks to remind them of the request and 13-week confidence date if no information has been received, or if information received has not enabled confidence in the home education provision.

If no information is received by the confidence date, or if information received has not enabled confidence and the parent has not responded to questions from the EHE Officer to enable them to become confident, the local authority will act in accordance with Government guidance. This may result in parents being required to return their child to a school, which may be the school the child left to become home educated.

If the EHE Officer is confident that the child is receiving a home education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude, and to any special educational needs they may have, they will confirm such with the parent and state when they will next ‘check-in’ so they may be confident that the child continues to receive a suitable education.

At any time while home educating, the parent may contact their EHE Officer or or email EHE@bexley.gov.uk for advice or to provide updates (e.g., a change of address or other contact details). While the EHE service can signpost parents to sources of information, it cannot tell parents what or how they should educate their child, nor can it specify or provide education resources. It is for the parent to make such arrangements and convey to the EHE Officer how their choices provide their child with a suitable education.

Further detail on the London Borough of Bexley’s EHE Procedures can be found in its Elective Home Education Policy. This can be found in the Resources and further information section, below.

• London Borough of Bexley’s Elective Home Education Policy (PDF)
• Elective home education: guidance for parents (Government guidance)
• Education Otherwise (Elective Home Education charity)
• The Education Act 1996: Section 7 - Duty of parents to secure education of children of compulsory school age
• The Education Act 1996: Section 436A - Duty to make arrangements to identify children not receiving education