Elective home education policy

Choosing to educate your child at home is an important decision, and this policy is designed to help you understand what that means in practice.

Elective home education is when you choose to provide your child's education at home instead of sending them to school. Families choose home education for a variety of reasons.

This policy explains the rights of parents, carers and guardians who choose to educate their child at home. Alongside the legal duties and responsibilities we have and headteachers. It also sets out the arrangements and procedures we follow to carry out our statutory duties in relation to children of compulsory school age who are educated at home.

Throughout this policy, you'll find information about:

• your responsibilities
• the support available to you
• and what you can expect from schools and us.

Read our elective home education policy (PDF, 343.6 KB).

Read more about elective home education.

For information about how we use and share your personal information read our privacy statement.

Elective home education reports

The DfE ran a consultation between 2 April and 24 June 2019 to gather views on proposed legislation to create a register maintained by local authorities of children not attending mainstream schools. Read the DfE response to the consultation.

Read our elective home education report to find out about the service (PDF, 1.1 MB).