The Home Education Register: What Has Changed and What Has Not (October 2026)

Every few weeks the home education groups light up again: the register is coming, you will have to ask permission, they are going to inspect your house. Here is the position as it actually stands in October 2026, with the section numbers so you can check every line of it yourself.

Is the home education register law yet?

No. The register is created by section 38 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, and that section is not in force. Section 78 of the Act sets out what started when. A small group of sections came into force on Royal Assent, another group two months later, and everything else, including sections 37 to 42 and Schedule 2, comes into force only on a day appointed by regulations. In Wales the equivalent power sits with Welsh Ministers.

Until those regulations are made, the sections are words on a page. The Act gave the government the power to build the register. It did not build it.

What actually happened in April 2026?

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026 and became chapter 21 of 2026. It is a large Act covering free school meals, breakfast clubs, uniforms, social care and schools, and the home education provisions are one part of it. Royal Assent means the Act exists. It does not mean every section is live, and for home education almost none of it is.

When will the register start?

No date has been set. The Department for Education has not made the commencement regulations and has not published the statutory guidance that has to sit underneath them. Public estimates have ranged from 2027 to later in the decade, and none of them is official. The honest answer is that nobody outside government knows, and anyone giving you a confident date is guessing.

What that means for you is simple: you will not wake up registered. There will be regulations, there will be guidance, and there will be a commencement date published in advance.

Do I need to register my child now?

No. There is no register in existence to be on. Some councils keep their own informal lists of home educated children and have done for years, and being on one of those is voluntary, not a legal requirement. If a council writes to you, that is the existing informal enquiry process, not the new register.

What does the law require of me today?

The same thing it required before the Act. Under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, a parent must cause a child of compulsory school age to receive “efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs” he may have, “either by regular attendance at school or otherwise”. The word “otherwise” is home education, and it has been in the law since 1996.

You do not need permission, you do not need qualifications, and you do not have to follow the national curriculum, keep school hours or do formal lessons. GOV.UK says so plainly, with one exception: if your child is at school because a school attendance order is in force, you must get the council’s permission before educating at home.

Will I need council consent to take my child out of school?

Once section 37 is in force, and only then, yes for two specific groups, no for everyone else. This is the single most misread part of the Act, so it is worth being precise.

Section 37 inserts a new section 434A into the Education Act 1996. It requires the local authority’s consent before a “relevant child” is withdrawn from school for home education. A relevant child is one of compulsory school age, registered at a school, who is either:

• placed by a local authority at a special school or a specialist independent school, or
• the subject of child protection enquiries or arrangements under the Children Act 1989.

If neither applies to your child, section 37 does not ask you to seek consent. For families already in the first group, consent to deregister from an LA-arranged special school is not new, it is the position under the current pupil registration rules.

Where consent is needed, the council must decide without undue delay and may refuse only on narrow grounds: that attending school would be in the child’s best interests, or that suitable home education arrangements are not in place. Section 37 also provides for a pilot of meetings between the council and the family before a withdrawal.

What will the register record when it does start?

Section 38 requires every local authority to keep a register of eligible children in its area, broadly children of compulsory school age living there who are not registered at a school, or who are registered but educated elsewhere. The Act itself names the core details: the child’s name, date of birth and home address, the previous address if they have lived at the current one for less than twelve months, parent details, who provides any education, and an estimate of time spent.

Beyond that, the content is left to regulations which have not been made. That is why nobody can yet tell you exactly what a council will ask for, and why you should treat any detailed checklist circulating online as speculation.

What should I do now?

Nothing urgent, and that is not a cop out. Three things are genuinely worth doing, all of which help whether the register arrives in 2027 or 2030:

• Keep light records. A line or two a week about what your child did, a handful of photos, a reading list. Not for anyone else’s benefit, but because it makes any future enquiry a five minute job.
• Keep your correspondence. Your deregistration letter, the school’s acknowledgement, anything from the council, with dates.
• Watch for the regulations, not the headlines. The thing to look for is a commencement statutory instrument and DfE statutory guidance. Until those exist, nothing has changed.

If you want to see where your own family would sit, our register readiness check walks through it question by question. For the wider picture, see home education rules, cost and how to start and how many children are home educated in the UK.

Where to check this yourself

• Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (c. 21), section 37, section 38 and section 78 on legislation.gov.uk.
• Section 7 of the Education Act 1996.
• GOV.UK: home education and the Department for Education’s elective home education guidance.
• Ed Yourself, Fiona Nicholson’s tracking of the Act, which is the closest thing the home education world has to a running commentary.

For free legal advice on education and SEND, contact IPSEA, Education Otherwise or your local SENDIASS.