If you’re reading this, you’re probably standing where I once stood: weighing up whether to take your child out of school and teach them at home. Maybe school has stopped working for them. Maybe it never really did. Maybe you’ve simply decided there’s a better way for your family. Whatever brought you here, I want to say two things before anything else. First, you are not making a reckless decision – home education is a long-established legal right in England. Second, you do not need to have it all figured out today.
I’m Heather. I’m a mum of two in the North of England, I hold CPD credentials in education, and I’ve been home educating my two girls for several years now. This guide is the one I wish someone had handed me at the start – honest about the law, honest about the wobbles, and practical enough to actually act on. It is written for England, because the law and the local authority process differ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. If you’re elsewhere in the UK, the spirit of this guide still applies, but check your nation’s specific rules before you deregister.
Is home education legal? Yes – here’s the law in plain English
Home education in England is completely legal, and you do not need permission from anyone to do it. The law that matters is Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, which says a parent must cause their child 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.”
Those last two words – “or otherwise” – are home education. Education is compulsory in England; school is not. The duty sits with you as the parent, and you are free to meet it at home.
In practice, “suitable” education means something that is efficient (it achieves what it sets out to achieve) and appropriate to your particular child. You do not have to follow the National Curriculum, teach to school hours, sit your child in front of formal lessons, or replicate a classroom in any way. We’ll come back to what the local authority can and can’t ask of you – that’s the part most parents worry about, and most of the worry is misplaced.
Do I need teaching qualifications?
No. You need no qualifications at all to home educate – not a degree, not a PGCE, not even GCSEs. The law asks that your child receives a suitable education, not that you personally deliver it like a trained teacher. Your job is to facilitate learning: choosing resources, finding the right help for subjects outside your comfort zone, and knowing your child well enough to spot what they need. My own maths is shaky at best – my eldest uses online maths programmes and a tutor for the trickier topics, and she is doing brilliantly. Knowing your child is the qualification that counts.
How to start home educating: the step-by-step process
Here is the actual sequence, from deciding to your first proper day at home.
Step 1: Decide properly – and talk to your child
Before you write a single letter, sit with the decision. Talk to your partner or co-parent. Talk honestly with your child about what is and isn’t working at school. Home education is a genuine commitment of your time and energy, and going in with eyes open makes the early weeks far easier. If you’re still on the fence, that’s fine – reading this guide is part of deciding well.
Step 2: If your child is in school – send the deregistration letter
To take a child off a school roll for home education in England, the parent gives written notice to the headteacher. This is called deregistration. You don’t fill in a council form, you don’t apply, and you don’t ask permission – you simply notify the school in writing. There’s a copy-and-paste letter template in the next section.
For most children – including children in mainstream school with an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) – this is all that’s needed. There are important exceptions, covered below, where you must speak to the local authority first.
Step 3: The school removes your child from the register
Once the school receives your written notice, the law requires them to delete your child’s name from the admission register. The deregistration takes effect from the date you’ve stated. The school cannot refuse, cannot delay it, and cannot make you attend a meeting first. (A school can decline a request for “flexi-schooling” – part-time school and part-time home education – but a request for full withdrawal must be accepted.)
Step 4: The school informs the local authority
The school is legally required to notify your local authority that your child has been deregistered to be home educated. You don’t need to contact the council yourself – though many parents choose to send a short, friendly note confirming the same thing, which does no harm.
Step 5: What happens next
After deregistration, your local authority will usually make contact – typically within a few weeks, often by phone or email, and then with a written request a couple of months in for information about the education you’re providing. This is normal and nothing to fear. We’ll cover exactly what they can and can’t do shortly.
The deregistration letter: a copy-and-paste template
This is the asset many sites tuck behind a sign-up or a paywall. There’s no need. A deregistration letter is short, factual and simple. Keep a dated copy for your own records, and send it so you have proof of receipt – by email with a read receipt requested, by recorded delivery, or by hand with a signature. Copy the text below, swap in your own details, and remove the brackets:
Dear [Headteacher’s name],
Re: [Child’s full name], date of birth [DD/MM/YYYY], [class/year group]
I am writing to inform you that I am withdrawing my child, [Child’s full name], from [School name] in order to take full responsibility for their education otherwise than at school, as is my right under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996.
Please delete my child’s name from the school’s admission register in accordance with Regulation 8(1)(d) of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006. The last day my child will attend school is [DD/MM/YYYY].
Please confirm in writing that you have received this letter and that my child’s name has been removed from the register. I understand the school will notify the local authority of this change.
Thank you for your help during my child’s time at the school.
Yours sincerely,
[Your full name]
[Your address]
[Date]
That genuinely is all that’s needed for most families. You do not have to give reasons, you do not have to give notice beyond stating a last day, and you do not have to justify your decision.
The exceptions – when you must speak to the local authority first
You cannot deregister by letter alone, and must work with the local authority first, if:
- Your child attends a special school. If a child is on the roll of a special school, the local authority must give consent before the school can take them off roll. The headteacher cannot remove them on your letter alone.
- Your child is subject to a School Attendance Order. If an order is already in force, you need the council’s agreement before moving to home education.
- Your child is subject to certain safeguarding processes. Under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (see below), additional checks and consent are being introduced for children who are subject to a child protection investigation or a child protection plan – some of these provisions are still being commenced, so check the current position with your council if this applies to you.
One point worth repeating because it’s so often muddled: having an EHCP at a mainstream school does not require council permission to deregister – the ordinary letter process applies, and the EHCP itself remains a live legal document that the council must review. It is only a place at a special school that triggers the consent requirement.
If your child has never been to school
If your child has never been registered at a school, there is nothing to deregister. You simply don’t apply for a school place. Your local authority may contact you around the time your child reaches compulsory school age (the term after they turn five) to ask about their education – at which point you let them know you are home educating.
What to expect from the local authority
This is the part that causes the most anxiety, so let me set it out calmly and accurately.
Your local authority has a duty to identify children in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. To do that, they can make informal enquiries – usually a letter or email asking you to describe the education you’re providing. Informal enquiries should not be more frequent than roughly once a year. Most families respond with a short written summary, and that is genuinely all that is usually needed.
What the local authority can do: ask you for information about your child’s education, ask to make a home visit, and – if, and only if, it appears to them that a child is not receiving a suitable education – begin the process that can lead to a School Attendance Order.
What the local authority cannot do: require you to follow the National Curriculum, set your child tests or exams, insist on entering your home, insist on seeing your child alone, or dictate your style or hours of teaching.
On home visits: you are not legally obliged to agree to a home visit. Case law is clear on this. However – and this is the honest bit – if you decline a visit and provide no other information, the council can reasonably conclude they cannot satisfy themselves that education is suitable, and that can justify formal action. The practical middle path that works for most families, including mine, is to politely decline a home visit but offer an alternative: a written report, samples of work, photographs, or a meeting on neutral ground such as a library or cafe. That keeps you firmly within your rights while still giving the council what they reasonably need.
If you do respond, the tone to aim for is calm, factual and confident. You are not asking permission and you are not on trial – you are simply demonstrating that a real, suitable education is happening. A short report covering your educational approach, the resources and activities you use, the broad areas of learning covered, and your child’s progress and social opportunities is usually more than enough.
Deschooling: the bit nobody warns you about
If your child has come out of school – especially if school was unhappy or stressful – do not start “teaching” on day one. You both need a period of deschooling: an adjustment phase where you let school routines, anxieties and assumptions loosen their grip before you build anything new.
A rough rule of thumb passed around the home education community is one month of deschooling for every year your child spent in school. That can feel alarming if your child has been in school for six years – but deschooling isn’t doing nothing. It’s library trips, baking, documentaries, walks, museums, conversations, following a sudden obsession with volcanoes for a fortnight. Learning is happening; it just doesn’t look like school. Deschooling is also for you – it’s the time you stop measuring your child against where a classroom would have them and start seeing the child actually in front of you. Rushing this stage is the single most common early mistake, and the one most likely to lead to tears and burnout.
The honest truth about cost and time
Two things people rarely tell you straight: home education has a real financial cost, and it has a real time cost.
On money, the spread is enormous. Some families spend well under £100 a year, leaning on free resources, the library and free museums. Others spend several thousand on tutors, paid classes and full curriculum packages. Most UK home educators land somewhere in the middle – very roughly a few hundred pounds per child per year – but your figure depends entirely on your choices. You do not need to spend a lot to do this well; I started with barely £100.
The bigger cost is usually the hidden one: one parent typically reduces working hours, and you should factor in lost income alongside higher day-to-day costs like utilities and travel to activities. Be realistic about this as a household before you commit.
Because the numbers are so personal, guessing is a poor way to plan. I’d genuinely encourage you to sit down and work out your own figure properly – we built a free Home Education Cost Calculator to take you through it line by line, so you start with eyes open rather than a vague worry.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 – what it means for you
If you’ve been researching home education recently, you’ll have seen anxious headlines about new legislation. Here’s the calm, plain-English version.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April 2026. For home educators, the headline change is a new statutory duty on every local authority in England to keep a “Children Not in School” register – a record of children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll, including those who are home educated. The aim, as the government frames it, is to ensure every child is known to their local authority and receiving a safe, suitable education.
Three things matter for a parent starting out now:
- Home education remains a legal right. The Act does not abolish home education or require you to obtain approval to do it. As long as you are providing a suitable, safe education, you can continue – including where your child has special educational needs.
- The registers are not all live yet. Royal Assent means the Bill is now an Act, but it does not mean every “Children Not in School” measure switches on immediately. These provisions are commenced through later regulations and statutory guidance, and the register duties are widely expected to be fully in force from 2027 at the earliest. In the meantime, the existing law described in this guide continues to apply.
- Some children will face extra checks before withdrawal. The Act introduces additional steps – including local authority consent – before children in certain circumstances can be withdrawn for home education, particularly children subject to a child protection investigation or plan, and (continuing the existing rule) children at special schools. There are also plans, starting in pilot areas, for parents to attend a meeting with the local authority before withdrawing.
For the great majority of families, the practical effect is simply this: your local authority will hold a record that your child is home educated, and you’ll be asked for some information to populate it. That is an administrative change, not a loss of your right to educate your child at home. Because the detail is still being finalised through regulations, it’s worth checking your own council’s current guidance at the point you deregister.
The worries everyone has – honestly addressed
“What about socialisation?”
You will hear this question more than any other, often from people who’ve never set foot in a home education group. The reality: home-educated children are not isolated unless a family chooses isolation. Socialising happens through home education meet-ups and park days, sports and swimming, music and drama, Scouts and Guides, volunteering, libraries, and ordinary friendships with neighbours and family. Search Facebook for “home education” or “elective home education” plus your town, join a few groups, and turn up. Many children end up with broader, mixed-age friendships than a single-year-group classroom ever offered.
“Am I qualified enough?”
Covered above, but worth repeating because the fear runs deep: you don’t need qualifications, and you don’t need to know everything. You need to be willing to find resources, ask for help, and learn alongside your child. That’s it.
“What about GCSEs later?”
If your child is six, GCSEs are not a problem you need to solve today. When the time comes, home-educated young people sit GCSEs and IGCSEs as private candidates at exam centres, often choosing a handful of subjects rather than the full school slate, and frequently spread over more than one year. Plenty of routes exist – including colleges and online provision – and you will figure them out closer to the time. Don’t let a worry about age sixteen paralyse you at age six.
Your first month: what to actually do
Once you’ve deregistered, here’s a sane shape for your first four weeks. Resist the urge to recreate a school timetable – that route leads to burnout for both of you within a fortnight.
- Week 1 – Deschool and decompress. Sleep in. Go to the library. Visit a museum. Talk about what your child actually enjoys. No formal “lessons” at all. The goal is to let school stress drain away.
- Week 2 – Follow interests. Pick something your child is curious about and dive in – books, videos, a project, a related day out. You’re rediscovering that learning can be enjoyable.
- Week 3 – Gently test some structure. Try a short, light routine: perhaps thirty to forty-five minutes of maths, some reading, and one topic or project. Notice what feels comfortable and what causes friction.
- Week 4 – Get out and connect. Go to a home education meet-up. Try a class or club. Find your local community – for support as much as for your child’s friendships.
A few practical anchors for that first month: keep formal “desk” work short – two to three hours a day is plenty for primary age, and often more than enough. Start with mostly free resources before spending money – see what suits your child before committing to a paid curriculum. Keep a simple, informal record of what you do – a notebook or a photo folder – which makes any local authority enquiry effortless to answer. And join the community early; this is far easier when you’re not doing it alone.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need permission to home educate in England?
No. For a child in mainstream school you give written notice to the headteacher and the school must remove them from the roll – no permission needed. The exceptions are children at special schools, children under a School Attendance Order, and certain safeguarding situations, where you must work with the local authority first.
How long does deregistration take?
It takes effect on the date you state in your letter, once the school has received it. The school must then remove your child from the register and notify the local authority. There is no waiting period and no approval stage for an ordinary mainstream withdrawal.
Can the local authority make me let them into my home?
No. You are not legally obliged to agree to a home visit. However, if you decline a visit and provide no other information about your child’s education, the council can conclude it cannot satisfy itself that education is suitable. The practical answer most families use is to decline the visit but offer a written report, work samples, or a meeting somewhere neutral instead.
Can I home educate if my child has an EHCP?
Yes. If your child is at a mainstream school you can deregister in the usual way – an EHCP does not require council permission to withdraw. The EHCP remains legally live and the council must continue to review it. Only a place at a special school requires the local authority’s consent before deregistration.
What does the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 mean for me?
Mainly that your local authority will keep a “Children Not in School” register recording that your child is home educated, and will ask you for some information for it. Home education remains a legal right. Many of these measures are still being commenced through regulations and are expected to be fully in force from 2027, so check your council’s current guidance when you deregister.
Does my child have to follow the National Curriculum or sit SATs?
No. Home-educated children in England do not have to follow the National Curriculum, keep school hours, or sit SATs. You must provide an education suitable to your child’s age, ability, aptitude and any special needs – how you do that is up to you.
You can do this
Starting home education in England comes down to a handful of concrete steps: decide properly, send the deregistration letter if your child is in school, let the school and local authority do their part, give yourselves space to deschool, and begin gently. You do not need a perfect ten-year plan or an expensive curriculum. You need a first simple day, and the willingness to adjust as you go.
I was terrified at the start. I genuinely thought about giving up in the second week. Years on, it’s the best decision our family ever made – not because every day is golden, but because it’s ours. The early weeks are messy, then something clicks, and one day you find yourself wondering why you waited. Take it one honest step at a time. You can absolutely do this.
Related guides
- Home Education Cost Calculator – work out your real annual budget
- Co-Parenting Home Education UK: Making It Work
- Home Education Timetables That Actually Work
- Dealing with Local Authority Home Education Visits
- Free Home Education Resources UK Families Love
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