Should i home educate my child

You must make sure your child receives a full-time education from the age of 5, but you do not have to follow the national curriculum. They can serve a school attendance order if they think your child needs to be taught at school. Read the elective home education guidance to find out more about:.

To help us improve GOV. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. Cookies on GOV. UK We use some essential cookies to make this website work. Accept additional cookies Reject additional cookies View cookies. Hide this message. A growing number of parents are joining forces to provide their children with an alternative learning experience. Dan Rust, who home educates his six-year-old daughter and plans to do the same for his two-year-old son, says the home ed community in Birmingham is flourishing.

This growing focus on community within home education could be one reason behind its increasing popularity. The Department for Education does not keep a central record of how many children are home schooled across the country, but a BBC investigation earlier this year suggested the figure was as high as 48, children in , up from around 34, in Rachel Plummer, from Edinburgh, has thrown herself into the home ed community since making the decision to keep her children, Audrey, seven, and Robin, two, out of traditional school.

The trio attend community meet-ups every day of the week, with classes ranging from art to science. Parents contribute in any way they can. As an award-winning poet, Rachel runs two creative writing groups.

The community also creates its own Christmas show and harvest festival. With such a group focus, is it so different from regular school? So much time in school is devoted to, essentially, crowd control. If your child has an EHCP or is being assessed for one, you can ask for an educational psychology assessment.

You can also ask for other specialist assessments or advice, for example about communication or hearing problems. You can do this as part of the assessment process or a review of an EHCP. The only exception is if your child is going back into school. Then the EHE Team can pay for an educational psychology assessment, which may help your child to settle back into school.

If your child is likely to go back into school at some time or take exams such as GCSEs, you can help them be well prepared. You should know the curriculum and course content and your young person should be learning that. Make sure you know well in advance how this will work and time frames to do this. There are organisations, websites and groups that can give you support and advice. You can teach your child or you can use private tutors or others to help you.

You can mix academic lessons with child-led learning, where your child can exploretheir own interests. You can go out and do visits to leisure centres, take part in classes, go on trips to museums, gardens and zoos and use your local community. If your child has an EHCP, you can home educate them. Where you and the local authority agree that home education is right for your child, the EHC plan should make it clear that they will be educated at home.

If you decide to home educate, you must tell the school in writing that your child will be getting their education somewhere else. This means a child will have to be registered at and go to, a named school. Some parents find that after a while, educating their child at home takes its toll on everyone. What worked well when they were six may not be working so well when they are 10 or 12 for example. First of all, talk to your child or young person and find out what they think and feel about going back to school.

Some children can find it hard to re-adjust. If they have worries about going back, you and the school are going to need to know what these are and tackle them.

Bear in mind that what you think may not be the same as what your child thinks and what they think they need may be different from what you think. There are many reasons why parents choose home education. A child in school should get between 21 and 25 hours of education a week , depending on how old they are, but home education is very different to going to school. There are no rules that say a child should get a certain number of hours each week.

How do I decide whether home education is right for us? A few of the pros and cons: Teaching your child at home gives you lots of control over what they learn. You will need to make sure your child is getting a broad and balanced education.