Home Education in England: What Suitable Education Means

This guide covers three practical questions about home education in England: what suitable means, what a council can do, and which recent legal changes are in force. It summarises legislation and government guidance; check the linked sources for the rules that apply to your circumstances.

Here is the definitional answer up front. A suitable education is one that is efficient, full-time, and appropriate to the child's age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs. The law does not set a fixed home-education timetable, require the National Curriculum or require the parent to hold a particular qualification. Whether education is suitable depends on the child and the provision as a whole. Department for Education guidance says a suitable education must be age-appropriate, must enable the child to make progress according to their level of ability, and must take account of any specific aptitudes.

For most children in England, you do not need general permission from your local authority to home educate. Specific exceptions apply to children attending special schools and children named in school attendance orders. As at 23 October 2026, the new substantive register, parent-information and consent duties in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 are not in force; some regulation-making powers are in force. The detail, with commencement instruments, is in its own section.

What this page covers, when it was reviewed, and what it cannot do

Reviewed: 23 October 2026. Scope: England only. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are compared in a later section, and the differences are substantive, not cosmetic.

This is legal information, not legal advice. It describes the general position; it cannot tell you whether your particular arrangement satisfies section 7, because that is a judgment about the whole of one child's education, made on the facts. No platform, curriculum, tutor or product can make a family legally compliant, and that includes Smart Cub Learning. Practice papers and progress tracking can evidence part of a picture. They are not the picture.

For context on scale, the Department for Education estimated 126,000 children known to local authorities as electively home educated on the autumn 2025 census date, and 175,900 at some point during 2024/25. The collection is labelled statistics in development and does not necessarily include every home-educated child. Recorded reasons are administrative data, not a diagnosis or explanation for an individual family.

The duty sits on you, not on a school: section 7

Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 is the whole foundation. It requires the parent of every child of compulsory school age to "cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable (a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and (b) to any special educational needs ... he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise."

Read the last four words carefully. School is one way of discharging a duty that is already yours. Home education is not an exemption from a duty to send a child to school; it is an alternative method of performing the same duty. For most children, there is no application or general approval process. Exceptions include a child placed at a special school by the local authority and a child named in a school attendance order; see the withdrawal section below.

What "efficient", "full-time" and "suitable" actually mean

DfE's elective home education guidance treats these as three separate tests, and so should you.

Efficient. Guidance interprets this as "education which achieves what it is intended to achieve". It is deliberately relative to your own aims. Crucially, efficient is not the same as suitable: you can deliver an unsuitable education very efficiently, and a suitable one very inefficiently.

Full-time. There is "no legal definition of 'full-time' in terms of education at home, or at school". Children at school typically have around five hours of tuition a day, 190 days a year across roughly 38 weeks, but guidance states plainly that "home education does not have to mirror this". The guidance says home education does not have to mirror school hours or days. It gives no fixed number of hours; whether education is full-time depends on the circumstances, and parents should be able to describe and quantify the provision.

Suitable. Not defined in statute. It must be age-appropriate, enable progress according to the child's ability, and reflect specific aptitudes. Guidance adds five further factors that do bear on suitability:

• An appropriate minimum standard, aimed at enabling the child as an adult to function as an independent citizen in the UK and beyond the community they were raised in.
• Education should not directly conflict with Fundamental British Values, though there is no requirement to teach them.
• Local authorities may apply minimum expectations for literacy and numeracy, while bearing in mind age, ability, aptitude and SEN.
• Provision may be unsuitable if delivered in circumstances that make it very difficult to work, such as very noisy premises.
• Provision may be unsuitable if it leads to excessive isolation from peers and so impedes social development.

The eleven things the law does not require you to do

Most overstatement of parental duty comes from reading the five factors above without their counterweight. DfE guidance is explicit that there is no legal requirement to:

1. Hold any specific qualification.
2. Have premises equipped to a particular standard.
3. Aim for the child to gain any specific qualifications.
4. Teach the National Curriculum.
5. Provide a "broad and balanced" curriculum.
6. Make detailed lesson plans in advance.
7. Give formal lessons.
8. Mark the child's work.
9. Formally assess progress or set development objectives.
10. Reproduce school-type peer group socialisation.
11. Match school-based, age-specific standards.

Separately, you need no timetable, no set hours, and no observance of school terms or days. The one qualifier: you should be able to quantify and demonstrate the amount of time your child is being educated.

Withdrawing your child: a five-step playbook

1. Check whether you are in one of the two consent situations. Local authority consent is required before a name is deleted only where the child attends a special school and the placement was arranged by the authority (a refusal can be referred to the Secretary of State), or where the child attends any school under a school attendance order, which the authority must revoke first. GOV.UK confirms no council permission is needed where a child attends a mainstream school, even with an EHC plan.
2. Write to the head teacher. State that your child will no longer attend after a named date and will receive education otherwise than at school. Keep it to those elements plus your child's name, date of birth and class.
3. Understand which rule is actually operating. DfE's 2019 parents' guidance (para 4.2) says a parent is "not obliged to inform the school". Regulation 9 of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 (SI 2024/208) makes the parent's written notice the ground that requires the proprietor to delete the name, once the named day has passed and no attendance order names the school. The guidance predates the regulations. In practice, written notice is now the operative mechanism, and sending it is what makes the deregistration clean.
4. Expect acceptance, not negotiation. GOV.UK states "the school must accept if you're taking your child out completely." Schools may refuse part-time or flexi-schooling arrangements, which are discretionary.
5. Never enrolled? Nothing to do. Where a child has never been registered at a school, guidance says the parent "is under no legal obligation to inform the local authority" or obtain consent, though DfE strongly recommends notifying.

What the council can and cannot make you do

A local authority "has no formal powers or duty to monitor the provision of education at home". It does have a duty under section 436A to make arrangements to enable it to establish, so far as it is possible to do so, the identities of children in its area who are of compulsory school age, are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. To discharge that duty, authorities "are entitled to make informal enquiries of parents".

You are under no legal obligation to respond, to agree to a meeting, or to produce evidence in a prescribed format. DfE's 2019 guidance for parents (paragraph 5.11) says the section 175 Education Act 2002 safeguarding duty "does not entitle a local authority to insist on visiting a child's home, or seeing the child, simply for the purposes of monitoring the provision of home education". If you do not respond, the guidance says the authority may conclude that it appears the child is not receiving suitable education. That is a possible inference, not an automatic finding.

That conclusion triggers section 437 of the Education Act 1996. The authority must serve written notice requiring you to satisfy it, within a period that "shall not be less than 15 days beginning with the day on which the notice is served". If you do not satisfy it and it is expedient the child attend school, the authority must serve a school attendance order. Breaching an SAO is a criminal offence. You can seek revocation by producing evidence of satisfactory arrangements, and a refusal to revoke can be referred to the Secretary of State.

A proportionate reply: the evidence file

The practical gap this guidance leaves is what a good reply looks like. Answer the section 7 test, not an open-ended request. There is no required report length or folder format. A concise account and relevant examples may help explain the provision, but the authority considers the circumstances of the individual child.

Worked example, Year 6, maths and English. Aims for the year: secure written division and fractions; move from paragraph-level to structured multi-paragraph writing. Time: a typical fortnight log showing roughly 12 hours of core work, 4 hours of project work, 3 hours of group sessions. Evidence of progress: three dated pieces of the same writing task type from September, January and June, so improvement is visible without formal marking. Ability and aptitude: a note that the child reads well above age expectation and works below it in arithmetic fluency, and what you changed as a result. SEN: how each identified need is met, and by whom.

If your child is preparing for selective entry alongside home education, timed papers create the same dated trail. Our guides to preparing for the 11 plus year by year and the practical application sequence cover deadlines that home-educating families routinely miss, since no school will chase them for you. Formats vary considerably by area.

Illness, exclusion and SEN: when the state owes provision

This is the most consequential distinction on this page. If your child cannot attend school because of illness, exclusion or unmet needs, you may be entitled to provision rather than obliged to supply it yourself.

Section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996 requires every local authority in England to "make arrangements for the provision of suitable education at school or otherwise than at school for those children of compulsory school age who, by reason of illness, exclusion from school or otherwise, may not for any period receive suitable education unless such arrangements are made for them".

Separately, education otherwise than at school (EOTAS) under section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 allows an EHC plan to specify provision delivered outside school, with the local authority remaining responsible for arranging and funding the package. That is legally the opposite of elective home education, where you take on both.

These routes are separate from elective home education. If absence relates to illness, exclusion or unmet special educational needs, ask the local authority or an independent SEND adviser about the relevant duties before deciding what to do. DfE guidance says schools should not pressure parents to withdraw a child. If access arrangements rather than withdrawal are the real issue, our guide to 11 plus access arrangements for SEND explains the evidence thresholds assessment bodies apply.

Costs, exams and funding

There is no general home-education grant in England. Help with exam entry, tuition or SEN-related costs may vary by authority and is not a general entitlement. The 16 to 19 Bursary Fund is not a grant for home education itself; eligibility depends on the young person’s study or training arrangement, so check the current eligibility rules.

Exams are the practical hurdle. Per JCQ, private candidates sit exams at an approved school or college without being enrolled there, which includes home-educated students. Candidates are responsible for making entries through the centre and paying the fees, and each centre sets its own fees and internal deadlines, which typically fall months before the public entry deadline. The available centres, subjects, fees and deadlines vary, so contact a centre directly before relying on it. Before choosing a subject with coursework or non-exam assessment, ask potential centres whether they can support that component.

What is changing, and what is not yet in force

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (2026 c. 21) received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. The Act provides for a children-not-in-school register (section 38), consent for certain withdrawals (section 37), changes to school attendance orders (section 39), information processing (section 40) and new guidance (section 41). These provisions are subject to commencement.

When commenced, section 38 will insert new sections 436B to 436G into the Education Act 1996. They provide for local-authority registers and related parent notification and information duties. The exact duties and exceptions are set out in the Act and regulations; they are not current obligations as at the review date.

The register, parent notification, annual information and consent duties described above had not commenced in England as at 23 October 2026. Some regulation-making powers have commenced. Section 78(1) brought provisions of Parts 1 and 2 into force at Royal Assent only "so far as" they confer or relate to a power to make regulations (or, for the amendments in Schedule 3, an order). The two-month list in section 78(2) does not include sections 37 to 42. Commencement No. 1 (SI 2026/551), No. 2 (SI 2026/803, as amended by SI 2026/941) and No. 3 (SI 2026/933) also did not commence those duties. We checked the commencement regulations made up to 23 October 2026.

So, as at 23 October 2026, the new national register, parent-information and consent duties in sections 37 to 42 are not in force in England. Existing duties and the specific withdrawal exceptions described above still apply. Check the legislation and commencement regulations for later changes; no future commencement date is assumed here.

England compared with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Most "UK homeschooling" pages are England-only. The differences matter.

• England. No consent, except special schools arranged by the authority and children under an attendance order. LA guidance is non-statutory.
• Wales. Section 7 applies (with additional learning needs substituted). Elective home education guidance for local authorities is statutory, published after a Welsh Government written statement in May 2023 and made under the section 436A duty; authorities must have regard to it, and it sets out an expectation that, to determine suitability, the authority should see and communicate with the child. The 2026 Act's children-not-in-school provisions extend to Wales by agreement but are not in force there; gov.wales states implementation "will be decided by the next Welsh Government", with secondary legislation and guidance still in development and subject to consultation.
• Scotland. The genuine outlier. Consent from the local authority is required to withdraw a child from a council-run school, and the council may refuse if it thinks the child will not get a suitable education. Consent is not needed where the child never attended a council school, attends an independent school, does not attend a council school in their local area, has not yet been enrolled, has finished primary but not started high school, or where the school has closed (mygov.scot).
• Northern Ireland. Parents must ensure efficient full-time education suitable to age, ability and aptitude and to any SEN, normally from age four to 16. No special permission is needed from a school or the Education Authority, but the principal must be told where the child was previously registered, so the child can be de-registered (nidirect).

Frequently asked questions

What are the new rules for homeschooling in the UK?

In England, the new register, parent-information and consent duties in sections 37 to 42 are not in force as at 23 October 2026. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 creates a children-not-in-school register and a consent requirement for some withdrawals, but sections 37 to 42 sit outside both the section 78(2) two-month list and Commencement Nos. 2 and 3. Until commencement regulations are made, section 7 of the Education Act 1996 remains the operative law. Wales has agreed the provisions extend there but has not commenced them.

What is the best homeschool program in the UK?

There is no officially recommended or approved programme, and nothing about DfE guidance requires you to use one, since there is no duty to follow the National Curriculum or provide a broad and balanced curriculum. Judge any programme against the section 7 test: does it produce progress appropriate to your child's ability and aptitude, and can you demonstrate the time it occupies? A learning programme may help organise practice, but its records alone do not establish that all section 7 duties are met. If selective entry is your goal, what the 11+ actually involves is worth reading before you buy anything; you can compare Smart Cub Learning's options on our pricing page.

Do parents get money for homeschooling in the UK?

No. There is no home education grant or allowance in England. Local authority help with exam fees, tuition or SEN-related costs is discretionary and inconsistent. The 16 to 19 Bursary Fund is not a grant for home education itself. Eligibility depends on the young person and their study or training arrangement; check the current eligibility rules. A separate duty applies where a child cannot attend school through illness or exclusion: section 19 obliges the authority to arrange suitable education, and an EHC plan may specify education otherwise than at school that the authority funds.

Can a school refuse homeschooling?

For a full withdrawal from a mainstream school, no. GOV.UK states the school must accept it, and regulation 9 of SI 2024/208 requires deletion from the admission register once your written notice takes effect. A school can refuse part-time or flexi-schooling. Consent is required for a child with SEN attending a special school and for a child under a school attendance order.

Where to get independent advice

For a specific dispute, get individual advice rather than relying on any general page, including this one. Child Law Advice (childlawadvice.org.uk) covers deregistration and attendance orders in detail. IPSEA (ipsea.org.uk) is the place to go on EHC plans and EOTAS. If a local authority has acted unreasonably and you have exhausted its complaints process, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can investigate.

If you are weighing home education against a selective route, keep the two decisions separate. Meeting section 7 is a legal question about the whole of your child's education. Preparing for a grammar school test is a narrow, dated, area-specific project, and Smart Cub Learning's mock tests address only the second.