Your roles, rights and responsibilities regarding home education

Introduction

Parents or carers are legally responsible for ensuring that their child receives an education. Children educated at home are not required to follow the National Curriculum but should receive an effective education appropriate to their individual needs and aspirations. It would be expected that there would be:

• access to appropriate resources
• the opportunity to interact with other children and adults

Parents may wish to consider:

• an effective education ensures that a child acquires attitudes, skills and knowledge to prepare him/her for the challenges and demands of a rapidly changing world
• a broad education introduces a child to a range of material, which will stimulate the child and help develop an open rather than a closed mind
• a balanced education ensures that no one single subject area takes up so much time that there is insufficient room for others, or for the creative use of leisure

Information that may be deemed suitable:

These include :

• Timetables
• curriculum plan – either produced by the parent or a tutor which focus on key subject area e.g English, Mathematics and Science
• photographs,
• workbooks,
• progress reports, dated work over time – which provided evidence of a child’s reading and writing ability or any evidence that the education programme is actually taking place and being received by the child.
• record of conversations with the child/parent made by a Local Authority Officer during home visits or telephone conversations

Information that may be deemed unsuitable:

There may be a variety of reasons why the information/evidence provided has not been deemed suitable by the Local Authority. Each case is judged upon its own individual circumstances. A series of non-exhaustive examples:

• There is no or very limited examples of work submitted
• There is no or very limited detail of how the child's progress is being monitored or examples of work to demonstrate relevant progression.
• The education provision described lacks detail and it is difficult to ascertain what is being taught / what subjects are being studied.
• There is no or very limited information regarding resources used internally and externally.
• There is no or very limited detail of how the child's progress is being monitored or examples of work to demonstrate relevant progression.
• There is no clear academic or time structure.

It is important to note that the above is for guidance and by way of example only and is not an exhaustive list.