Hey LA EHE Officer — Stop Confusing Home Educators
Hey LA EHE Officer — Stop Confusing Home Educators If you work in a Local Authority Elective Home Education (EHE) team, this message is for you. Many home educating families…
Educational Freedom is a non-profit organisation providing Home Education information and support. Our primary purpose is ensuring all Home Educators have access to FREE information and support. We aim to provide everything you could ever need to know about Home Education.
A great way of ensuring your Home Education journey goes smoothly is to read all of this website. The menu at the top will help you navigate each section.
Making the decision to Home Educate can be daunting. But be assured that there is plenty of support out there! There are lots of families that have been in your situation, and we have supported tens of thousands of them.
Read through all of our website to learn all about Home Education. Use the menu to navigate through all of our pages especially the WHAT TO DO FIRST page for your country. Navigating through each page in turn really will help you understand everything you need to do. Then move on to the dealing with the LA section.
PLEASE NOTE: MOST PAGES SHOULD NOT BE READ AS A STAND ALONE PAGE, ENSURE YOU READ THE INFO IN OTHER MENTIONED PAGES TOO.
Where to find us after you've read our website.
Here’s a sneak peak at our public FB page feed where we share factual info as well as fun memes. Join our closed group for advice and to chat to other home educators.
What does Home Education look like for your family? Are you mostly outside? Does your child learn on the bus on route to other group activities? Do you use online learning, individual learning, small group or big groups, the local libraries, Museums and Galleries. Do you use a wide variety of resources or a nuanced small select set that are the perfect resources to enable your child's education to be suitable to them. We know the CWS bill is going to change the landscape for home education, we will keep you up to date as they happen. We also will let you know once the EHE guidance consultation is published. BUT BEFORE THAT We will need all (or as many as possible) to participate in the important research being led by two members of the House of Lords. When the questionnaire is released we will include a link to it from our Newsletter. Please note we are not directly involved in the research or report it will generate. We have agreed to try to get the information and questionnaire out as widely as possible across the home educating communities we are in contact with. It will be important for protecting ourselves that significant numbers respond. What is this "research project" wording from the research team: It is clear from discussions around the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill that there is a gap in understanding of why families are choosing to electively home educate or flexischool. The discussions have also revealed a deep ignorance and some prejudice about elective home education and how the families making this choice have evolved over recent years. We wanted to let the community know that there is a piece of research underway that we hope will help change the narrative around elective home education and flexischooling and provide a helpful, insightful piece of work. The intention of this work is to help MPs, Peers, LAs, and education settings understand why families are increasingly choosing elective home education or flexischooling, and to shine a light on best practice from within the communities where people are seeing their children thrive and embrace a lifelong love of learning. This research will take place over the next 2 months, and we aim to produce a report ready for publication and release in September. A questionnaire will follow soon, available to the community to input, and also a landing page is in development to carry timely updates about the work. The report will explore the many reasons why families choose a different approach to their children’s education (it’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all approach) and share insights from the community on how parents are creating inspirational learning environments that help their children thrive. We hope that through the report, we can shed light on why families are home educating, and what education professionals might be able to learn from home educating communities. We hope to explore what schools and home educators could learn together to enhance children's outcomes and help every child thrive. The report will also address concerns regarding safeguarding and child protection. This piece of research will focus on the same theme of the SEND white paper - every child to thrive, no matter what their background - and explore what this looks like in an education other than at school setting. This report will be constructive, collaborative and informative, and provide an overarching piece of research that will help increase understanding and better inform future policies. The research team will make a focused effort to hear from lived experience and to shine a light on best practices. If you have something you would like to share, please ensure you complete the form when it is shared in the coming weeks. The steering group for this research are: Anne Buckland - Director of PR, HE parent & HE community organiser Sean Cheasley - Previous teacher, HE parent & HE community organiser Lord Nigel Crisp - Cross-bench Peer, previously NHS, convenor of the group Juliet English - Former social worker, Co-Founder of Streams Education & HE consultant David Harvey - Previous teacher and Inclusion Support Service Manager for Hampshire, founder member & chair of the Association of Elective Home Education Professionals (AEHEP) Lord Johnie Hampton - Cross-bench Peer & teacher, Rachel Gourley - Head teacher & member of UK Flexischooling Leadership Council. Mari Greenfield - Post-doctoral research fellow. Previous teacher & HE parent. Penny Watermeyer - Teacher, editor for ‘Hidden Voices Speak’ & HE parent
Home education turns your living room, kitchen, and backyard into the ultimate classrooms—where curiosity leads the way, and every day brings a new adventure. Imagine this: breakfast time isn’t just for cereal—it’s a lesson in math as your child measures ingredients for pancakes. The garden? A science lab where kids observe caterpillars turning into butterflies, track plant growth, or experiment with soil and water. Even a trip to the grocery store becomes a practical lesson in budgeting, nutrition, and reading labels. Learning at home is all about weaving education into everyday life. History can come alive with storytelling, dress-up, and exploring family heritage. Geography might involve planning a “world tour” through music, food, and virtual museum visits. Reading and writing flourish when kids pen letters to family members or create comic strips about their favorite characters. The beauty of home learning is the flexibility—it meets children where they are, sparks their passions, and turns mistakes into discovery. Whether building a volcano in the kitchen or debating the merits of different animals in the backyard, learning becomes an adventure, not a task. Home education isn’t just about academics—it’s about curiosity, creativity, and confidence. And the best part? The world outside your home suddenly becomes an endless classroom
If you work in a Local Authority Elective Home Education (EHE) team, this message is for you. Many home educating families are not refusing to cooperate. They are not trying to be difficult. They are simply confused. https://educationalfreedom.org.uk/hey-la-ehe-officer-stop-confusing-home-educators/
Not home ed, but helpful for many. Let the government know about pip and how it is or isn’t fit for purpose. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/call-for-public-views-to-improve-disability-benefit-for-millions
We have many decades of hands on Home Education experience between us and many years as a professional support service.
Our team is made up of people from all walks of life, and all styles of Home Education.
We never have, nor will we ever, charge Home Educators a fee to access our website, personal support or anything else.
However, we do have costs such as web hosting, so feel free to donate.
Our aim is that our website contains everything you should need to know.
Beyond that we have a Facebook Page where you can connect with other Home Educators and our amazing admin team. We also have the option to contact us, for those times where you don’t have Facebook.
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