Case study 1.My EHE person is really friendly, we chat every 3 months. We show her what Bobby has been learning, showing her the workbooks, website logs, projects and photos from days out. He reads to her, tells her all about the family. She stays about an hour and a half, and usually plays a […]

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 are not refusing to cooperate. They are not trying to be difficult. They are simply confused. And very often, that confusion comes from the language […]

Common Mistakes Home Educators Make When Sending Information to the Local Authority When the Local Authority (LA) asks about a child’s home education, many parents immediately feel pressure. They want to do the right thing. They want to show that their child is learning. But in that rush to respond, families sometimes make mistakes that […]

“My LA Named a School” — What It Actually Means Every so often a worried home educating parent posts something like this: “My Local Authority has named a school for my child. Are they forcing them back into school?” It’s an alarming thing to read. It sounds like the LA has already made a decision […]

Dealing With the Local Authority: It’s Simpler Than You Think One of the biggest worries for home educators is the Local Authority (LA). Parents often imagine officials turning up, demanding to see work, inspecting the house, or forcing children back into school. But the reality is much calmer than that. In England, the law around […]

Home educators lead busy lives, we get it, so when it comes to replying to Local Authority enquiries it can seem an easy option to use AI or a website/app that tells you what your child learned from different tasks. There is also the situation where the parent may feel that the LA won’t accept […]

31/1/26 Over recent weeks, those of us campaigning against the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill have been subjected to a wave of hostility and misinformation. Home educators have been labelled “abusers”, “lunatics” and “morons”. We have been accused of hiding children away, and told that there is “loads of evidence” justifying mandatory home visits for […]

30/1/26 England and Wales, NOT Scotland will be affected by this. We are asked all the time for a template letter to use to send to MPs, however at this stage in the children’s wellbeing and schools bill a template is not going to do us any favours as you’ll get a generic response. Instead […]

Why Keeping Communication with the Local Authority in Writing Protects Home Educators One of the strongest pieces of advice we give families at Educational Freedom is simple: keep all communication with the Local Authority (LA) in writing. This is not about being difficult or uncooperative. It is about protecting your family, protecting other home educators, […]

Is Home Education Really a Safeguarding Concern? Social Workers’ Perspectives

In our experience, it is not. The social workers we interviewed consistently stated that home education, in itself, is not a safeguarding issue. Even the government’s own research shows that home education is not a reason to be concerned about a child’s wellbeing.