Home education about to change forever and not in a good way – here’s how you can fight it

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 lets get personal – write to your MP and tell them exactly how the proposals will or would have harmed you.

Please read our previous couple of articles to understand more about the bill and how it will affect home education.

Find out how to contact your MP here

Include your name and address so they know you are a constituent.

Tell them whether you are happy or not for them to share your details (some may quote you in parliament).

And then tell them about yourself and your home ed story, but keep it brief and go for it with the emotion, really make sure they understand the harm school did, etc.

Explain that you know many MPs are supporting the bill and can understand why, but that you are asking them to reconsider as there is substantial harm that will occur, the bill needs scrapping and starting again.

Include if the proposed rules on needing consent to deregister due to old or current social services involvement would have caused you issues. Especially important if you ever had a malicious referral made against you, or had a social worker who did not respect home education.

Talk about if school did everything they could to stop you home educating, or even pushed you to dereg.

Talk about ex’s and any malicious things they have done that would have prevented dereg.

Remember this needs to really show that home ed is in the best interests of your child and the harm this bill will do to you and others.

Explain that in the 30% of LAs picked for the pilot scheme you fear bad LAs will use it as a way to enforce their own beliefs on home education, use an example of how your LA already oversteps, whether it’s inferring you need a curriculum or timetable or must show photos of work etc. Explain that these LAs could well scare families into keeping their children in school despite it not being safe for the child. Ask how will this be monitored and checked. Ask for clarification on the time scale for these meetings as many will put it off for months, potentially forcing a child to stay in a school that is harming them. Ask if they really think these meetings will be beneficial or the LA signposting to existing support services is the better option, ask if they believe LAs have the staffing and experience for this. Talk about how this would have done harm to your child if they’d been forced into a meeting and expected to speak. Ask what happens if the school have lied to cover something up, what happens if the LA claim that by not allowing the school to be in the meeting they will use it against you. What happens in the meeting if the parent says they don’t really want to home educate but the school can’t meet needs etc, will the LA be able to provide alternatives as they’re underfunded already.

Talk about how a refused request to deregister from special school can not be put in again within 6 months regardless of if a child’s needs have changed or school becoming dangerous.

Then ask how it will be expected for LAs to consider the place the child lives within 15 days of being registered as home ed, bad LAs will use this to enforce a home visit, but where is the safeguard for kids that this would be harmful for, explain how you would feel, ask what exactly will they be wanting to know, as home ed doesn’t mean sat to a desk, will they want to see bedrooms etc.

If this is relevant you can talk about how worried you are about abusive ex partners having access to information.

If your child is a carer this will also be recorded, which could lead to questioning on how the parent can home educate if they are disabled for example, more work and hoops for the disabled. Ask how will they ensure LAs don’t use this against disabled parents.

Is 15 days a reasonable timeframe to respond to requests to update the register, which could be requested every 3 months, explain why this is an issue for you.

Talk about how the information required from others could result in tutors, organisations and groups refusing access to home educators, or a higher cost for the service.

Talk about your concerns that EHE guidance which can be changed without real consultation could be very damaging in the hands of bad LAs, such as those listed here in the worst to abuse current powers. https://educationalfreedom.org.uk/home-education-data-and-our-findings-las-still-abusing-their-powers/

Talk about the bad things your LA does, and explain that this bill isn’t going to protect the children it thinks it will, it will in fact harm those who otherwise would have happily and successfully been home educated if left alone.