Home Education Wasn’t Our Choice – It Was the Only Option Left
Home education is usually discussed as a lifestyle choice. In public debate, it is framed either as a positive, values-led decision made by families seeking flexibility and freedom, or as a risky alternative that requires greater monitoring and control. What is almost entirely missing from this conversation is a third reality – one that thousands of families are currently living.
For a growing number of parents, home education was not chosen. It was forced.
This article is about the families who did not set out to reject school, who did not plan to become educators, and who do not identify with ideological movements about “alternative education”. These families turned to home education because the education system failed to meet their child’s needs, and no meaningful alternative was offered.
This is not a story about preference. It is a story about absence.
There is a large and largely underheard group of children now recorded as home educated who are not there because their parents wanted to educate at home, but because school became inaccessible.
These include children who:
For these families, the choice was not between school and home education. The choice was between home education and no education at all.
Many parents describe the same pattern: escalating difficulties, repeated requests for support, long waiting lists, and a gradual breakdown of the relationship with school. Eventually, attendance collapses. The child is no longer going in. The family is told that “something needs to be done”. And the only option left is deregistration.
At that point, home education becomes a label applied after the fact. Not a plan, not a vision – simply a status assigned to a family who has fallen through the gaps.
School was determined to get the child off their register.
Claire’s teenage son had experienced a terrible primary school, a better experience at the next after moving house, but the secondary school had no intention of supporting him. Despite clear communication from the parents, the school were more interested in their son conforming rather than providing access to a suitable education. He was suspended for refusing to wear safety goggles in science despite this having been something previously discussed about needing an accomodation. School made lots of promises, none of which resulted in meaningful support. School regularly called meetings and in front of their son, school would describe him as a bad child, and list all of the things he was doing wrong, he was being mentally beaten. At one of the last meetings school told the parents that they no longer wanted him at the school and they should look elsewhere or deregister. At no point was an EHCP or alternative support discussed. They claimed that without a diagnosis (which he is on the waiting list for) no further support could be in place. You trust school to be honest with you! I now know this isn’t the case. But we don’t want to fight anymore. He is literally a different child now. He isn’t sick every day at the thought of having to go in. He is learning far more than he would in school, in a style that suits him. He has plans for his future, which includes college, a decision we never expected him to make. He has become a wonderful young man, respectful of people around him, even willingly abiding by ‘home time curfews’ when out with friends.
Policy and media narratives often describe home education as an active, informed decision made by parents exercising freedom. This language of “choice” is powerful, but it is also deeply misleading.
Choice assumes options.
What many families experience is constraint.
They are told:
At the same time, attendance pressure continues. Parents face threats of fines, prosecution, or safeguarding referrals for non-attendance, even when the child is unable to cope in school. Eventually, deregistration becomes the only way to protect the child from ongoing harm and the family from legal consequences.
This is not choice. It is coercion through absence of provision.
Calling this “elective home education” disguises the reality that many families did not elect anything. They were abandoned into it.
Home education was not something we wanted to do, but so glad we did.
Parent A tells us how her 14 year daughter would have violent outbursts, how she was suicidal, she was in serious crisis. School made promises that didn’t turn into actual action, and quickly wiped their hands of them, saying there was nothing more they could do. No alternative options, no signposting, just dismissal like the teen didn’t matter. Parent A tells us that when you are in this situation the last thing you think about doing is reading the law, or finding out what your options are, you go into survival mode. Doing everything to get through each day and your daughter still be alive. During a phone call with her sister, parent A was told about home education. Without realising there was any support out there they deregistered, and fell into the trap of formal learning without knowing it wasn’t required. Despite their daughter struggling with this style of learning they persevered and feared home education wasn’t right either. Upon making enquiries the EHE team determined the education as unsuitable and ultimately served an SAO. They made no effort to help the family understand different styles of home education, or where to get support or advice. Parent A eventually found us, Educational Freedom, and with our support the SAO was revoked and their wonderful teen is now thriving. She has made a remarkable recovery, has figured out who she is and what she is interested in, she has lovely friends with similar interests. Her violence is nearly non-existent now, and she is mentally a lot stronger. The parents have had to pay for access to some provisions, as the EHCP they applied for is still in discussion stage, despite it having been going on for years. EOTIS is being discussed but this may not come to anything as she is close to ending compulsory school age.
One of the most uncomfortable truths in this debate is that home education is not suitable for every child.
Some children need:
Some parents are:
Yet these families are expected to “make it work” simply because no other system is available.
However, something else also happens – and this is another part of the story that is rarely told.
Despite arriving at home education through crisis, fear, or necessity, many families find that it begins to work. Children who were labelled “school refusers” start to learn again. Anxiety reduces. Curiosity returns. Relationships improve. Learning becomes possible where it was previously blocked by distress.
What began as a last resort often becomes, unexpectedly, the right environment for that particular child.
Parents frequently say:
This does not mean the system was right to abandon them. It means families are resilient, resourceful, and deeply committed to their children’s wellbeing – even in the absence of proper support.
Our 4 year old was burnt out.
Leanne’s then 4 year old started reception school, and it became clear very quickly that their focus was on attendance at all costs. School had put in for ASD and ADHD referrals, they were not denying his needs, they just did nothing to support them. Lie to him, bring him out in his PJs and don’t tell him where you are going, then leave him here. If he doesn’t come in then the whole class suffers as they can’t have extra play time when someone is off or late. Family liaison were sent to do a safeguarding check, upon getting their son dressed and on to the drive way he dove into a bush to hide, the officer physically dragged him out, at that point she was told to leave the property. Leanne even tried volunteering at the school so another member of the volunteers could then be in the reception room to offer more support, but due to staff shortages this never happened as they were always needed somewhere else. The family knew that even before being compulsory school age school just wasn’t the right fit for him. The decision to home educate was when, after the christmas holidays their son just couldn’t go in to school. 3 years on and he is thriving, has an incredibly busy social life thanks to a thriving home education community. He learns following a child led approach and there are fewer episodes of burn out as his needs are being supported. The school system failed him before he should have ever been there, and there has been no support since, with the EHE team asking for updates once a year and then silence, not even acknowledgements of receipt.
As numbers of home educated children rise, public concern has increasingly focused on parents. Are they providing a “suitable education”? Are children safe? Are families being monitored enough?
What is rarely asked is a much more important question:
Why are so many families being forced out of the school system in the first place?
Local Authorities now hold growing registers of home educated children, but many of those children left school because:
Yet scrutiny flows in one direction only: from the state towards parents.
There is no equivalent mechanism for investigating:
Home education becomes the end point where accountability stops. The system no longer has to provide. The family now carries the full responsibility.
We battled for years with school to try and get my daughter’s attendance up. She’s asthmatic so quite often was off poorly with that. It wasn’t until many appointments later and chats with consultants they made the connection. It wasn’t so much that her meds were mismanaged, as it was the stress and anxiety she felt about school which brought on issues. She had a reduced time table for two weeks and they thought that would fix things. Then it was meetings after meetings, she was given time out passes, when overwhelmed, but expected to recover within 5 mins and these were used as threats of being taken away if she didn’t do as told! She was able to use headphones in her own time as she likes asmr, but these were to be kept by education welfare officer! She was told by the guidance manager she had a nickname of “sicknote”. The issues were endless.
After being absent for a period of time a meeting was had and my daughter was asked what they could do to help her back. But every suggestion she gave was met with negativity. There is a bungalow attached to the school that students can use as a stepping stone back into the school. This was refused and the focus shifted from getting her into school, to lesson attendance without any support. They always pushed the boundaries. I had previously mentioned about my thoughts on moving schools and the deputy head said “well I can’t argue that’s your choice” no effort for her to remain. I emailed about home education and brought it up in yet another meeting. No argument against it, other than “that may be difficult on your mam” towards to my daughter. The final meeting the education welfare officer said she’d noticed patterns were appearing as they were pushing the reduced time table to have more hours. She brought up that I’d mentioned home ed, and asked if I’d read the guidelines for it. Then proceeded to get me a copy of our local authority information. After a little more discussion she turned to me and as she put her hand on the guidelines said “I personally think this is the best option for (daughter) right now” I was gobsmacked! Basically telling me to do it they were no longer interested in supporting her.
For many families, home education begins as damage control.
It is an attempt to:
These parents are not rejecting education. They are trying to preserve it under impossible conditions.
They often describe:
Yet within this struggle, something powerful often emerges: education becomes personalised, humane, flexible and responsive in ways the system could not achieve. Learning adapts to the child instead of the child being forced to adapt to the system.
For many, home education becomes not just a substitute for school, but a better fit for their child’s needs.
This is not freedom by design. It is freedom created out of necessity.
The central ethical question is not whether home education should exist. It clearly should, and for many families it works well and is deeply positive.
The real question is this:
Is it ethical to describe home education as “parental choice” when it is increasingly being used to absorb the consequences of systemic failure?
Is it ethical to:
Home education is being quietly repurposed as a pressure valve for a broken system. It is where unmet need goes when nothing else is available.
We urgently need a more honest public conversation about home education – one that includes both truths:
That many families are forced into it by systemic failure.
And that many of those families go on to make it work, sometimes brilliantly, for their children.
Not to attack home education.
Not to romanticise it.
Not to shame parents.
Not to demand more surveillance.
But to ask:
Until we address those questions, debates about home education will continue to miss the point.
Because for a growing number of families, home education is not where they planned to be.
It is where they were forced to go –
and where, against all odds, many children finally begin to thrive.
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