Educational Freedom’s Official Response and Discussion of the 2025 Scottish Home Education Guidelines.

The updated guidelines can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/home-education-guidance-2/pages/1/ and replace the guidelines from January 2007 (last updated 2021).

• The new guidance is mostly unchanged in overall content and should make no difference to families already home educating in Scotland. Families seeking consent to withdraw from school in order to home educate are also relatively unaffected, other than where child protection issues exist (detailed further down).

• There is a greater emphasis placed on the UNCRC (the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and the voice of the child. However, the guidelines correctly explain to Local Authorities (LAs) that the child has the right to NOT share their opinion on home education with the LA. This should be a relief to families in areas where unnecessary delays were frequent due to the LA trying to insist on speaking with the child. This right of the child to give their opinion or not continues once home education is established. There is slightly concerning wording in section 4.9, where it states “There is no statutory basis for a local authority to seek access to a child as part of the annual contact with a home educator, however contact with the child is strongly recommended as a matter of good practice.” Educational Freedom do not agree that this is “good practice” and strongly urge all families to keep communication in writing.
• More attention has been placed on the role of the LA and schools in identifying and supporting children with Additional Support Needs (ASN), and emphasising that home education should not be a last resort but a positive choice. The guidelines further detail that they have limited legal duties once the child with ASN is home educated as responsibility for their education rests completely with parents/carers. There are recommendations for discussing matters such as unmet ASN before requesting consent to withdraw, and for the LA to investigate during the withdrawal process to ensure they provide families with all options. However, this is not compulsory and you do not have to let the LA know this is the reason for home educating unless you wish to.
• A new Section 2.20 confirms that disagreement between separated parents should not be used as a reason to delay or decline consent to withdraw from school. It states “Where there is disagreement between separated parents about a child’s education, it will be primarily for parents to find agreement where that is possible in the circumstances. It is not for the local authority to try and resolve such disputes… Ultimately, if separated parents are unable to agree on how their children should be brought up and educated, they may need to go to the civil courts although parents should be aware that this can be lengthy, expensive and stressful.”
• It’s clearly stated within the new guidance that home educating as of itself is not a ground for child protection concerns “unless there is reason to believe that concern is warranted”. This should hopefully prevent many unnecessary and malicious referrals to social work.
• In terms of child protection, the following are listed as “specific instances where consent to withdraw a child from school may not be able to be granted immediately: where a child has been referred to social work, police or health for child protection reasons, and the matter is being investigated; where a child is subject to a Child Protection Planning Meeting, has an Interim Safety Plan or a Child Protection Plan; where a child is subject to an Interim Compulsory Supervision Order, a Compulsory Supervision Order, or a Child Protection Order; where there is a history of domestic abuse in the family home; where a child is on the child protection register; and where a child has been referred to the Children’s Reporter on care and protection grounds, whether welfare or offence based, and the referral is being considered… Additionally, consideration should also be made as to whether the above applies to any of the child’s siblings or other children resident in the home. If the child is subject to any of the above, then consideration should be given to requesting a multi-agency meeting to discuss the request to home educate, and how this may be supported as part of the child’s care plan.” Although some of these instances were mentioned in the previous guidelines, they have clearly added others, such as a history of domestic abuse, which might impact more families. Families meeting some or all of these criteria will not necessarily be refused consent to withdraw from school, but it may take longer and there may be more input from services. The definition of a suitable and efficient education and the rest of the guidelines still apply even if social work are involved with your family, and it would be useful to provide your social worker with a copy of the guidelines so they understand your rights.
• For those who do not need consent to withdraw from school, “the child is not yet of school age” has been added. However, clarification is being sought as to whether this will apply to children under the age of 5 who have already started attending school. We will keep you updated once LAs have replied to our query for clarification.
• The guidelines have firmed up their language around contact with known home educating families, making “strong” recommendations for “conversations” between the LA and families “at least once a year”. However, there is no change in the legislation – the guidelines are clear that this is simply a “good practice” recommendation and it is up to families how the annual contact should occur. As always, Educational Freedom recommend written communication only. The LA cannot insist on meetings, phonecalls, video calls etc. It also states that “Where there are no concerns with the educational provision, there will be no need for further contact until the following year unless mutually agreed”, as well as continuing to confirm the LA have no duty to monitor ongoing home education and do not have rights of access to your home. This should hopefully put an end to LAs carrying out “3 month/6 month reviews” for new home educators.
• Again, the new guidelines heavily recommend that home educating families unknown to their LA inform them of their presence. However, it’s confirmed that this is just a recommendation and you do not have to make yourselves known.
• The guidelines clarify what the LA should look for in an educational provision, and the Educational Freedom website has been updated to reflect the new language and offer guidance on how to provide the necessary information. There are only minimal changes in the wording but it’s worth reading the guide to ensure you cover all the points.
• The new guidelines contain a section stating that the government are looking to collate numbers of home educating families within LAs as well as looking at options for data gathering to better inform policy development and form a national picture of home education. Educational Freedom will monitor this data collection and will strongly fight against any proposals for a national register, as is being considered currently for England.
• Since the previous guidelines were created prior to the Curriculum for Excellence and the development of GIRFEC (Getting It Right for Every Child), the new guidelines have provided several paragraphs to provide information on the national policy and how it relates to home education. The particular point of interest is where it states “Where local authorities have a named person, this resource will be available to those who are home educated and home educating if they choose to use this service. As for all children, young people and parents/carers, there is no obligation to engage with a named person and it is important to emphasise that non-engagement is not in itself a cause for concern.” It may be worth communicating with your LA as to your preferred position with regards to a Named Person for your child. The Named Person scheme was scrapped from legislation in 2019, but some council areas still use it.
• As for the definition of an Efficient and Suitable Education, nothing has changed other than the guidelines mentioning the Curriculum for Excellence as a possible model. However, the guidelines remain clear that “local authorities should not specify a curriculum which must be followed.” They do point out that access to Scottish qualifications can be difficult for home educators. The emphasis is firmly on providing an education that meets the needs of individual learners.
• The new guidelines contain information for families in Section 7 regarding more recent government programmes such as the Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Grant and Free Period Products. It’s worth checking eligibility for yourself.

Overall, the updated guidelines remain consistent with the previous iteration, albeit with a concerning tendency to push for physical conversations between families and the LA, both when initially requesting consent to withdraw from school and as part of the recommended annual engagement. It is vital that families do not allow the recommendations to segue into best practice and thence become statutory requirements.

This is an overview of the changes, for information on how to withdraw, how to respond to the LA etc can all be found in the Scottish part of our menu.