When exploring the reasons behind the changes to the climate of home education that are being felt, it is difficult not to become aware of the very different population that now home educates. As well as doubling in size in just seven years, there has also been significant increase in the reasons behind people making the choice to home educate. In fact, it is an assumption that everybody has chosen to home educate. While many more people are, indeed, making the choice, we can see that a larger percentage of people are reporting feeling “forced” to home educate because “there is no other option”. For them school might be failing to meet the child’s needs, take account of difficulties or even be causing or exacerbating mental health issues. Added to this are the people affected by rises in the fees of public schools who are now home educating because their preference is not financially available to them. All of these reasons behind the increasing numbers bring with them their own implications regarding interactions with the Local Authority.

Undoubtably the pandemic has probably resulted in many of the changes in both a positive and negative way. Firstly, all parents had no choice but home school while the country was isolating. This looked very different to home education, with parents expected to supervise the education provided by the school at home, and many found the experience to be negative and were relieved when schools were open again. However, for many this was not the case. They might have found that their child flourished away from the stresses of the school environment. That being able to be more relaxed with their daily routine removed daily battles. And that they enjoyed the experience of being able to be an active part in their child’s learning journey. This positive experience resulted in many parents re-evaluating their attitudes and beliefs towards their children having no choice but to attend school, or that school is the desired option for all children. This may have prompted them to look more closely at home education and realise that it is a viable option.

We also found that, as many businesses continued to use working from home even after restrictions were lifted, the requirement to have children “looked after” while you work rigid, set hours no longer existed for many. So from a practical point of view home education became a possibility. Again, this is a positive mindset to begin with.

In these instances, the home education community is expanding with people who share a philosophy. Who have, in fact, considered all of the opportunities and avenues for education available and decided that home education is the best option for the child’s and family’s needs and resources. This should result in positive outcomes for the whole home education community.

However, the negative impact of the pandemic was that it confused the distinction between home schooling and home educating, leading to incorrect assumptions about the expectations of the parents who choose this route. Many parents now enter home education with this in mind and cannot separate the role of the local authority in home education from that with schooling. There might also be additional pressure on those home educating from family or friends who wrongly assume you should be following a curriculum or set hours, as they did during the pandemic. This can lead to wrongly believing that home education requires sending samples of work to be marked, providing a timetable and making detailed plans. This goes against the principles and philosophy of the educational freedom home education benefits from, but it is difficult for many to change this mindset.

The group of people who have come into home education because of their child’s unmet educational needs or mental health issues are likely to feel that school is simply not an option anymore. They might even be facing fines and threats of criminalisation if their children continue to be enrolled at school due to poor attendance. But they also have to legally ensure their child is receiving full time, appropriate education and so they are forced, as it were, to deregister and home educate. And it is this group that are perhaps most in need of the clear guidance offered and yet find it more difficult to integrate within the existing framework and follow the advised procedures. They might also be least likely to recognise the negative impact this will have not only on themselves but on the whole community.

With further exploration we can see that the motivations, attitude, state of mind and experiences are completely different for this group. These might have legitimate anxieties about having to spend all day with their children, have no or faith in their ability to facilitate their education. They might really struggle to make the practical adjustments needed, particularly if they have had lifelong expectation that children are in school at certain times and the rest of life, for example working hours, fits around this. This is by no means a reflection of parenting or the attitudes overall to their children. But when the school system is embedded in your belief system, and you are used to making all your decisions based around school timetables and requirements, this change to every aspect of life cannot be underestimated as a cause of stress. It is not uncommon to grieve the life you had always planned, worry about the consequences of not sticking to your original plan, be facing a worrying change to finances and be frustrated at the unfairness of not having the same opportunities as other families. Indeed, it can feel like isolation and exclusion, navigating a world that you had barely considered existed and certainly had not anticipated being part of. Many of these families might also have to home educate one child while continuing with school with others and so they are now juggling school timetables as well as home education, work and running the home. This places many demands on the family who might have to completely re-evaluate their idea of what life, work and routines look like and this, in itself, can be very difficult for many parents.

When beginning the journey and starting the process of deregistering there can be many additional concerns. They are likely used to a system where they have clear expectations and consequences and also receive regular, measurable feedback about their child’s academic successes or weaknesses. Often their own sense of achievement will be based, to some extent, on the achievements of the child in school because good attendance and good results at school seem to suggest that parenting is “doing well”. The school system as a whole allows for many sources of external validation. Not receiving this and having to trust your own judgement is very unsettling for many, who might feel they would welcome extra help and one to one meetings designed to support the process and reassure them that they are getting it right. They do not realise Local Authorities overstepping by asking for such will not provide the reassurance and help they are seeking but rather cause unnecessary difficulties and undermine the ability to be able to home educate, both individually and for the community.

They might also fear the consequences of getting it wrong, having often been a victim of the school’s sanctions in response to their child’s difficulties and being subjected to judgement and blame or even fines and the threat of court action or being reported to social services. All of which can contribute to a real fear of not “doing as you are told”. They do not realise that oversharing with authorities could result in the very negative response they are trying to avoid. They might not trust that the aim of answering EHE enquiries is simply to show that you are meeting your duty as a parent in providing full time appropriate education. With the mindset of perceiving the LA to be authority figures with the powers to impose court proceedings, it can be extremely difficult to trust that you can say no if they make unnecessary or unreasonable requests, and are backed by the law in doing so.

A further reason why people might interact inappropriately with the Local Authority is that they have only had positive or no experiences with them so have no reason to doubt or mistrust them. This is more likely to be the case for parents who have moved to home education from private education. They might feel that they have nothing to hide and so do not have any reason to not provide any information requested in whatever format. This group of people are least likely to seek guidance from organisations such as Educational Freedom and so will be least aware that declining home visits and only providing necessary information is not about being able to hide things or get away with things, it is about enjoying the freedom and opportunity to have the say in our own children’s education without being monitored or overseen by the state. We do not want the balance of power to shift any more than it has, something that is very much threatened by the proposed introduction of a register includes monitoring home educated children. This group will often not be motivated to seek such help until it is too late.

Once we begin to understand some of the issues that are being brought to the home education journey we can understand why some might not be aware of the need to access and follow the advice available. We can also clearly empathise with why so many people, despite knowing the guidelines, deviate from the recommendations when it comes to contact with the Local Authority. And why so many may need reassurance, find the process so stressful and might not trust it. Without getting too in depth into the psychology, there is, for many, a period of significant cognitive dissonance where actions might go against ingrained beliefs and where it might be difficult to place trust elsewhere. This stress can drive many behaviours until the values and belief in the positive nature of home education can be internalised. And while this is being experienced, it becomes almost unbearably stressful to disobey what are believed to be the rules, as they are often wrongly presented.

While it is understandable that many will feel this as they transition into their journey of home education, it cannot be underestimated how counter productive it is to act on these fears and not follow the framework. An awareness of the barriers to different groups can help to inform how information is presented so that, as far as possible, everybody is following the same guidelines ensuring consistency with minimal opportunity for rights to be eroded.