Our Local Authority Portfolios are designed to provide a clear, transparent overview of how each Local Authority approaches home education. They are intended to help families understand local practice, identify national trends and encourage greater consistency across Local Authorities.
The information within each portfolio comes from a combination of:
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted during 2026.
Publicly available information, including Local Authority websites, policies and published documents.
Information provided directly by Local Authorities.
Research carried out by Educational Freedom and other home education researchers.
Feedback from home educating families (where available).
Where possible, the original FOI responses and supporting data are also published so families can see the evidence behind the portfolios.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives anyone the right to request recorded information held by public bodies, including Local Authorities.
Many of our requests are made through the WhatDoTheyKnow website, allowing both the request and the Local Authority's response to be viewed publicly.
Throughout 2026 we submitted numerous FOIs covering areas such as:
Numbers of known home educated children.
SEND and Elective Home Education statistics.
Home visit data.
Initial letters and emails sent to families.
EHE policies and when they were last reviewed.
Staff training and materials
Section 437(1) notices and School Attendance Orders.
Whether Local Authorities distributed the Government's Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act information to home educating families.
The scores are not intended to label a Local Authority as "good" or "bad". Instead, they provide an indication of how closely an authority's published information, policies and practices appear to support accurate, proportionate and lawful engagement with home educating families.
When assessing portfolios we consider a range of factors, including:
We look at whether the information provided is legally accurate, balanced and helpful.
Positive features include accurate explanations of the law, recognition of different home education approaches and signposting to appropriate support.
Lower scores may reflect information that appears inaccurate, misleading or unnecessarily school-focused, such as suggesting mandatory home visits, monitoring powers that do not exist, or presenting requests as legal requirements.
First impressions matter. We assess whether introductory letters are accurate, supportive and proportionate.
Letters may score less well if they immediately request evidence, imply that parents require permission to home educate, use inaccurate terminology, or suggest expectations that go beyond the legal framework.
We asked Local Authorities what training their staff receive and whether it includes the wide range of home education approaches used by families.
Training is viewed positively, but where it appears to promote misconceptions or focuses primarily on monitoring rather than understanding home education, this is reflected within the portfolio.
A Section 437(1) notice is the formal legal notice issued where it appears a child may not be receiving a suitable education.
The number of notices issued can help identify wider patterns. A significantly higher rate than the national average may suggest that formal processes are being used more frequently than elsewhere, although figures should always be considered alongside local context.
School Attendance Orders (SAOs) represent the final stage of the Section 437 process.
As with Section 437(1) notices, the figures are provided to help identify national trends rather than to draw conclusions from a single statistic.
No portfolio can fully represent every family's experience.
Local Authorities are made up of individual officers, managers and teams. Practice can vary considerably between staff members and can change over time. It is entirely possible for a family to have an excellent experience with an authority that scores relatively poorly overall, or vice versa.
Similarly, Local Authorities may consider their policies to be appropriate while some families interpret the language or approach differently based on their own experiences and understanding of the law.
For this reason, the portfolios should be viewed as a snapshot based on the information available at the time.
These portfolios are live documents and will continue to evolve.
We actively welcome feedback from both home educating families and Local Authorities. If you believe a portfolio is missing important information, contains an error, or would benefit from additional context, please let us know. Home Educators can use this survey
By combining official information with the experiences of home educating families, we hope these portfolios become the most comprehensive and transparent resource available on Local Authority home education practice.
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