31/1/26
Over recent weeks, those of us campaigning against the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill have been subjected to a wave of hostility and misinformation. Home educators have been labelled “abusers”, “lunatics” and “morons”. We have been accused of hiding children away, and told that there is “loads of evidence” justifying mandatory home visits for home educating families.
Much of this narrative is driven by media sensationalism, political misunderstanding of what home education is, and a worrying willingness to misrepresent history to support a predetermined agenda. Even now, many members of the House of Lords appear not to understand the legal position of home education.
The central claim being made is simple:
Home educated children are at higher risk of harm, therefore mandatory home visits are necessary.
This claim is false.
Under the current system, when a child who is known to children’s services is deregistered from school, those services are notified. This allows social workers and the local authority’s Elective Home Education (EHE) team to work together, offer support, and where appropriate take action. This can include issuing a School Attendance Order (SAO) or, if a child is at serious risk, using safeguarding powers to remove the child from the home.
These powers already exist.
The problem is not a lack of legal tools.
The problem is the failure to use existing powers appropriately and effectively.
This is precisely what happened in the case of Sara Sharif. She was known to multiple agencies throughout her life. The system failed to intervene, despite having ample opportunity to do so. That was a failure of safeguarding practice — not a failure of home education.
The proposed legislation would not have saved Sara Sharif. What would have saved her was timely and decisive action using the powers that already existed. In fact home education should have saved her, had she not been deregistered she would have been registered at school but still died in the summer holidays. By deregistering her it should have triggered an investigation, she could have been saved!
If a school, a non-resident parent, a neighbour, a passer-by — or anyone at all — has concerns about a child, they are able to raise those concerns through the appropriate channels. Social workers have exactly the same powers of assessment and intervention for a home educated child as they do for a child attending school.
However, in practice, many referrals are made out of misunderstanding, misinformation, or sometimes malice, rather than genuine safeguarding risk. Under the proposed changes, such referrals could potentially be used to block or restrict a family’s right to home educate, even where no actual risk has ever existed and no safeguarding threshold has been met.
In effect, this risks turning unsubstantiated or inappropriate referrals into a mechanism for preventing lawful home education, rather than focusing safeguarding resources on children who are genuinely at risk.
We are fully supportive of protecting children, and for home educating parents their children’s wellbeing is the highest priority. However, families who home educate already face significant and ongoing challenges, and this Bill will only serve to make those difficulties worse.
Crucially, the statistics do not support the claims being made about risk. There is no evidence that home educated children, as a group, are at greater risk of harm than other children. Safeguarding risk is shaped by family circumstances and wider social factors, not by whether a child is educated at home or in school.
Here’s what the evidence actually shows. From the DfE’s Elective Home Education (EHE) census data:
That is lower than the general child population, where:
So home educated children are less likely to be under statutory safeguarding measures than children overall.
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel looked at 41 serious cases involving children not in school (this wasn’t just home educated children). This is often used politically to imply risk from home education.
But statistically:
Safeguarding law is based on proportionality. Intrusive state powers are only justified where there is evidence of risk.
If a group of children is statistically less likely to be harmed than average, subjecting that group to more intrusive surveillance is not safeguarding — it is discrimination.
If the same logic were applied to schooled children, every family in the country would require routine home inspections, because most serious harm occurs to children who are on school rolls. No one proposes that, because we recognise collective surveillance of families is wrong..
Upon receipt of a concern — which in some cases is as minimal as “the child is now home educated” — social workers are often reported to enter homes asserting that parents are breaking the law and that the child must attend school. In other cases, families are subjected to demands that are not appropriate or lawful within the context of home education. For example, parents may be told they must provide timetables, or children may be expected to “perform” during visits, with learning judged against school-based expectations with no consideration for the actual legal duty of the education having to be suitable to that particular child.
Safeguarding concerns are then raised simply because professionals do not see “school at home”, despite the educational provision being suitable — in some cases even where the local authority’s Elective Home Education (EHE) team has already confirmed that it is. Social workers have been known to ask questions such as “How was school today?”, despite knowing the child is home educated, in ways that undermine the legitimacy of home education. When a child responds that they “don’t know” what they learned that day, this is sometimes interpreted as a concern, even though the same response from a schooled child would be considered entirely normal or even funny.
A significant part of the problem is that social workers receive no formal training on home education. When specialist services attempt to offer guidance or support, they are often met with resistance, including attitudes of “who are you to tell us how to do our job?”. There is frequently an unwillingness to acknowledge gaps in knowledge.
However, when social workers do listen to both families and home education specialists, outcomes are markedly different. In those cases, families are supported appropriately, or cases are closed because it becomes clear that there are no safeguarding concerns. Home education, in itself, is not a welfare issue.
Despite this, we continue to see multiple cases every week in which social workers undermine parents, misstate the law, impose rules that do not exist, confuse children, or push for unnecessary escalation — even where no genuine safeguarding risks are present.
The research shows that statistically a home educated child is far less likely to be harmed than a schooled child. And yet statistically home educated children are more likely to be referred, though most likely not to progress as it was done maliciously or from ignorance. We question how many of those on a CiN are due to the social worker not understanding or respecting home education, we know many of such a situation.
Allowing a social worker into your home to carry out an assessment is generally seen as normal when there are specific concerns about a child’s welfare. In those circumstances, professionals are acting on information — regardless of its source or motive — that suggests a child may be at risk. This is a reactive safeguarding function.
This is fundamentally different from proactively knocking on the doors of all home educating families in search of problems — particularly when the evidence does not support the claim that home educated children are at greater risk of harm.
The answer is: nothing. Families are not hiding anything — they are protecting their children. They are also exercising their right to a private and family life, and upholding the principle that people should be presumed innocent unless there is evidence to the contrary.
The Bill proposes mandatory home visits, although it is currently unclear under what specific circumstances these will be required, beyond a broad expectation that local authorities should consider the child’s home environment. It is likely that forthcoming EHE guidance will include home visits as part of assessing the “suitability” of home education.
This creates serious concern. Local authorities could demand home visits on extremely weak grounds — for example, simply stating that they believe the home environment may not be conducive to a suitable education, even where there has never been any previous cause for concern. There is no requirement for such claims to be supported by evidence.
If a local authority demands a visit and a family declines, there will be consequences for exercising that choice. There also appears to be no meaningful protection for families where a home visit would itself cause harm — for example, for children with special educational needs or disabilities, for whom the presence of unfamiliar professionals in the home may be distressing or damaging to their wellbeing.
This is a serious problem even before considering the documented harms caused by the way some local authorities already conduct home visits — including inappropriate questioning, misapplication of the law, and escalation in cases where no genuine safeguarding concerns exist.
Let’s look at what is already going wrong with home visits under the current system.
At present, local authorities have no legal right to insist on a home visit. However, the vast majority of LAs either misrepresent this or state it incorrectly, and many go further by threatening families with a School Attendance Order (SAO) if they do not agree to meet in person — even where parents have already provided detailed written information about the educational provision.
Our recent research shows that a significant number of s.437(1) enquiries and SAOs are being issued despite there being no concerns about the suitability of the education. In many cases, enforcement action is taken simply because families choose to provide information in writing rather than agree to a visit. These cases are often dragged out for months, and sometimes years, which clearly demonstrates that there is no genuine safeguarding concern. Instead, the process is being used to coerce compliance with a requirement that does not exist in law.
Families who accept home visits generally fall into two groups: those who do not realise visits are optional, and those who feel they have nothing to hide.
Starting with the second group, a very large proportion of our casework involves families who initially believed that, because their child was happy and learning well, a visit would be straightforward and supportive. Unfortunately, many quickly discover that this is not the case. They find themselves facing professionals who disapprove of their educational approach, misunderstand special educational needs, or apply school-based expectations to home education. Or judge their decor, garden design or even the child’s lack of socks in their own home.
Families in the first group — those who did not realise visits were optional — often contact us in distress. They describe EHE officers refusing to leave after hours of questioning, children being grilled or made to perform tasks such as reading on demand, parents being pressured to produce evidence of everything the child has learned, and comments being made about the home environment or décor. In some cases, families are told the education is not suitable unless it resembles school, or that the child should return to school because they are “not engaging” — even where the child has significant SEN or trauma related to schooling.
In reality, EHE teams rarely offer meaningful support during these visits. Instead, visits are frequently used as a tool for judgement, scrutiny and enforcement, rather than understanding or assistance.
After these visits, local authority officers produce written reports. Families often see these reports and find that they misrepresent what actually took place. Important details are omitted, situations are distorted, and officers sometimes claim that certain things were not in place despite never having asked about them during the visit. Once this information is recorded in writing, it becomes extremely difficult for families to challenge. The professional’s account is given greater weight simply because they are deemed to be the “expert”.
We have dealt with cases where parents have contacted us in panic while hiding in their own bathroom because an EHE officer refused to leave the property until a social worker arrived — solely because the child was not at home at the time, despite being at a home education group with the other parent. We believe this particular incident was motivated by homophobic bias. Fortunately, we were able to contact the officer’s manager and have the situation halted. Children’s services never followed up, but the family were left deeply traumatised and moved out of the local authority area as quickly as possible to avoid a repeat of the experience.
In another case, parents contacted us after the police arrived at their door because an EHE officer had visited and was sitting in their car outside, monitoring the home. The family had been reported for neglect, even though the child was simply playing with Play-Doh on the kitchen floor. The police spoke directly with us and agreed that the situation did not warrant police involvement or referral to children’s services. We believe the referral was influenced by the fact that the family lived in a block of flats in a “rough” area, despite the home itself being clean, safe and well cared for.
There have been instances where an EHE officer has contacted council housing and claimed that a family’s home was unfit to live in. This then triggered repeated inspections by housing services, which ultimately found no issues. In one such case, the situation arose simply because the roof was being replaced and the contents of the attic had been temporarily moved into the living space. Despite this, the EHE officer recorded the home environment as “unsuitable education”, refused to withdraw the s.437(1) enquiry, and proceeded towards a School Attendance Order. At that point, we were asked to intervene. Senior management reviewed the case, dropped all action, and the family later received an apology for what was described as a “clerical error”.
We will not continue listing cases, but these examples alone show that there is a very real risk in allowing the local authority into the home. These cases demonstrate how home visits can rapidly escalate into unwarranted surveillance, intimidation and misrepresentation, leaving families distressed, unable to challenge official accounts, and fearful of further intervention — even where no safeguarding concerns exist.
EHE teams are often staffed by former teachers. Some are genuinely supportive and we have excellent relationships with them. Crucially, none of those supportive officers claim that home visits are mandatory, nor do they engage in the kinds of harmful practices described above. Unfortunately, too many do — and even the most reasonable local authority can quickly become problematic following a change in staff, management, or policy direction.
We know many highly skilled and ethical EHE professionals who have left their roles because the job was not what they were led to believe. Some were recruited through adverts describing the role as a “teaching assessment” position — which it is not. Others were never properly trained in the law or EHE guidance, and were instead instructed to reduce home education numbers “by any means necessary”. Many leave because they entered the role believing it was about support, but discovered it was instead about surveillance, pressure and enforcement of education that is not suitable for the child.
In what other circumstances are people placed on registers against their will, or compelled to allow strangers into their homes? This usually happens only when someone is suspected of committing a crime or breaking the law. Home educators are guilty of neither.
The so-called “evidence” being used to justify these measures is deeply flawed and selectively presented. There are not widespread numbers of home educated children being abused, and serious harm cases do not occur in isolation from other services. Where harm does occur, children are almost always already known to agencies who already have both the powers and the responsibility to act.
The problem is not home education.
The problem is the failure to use existing safeguarding systems appropriately and proportionately.
Surely an approach based on support rather than accusation would be more effective. There are currently around 120,000 -140,000 home educated children. Should every one of them be subjected to having their safe spaces invaded by professionals who face no real consequences if they misrepresent, accuse, or cause harm?
Where are the protections for children who would not cope with a stranger entering their home? What about children with special educational needs, trauma, anxiety, or disabilities, for whom such visits could be genuinely distressing or damaging?
And what about the families who actually want support — those who are new to home education, or who would benefit from guidance and reassurance? How are local authorities meant to provide meaningful help to those families if they are instead expected to spend their time conducting mandatory visits to families who neither need nor want local authority involvement?
To be clear, all families will still be required to respond to EHE enquiries and satisfy the local authority that their child is receiving a suitable education. Local authorities will still know about the child’s educational provision — the topics being covered, the educational approach being used, and the progress being made. They can still communicate with families, request information, and check in where appropriate.
The question is not whether local authorities should have oversight — they already do. The question is whether mandatory home visits are proportionate. We do not believe they are.
What happens to the local authorities that are currently considered supportive and proportionate? Will they be forced to implement policies they do not believe are appropriate for their home educating communities? And what about the local authorities that already misuse their powers? Will we see areas such as Portsmouth experience a further exodus of families moving simply to escape hostile treatment?
There are an estimated 300–350 EHE staff nationally.
With over 120,000 home educated children, this means:
Mandatory visits would require:
In some areas this could mean 1520 home visits a year (as many as 8 a day) if they use the proposed bill which suggests up to every 3 months to make enquiries, plus all of the enquiries from those considering home education, or those currently home ed and wanting support. EHE staff are going to make a lot of mistakes, be exhausted, and those who need help are not going to get it.
A system designed this way cannot deliver careful safeguarding.
It can only deliver volume processing
The proposed changes risk doing significant harm while protecting no one. No child will be saved as a direct result of these measures.
The bill does not identify the invisible children who are abused. What it is likely to do is link services and require home educating parents to register. This will force registration of those who are actually already visible with NHS services etc and getting on with home education without an issue. Those who are seriously harming their children are not home educating, they are not necessarily known to services and they are not going to willingly register, what they will do is hide away more, visit the GP less often, not leave the house as much etc. The bill will make the invisible and at risk children disappear further whilst causing harm to those who are doing no wrong.
Many children may be forced back into schools that cannot meet their needs or keep them safe, or be compelled to endure intrusive visits from strangers — potentially including being questioned in their own bedrooms — all in the absence of any safeguarding concern.
This is not proportionate safeguarding.
It is systematic intrusion into family life without evidence of risk.
Even if home education were slightly riskier (it is not), mass home visits would still be unjustified.
They are:
The tragic cases used to justify this policy all involve failures of existing services, not absence of new powers.
This is not evidence-based safeguarding.
It is fear-based policy.
And it will harm far more children than it will ever protect.
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