Freedom of information response
Home Education
1. How many home educated children does your LA currently have recorded?
2. How many households do these children come from?
3. In the last 12 months how many s437(1) formal notices to satisfy have you served on parents regarding home educated children?
4. How many School Attendance Orders (SAOs) (attendance order in Scotland) have been served on children that were known to be home educated until the SAO was served?
5. What was the outcome of each SAO? (for example, prosecuted for non compliance (please explain the outcome from court), revoked (please explain why the SAO was revoked). )
6. How many children do you have recorded as a Child Missing Education (CME) that are not subject to S437(1) or SAO?
7. In the last 12 months, what is the range of time period between a parent requesting the LA provide a school place and the child starting at the school? (for example a home educated child that wishes to go to school, or a family has moved to the area and wants a school place).
8. In the period of time, between the parental request and the initial start date at school, has the LA put in place education for the child under s19 Education Act?
9. If s19 is provided, how many hours education per week are put in place?
1. 477
2. 403
3. 124 in academic year
4. 10
5. None were revoked. All were referred for prosecution. It is not possible to give you details of the court outcome as this would involve looking into each case individually and some prosecution cases are not yet concluded. It is also likely that to provide a response for each SAO could lead to identification, as each case is individual, therefore, this information should be withheld. Our experience is that, for concluded cases, there is always a financial penalty, the amount varies from case to case.
6. 94 primary and secondary children
7. Range between 2 weeks and 30 weeks. This can be for a number of reasons such as not being able to contact a parent and referring the family to the school attendance support team. Lack of school places and bulge classes having to be created. Families making applications schools places but then there is a delay moving to Thurrock or they do not move at all.
8. In some cases tuition has been organised.
9. When applied these hours for 1:1 are usually between 10-15 hours.