Home education

Before deciding to educate your child at home, you may find it helpful to get as much information as possible about what it involves.

You could consider discussing elective home education (EHE) with national support groups and other parents who home educate. Home education websites that may be helpful include:

• Education Otherwise
• Home Education Advisory Service (HEAS)
• Educational Freedom
• Home Education UK
• Ed Yourself home education consultancy
• Oak National Academy

Giving notice of your intentions

If your child has never been enrolled at a school, you are not legally obliged to inform us that he or she is being educated home or gain our consent for this. However, the government’s Department for Education (DfE) has: "strongly recommended that you do notify your local authority of the fact, in order to facilitate access to any advice and support available."

If your child is currently enrolled at a school, you are not legally obliged to inform the school that he or she is being withdrawn for home education or gain their consent for this. Under the Pupil Regulations 2006, however, schools cannot remove a child from the school roll unless they have grounds to do so. It’s sensible to inform your child's school to avoid misunderstandings.

Ideally your EHE notification should be signed by all parents with parental responsibility. In the case of separated parents, the EHE notification can be accepted from the parent with whom the child has main residence. If an estranged parent has a different view about the EHE decision, they should seek their own independent legal advice.

You can send a copy of your notification to our School Attendance Support Team (SAST).

After you notify your child's school

Upon receipt of your written notification, the school will remove your child from their roll with immediate effect. The place your child occupied will be reallocated to another child.

Schools are obliged to inform the local authority of children removed from their admission register and their grounds for doing so.

If you wish to return your child to school later, you must re-apply through the school admissions process. A place cannot be guaranteed at the previous school or at your school of choice.

If you child's school asks you register for home education

A school should not request or advise you to de-register your child from the school to home educate against your will.

Any decision to educate at home must be made by you. If you feel pressure from your child's school to do so, you can raise this with the school or academy trust directly in the form of an official complaint. You can also tell our School Attendance Support Team.

Resources and accreditation

We are unable to recommend resources to parents. However, we have listed websites and apps below that other home educating families have said they find useful:

• Times Tables Rock Stars – times tables, annual subscription
• The School Run website – primary resources
• Twinkl – primary and secondary resources, free or subscription-based
• BBC Bitesize – primary and secondary resources
• Ed Place – primary and secondary resources, website and app
• IXL – primary and secondary resources
• Reading Eggs
• Maths Seeds
• Khan Academy App
• Kip McGrath Tutoring Service
• Work/Textbooks by brands such as CGP and Collins
• Corbett Maths
• Primrose Kitten Science and Maths
• YouTube Mr Bruff English Language and Literature for GCSE
• Phonics play

It is the responsibility of each individual parent to check whether these websites and apps are suitable for their child.

The Online Education Accreditation Scheme (OEAS), set-up by the DfE, is for providers of full-time online education to school-age children in England. If you intend to use such a provider, you may wish to ask them if they are accredited or intend to apply for accreditation.

You can find information at GOV.UK: Accreditation for online education providers.

There is also a wide range of services for children, young people and their families at Thurrock Libraries.