Parents and Carers
- SEN Support in Mainstream Schools
- SEN Support in School Meetings
- Choosing a School or College
- Education Health and Care (EHC) Needs Assessments, Plans and Reviews
- Appeals and Mediation
- Attendance and Exclusions
- Transitioning Between Schools or Settings
- Early Years
- SEND Funding
- Transport to School and College
- Preparing For Adulthood (PfA)
- Making a Complaint
- Health Needs and Education
- Elective Home Education (EHE)
- School Admissions
- Disability Discrimination
- Children's Disability Register
Elective Home Education (EHE)
If a child is of compulsory school age, parents and carers have a legal responsibility to ensure that their child receives a full-time, appropriate education. Parents have a right to choose to educate their children at home rather than at school.
Home education is also called Elective Home Education (EHE).
If parents decide to electively home educate their child, they have a duty to provide the funding and arrangements.
Parents should never feel forced or actively encouraged to electively home educate their child. Parents should not feel pressured to remove a child from a school’s roll to avoid prosecution for non-attendance, or to avoid formal exclusion. This is sometimes called ‘off rolling’ and should be reported to the Local Authority, if you feel pressured to remove your child from the school roll.
- Why are you choosing to home educate your child? Is it because you feel that school have not been able to provide the correct support? If so, we encourage you to get in touch with Ask Us Nottinghamshire for a chat.
- If you feel that school have not given the correct support, it would be helpful to speak to school in the first instance. Please look at the ‘SEN Support In School’ and ‘SEN Support - School Meetings’ section.
- If you feel that school have done everything they can, but your child isn’t getting the right support, or the school environment is not right for your child, you could consider whether an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment would be helpful, before making a final decision to home educate.
- If you are unsure about the decision, you can get in touch with the Local Authority’s Home Education Team to discuss (please see links at the bottom of this page).
- You do not have to be a teacher, operate to a timetable or follow the National Curriculum (although you can if you wish).
- How will you structure the day? What educational resources will you require?
- Do you have an appropriate space within your home?
- How will the child respond to being educated at home?
- How will this affect your relationship with the child?
- You can bring in private tutors, but you will have to pay the costs.
- You are responsible for the costs for equipment, resources and outings.
- Be prepared to assume full financial responsibility, including the cost of any public examinations.
- How will this impact on your child? Will your child become isolated if they don't go to school and socialise with other children?
- Are you able to give the necessary time and commitment?
- If your child has never been to school, or you are new to the area, you do not have to inform the Local Authority.
If you have made the decision to home school, you must write to the school to inform the head teacher of your intention to electively home educate. The school will then inform the Local Authority that your child has been removed from their admissions register.
Be aware that if you decide that you would like your child to return to school, that the school place will not be held open for them to return, and you will need to re-apply for the school place. There is no guarantee that they will be able to return to the same school, if the school is full.
If your child has an EHC Plan and you would like to remove them from school the LA will want to carry out a review, this is to ensure you are able to meet the child's needs and to assess if the LA has any duty remaining. The LA have a duty to provide for SEN where school (or now in your case, the parent) can not.
If your child attends a special school you will need to get consent from your local authority.
In some cases, where school isn’t able to meet the needs of a child, there may be other options, including:
Alternative Provisions: when a child or young person is unable to access mainstream school for reasons including school exclusion, behavioural issues, or illness, education outside of school may be arranged. Sometimes this can be arranged by school, without the need for an EHC Plan.
EOTAS (Education Other Than at School): EOTAS is educational provision for children and young people who cannot attend a mainstream or specialist school. For the Local Authority to fund this option, the child or young person would require an EHC Plan.
Examples of EOTAS include:
- Home tutoring
- Hospital schooling
- A place at an alternative provision or tutoring centre
- Virtual or on-line schooling.
SEND Local Offer
The Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council SEND Local Offers are a great resource for finding events, support and activities in your area.
City Council County Council