What does your local authority actually need to see?

This guide covers England only, and it is researched from the Department for Education's guidance and the Education Act 1996, listed at the end. The rules in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man are different, and each has its own guide.

The parents' guidance says plainly: “Your local authority has no formal powers or duty to monitor the provision of education at home.” The council's own guidance adds that the law “is not a system for regulating home education per se or forcing parents to educate their children in any particular way”, and that where a child is clearly being educated well, contact “should be minimal”.

What a council can do is make informal enquiries “to establish what education is being provided”. The Department for Education recommends that councils ordinarily get in touch with home educating families at least once a year. That is a recommendation to the council, not a duty on you, and once a council is satisfied, the parents' guidance says contact is often an annual review.

Not in law. The parents' guidance says you are “under no legal obligation to respond”. It goes straight on: “if you do not, the local authority is entitled to conclude from the absence of any response that it appears that your child is not receiving a suitable education”.

That conclusion matters, because it is the trigger for a formal notice (below). The statutory guidance on children missing education puts it simply: “Parents are strongly encouraged to co-operate with local authorities during these informal enquiries.”

You also do not have to agree to a home visit or a meeting. The guidance says you are under “no legal obligation from education law to agree to such a meeting” or to produce specific evidence, and that the council's safeguarding duty does not entitle it to insist on visiting your home or seeing your child “simply for the purposes of monitoring the provision of home education”. But the council's guidance also says a refusal to allow a visit “can in some circumstances justify” a formal notice. Offering written information instead of a visit is common.

There is no set form. What the guidance points to:

• What your child is actually doing, not only what you intend. Information “should not be simply a statement of intent about what will be provided, or a description of the pedagogical approach taken”.
• Examples of their work. The parents' guidance mentions councils “seeing examples of work done”.
• Roughly how much time it takes. There is no legal definition of full-time, but the guidance says parents “should at least be able to quantify and demonstrate the amount of time” their child is being educated.
• In whatever form suits you. A council “should not dismiss information provided by parents simply because it is not in a particular form preferred by the authority (eg, a report by a qualified teacher)”.

You do not have to follow the National Curriculum, and there is no requirement to enter your child for exams.

Your duty, under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, is to make sure your child receives “efficient full-time education suitable” to their age, ability and aptitude, and any special educational needs. There is no definition of “suitable” in statute. The guidance reads it as education that is age-appropriate, lets your child make progress at their own level, and takes account of their aptitudes. It also says councils may use minimum expectations for literacy and numeracy.

“Efficient” is read as an education “which achieves what it sets out to achieve”. Councils “should not set rigid criteria for suitability which have the effect of forcing parents to undertake education in particular ways”.

If it appears to the council that your child is not getting a suitable education, section 437 of the Education Act 1996 says it must serve a written notice asking you to satisfy it that they are. You get at least 15 days from the day the notice is served to reply, which the parents' guidance describes as time “to gather suitable material”.

If that does not satisfy the council, and it thinks your child should attend school, it can issue a school attendance order naming a specific school. The parents' guidance says an order must be complied with and “failure to do so is a criminal offence”. You can still present evidence of suitable education at any point afterwards and apply to have the order revoked.

The easiest reply to a council is one you have not had to write from scratch. Rocket Learning keeps a dated record of every lesson your child does, which you can share with your local authority if you choose to. You can see a sample report or start a free account.