Home education guidelines

Under Section 437 of the Education Act 1996, the local authority must satisfy itself that parents are fulfilling their duties.

If you don't provide any information about your provision, either in written form or by discussions with the local authority, we may conclude that your child is not being effectively educated and needs to return to school.

Providing us with information

We may offer a home or virtual visit from a member of our team. The purpose of this visit is to discuss your home education and to answer any queries that may have arisen since you started home educating your child. A record of the meeting will be written up at the time, including advice and recommendations if appropriate and a copy will be sent to you.

Please be aware a home visit is not a legal requirement and you may choose not to have one. Perhaps as an alternative, a meeting could be arranged to take place at another venue. Alternatively, you could provide SHE with written information, and you may like to include recent examples of your child's work.

We enjoy meeting with families and children and it is a fabulous opportunity for us to see the rich, stimulating and eclectic styles of home education in Norfolk. We aim to keep visits informal, open and honest.

Whatever way you choose we would expect to see a serious intent by you to educate your child and evidence of a coherent educational philosophy. But the real criterion is that any information that we see should convince an informed professional in the field of education that a child is receiving an efficient, full-time education suitable to his or her age, ability and aptitude and any educational needs they may have.

If we feel that the education you are providing fails to offer the child an appropriate education, we will discuss this with you and give you the support and opportunity to put things right. We will give you a reasonable period of time before a follow up visit is made to look at the situation again.

If no improvement is evident, we will require you to register your child at school. Failure to comply will lead to a School Attendance Order being issued. But we would stress that this is rare. It will only happen if we are convinced that you are not educating your child according to his or her age, ability and aptitude, and that you have consistently failed to remedy the situation by ignoring advice and guidance.