Best Practice

What is behind the spike in home education?

Pastoral issues Behaviour Whole-school issues
A notable spike in the number of pupils being home educated has sparked suspicions that a minority of schools are using ‘off-rolling’ practices. Suzanne O’Connell looks at the figures, recent research and the background of home education in England

It was a hard-hitting view of home education that the children’s commissioner put forward in Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary last month. In the programme, Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, made clear that some families are being left with very little choice other than to educate their children, for good or for bad, at home.

Also last month, coinciding with the Dispatches programme, Ms Longfield’s office produced a report entitled Skipping School: Invisible children. The report identifies four categories of parent electing home education.

Within this last category we might include those parents who, Ms Longfield believes, have been “coerced” into removing their child from school in order to avoid exclusion, following difficulties with attendance or because the school can’t meet their needs.

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