Do I need to register my child as home educated?

Currently, no mandatory national registration exists in England. If your child was previously enrolled in a school, you must formally deregister them, and the school is required to notify the local authority. If your child has never been to school, there is currently no legal requirement to notify anyone, though this is expected to change under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.

How many hours a day does home education have to be?

There is no legal minimum. The Education Act 1996 requires that the education be "efficient" and "full-time" but neither term is defined in statute. DfE guidance notes that school pupils typically receive around five hours of teaching across 190 days a year, but also makes clear that home education does not need to replicate a school day. Many families cover the same ground in considerably less time.

What is changing under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026?

The Act introduces a mandatory register of children not in school, which will include home-educated children. It has passed into law but the relevant measures are not yet in force. A government consultation on how the register will operate is still expected. Once in place, parents will likely be required to notify their local authority regardless of whether their child has previously attended school.

Can home-educated children sit the 11+ exam?

Yes. Home-educated children are eligible to sit 11+ tests and apply for grammar school places through the standard admissions process. Most grammar schools and the main test providers accommodate home-educated applicants. The preparation tends to look different without a school structure, but the tests themselves are the same. Our guides to 11+ preparation are written to be useful whether your child is in school or not.

What is the most common reason parents give for home educating?

In the DfE's autumn 2025 data, mental health was the most commonly recorded reason at 16% of cases — overtaking philosophical or lifestyle preference (12%) for the first time. Nearly 3 in 10 cases were recorded as unknown to the local authority or not provided by the parent.

Home Education in England: The Real Numbers for 2026

The DfE's autumn 2025 census recorded 126,000 children in elective home education in England — up 13% in a year. Here's what the figures show, why they undercount reality, and what it means if you're one of these families.

More families than ever are teaching their children at home. Here's what the latest government figures actually show, and why even those numbers are probably too low.

Ask most parents how many children in England are home educated and you'll get a shrug, or a guess in the tens of thousands. The real figure is 126,000, and it's rising fast.

The headline numbers

The Department for Education's autumn 2025 school census recorded 126,000 children in elective home education (EHE) in England. That's a 13% increase on the 111,700 recorded the previous autumn term. Zoom out to the full academic year and the number climbs further: 175,900 children were in EHE at some point during 2024/25, up 15% on the 153,300 recorded the year before.

EHE now accounts for around 1.5% of all children of school age in England — roughly the population of a city the size of Oxford, made up entirely of school-age children learning outside a classroom.

Why the real number is higher

These figures almost certainly undercount reality.

England has no mandatory national registration system for home-educated children, not yet. Local authorities only know about a child if that child was previously enrolled in a school and formally deregistered, or if a school or health visitor flags it. A child who has never set foot in a school, and whose parents never contact the council, doesn't appear in any of these statistics at all.

That's set to change. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 introduces a mandatory register of children not in school, including those who are home educated. It has passed into law but the relevant measures aren't yet in force, and a consultation on how the register will actually work is still expected. When it lands, expect the "real" number to look considerably larger than 126,000, not because home education suddenly grew overnight, but because the counting finally caught up with it.

Why families are choosing it

The DfE also collects data on the reasons parents give for taking their children out of school, or never enrolling them in the first place. In autumn 2025, the picture looked like this:

Mental health: 16% — now the single largest reported reason, and a marked shift from a few years ago when philosophical or lifestyle choice dominated
Philosophical or preferential reasons: 12%
Almost 3 in 10 of all reasons given are recorded as "unknown to the local authority" or simply not provided by the parent

Home education isn't primarily a lifestyle movement anymore, not according to the parents giving reasons for it. For a growing share of families, it looks more like a response to something that didn't work at school — whether that's an anxious child, an unmet SEND need, or a place that simply stopped feeling safe.

SEND and the 11+ question

Children with special educational needs and disabilities are consistently over-represented among those who leave school for home education, and the 2025 data doesn't change that picture. For many of these families, home education isn't a first choice. It's what happens when EHCP timelines run long, provision falls short, or a child's school environment causes more harm than good.

It also raises a question that rarely gets addressed directly: what happens when a home-educated child wants to sit the 11+ or apply for a grammar school place? The answer is that they can, and increasingly do. Home-educated children are eligible to sit 11+ tests and apply through the normal admissions process. Most grammar schools and test providers accommodate them. The preparation looks different without a classroom structure behind it, but the exam is the same.

What the law actually asks of home-educating parents

There's no legal definition of what "counts" as a proper home education.

Under the Education Act 1996, parents are responsible for making sure their child receives an "efficient, full-time" education suitable to their age, ability, and aptitude. Nowhere in statute is "efficient" or "full-time" actually defined. DfE guidance offers some steer, noting that school pupils typically get around five hours of teaching a day across 190 days a year, and that home education doesn't have to look anything like that. Beyond that, families are largely on their own to interpret what "suitable" means for their child.

That's a genuine freedom, and for many families it's the entire point. It's also, for a family sitting down for the first time with no curriculum, no timetable, and no one checking their working, a fairly daunting blank page.

What this means if you're one of these families

If you're currently home educating, or thinking about it, you're part of a much bigger and faster-growing group than the conversation around home education usually suggests. The system is still catching up: the data collection is new, the legal framework is decades old, and the register that's supposed to formalise all of this hasn't arrived yet.

The next piece in this series looks at what "suitable education" actually means in practice, and where families are finding the structure the system doesn't yet provide.

Sources

Department for Education (2026) Elective home education: autumn term 2025. Explore Education Statistics. Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education/2025-26-autumn-term (Accessed: 16 August 2026).

House of Commons Library (2026) Home education in England. Research Briefing SN05108, 10 June 2026. Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05108/ (Accessed: 16 August 2026).

The Real Numbers Behind the UK's Home Education Surge