The survey of local authorities shows about 57,800 pupils were home-schooled in 2018, up from 45,500 last year and 37,500 in 2016. In comparison, between 2017 and 2018, pupil numbers rose by around 66,000, or 0.8 per cent.
It revealed a third of home educated pupils had previously having some contact with children’s services, and 11 per cent were known to social services.
Meanwhile the majority of councils reported that more than 80 per cent of their home educated pupils had previously attended school.
The report from the ACDS attributed the rise to a growth in the birth rate, more awareness of home education and better records kept by local authorities of home educated pupils.
In addition, LA staff have highlighted a wide appetite for a registration requirement for home schooled children to help identify those who are not receiving a suitable full-time education and to safeguard them. LAs remain concerned around the practice of home schooling being presented to parents as an option to avoid exclusion or fines, especially where a child has complex and overlapping health and social care needs.
Key Findings:
- 106 responding LAs recorded a total of 40,359 children and young people known to be home schooled on school census day, 4 October 2018. It can therefore be estimated that there were 57,873 children and young people being home schooled across the 152 LAs in England. This represents an increase of approximately 27% from 5 October 2017, when this exercise was last carried out.
- Across the 106 responding LAs, the number of known home-schooled children and young people has increased in each of the past five years, by an average of approximately 20% each year.
- Overall there is a significant jump in the number of children being home schooled between key stages one and two. Key Stage 4 saw the largest percentage increase of those being home schooled from 2017 (32%), however, the majority are in Key Stage 3.
- LAs reported that an average of 11% of their home schooling cohort were known to children’s social care, both historic and/or current. On average, 18% of their home schooling cohort were known to wider children’s services, meaning that nearly a third of the known cohort had some contact with children’s services.
- At any one point in the academic year, a total of 54,204 children and young people were known to be home schooled in 105 responding LAs, meaning somewhere in the region of an estimated 78,466 were known to be home schooled in England during 2017/18.
- A combined total of 515 School Attendance Orders (SAOs) were issued relating to the suitability of home schooling. This represents a relative increase of approximately 112% from 2017.
- The majority of respondents reported that over 80% of their known cohort had previously attended school, with general dissatisfaction with the school being the most commonly cited reason for families choosing to home school.
WEB LINK
Elective Home Education Survey 2018