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Educating your child at home: children with special educational needs

Parents' right to educate their child at home applies equally where a child has special educational needs (SEN). It does not matter whether the child has an education health and care (EHC) plan or not.

If your child has never been to school just carry on as you are, you don’t need to do anything.

If you want to take your child out of a mainstream school you will need to send a letter to the head teacher informing them that you wish to educate your child at home.

If you want to take your child out of a special school you will need to send a letter to the head teacher informing them that you wish to educate your child at home. On receipt of this notification, the school should complete and submit an online referral to the EHE Team. However, the school will not remove your child from roll at this point as consent be must obtained from the local authority before doing so.

You will be asked to provide details of the educational provision your child will receive at home and once the local authority are satisfied that suitable education is in place consent will be given for removal from roll.

The Inclusion Team will then contact you to arrange a review of your child's EHCP and the plan will be updated to reflect any changes.

EHC plans

When a child has an EHC plan the local authority must still ensure that the child's special educational needs are being met and must hold annual reviews of the EHC plan.

Although you don’t have to attend meetings or submit reports, as the local authority we have a duty to review your child's EHC plan annually which is difficult with no information. You may find that you would prefer to take control of your child's review, organise it and submit a summary report of the meeting instead. If you do, then talk to your SEN officer who will explain what you need to consider.

You do not have to provide what it says in the EHC Plan, it only applies to local authorities. You do have a duty to provide an education suitable to your child's age, ability and any special educational needs.

If you fail to meet your child’s special needs the local authority has a duty to arrange the provision. We may do this by helping with your arrangements at home or it may be felt that some provision can only be met in school. You will need to discuss any concerns with us.

Support

The Elective Home Education Team can provide advice about home education and information about services and facilities.

We do not provide funding, when you decide to home educate you take on responsibility for all the costs. We may be able to help with some services but you would need to discuss this with us.

If you have any questions you can contact us on:

You can also find out what help is available in the local offer, which brings together information for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families.

You may find the following websites useful; we are not responsible for the content of external internet sites.