A report by Wendy Charles-Warner Serious case reviews are without doubt a highly emotive subject, but legislation and regulation must not be based on emotive responses. Any form of regulation of families and individuals must be based on solid, factual evidence. That firm basis in fact is what this research sets out to provide. […]
Education Otherwise’s ‘Trends’ series of reports maps home education, addressing not only the number of people who home educate, but also why they do so. Elective Home Education is evolving and, unless the Government fixes the systemic failings in state schools, this shift away from the classroom is likely to be long-term. Read the report […]
Research by Dr Fé Mukwamba-Sendall and Wendy Charles-Warner 2025 The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill aims to place a duty on local authority staff to provide advice to home educating families. This report asks what support is available for families and looks at the feasibility of supporting our most vulnerable families, those living in […]
Lucie Wheeler, of Anglia Ruskin University, has concluded her new Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) research into how home educated families approach the subject. The research provides not only interesting findings but also, some practical insights for home-educating families, including confirming that they are highly engaged and committed to providing RSHE to their children. […]
Author: Wendy Charles-Warner Currently, many parents are coming to home education without the ‘elective’ in home education; they have no choice. Regulation of home education does nothing to address this, however, making schools welcoming and accessible to children will. Those parents are best placed to stem this tide and tell us what steps to take to do […]
Author: Catherine Sunshine The proposed ‘Children’s Wellbeing Bill’ announced in the King’s Speech threatens to be a rehash of the Schools Bill and its previous iterations. We ask ‘Is it needed’? and crucially, ‘what will it achieve’? Please download the new report: Catherine Sunshine 2024 The R word Is the Government creating a solution to a […]
Education Otherwise’s ‘trends’ series of reports maps numbers of home educating children and the reasons why parents across England and Wales choose to home educate their children; the 2024 issue separates England and Wales. This issue is for England. Home educating families are changing and those changes are reflected primarily in those choosing to home […]
Parents home educating in Wales have traditionally reported their local authorities to be supportive and positive. Relationships have been mutually respectful for many years, in most areas, whilst complaints made to Education Otherwise and support groups about local authority officer practice in Wales have been significantly fewer per capita than in England. However, parents and […]
Much has been said in the House of Lords during the passage of the schools Bill, in respect of remedies available to home educating families if their local authority does not act reasonably. This brief analysis examines the facts behind that contention. A parent can complain to the local authority. Freedom of information requests made […]
The Department for Education (DfE) and Baroness Barran, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System, who is leading the Schools Bill in the House of Lords, are forming policy and guidance for EHE. Education Otherwise believes that any policy should be based on accurate data. To that end, a survey was taken of […]
