We just moved to a new area in the last few days, and because we have been overseas and had no anticipation of getting them into local schools before September we made the decision to home educate. DH is highly qualified to do this, and the children have been fine etc. etc. We are also v. keen to get them into local school, and arranged to take on our lease here in new city months earlier than we needed to specifically so that we could apply for schools in good time. However, not imagining that we would get offers until September, we made plans for DH to take the children overseas again (next week) to visit his elderly parents.
Unexpectedly, we may have got one school place (for Sept) for DC1 already, in our preferred school, and there will be a place there for DC2 in September too, which is all amazing and I'm thrilled, but now the LEA has done its maths and worked out that if we're here right now, and the school places on offer are for September, the obv. the children must be out of education at the moment. I said no, we're happily home educating, but keen to get them into a mainstream school asap, which is why we're having this conversation on the phone right now, but LEA guy wants me to get their home educated status approved by the council.
Do I actually HAVE to do this? Can I just politely ignore them?
They're leaving the country next Wednesday, and we won't be back in the UK until September anyway (like I said, we only got this flat so early so that I could apply for schools!), so it's not like they can do any assessment even if I were to have to consent to it.
Can anybody with experience tell me where I stand?
Huge thanks in advance!