When & how to de register

[user1498640564]

Perhaps you can give me some advice?

I plan to Home educate my infant aged child as of September when school starts back up.

We also plan to move to a different LA area at around that time although we can't be certain of the exact date - it depends on how soon other half finalises new arrangements with work and when we find somewhere but we aim for September and plan to inform the school the same.

I wondered if it might pose a problem if come November or December we still haven't found a house to move to - as OH works mostly from home and we can wait until we find the right place.
Could the teachers or LA come knocking at our door if they get wind of our situation? :-/

I'd prefer not to notify the school that I plan to home educate, only that we're moving out of the area.

• Would it be advisable to tell the school, existing LA and the new LA of our intentions to home educate or is it sufficient to simply notify the school of the house move then start home educating from sept whether still here or in the new area?

Do we need to notify existing or new LA of intentions to HE?

I also wondered about the timing of de registering - whether to notify the school before the school holidays, during or even after?

I hope to cause as little inconvenience to them as possible, leaving on good terms if possible.

I may be overly concerned about it all! :-) but would you advise speaking to the teachers face to face first and then send a de registration letter once we've already notified them to prevent any surprises?

Sorry this is a bit long + all the questions. I'd be really grateful of any advice!

I'm just anxious about getting it right as I feel so passionately it's the right thing for my child and have longed for the opportunity to provide a home education with all it's amazing benefits for my little one from the first moment I looked into it :-)

Thank you!

You remind me of myself when we were going to deregister our eldest I was worried about getting off on the wrong foot and went into school to talk with her head of year (she was secondary school age), the school were actually surprisingly helpful and supportive.

We've then gone onto deregister three of our other children from different secondary schools since. All these were during summer holiday breaks so I didn't go onto the school, I simply wrote a deregistration letter to the head (Google it and lots will come up that you can copy). The schools each sent a polite reply, no questions asked and wished us the best for the future.

I believe that if you tell the school you're moving, they'll want the details of your childs new school so they can send any records required to them. You could say that you haven't secured a new school place yet but I feel they may keep in you with you to find out what's happening your end.

If you tell the school that you'd like to deregister your child, the school will notify your current LEA and the LEA will contact you. In our area this takes between 10-16 months so you may have already moved by then!

You do not have to have any dealings with the LEA apart from to confirm that you are homeschooling your child. It's personal preference if you want them involved or not and you do not have to accept home visits from them. Our LEA are understaffed and overstretched, they simply come to tick their boxes every now and then. You'll soon realise that local HE groups are much more helpful and useful!

I hope that's of some help

Hi Socksonaradiator - That's really helpful thank you.
Although I've come across some scary stories about schools and LA's turning rather nasty, possibly due to a lack of information about legalities to do with HE or perhaps their own stance against it?

That concerns me a little and I hope to avoid any of that unnecessarily stressful stuff! :-)