Home schooling

[akal273637]

Hi everyone, new to this platform. I want to home educate my 14 year old daughter, but her school attendance is currently 65%. Could i still de register her, or does her attendance have an effect on this? thank you

Your daughter's educational history and attendance history has no bearing on whether you can home educate. If you are in England or Wales, you only have to send a properly-worded letter to the school in order to deregister. In Scotland you must obtain the consent of the LA to withdraw a child from school, but that is meant to be a straightforward and quick process, and there are few grounds on which consent could be denied.

If she has unauthorised absences, then in theory the LA could still fine you for those historical offenses. Deregistration will not necessarily stop that. However, many LAs recognise that the whole point of fines is to help ensure the child receives a suitable full-time education. Since home education solves the problem of low attendance, it seems silly to prosecute for past offenses when the parent has already fixed the problem!

On the face of it, common sense suggests that it would be ridiculous to prevent a change of educational setting away from one where the child is probably getting an inadequate education (because her attendance is only 65%) to a different setting where she CAN get a full-time education.