Can I home educate three children?

[Wildroseladybird]

I currently teach year 5. Our private school is closing and I’ve been asked to home educate 3 children for their final primary year. How easy is this? One has an EHCP.

If anyone already does anything like this I would really appreciate any advice/guidance.

Thank you

Are they all your children? Who is asking you to do it? Lots of people do home ed multiple kids but you should want to do it!

Whose home? Yours or theirs?

With one having an ECHP, I'd give that a hard pass. For reference, we took our eldest out of school aged 13 (ADHD) and home educated until she was 16 and then went onto college. It was an ordeal.

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/safeguarding-child-protection/tutors might be useful if you are planning to do this for someone else not your own children. Don't get involved with the EHCP one though. They're the LA's responsibility.

Are they siblings? If so then it would be no problem for the family to employ you as a governess.

If they are unrelated children and you are providing them with a full time education then you would be considered to be running an unregistered school.

Depending on the circumstances, hours, etc. this could well be an unregistered school, so you should look at the rules (and one child having an EHCP means the rules are different to if none had EHCPs) and decide whether what you would offer would be an illegal unregistered school or not. You don’t say enough in your OP to say for certain either way, but that is where you need to start before you consider other things.

People almost always home educate their own kids rather than someone else's, so you would be in an unusual position - doing three siblings at the same time isn't really the main issue, bigger pitfalls I can see might be:

• expectations - do the parents think you'd be teaching three simultaneous formal private school sets of lessons? That won't be happening. Even if you are all down for formal work rather than unschooling etc, you will likely end up finding it easier to do broader topics that can be differentiated by age, trips out etc, it would be very difficult to have them doing different subjects at the same moment at a table.
• boundaries - are you their teacher, or their nanny, or what? They would be in their own home and presumably you would also be preparing their meals and supervising their social life etc?
• groups - you'd probably need to be taking them out to sport groups etc, so you'd need to have access to a vehicle/insurance/car seats etc for that too.

If you don't mean three siblings and actually mean three unrelated children from the same year group, that isn't home ed but potentially an unregistered school, which will suddenly run into a lot of legislation for you. The EHCP won't matter in itself because EHCPs don't have to be actioned by the parents during home ed (they are usually written mostly to be relevant to a classroom anyway) and the children can still be deregistered at will in England with an EHCP (though that is on the parents to sort, not you) - obviously the child requiring the EHCP will need to have their individual needs met but frankly that should be much more straightforward in a class of three in their own home than in a much larger setting.

I teach in a small school so am used to mixed year groups but in the first lockdown we had to do different work with children from YR to Y6 at the same time. It was so hard! If you were properly home educating and could go for a project based approach it would be easier but to follow the national curriculum is really tricky.

Sorry for late reply, I’ve been struck down with a sickness bug 🙄

It’s three children from my current class that I teach, their parents have talked together and have now approached me with a venue/setting (on their property) where one parent would be around if I needed an extra adult at any time. I’ve looked at the DFE guidance and as long as it’s for 4 children or less, then Ofsted don’t get involved and it’s not classed as an independent primary school. I need to investigate further… it’s to see them through their final year (y6) before they move on to their secondary schools. It would be for 5 hours a day…
I just want to make sure I am not breaking any rules and that I am protected. I’ve only ever taught in a school based setting and I don’t know anyone personally who home educates their children in this manner…

I just want to make sure I am not breaking any rules and that I am protected.

You could ask you union.

@Wildroseladybirdi would rethink the one with the ehcp and I don’t think their parents are thinking logically either.

Wow well done Labour if this is now the state of education.

What will happen to your pension and how will you be paid? How will the terms of the EHCP be met? Surely the other children will get less attention if you have to concentrate on that child? What will you do when the year is up? What about insurance to cover any incidents? I think this is set for disaster and would not consider it.

5 children OR 1 child with an EHCP. So you couldn't have the child with the EHCP.
"An unregistered school is a school that is independent from Local Authority control and meets the criteria below for registration, but has not done so.
The criteria are:

• Teaches a full-time education to five or more children aged between 5-16 years old
• Teaches a full-time education to any number of children where at least one of the children is in care or has special educational needs or an education, health and care plan.

Generally, the DfE consider any institution that is operating during the day, for more than 18 hours per week, to be providing full-time education and thus should be registered as a school."

I think you could do it but I would only do 15-18 hours a week to avoid being considered an illegal school - this is something most out of school settings for home educated children do.
I know of a childminder who was threatened with prosecution for having a home educated child with an EHCP for 24 hours a week so it isn't worth the risk.

I’ve looked at the DFE guidance and as long as it’s for 4 children or less, then Ofsted don’t get involved and it’s not classed as an independent primary school.

You need to look again! It does when one of them has an EHCP.