Knowsley’s Education Service believe that, in most cases, the best place to educate a child is in school. However, the Service acknowledges that parents have the right to elect to educate their child or children at home per Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act. Home-based education is the “otherwise” part of the act, and some parents choose to do this because they judge it as the best way to carry out their duty to educate their child.
Parents need to be fully informed when deciding to remove their child from a school’s roll and to provide home education. There are many big decisions to consider and there is a need to appreciate what a child would no longer have access to if they are no longer on the roll of a school. One of the most important implications for electing to home educate is that all the financial responsibility for your child(ren) 's learning is yours. Unfortunately, there is no funding available from within the Council to support your child’s education and exams unless they are on a school roll. The cost of books, equipment, educational visits and any costs for a tutor, if required, will be the responsibility of you, the parent.
Knowsley’s Elective Home Education policy aims to help parents understand what may be involved if they are thinking of educating their child in this way. We hope it will help you to consider all the implications of Elective Home Education, explain the law as it applies to you and the Council, and how this works in Knowsley. In addition, there is also the DfE’s Elective Home Education: guide for parents which provides information on the national guidance.
For more information, please call 0151 443 5177, or e-mail ElectiveHome.Education@knowsley.gov.uk.
Resources
The Council recognise that much of the elective home education children and young people engage with can be heavily supported through online resources, activities and web pages. This can be a rich and valuable resource.
It is therefore important that parents, who chose to electively home educate their children and utilise the internet to support this, take every step to safeguard their children and keep them safe when they are online.
As EHE parents you can do this by ensuring all necessary parental controls are in place and that steps have been taken to ensure that you educate your child about how to keep safe online.
The following resources are designed to support young people, adults and parents/carers to keep everyone safe and to provide information on a variety of safeguarding topics and ways to prevent young people from being contacted in their own homes, on the internet, and exploited in a range of ways.