It may surprise people to learn that even if you use a Department for Education (DfE) accredited online school you are usually considered to be in “elective home education”. Department for Education statistics indicate there were 111,700 children in elective home education by Autumn 2025 and that the number has grown substantially in the past few years.

Educational Freedom is an organisation founded in 2013 with the aim of providing free support to home educators. They have recently produced a report entitled Educational Freedom, Home Education Research, Survey, Data Analysis and Review.

Their key conclusions relevant to accredited online schools are that elective home education is often not a choice but a last resort for many families (for perhaps as many as 75%), this is frequently because of Special Educational Needs left unmet by local authorities and schools. That said families in elective home education are usually happy with their choice, and often wish they started earlier.

The report also highlights that there are huge amounts of suspicion of local authorities on the part of EHE families, feeling that they are over-intrusive – policing not supporting. On a personal note I feel I have got lucky with my local EHE officer who has been very helpful and supportive.

A recurring theme is that EHE families would like financial support for examination fees; they are, after all, saving a great deal of money for local authorities by taking on the child’s education – examination fees are a large unavoidable cost.

The report and survey it is based on were triggered by proposals for a Children Not in School (CNiS) register. Educational Freedom highlight that they have little faith in local authorities competence to deliver such a register given discrepancies between EHE and children missing education which they already collect.

DfE accredited online schools can offer a solution to those reluctant home educators for whom their child’s Special Educational Needs are not being met in the mainstream system.

We have made Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Department for Education (DfE) and Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) in order to find out more about pupils at DfE accredited online schools. These requests cover the number of pupils at accredited online schools and data on the exam results for pupils at online schools – these data are already collected and published for other types of school.  

Our aim with these requests is to prompt the collection of these data for accredited online schools, if it is not already being collected. We feel it is appropriate that online schools which have been accredited by DfE, and whose use is promoted by them, should be included in official statistics to provide assurance to parents.

Numbers of pupils at DfE accredited online schools:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/numbers_of_pupils_at_dfe_accredi

Pupil examination results at DfE accredited online schools: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pupil_examination_results_at_dfe

Our evidence to the Education Committee’s inquiry entitled “Solving the SEND Crisis” has been published. In it we outlined the case for using DfE accredited online schools as a suitable pathway for some children with Special Educational Needs.

The Committee’s written evidence publications can all be found here:

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8684/solving-the-send-crisis/publications/written-evidence

Our evidence is currently on the second page of responses for evidence published on 7th March with their reference number SEN0466. You can download the evidence directly here.

Sir Martyn Oliver, head of Ofsted is interviewed in The Sunday Times today in an article entitled “WFH parents ‘make children think school is optional’”. To use the modern parlance this could well be described as “ragebait” for the Voice For Learners parents. His core thesis is that the rise of work from home has driven a rise in absence from school and that this is a very bad thing which must be stamped out. Our view is that increasingly strict behavioural and attendance policies have made school intolerable for many children.

In practical terms this means that the new Ofsted inspection reports will include an evaluation on attendance. As it stands schools are under pressure on attendance already from the DfE and local authorities. So much so that in our experience schools will prioritise attendance over a child’s wellbeing and education. They will actively not provide work to do at home to try to force a child into school and they will actively encourage parents to bring clearly very distressed children into school.

Attendance is beguiling because it can be measured very easily, twice a day. This does not mean it is a good evaluation metric.

Oliver says “but you can’t deny that a child accessing other children, other adults and learning to socialise, is a clear benefit of schooling.” Yes, we can deny that! As Sartre said “Hell is other people”. For our children the sheer quantity of other children is often overwhelming, some of them have brilliant relationships with teachers as they seek to please but this can be at the cost of their social relationships with other children. Many experience bullying. Outside school they will never experience social systems like school again.

The article also talks about how DfE guidance says that children should go into school with “minor illnesses or mild anxiety”. The problem here is that schools define what “minor” and “mild” is, not the parents who know their children best.

Towards the end of the article Oliver says that schools will now be graded on inclusion, seemingly oblivious to the fact that all he has said previously goes directly against inclusion. Incidentally the Sunday Times links here to an article by professional contrarian Melanie Philips entitled “Let schools pursue excellence, not ‘equality’”.

In summary this article is enraging and disappointing. It shows that a key figure in the education system is utterly wedded to ideas that have been failing children for years and their aim is to double down on those ideas. There is little prospect for improvement unless they change.

The Public Accounts Committee published its report on their inquiry Support for children and young people with special educational needs today (15th January 2025). They announced their report here, you can find their report here.

We submitted evidence to the inquiry (see here).

We will post a full response in due course but our first impressions are that it conveys considerable urgency – asking for action within 6 months in a system it describes as being in crisis. Much of the focus is on EHCPs and how variable, and generally poor, local authorities are in agreeing to them within the statutory 20 week period. It also highlights how taking parents to tribunals and failing to win at this stage has reduced trust in the system. It bemoans the paucity and inconsistency of data from the Department of Education, and the lack of information as to the origins of the crisis. Much of the focus of the report is on the financial implications of the crisis for local authorities.

You can find articles on the report from BBC News here, Special Needs Jungle here and Schools Week here.

 

Christine Odone wrote an opinion piece in the Spectator before Christmas in the wake of the Sara Sharif murder verdict. Entitled “Sara Sharif’s murder shouldn’t lead to a home-school crackdown”, it is a call not to use this case to target home-schooling families.

In excess of 150,000 children are home-schooled, for many it is a positive choice but for a growing number it is taken as a measure of desperation because mainstream schools can not support our children. These families should not be impacted because of a handful of, albeit awful, cases. Odone calls for the integration of home-schooling into the wider education ecosystem with more support from local authorities, and hybrid models of attendance. It is based on her experience of home-schooling her 6 year old daughter for a few months.

Link: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/home-schooling-is-a-lifeline-for-desperate-parents/