Parents warned of ‘significant barrier’ to home education in Scotland

Some SQA qualifications may not be available to home-educated young people because they include internal assessment, says new Scottish government guidance
24th January 2025, 1:07pm

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Parents warned of ‘significant barrier’ to home education in Scotland

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/parents-warned-significant-barrier-home-education-scotland
Scottish home schooling

New Scottish guidance advises families to “investigate thoroughly” whether their child can access “examination and assessment arrangements” before making the decision to home educate.

Some qualifications and awards may not be available to home-educated young people because of “elements including internal assessment and assignments”, the Scottish government guidance warns.

It also states: “Most centres and examining boards will not accept coursework which has been marked by a private tutor as they need to confirm that the work is the candidate’s own and has been produced under the required conditions.”

Rise in home education since Covid

The number of children being home educated in Scotland has increased since the pandemic .

The guidance, which was previously updated in 2007, acknowledges that “the home-learning experience during Covid-19 lockdowns prompted a number of parents and families to consider choosing home education”.

Concerns have been raised, however, that more families are home educating because children’s needs are not being met in school.

A Scottish Parliament committee inquiry into additional support for learning, which was carried out last year, found that mainstream education could be “intolerable” for many children with additional needs.

The new guidance makes it clear that home education should “always be a choice made by families”, as opposed to being forced upon them because their child’s additional support needs are not being met in school.

Before publishing the guidance, the government ran a consultation that explored whether a national approach to gathering data on the number of home-educated children should be introduced. A February 2023 report found opinion evenly split: some respondents said this would ensure accurate figures, but others feared “an intrusion into the privacy of families”.

The finalised guidance says the government is continuing to “consider options”.

The guidance states that if a parent or carer decides to withdraw their child from school in order to home educate them, they must seek the consent of the relevant education authority.

However, it stresses that “the choice to provide home education is a legitimate choice” and that “consent to withdraw a child from a school roll should not be unreasonably withheld”. Local authorities should issue a decision on most requests within six weeks.

Parents who have never registered their child for school do not need to seek consent to home educate, the guidance advises.

Councils monitoring home education

It also states that there is “no statutory duty upon local authorities to ‘monitor’ ongoing home-education provision” and “neither do [inspectors] have a remit to inspect home-education settings”.

Councils are not legally obliged to provide any resources for home-educated children or their parents.

However, the local authority may choose to provide support “at their discretion” - and has “a duty to take action where they are not satisfied that a parent/carer is providing efficient education suitable to their child’s age, ability and aptitude”.

The guidance adds: “The choice to provide home education is a legitimate choice, alongside the option of sending a child to school. However, in choosing to home educate, parents/carers should be clear on the implications of any decision to home educate - for example, in relation to additional support needs or access to qualifications.”

The February 2023 report identified “significant barriers” for home-educated young people in studying for Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) qualifications “where there was a requirement for continual assessment that needed to be undertaken at the approved centre or school”.

Previously, the report said, home-educated students could register at an approved centre and sit final exams, but “the move towards a greater proportion of the grade coming from continual assessment has meant that a range of subject qualifications are inaccessible to home-educating candidates”.

The cost of undertaking SQA qualifications involving exams was also highlighted as “prohibitive”. One respondent said home educators were having to pay “per subject, for each exam sat, up to about £250 each”.

The 2023 report stated: “One respondent suggested that it would be more cost effective to travel to England for the exam period for a child or young person to sit GCSEs as a registered candidate there.”

The updated guidance advises: “Local authorities are not required to meet any costs associated with home-educated children studying toward qualifications or awards. However, local authorities should, where circumstances allow, take a reasonable approach and make available any resources or support that they can offer, and give information about alternative qualifications and the arrangements needed for children to take them, where applicable.”

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