Do not impose any new requirements on parents who are home educating
The Parliament petitions site records 24,262 signatures for this petition, which closed on 5 February 2022. The Government responded on 20 August 2021. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 27 March 2023.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
Do not impose any new requirements on parents who are home educating
The Education Committee has recently recommended introducing a statutory home educated register, and greater assessment of home educated children. These recommendations are in contrast to the views of many parents who home educate.
Ministers have said they are committed to a registration system for children who are not in school, despite not having published responses to a 2019 consultation on children not in school.
We believe there is no evidential basis for increased requirements for home education, for registration, assessment or testing. If introduced, these recommendations could stigmatise and even destroy the very essence of home education: it is not school. We, the undersigned, call upon the Government not to introduce any such measures.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 20 August 2021; the petitions site lists the Department for Education as responsible. Its summary:
The Government remains committed to a registration system for Children Not in School (CNIS). Further details will be set out in the Government’s upcoming response to its CNIS consultation.
The opening 341 words of the 412-word response:
The Education Select Committee is a Parliamentary Committee, independent of Government and its recommendations are not Government policy. Government acknowledges the recently published House of Commons Education Committee report on ‘Strengthening Home Education’ (published on 26 July) and is currently considering its response to the Committee’s recommendations, which we will provide to the Committee in due course. The Department will always consider the views of stakeholders alongside a broad range of evidence when developing elective home education policy.
We fully support the right of parents to educate their children at home and most who do so educate their children very well, sometimes in challenging circumstances. However, while many home educated children will be receiving a very good education by dedicated parents, who deserve support, there will be others who are deemed to be ‘home educated’ but, in reality, most or entirely all of their education is through attendance at unsuitable settings, such as illegal unregistered independent schools. There is also likely to be a number of children for whom the education being provided is unsuitable, because their parents cannot educate them effectively at home or the child is simply not being educated.
With the interests of these vulnerable children in mind, we therefore in April 2019 launched a consultation on proposals to introduce local authority registers of children not attending registered independent or state-funded schools, and support for home-educating families (should they want it). This closed on 24 June 2019.
The Government’s intention with these proposals has always been to ensure that they do not impede those families who are genuinely, and through choice, educating their children at home. The consultation, unlike the Education Select Committee’s report, did not feature any proposals for local authorities to have explicit monitoring or inspection powers. With increasing numbers of children now being educated outside school there is, however, a greater need for local authorities to be able to identify these children, in order to assure themselves about the education being provided; and to offer support to those home educating parents that would like it.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies on the boundaries used until the 2024 general election. The largest number, 104, came from Stroud.
24,155 of the signatures were from the UK and 107 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures |
|---|---|
| Stroud | 104 |
| Wealden | 104 |
| Totnes | 103 |
| Torridge and West Devon | 99 |
| St Austell and Newquay | 88 |
| Hastings and Rye | 87 |
| Central Devon | 86 |
| Isle of Wight | 86 |
| Somerton and Frome | 81 |
| Bristol East | 80 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| South East | 4,344 |
| South West | 3,241 |
| East of England | 2,782 |
| London | 2,202 |
| West Midlands | 2,108 |
| North West | 2,077 |
| East Midlands | 1,918 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 1,701 |
| Wales | 1,104 |
| Scotland | 896 |
| North East | 792 |
| Northern Ireland | 363 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 27 March 2023. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/594065.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
d02fdd3909b2d235… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.