a)     

Elective home education could be a rewarding experience, but provided a number of challenges and families in Plymouth needed to make an informed choice;

b)     

Plymouth had seen an increasing number of children being registered as home educated which was reflected nationally;

c)     

The rise in the number of children being withdrawn from school to be home educated was a concern in Plymouth particularly for those in their secondary phase of education;

d)     

The causal factors were wide ranging and complex and to fix, required collaboration across the multi-agency partnership to hold families and outcomes for children at the centre;

e)     

There was a significant rise in the numbers of children with special educational needs being withdrawn from schools for home education. Rises were also seen with children with mental health difficulties where parents had a lack of confidence in how schools were supporting their child;

f)      

The majority of children in who were home educated in KS4 attended the Plymouth City College provision which provided an alternative to the formal national curriculum offer of mainstream secondary school;

g)     

90% of children who were home educated were either severely absent of persistently absent from school before being home educated and 37.4% of those home educated were known to children’s social care within the previous six years;

h)     

Plymouth worked collaboratively with families and monitored children who were home educated. The partnership supported children who were missing education to return to school as a result of the relational approach. 153 children were support to return to their school provision in 2023/24;

i)      

The Council continued to strengthen the partnership to support vulnerable children to remain in school and was working in partnership with the three Plymouth universities to undertake a research project in home education. The learning would create a preventative system to support children while they were in school;

j)      

A robust plan approved by the Plymouth Education Board measured the city’s progress against key performance indicators on a monthly basis;

k)     

The Place Based Working Group was developing a three tier alternative provision strategy;

l)      

All schools were in contact with their link early help worker and allocated access and attendance officers, to develop plans for children who had barriers to school attendance.

m)   

The number of children that were being home educated and part of groups was a small number;

n)     

The local authority was responsible in ensuring that there were no children in the City’s boundaries missing education. It was not a requirement for families to provide evidence of their child’s home learning, but the authority would be minded to consider that child might not be receiving any education;

o)     

Where there was intent of the parent/carer has decided to home educate their child, the local authority would reach out to those parents/carers to talk through the decision to ensure it was a positive and informed choice. An initial monitoring check would take place after three months to understand the families plan for educating their child at home. If the evidence of education was suitable, monitoring would take place annually;

p)     

The Council was hosting information and guidance sessions where families were positively engaging;

q)     

The relational practice undertaken in the city was having a much more positive impact compared to the more punitive measures such as school attendance orders;

r)     

Due to the limitations of legislation, it was difficult for the local authority to see what was happening in terms of education for those children. The Department for Education guidance advises that home educators were able to educate their children at home in whichever way they saw fit which included ‘unschooling’ where the child was enabled to fully break from any form of education and when ready, they could then engage in a form of education in the home;

s)      

Prior to the Covid pandemic, the more traditional home educators, were also home educated as a child. Since then, parents/carers have advised that they did not believe in what the schools had to offer or they were struggling themselves to navigate the complexities of their child’s mental health;

t)      

Officers were confident that the local authority was operating within the government guidance for elective home education and the safeguarding surrounding that which was represented in the ILACS inspection.