Safeguarding reforms at risk as research highlights significant strain on home education staff of local authorities

Currently, local authorities are responsible for identifying all children not in school, including home educated children in their area and delivering safeguarding measures where necessary.⁴ But these figures come as new duties and responsibilities for councils are due to be introduced through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, including the creation of a Children not in School Register.

While welcoming the new measures, we’re urging the government to provide local authorities with the vital funding needed to adequately safeguard and support home educated children — ensuring no child falls through the cracks.

The research also revealed that a rising number of families are turning to home education, with numbers doubling since before the pandemic. The percentage of children being taught at home grew by an average of 186% in each local authority between 2018/19 and 2023/24. For 14 of the 148 local authorities that responded the number of children learning at home more than quadrupled over five years.

Despite this increase of home educated children, 99 local authorities said they had seen an increase in the number of staff to match this demand since 2018/19.

We believe home education is not a safeguarding concern in and of itself, but a lack of face-to-face contact with these children can make it challenging to assess and identify where there is a risk of abuse and neglect.

While many children thrive through receiving education at home, evidence from Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews show some children within this cohort require the attention of safeguarding agencies because they are at risk of harm and may not be visible to services.