UK home education guide
How to reply to your local authority about home education
Updated · 2 min read
A letter from the council reads far more seriously than it is. You are being asked a question, not sitting a test.
After you deregister, the local authority may make informal enquiries. Here's the calm way through. (England.)
The council wrote to you about home education — here's how to reply calmly (with a template you can copy). Informal enquiry, England. Save for the day the letter lands.
Step 1 · breathe
An enquiry is not an inspection
No visit is required, no test, no curriculum checklist. They're asking whether a suitable education is happening — that's all.
They can ask. You reply in writing. For most families, that's the whole exchange.
Step 2 · describe, don't defend
Write two calm paragraphs
What you cover, roughly how, and what a typical week looks like. Confident and brief beats long and anxious.
Two paragraphs is genuinely enough. Say what you cover, how a normal week runs, and how you keep an eye on progress. Confidence in the writing does more work than length ever does.
Step 3 · the template
Copy this shape
Adapt the details to your family — the structure is what matters.
Thank you for your letter. We provide a full-time, suitable education: daily literacy and numeracy, plus science, history, geography and arts through a structured curriculum, library visits and group activities. We review progress regularly. Happy to answer further questions in writing.
Step 4 · the secret weapon
A written plan ends the conversation
Being able to describe your curriculum in one sentence is exactly what an enquiry wants to hear — and exactly what a planned year gives you.
What to keep on file
Keep a copy of your reply, the date you sent it, and anything that comes back. If the council writes again next year you are answering from a folder rather than from memory.
A plan for the term, a few pieces of your child's work and a short note on how they are getting on will answer almost any informal enquiry in England. None of it needs to be elaborate. It needs to exist.