For home educating families in England

Children Not in School register: what UK home educators actually need to do

The register is law. It is not running yet. Somewhere between those two facts sits a lot of noise, so here is the whole thing in order: what the Act says, what changes when it starts, what has not changed at all, and the four things worth doing this month.

The short answer

The register is real. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. Part 2 of it creates a Children Not in School register kept by every local authority in England.
It is not in force. The register duties start on dates ministers set by commencement regulations. Those regulations have not been made. The detailed rules and statutory guidance are due to be consulted on publicly first, and that consultation has not opened.
There is nothing you must file today. Deregistering works exactly as it did before, under the 2024 pupil registration rules. There is no register to join and no form to send. For a mainstream school pupil there is no permission to ask for either, and there is no new duty on you until commencement regulations say otherwise.

This is a plain-English summary of published legislation, not legal advice. The sources are listed at the bottom of this page so you can check every line yourself.

What the Act actually does

Section 38 of the Act inserts new sections 436B to 436G into the Education Act 1996. That is where the register lives. In short:

Councils must keep the register

Every local authority in England must maintain a register of children of compulsory school age living in its area who are not registered at a school, plus children who are on a school roll but educated elsewhere, and children attending further education part-time.

Parents must provide the information, and keep it current

Under new section 436D, a parent has to tell the council their child is eligible for registration and give the prescribed details. After that, changes to the recorded details have to be notified within 15 days, and there is a further duty to tell the council within 15 days when the child stops being eligible. Councils can also ask for information, allowing you a period of at least 15 days to reply. On updated estimates of how much education is provided and by whom, the Act says a local authority must ask at least once a year — and may ask more often than that.

What actually goes in it

Section 436C sets the contents: the child's name, date of birth and address (and previous address if it changed in the last twelve months), parents' names and addresses, which parent provides the education, estimates of how much education the parents provide and how much comes from elsewhere, and details of any other person or setting teaching the child above a threshold that regulations will set. The register cannot be published in a form that identifies a child or a parent.

Tutors, co-ops and out-of-school settings

Section 436E lets a council serve notice on someone it reasonably believes is providing out-of-school education to a child beyond a prescribed amount of time without a parent present, requiring them to confirm what they provide and how many hours. Failing to comply, or giving false information, can attract a monetary penalty. If you use a tuition centre or a co-op, this one lands on them, not on you.

Home visits

Within 15 days of adding a child to the register, the council has to consider where the child is living, and it may request a visit. The Act makes a refusal something the council can weigh if it later considers a school attendance order. Be clear-eyed about this one: it is a genuine tightening, because a refusal carries no consequence under the law as it stands today. But a visit is still a request, not a power of entry, and refusing is not made an offence.

The consent rule, and who it actually applies to

This is the part that gets misread most often. Section 37 of the Act inserts new section 434A into the Education Act 1996. It does not mean everyone will need permission to home educate.

Consent from the council will be needed only for a "relevant child": a child of compulsory school age, registered at a school, who either

became registered at a special school, or at an independent school specialising in special educational needs provision, through arrangements made by the local authority — special school pupils placed by the council already need consent to come off roll under the existing pupil registration rules; or
is the subject of enquiries the council is carrying out under section 47 of the Children Act 1989, or where the council has acted on a conclusion of significant harm within the previous five years.

Where it applies, the council must refuse consent only if it decides that regular attendance at school would be in the child's best interests, or that no suitable arrangements have been made for education otherwise than at school. Otherwise it must consent, and it must decide without undue delay. A refusal can be referred to the Secretary of State, and a fresh application can be made once six months have passed.

Section 434B also requires a pilot scheme of mandatory meetings with the council before withdrawal. The pilot is capped at 30% of local authorities and runs for at least two years and no more than five, after which it can be extended nationally or ended.

If your child is at a mainstream school and there are no child protection enquiries, none of this applies to you. You write to the head teacher, as now.

What has not changed

Your duty is the same one. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 still says a parent must cause a child of compulsory school age to receive efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. "Or otherwise" is still there, and it is still not defined by a checklist.

Deregistering a mainstream pupil is unchanged. It runs under regulation 9(1)(f) of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024, in force since 19 August 2024. You write to the school saying the child will no longer attend and is receiving education otherwise than at school. The school must delete the name from the admission register and send a deletion return to the local authority.

No notice period is required for a mainstream school, and no approval is needed today.

There is no national curriculum duty, no testing duty and no visit duty on home educating parents as the law stands. Councils can ask; you decide how to respond.

Wales is covered by the same Act but has a separate implementation timetable set by Welsh Ministers. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems and are not affected.

So what is worth doing now

The honest answer is: not much, and that is the point. But there are four things that cost you an hour today and save you a scramble when the regulations land.

1
Do not pre-register anything
There is no register to join and no form to file. If a letter tells you registration is now compulsory, check the date and the source before you act on it.
2
Start the record you will be asked for anyway
Section 436C already tells you the categories: who provides the education, roughly how many hours, and whether anyone else teaches your child. A one-page-per-term note is enough. Doing it as you go is far easier than reconstructing a year later.
3
Pin down your dates
Keep the date you wrote to the school, the school's confirmation that the name was deleted, and the date the council first contacted you. Almost every dispute in home education comes down to dates nobody wrote down.
4
Watch the consultation, not the rumours
The detail arrives as regulations and statutory guidance, and both are due to go out for public consultation before the duties commence. That consultation is where the thresholds and forms get decided, and home educators can respond to it.

Free, no card

The Register Readiness Pack

Everything above, turned into four things you can print, fill in and file. Built for England, dated, and updated when the regulations move.

The 15-day timeline

A day-by-day sheet you can run from the moment you write to the school, built around the 15-day notification duties the Act creates. Print it, tick it off, file it.

Evidence-of-education record template

One page per term, laid out in the same categories section 436C already names: who teaches what, roughly how many hours, and where. Fill it in as you go and you are never scrambling.

A one-page script for your local authority

What to send, in what order, in plain words. Plus the part most letters miss: what you are not obliged to provide under the law as it stands today.

The dated watch-list

Every duty in Part 2 of the Act, with its current status. When the regulations commence, the list gets updated and you get the new version by email.

The explainer on this page is free and stays free. The form emails you the pack — the timeline, the evidence template, the letter script and the watch-list, all in the email itself — plus an update when the law moves. Nothing on this page is behind it.

While you are here: the other half of the problem

Records are the easy part. The hard part is deciding what your child does on a wet Tuesday in November, week after week, without a school timetable to lean on. That is what StudyDen is for: a planned year for Years 1 to 6, 4,833 lessons built on Oak National Academy's curriculum sequence, paced so you are not writing a plan every Sunday night.

Around 126,000 children were in elective home education in England on the autumn 2025 census date, up from 111,700 a year earlier. Most of those families are planning it themselves.

See how StudyDen works

7-day free trial, cancel any time. No obligation to take the pack anywhere near it.

Sources, last checked 25 July 2026

We check this page against the legislation and the DfE consultation hub, and we date every check. If you spot something out of date, tell us at support@studyden.co.uk and we will fix it. This page is general information about published law, not legal advice about your family's situation.