Rising number of pupils home educated

Over the past six years, there has been a 65 per cent increase in children recorded as home educated.

Reasons behind the increase were cited as lifestyle choices, dissatisfaction or disagreements with local schools, special needs, bullying and religion.

Responses to Freedom of Information requests from 190 local authorities found 36,609 children were educated at home. Currently, there is no legal obligation for parents to send their children to school, although they must provide a ‘suitable education’ at home.

The government has maintained it will continue to ‘respect the rights of parents to home educate their children’.

Data shows an increase of at least 10,398 pupils, up to almost 37,000 in a school population of about 9.5 million pupils. It is also expected that this figure may be underestimated as the figures represent parents who have withdrawn their child from schools, however children who never attend school may not be reflected in the statistics.

Among 190 councils which held figures for 2014-15, 178 retained data for the past three years, which showed a 26 per cent increase.

While parents do not have to issue a reason for withdrawing their child from school, 13.4 per cent of those that did provide one cited philosophy or lifestyle behind wanting a home education for their child.

Others claimed a dissatisfaction with the local school or a conflict, accounting for 9.3 per cent of families. In Hertfordshire 240 out of a total of 724 parents gave this as their motivation.

Cultural or religious reasons are cited in 6.2 per cent of cases, with bullying at 4.8 per cent and special needs or medical problems at 4.3 per cent.