General information about Northern Ireland, not legal advice. England's law is different, and changing, so advice written for England may not fit here. Check the legislation.gov.uk, nidirect and EA pages linked below before you act.
Three documents do most of the work
The duty is yours as the parent. Article 45 of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 says the parent of every child of compulsory school age "shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise." Home education is the "otherwise". Compulsory school age normally runs from four to 16, nidirect says.
Leaving school comes under the Registration and Attendance of Pupils Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1974. The EA sets out its approach in Guidelines for Elective Home Education, dated November 2020 and written with Home Education Northern Ireland, the Children's Law Centre, the Safeguarding Board for NI and the Department of Education. They're guidance, not law. Nothing in them asks you to follow the Northern Ireland Curriculum, keep to school hours or hold a teaching qualification. Nor is there any funding for home-educating families (nidirect).
Taking your child out of school
The law itself asks for little. Under regulation 6(1) of the 1974 regulations, a parent mustn't withdraw a child "except after acquainting the principal" with the intention to do so. The EA's guidelines ask for a signed letter giving the date home education starts. Without one, your child stays on the register and each missed day is marked as unauthorised absence. Once the school has been formally told, it "cannot legally prevent or delay de-registration", the guidelines say.
What the school has to do
The Department of Education's attendance circular 2026/15, issued on 20 August 2026, sets out the school's side:
- your child comes off the register from the day of their last attendance;
- the school completes an SA1 form, keeps the original, sends you a copy and emails one to the EA's home education team;
- it should talk through what home education means, including any effect on exam options (you can hear it out and still go ahead);
- it must tell you that re-registering at the same school later may not be possible, and give you a copy of the EA guidelines.
Special schools and attendance orders
England requires council consent to leave a special school. We found no such rule in Northern Ireland. The EA's guidelines say you can home educate a child with special educational needs, with or without a statement and whether or not they attended a special school, and deregistration works the same way as for any other child. Nidirect does say you'll need to let the EA know if you remove your child from a special school, so write to the EA as well as the principal.
Where a school attendance order is in force, ask the EA to revoke it on the grounds that you've arranged suitable education at home. It must agree unless it thinks no satisfactory arrangements have been made. If it refuses, you can refer the question to the Department of Education (Schedule 13, paragraph 2).
How the EA gets involved
When a school's SA1 form arrives, the EA's home education team writes to you with the guidelines and details of any support. After that it contacts families once a year with updates. For a child who has never been to school, the law doesn't require you to contact the EA. It invites you to anyway.
The EA can make informal enquiries to check a suitable education is being provided (nidirect). Under the guidelines, a concern raised with the EA leads to three steps:
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Exploring a concern | The EA writes to ask about the education. Any time limit is normally 14 days |
| 2. If you don't respond | It keeps trying to make contact. Refusing all contact can lead it to consider formal action |
| 3. The statutory process | A written report of its concerns, then possibly a school attendance notice and a school attendance order |
The guidelines say you aren't legally required to answer an informal request, but that it would be sensible to. Information "can be provided in any format that the family prefers", from a parent's report and samples of work to projects and diaries. They don't require a home visit either; nidirect lists meeting an officer at home as one option among several. Dating work through the year makes that reply quicker to write (see home education records).
Once a family has shown the education is suitable, contact becomes yearly. The source is regulation 14 of the 1974 regulations: a parent who has satisfied the authority continues to do so at intervals of not less than twelve months.
The formal steps
The first formal step is a written notice giving you at least fourteen days, from the day it's served, to satisfy the EA that your child is receiving suitable education. If it appears to the EA that you're not meeting your Article 45 duty, it must serve one. This is Northern Ireland's version of England's section 437, set out in Schedule 13 to the 1986 Order.
If you don't satisfy it, and the EA considers that your child should be in school, it must serve a school attendance order. You do get a say in the school. The EA first tells you which one it intends to name and any alternatives, and you have fourteen days to choose one or apply elsewhere. For a child with a statement, the order names the school in the statement.
Statements of special educational needs
If your child has a statement, home education doesn't end it, and the EA must still arrange the special educational provision in the statement unless you've made suitable arrangements yourself (Article 16(5) of the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996). Northern Ireland still uses statements; England's system is different, and home education and SEND covers it.
Contact your statementing officer: the guidelines ask you to, and they expect a yearly review. A mix of your provision and the EA's may suit some children, they suggest, and the EA may stop maintaining the statement once your child's needs are met without its help. You can also ask for a statutory assessment while home educating, and it's handled like any other request (guidelines, part 6.4).
Northern Ireland's newer SEN law is still waiting. Much of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 isn't in force, because it depends on new regulations. Their implementation was planned for 1 September 2026, but the Education Minister said on 26 June 2026 that it's now expected to be delayed until September 2027.
Exams and CCEA
CCEA is Northern Ireland's own awarding body, though GCSEs from AQA, OCR, Pearson and Eduqas are available here too. Its External Candidates Booklet for 2026–27 says only a JCQ-approved centre can enter you, and you pay the fees and any admin charge to the centre. The booklet lists centres that take external candidates, with their conditions. CCEA won't mark an external candidate's coursework, so it counts only if your centre marks and verifies it. The entry deadline for the May/June 2027 GCSE series is 21 February 2027, so contact centres well before.
English Language can be the hardest to arrange. Department of Education policy is that schools offer a GCSE in which speaking and listening counts towards the grade, and CCEA Regulation says only CCEA's does. The EA's guidelines warn this can make it hard to find a centre that will enter an independent candidate. For the rest of the planning, see GCSEs as a private candidate; it's written for England, but most of it applies.
England's register, and a plan for 16 to 18
As of 24 October 2026, little here is changing.
England's Children Not in School register won't reach Northern Ireland: the parts of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 that create it extend to England and Wales only. We found no proposal for a register here either.
What has moved is a plan for older teenagers. The Department's 2025 consultation on 16 to 18 legislation proposed that choosing home education for the first time at 16 or 17 shouldn't meet a new duty to stay in education or training. In written answers in March 2026, the Minister listed home education among the ways to meet that duty, and said adding substantive provisions on home education to the Bill wouldn't be appropriate at this time. When we checked, no such Bill was on the Assembly's list of current Bills.
Where England differs
| Question | Northern Ireland | England |
|---|---|---|
| Leaving a special school | No consent rule found; tell the EA | Council consent needed |
| Time to answer a formal notice | At least 14 days | At least 15 days |
| A register of children not in school | None proposed | Passed in 2026, not yet in force |
If you live in England, read deregistering from school in England instead. In Northern Ireland, the EA's home education team is on ehe@eani.org.uk or 028 9031 7428.