Home education in Doncaster

Covers City of Doncaster Council, England. General information, not legal advice. Checked against the council's own pages on 2 November 2026.

After you deregister

Doncaster suggests talking to the school, or to an Education Welfare Officer, before you decide, and asks you to tell it if a school pressures you to leave. When you're ready, you write to the school with your child's details, your address and the date you want them taken off the admission register. The school then notifies the Attendance & Pupil Welfare Service (APWS) (educating your child at home). The council's home education policy, reviewed in August 2025, says an email counts, provided you can show it reached the school. After that, telling the council is the school's job, not yours. Our deregistration guide has a template letter.

You need the council's consent if your child is at a special school under arrangements it made. If your child is on roll because of a school attendance order, you must ask the council to revoke the order first. From a mainstream school you don't need permission, even with an EHC plan. The policy adds that an annual EHC plan review doesn't have to include seeing your child or your home, and it can count as the yearly home education contact where you want little contact and there are no other concerns. Home education and SEND explains the plan's side of things.

A place, once given up, can't simply be taken back. You'd apply through admissions, and under what the council calls Doncaster's Local Agreement, your child returns to the school they left unless there's a good reason not to. Going back to school after home education has the general picture.

When the council gets in touch

The flowchart at the end of the policy gives the order. An introductory letter tells you the council will be in touch in two months, and comes with the EHE checklist for 2025-26. After two months a request for information follows. If officers judge the education suitable, they send a letter and the next contact is due in 12 months, sooner if an officer decides. Where a family is already open to child protection, child in need or early help, the flowchart says officers make a joint visit with the social worker or lead practitioner.

The checklist asks a lot, from your reasons (as tick boxes) and your child's attainment to a weekly breakdown of time on literacy and numeracy and your child's own view. The policy accepts other forms too: a written report, samples of work, a third party such as a tutor vouching for it, or a meeting at home or somewhere neutral. Doncaster also says it wants to hear from your child, and encourages them to come to any meeting.

On visits the policy is clear. Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 gives the council no power to enter your home, or to see your child, to monitor home education. It does say that in a very small number of cases, where there are grounds for concern such as evidence of a risk of harm or neglect, it may insist on seeing a child. You can read how a written reply usually goes in answering the council, and set the policy against what the national guidance allows.

If the council hears nothing, or decides the education isn't suitable, the flowchart says it sends a section 437 notice with a deadline of two weeks if emailed or three weeks if posted. The law sets a floor here: section 437(2) says the period can't be less than 15 days from the day the notice is served, and the policy quotes that itself. So check the dates on any notice you get. The council calls a school attendance order a last resort.

Exams

Doncaster is direct about cost: parents take on full financial responsibility, exams included. Nothing on its pages offers exam places, so you'd book a centre yourself, and the private candidate guide explains how. The policy notes that some 14 to 16 year olds attend a college part-time, and that the council should count this when it looks at the education as a whole.

Support the council lists

• The Participation and Transition Service helps 16 to 18 year olds who aren't in education, employment or training with options, apprenticeships, CVs and interviews.
• The council's child employment page.
• The library catalogue, and flyers from the School Nursing Service with its single point of contact.
• Concerns go first to the Team Manager of APWS, then to the council's complaints process.

Contacting the home education team

Email EHE@doncaster.gov.uk. The checklist also gives a phone number, 01302 736504, for Elective Home Education in the Attendance & Pupil Welfare Service.