Homeschooling in Wales:

Homeschooling in Wales is growing

Across Europe, more and more families are choosing to educate their children from home — for the flexibility, for travel, for wellbeing, or simply because it fits their child better than a traditional classroom.

In Wales, educating your child from home — known locally as Elective Home Education (EHE) / Addysg Ddewisol yn y Cartref — comes with its own rules, which we walk through below. Increasingly, families meet them by enrolling in an accredited online school, so their child still gets live teaching, structure, and real friendships.

If you’re exploring your options, here’s what you need to know — and how bina can help if you’d rather not figure it all out on your own.

Is schooling from home legal in Wales?

Yes. In Wales, education is compulsory but attending a school is not. Under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, parents must ensure their child receives an "efficient, full-time education suitable to age, ability, aptitude and any additional learning needs" — at school or otherwise. Choosing to educate at home is known as Elective Home Education (EHE), and you do not need anyone's permission to do it.

If your child is already enrolled at a maintained (state) school, you simply notify the school in writing that you are withdrawing them to educate otherwise than at school. The school then removes them from the register and informs the local authority. The one exception is a child registered at a special school, where the local authority must consent before the child can be removed. If your child has never attended school, there is no requirement to register them with one in the first place.

Local authorities have a duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education and may make informal enquiries — often inviting you to share information about once a year, which you can do on your own terms. Looking ahead: the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April 2026 (the Senedd consented to applying its "Children Not in School" provisions to Wales in March 2026). These will eventually require parents to register home-educated children with their local authority, but the duty is not yet in force — it awaits Welsh secondary legislation, consultation and guidance, expected from 2027 at the earliest. So today there is still no mandatory register to join.

What are the steps to school from home in Wales?

1. Confirm your child is of compulsory school age — Compulsory school age in Wales runs from age 5 to 16 (it begins the term after a child turns 5). Children aged 4, or 16 and over, sit outside the legal duty, though families often still want structured schooling for them.
2. Notify the school in writing (to deregister) — If your child attends a maintained school, send a brief written notice that you are withdrawing them to educate otherwise than at school. The school removes them and informs the local authority. For a special school, the local authority must give consent first.
3. Enrol in a recognised online school like bina — Rather than building everything yourself, enrol your child in an accredited online school. bina provides live teachers, a full curriculum, and structure — a clean way to deliver the "efficient, full-time, suitable education" the law expects, all from home.
4. Keep simple records of the education provided — Hold on to a light record of what your child is learning, work samples, and reports. If the local authority makes enquiries, an online-school timetable, attendance, and progress reports make it easy to show suitable education is in place.
5. Respond to local authority enquiries on your terms — The local authority may invite you to share information about your child's education, usually annually. You can reply in writing, by report, or by meeting — engaging cooperatively keeps the process straightforward.

An accredited online school like bina makes much of this simpler: we provide the curriculum, the live teaching, and the progress records your authority may ask to see — so you can focus on being the parent.