Schools and education

Bishop Arden project update: Due to projections showing the need for secondary school places in Hillingdon continuing to fall, plans for Bishop Arden Free School have been withdrawn and the new free school that was previously proposed will not be built.

Elective home education

Every parent has a right to home educate their school-age child(ren), including those with special educational needs. This means that, rather than attending school, parents take full responsibility for providing education to their child(ren) outside the school environment, which could be at home or elsewhere.

In this section


Mum helping child with homework
What's the difference between elective home education and home-schooling?

During the period when schools were closed to all but vulnerable children and children of key workers, most pupils were educated at home. This is known as home-schooling. While being home-schooled, children remained on their school roll and received a combination of support from schools and online learning resources. 

Elective Home Education (EHE) is when a parent chooses not to send their child to school full-time but assumes responsibility for making sure their child receives a full-time education other than at school.


Is elective home education right for my child?

By law, the responsibility for a child's education rests with his or her parents and when a child attends school he or she could expect to receive between 22 and 25 hours of tuition per week for 38 weeks per year. 

Parents should give serious consideration to a decision to provide elective home education as it is a large undertaking. We can provide advice for parents considering or undertaking elective home education; however, we cannot provide financial assistance, a curriculum, a venue or tutors.

Guidance on making an informed decision about elective home education (PDF) [190KB]


Who should I notify about EHE?

  • If your child is currently in school and you want to begin elective home education, you must write to the school informing them that you wish to remove your child from the school roll, as you will be taking responsibility for providing education at home. You need to do this so that the school can legally remove your child from the register. 
  • If your child is not currently in school, you do not need to notify anyone of your intention to electively home educate but can notify us - we can provide you with relevant advice and support.
  • If you have a child with an Education, Health and Care Plan and they are attending a special school under arrangements made by us, additional permission is required from the SEN team before the child's name can be removed from the register. This is so we can ensure your child's needs continue to be met and reviewed on an annual basis.

We strongly recommend that you also tell your GP, and any health services you use, that your child is being educated at home, so that your child can continue to get the health checks and immunisations that they would have received through school.


How we can support you 

Where we are aware of home-educated children within Hillingdon, we will:

  • provide parents/guardians with information specific to the age of the child - this might include details of exam centres
  • aim to contact parents/guardians on an annual basis to provide the latest EHE information.

If you are educating your child at home and you think your child may have special educational needs, you can request a statutory assessment for an Education, Health and Care Plan through us.

If you'd like to be updated on local services and activities that may be useful for your education planning, sign up to our EHE newsletter, which we aim to send out on a termly basis.

Sign up for our EHE newsletter

If you are struggling to access any local services as a result of your child being home educated, please email us at ehe@hillingdon.gov.uk.

Please note: While we encourage parents to maintain a dialogue with us, there is no requirement to do so.


Let us know what you think

Home education is becoming a popular choice for some parents across the country. We recognise your right to home educate your child using a broad range of approaches or philosophies that may or may not look like formal schooling. At Hillingdon Council, we want to make sure that your views are listened to so we can understand how best to support you. We also want to help EHE families learn from each other as much as possible, so we have prepared a short survey to help achieve that. 

We have created the survey in two parts, one for parents and one for your young people. While completion of the survey is voluntary, we encourage you to send it to us and allow your children to do so too. We will use the findings to help share good practice between families who are choosing to provide home education. Any personal information you provide will be kept strictly confidential. Your responses will be completely anonymous, unless you choose to provide your contact details. 


GCSE exams

If you have chosen to home educate your child(ren), you assume responsibility for the cost of any exams you would like them to sit.

If you would like your child to sit their GCSE examinations, visit the The Skills Hub website for information about available courses and timings.


Is efficient and suitable education being provided?

If there is doubt on whether an efficient and suitable education is being provided, we will gather relevant information, including information from the parents/guardians about how they intend to provide a suitable education for their child(ren).

This will help us reach a properly-informed judgement and, where appropriate, the parents/guardians will be given the opportunity to address any specific concerns that we have raised.


Useful websites

Page last updated: 20 Jul 2023