Where a child has been attending a local authority school, before starting to provide home education, a parent must apply to the local authority for consent to withdraw their child from school. The local authority must not withhold that consent unreasonably.
When a parent requests to remove their child from the school role to provide home education, they are asked to share their plans on how they will provide an efficient and suitable education for their child. This can be done in writing by completing the Initial Education Proposal Form or it can be done verbally in a meeting with the Education Additional Support Officer (EASO). The Local Authority may ask for more information from the parents if the plan is not felt to be efficient and suitable.
Parents do not have to give a reason for choosing to home educate when requesting to withdraw their child from school. In Perth and Kinross the Initial Education Proposal Form does have a section for reasons, but you are not obliged to give any. It can be helpful for the local authority to know if the reasons are dissatisfaction with the school or problems such as bullying so that these can be addressed even if your child becomes home educated. Any reason given will have no bearing on whether consent is given. The local authority's interest is in how the parents intend to meet their child's learning and wellbeing needs.
In addition to finding out about the parent's home education plan, the local authority has a responsibility to gather information from our its own education records and those of other services and agencies to identify if there is any reason to why consent should be refused. Consent may not be able to be granted immediately in some situations, including where a child is subject to a compulsory supervision order, is on the child protection register or referred to social work or the police for child protection reasons and this is under investigation.
Any information or gap in information which may lead to a delay in a decision on whether to consent to a child being withdrawn from school will be discussed with the parent in the first instance.
Whilst your request is being considered, your child must continue to attend school.
Perth and Kinross Council try to ensure that decisions are made within 6 weeks of receipt of all relevant information. Occasionally decisions will take longer.
View the Scottish Government Home education - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) guidance.
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