Why do families choose home education? (Part 2)

And how those reasons change over time

Jul 01, 2024

This is part 2 of the survey analysis. For details of the survey and who participated in it, including the ages at which children began home education and the length of time they had home educated for, see this post.

Questions asked

A key aim of the survey was to capture the reasons parents had for home educating their children, and whether these reasons changed over time. In order to aid comparisons, the survey gave a forced choice of a primary reason, chosen to match the list of reasons collected in the DfE data. Later survey questions included free text and a wider range of positive and negative considerations to expand on these reasons. Many respondents indicated that the set of reasons chosen for the DfE data didn’t adequately capture the complexity of the decision making process.

The key questions we'll look at it in this post are these two:

What was your main reason for beginning to home educate?

What is your main reason for continuing to home educate?

Both had the following answer text:

(These options have been chosen to match the DfE data - there will be the opportunity to expand in other questions.) Choose only one.

Philosophical reasons - including an overall preference for home education
Lifestyle reasons - such as wanting to fit travel patterns or family time around work shifts.
Religious reasons
Physical health issues
Mental health issues
Covid risk
School told me I should home educate (off-rolling)
Bullying at school
School was not meeting SEND (ALN/ASN) needs
Another issue with a particular school
Child was permanently excluded
Child was at risk of being excluded
Waiting for a place at a preferred school/could not get preferred school
No suitable school places available
Another reason

These responses were then cross referenced with other answers such as the age of the child when home education began, and the length of time the child had been home educated for.

Reasons for home educating now

Across all respondents, these were the reasons given for home educating their child now.

The most common reason given was a philosophical preference for home education, followed by SEND and mental health concerns (which together slightly outweigh the philosophical and lifestyle reasons). A significant proportion of respondents also chose 'Other' as they felt none of the reasons given represented their situation.

For comparison, this is the DfE data showing reasons given for home educating from Summer 23.

Note that here, the majority of reasons are either 'unknown' or 'no reason given'. However, where reasons are given, while philosophical reasons are still the greatest single reason stated, there is also a higher count for 'lifestyle' than in the survey (which may simply be a difference in categorisation). 'Other' still rates highly, as does mental health.

The key difference is that SEND is rated far lower in the DfE data than in my survey, and general school dissatisfaction is higher. Bullying is also rated higher in the DfE data than in my survey.

There are several points to note in comparing these data sets.

It is not clear in the DfE guidance whether this is reasons given for home educating now, or reasons given for home educating when home education began (my survey suggests that these may be different).
Some of the categories may be open to interpretation, particularly where reasons are a combination of factors.
These reasons are as recorded by the LA, which may differ from reasons that would be selected by parents.
As mentioned in the Study participants breakdown, the survey responses may underrepresent children who are currently of KS4 age. My survey suggests that reasons given tend to correlate with age at deregistration.
There may be groups with specific characteristics that tend towards different networks of support and therefore are underrepresented within my survey but do appear in the DfE data.
Local Authorities (who have contributed the data for the DfE census) receive notifications when children move from a school or LA provided provision to home education, when concerns are raised about the education of a child, or when parents choose to notify them. They may not have records of families who have home educated, with no need for LA based support, from the outset; however some of the survey responses do come from these families and may include a different pattern of reasons.

Change in reasons over time

The survey asked for reasons when home education began, and reasons now. This shows the overall change over time, for respondents who had been home educating for at least a year.

This shows a significant number of families who initially chose to home educate for reasons related to the school experience, such as concerns around SEND and mental health, who now indicate a general preference for home education.

Reasons for home educating by age when home education began

Looking at the reasons given for home educating, both initially and currently, split into key stage age groups at the point home education began, we can see some distinct patterns.

KS1 or earlier

Early starts to home education seem primarily driven by philosophical reasons - that is, parents simply believe home education offers a generally better experience for their child than school attendance would - and this increases over time. There is also a notable number of reasons given as SEND, and 'other'.

KS2

A move to home education in key stage 2 seems primarily driven by SEND, with a far smaller philosophical element (although this grows over time). Mental health and 'other' are also notable factors.

KS3

Moves to home education in KS3 are still significantly driven by SEND, but even more so by mental health; and very few deregistrations at this stage are due to philosophical reasons. Philosophical reasons still grow over time, but mental health and SEND remain the most significant reasons.

KS4

Similar to KS3, mental health, then SEND, are the key drivers and remain so over time, with a small growth in philosophical reasons.

Note - there were fewer survey responses relating to children who began home educating during KS4 (72) than other age groups.

Changes in reasons for home educating by length of EHE

Similar differences appear when grouping responses by the length of home education.

Less than 6 weeks

Less than 1 year

Over 1 year

Over 5 years

Again, we can see that more recent deregistrations are driven by SEND and mental health needs, while longer term home education is more likely to be driven by philosophical reasons, both initially and now.

Next: we'll look at how often beginning to home educate feels like an 'elective' choice, including whether families feel under pressure to make the choice; and how happy they are with that choice now.