If you are known to be home educating or planning to home educate, you can expect the education department of your local authority to send you a copy of its ‘information/guidelines for parents’. Any information you receive from your council should broadly reflect the content of the statutory guidance for education authorities which was issued by the Scottish Government in January 2008. Authorities are expected to have regard to this guidance and you are strongly advised to familiarise yourself with its content so that you can satisfy yourself that all the information you receive from your council is both accurate and up to date.

Local authorities will often suggest a home visit or meeting (probably with one or two officers from their Educational Advisory Service or equivalent) in order to discuss your intention to home educate and establish that you are serious about your decision and committed to your child’s education. You are not, however, obliged to agree to such a visit or meeting and may opt to provide evidence of your education provision by other means, e.g. a written report. The authority may also ask you for your reasons for wishing to home educate and your qualifications, none of which you are obliged to give as home education, like schooling, is an equal legal choice which requires neither explanation nor justification and you need no formal qualifications to educate your own child.

Local authority officers will usually enquire about any plans for integration into school and/or future exams (which young people are not obliged to take at conventional times, or ever); they will routinely enquire about ‘social’ opportunities (failing to realise that home educated children have far more such opportunities in the ‘real world’ than their peer-restricted, and arguably socially excluded, schooled counterparts); and they will possibly seek assurances that the child has access to a suitable place for quiet study (just like at school?!).