Home education centre vs unregistered school: registration law

This essay sets out the statutory boundary between a home-education support setting and an unregistered school, the legal label for an institution operating without registration. It cites the relevant statutes and thresholds. This is information, not legal advice. For advice about your family or setting, speak to a solicitor with home-education experience.

What does the law regulate?

English education law defines an independent educational institution, a setting that meets the statutory registration conditions. A setting within that definition must be registered and inspected under the Independent School Standards, the statutory standards for registered independent settings. The relevant provision is Section 96 of the Education and Skills Act 2008. It sets out the conditions in subsection (1). The Department for Education's Independent educational institutions: registration guidance is the working reference used by Ofsted's team investigating unregistered settings.

A setting that meets those conditions but operates without registration is an unregistered independent institution and is operating unlawfully. A setting outside the definition may instead be a tutor, a co-op or a madrasah, an Islamic setting for religious learning.

What are the three statutory triggers?

All three conditions must apply before a setting must register.

First, it provides full-time education, meaning education that forms a child's main provision. The Act gives no number for "full-time". The working figure in the Department for Education's operational guidance is eighteen hours a week or more. We examine it in what 18 hours means.

Second, it provides that education to five or more children of compulsory school age, the statutory age range when education is required. In England, this runs from the term after a child's fifth birthday until the last Friday in June of the academic year in which she turns sixteen.

Third, the children are not on the roll of a state-funded setting. Provision for home-educated children therefore draws the team's attention where supplementary provision for children on a state roll does not.

All three conditions must apply before the registration duty arises. For a support setting to operate lawfully without registration, at least one must not apply.

Where does the 18-hour figure come from?

The eighteen-hour figure comes from guidance, not statute. The regulator looks at what happens in practice, not only at what a website says. A setting that publishes fifteen hours but keeps children on site for nineteen will be assessed on the nineteen. Published hours and actual attendance must agree.

What is the EHCP trigger, and why does it change the arithmetic?

If a child attending the setting has an Education, Health and Care Plan, a statutory plan for a child's additional needs, the five-child threshold changes. One child with an EHCP who is of compulsory age can place the setting within the regime even if fewer than five children attend. This is because the EHCP framework places a higher statutory duty on the institution delivering the plan.

For this reason, Alamiyah Home Education Centre does not accept children with EHCPs. Families whose children have EHCPs need a properly registered setting, and we direct them to settings with that registration. See the your legal position page.

How does Alamiyah Home Education Centre operate?

At Marlborough Road, the centre limits each child's attendance to less than the DfE threshold. This forms part of our broader approach to child-led education.

Each child may attend for no more than sixteen hours a week: four sessions of four hours, on Monday to Thursday mornings and ending before lunch. Friday is not a session day. We publish this ceiling and audit it against our attendance register. It sits two hours below the eighteen-hour guidance threshold. Members are aged seven to eleven and are within compulsory school age. Alamiyah Home Education Centre does not accept children with EHCPs.

The legal duty remains with the parent. Under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, the parent of every child of compulsory age must cause the child to receive efficient full-time education suitable to her age, ability and aptitude, "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise". Member families use the "otherwise" route, meaning education the family arranges themselves. The centre provides sixteen hours of support; the rest of the week and the legal duty remain with the parent. See Section 7 explained.

Why does the way we describe ourselves matter?

Regulators may read public descriptions as evidence of a setting's purpose. A setting that describes itself in the language of a school, with pupils, classes, lessons, a delivered curriculum and a headteacher, presents itself as falling on the regulated side of the line. We therefore use members, not pupils; sessions, not lessons; guide, not headteacher; and Montessori-informed support, not curriculum delivery.

What about settings that have been investigated?

Ofsted has investigated unregistered provision in some Islamic settings. That history has informed the centre's design. The investigations have most often concerned settings whose actual hours, age range or role as a child's sole provision brought them within the statutory definition of an institution. We do not name individual settings. We have read the relevant law, taken legal advice and structured the centre to remain below the threshold by a clear margin.

What is the difference between a support setting and an unregistered school?

A support setting helps a parent meet a duty that remains with the parent. An unregistered independent institution has assumed a duty that, under the statute, can lawfully be assumed only with registration.

A note on this page

This page provides information, not legal advice. The primary statutes and the Department for Education's guidance are linked above. The legal position of a family or setting depends on its circumstances. For advice, consult a solicitor with home-education experience. We keep this page current and dated.