How to Home Educate for Free in the UK

The law in England, in brief

In England, education is compulsory — school is not. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 places the duty on parents: your child must receive an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs they may have, "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise". Home education is the "or otherwise".

You do not need permission to home educate, you do not need to be a qualified teacher, and you do not need to follow the National Curriculum, set school hours, or give formal lessons. If your child has never been enrolled at a school, you simply carry on. If they are currently at a mainstream school, you write to the head teacher asking for your child's name to be removed from the admissions register; the school must then do so and inform the local authority. The one exception is a special school your child attends under local authority arrangements — there you need the local authority's consent before deregistering.

Your local authority may make informal enquiries to check that a suitable education is happening. You are not required to follow any particular format in response, but it is sensible to reply. A written summary of your approach, supported by concrete examples of what your child does and learns, can help explain the provision clearly. If an authority concludes that a suitable education is not being provided and the situation is not resolved, it can begin the school attendance order process. Read the current Department for Education guidance for parents before making a decision.

This section describes England. Procedures differ elsewhere in the UK. Use the current official guidance for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland rather than assuming the English process applies.

What "free" actually covers

The honest answer to "can I home educate for free?" is: the teaching materials, yes, almost entirely. Here is what costs nothing:

• BBC Bitesize — short explanations, videos and quizzes across every subject and key stage, written for exactly the ages they say they are for.
• Oak National Academy — a publicly funded body offering complete lesson sequences with videos, slides and quizzes, planned in teaching order. You can follow a whole unit from start to finish for free.
• Your public library — free membership, free books, and in most areas free or cheap access to online resources, study space and low-cost printing. Librarians are also quietly excellent at finding age-appropriate material.
• National museums and galleries — free entry in the UK, and many run free family sessions and downloadable activity ideas.
• TheLearnDen's own topic pages — for every topic in Maths, English and Science from Year 1 to GCSE, we list resources we have opened and checked for relevance and year-group fit, prioritising free videos and open materials. We also include clearly labelled account or subscription resources when they add a useful teaching or practice lens.

BBC Bitesize and Oak are open to use without buying a curriculum. Libraries and museums vary locally. TheLearnDen labels any external account or subscription requirement before you open a resource, so you can choose a free option first.

A year-by-year starting point

You do not have to follow the National Curriculum — but it is a free, well-organised map of what children of each age are typically taught, and borrowing its structure costs nothing. Each year hub below lists every Maths, English and Science topic for that year, with checked resources and clear access labels:

• Year 1 — first steps: counting and place value, phonics and simple sentences, everyday science like naming plants and animals.
• Year 2 — securing number bonds, reading fluency and joined-up writing habits, materials and living things.
• Year 3 — times tables begin in earnest, paragraphs and grammar names appear, plants, rocks and light.
• Year 4 — all times tables to 12×12, fractions and decimals, states of matter, sound and electricity.
• Year 5 — bigger numbers and long multiplication, more demanding reading and writing, Earth and space, forces.
• Year 6 — the primary curriculum comes together: ratio, algebra basics, evolution, circulation — the SATs year in schools.
• Year 7 — the move to secondary-style subjects: algebraic thinking, analytical reading, cells and particles.
• Year 8 — building depth: equations and graphs, comparing texts, chemical reactions and energy.
• Year 9 — the bridge to GCSE: sequences and probability, essay skills, atomic structure and motion.
• Year 10 / GCSE — GCSE content proper, organised by topic so you can work through it systematically.

A sensible way in: pick your child's year, pick one subject, open the first topic that looks shaky, and try one resource together. You will learn more about how your child likes to learn from one afternoon of that than from a week of planning.

Home educating on a low income

Being straight about money matters more in home education than almost anywhere else, because most advice online quietly assumes you can spend your way out of problems. So, plainly:

Parents who choose home education in England normally take financial responsibility for it, including learning materials and public examinations. Some local authorities offer limited or discretionary support, so it is worth asking yours directly. Benefits rules depend on the child's age and your circumstances; check GOV.UK or an accredited benefits adviser rather than relying on a forum.

The costs that are hard to avoid are worth planning for early. The big one is exams: if your child sits GCSEs, they enter as a private candidate at an exam centre, and each centre sets its own fees and deadlines. Use the Joint Council for Qualifications private-candidate search and contact several centres well before Year 10. The small costs are everyday things such as printing, paper, library travel and the occasional second-hand textbook.

The corresponding good news is that structure is free. A library card, a printed topic checklist, free lessons in teaching order, and a regular rhythm to the week cover most of what a paid curriculum sells. Charity shops and home education groups are good sources of cheap books, and other local home educators are usually generous with what worked for them.

Keeping track without buying a planner

The question that nags most new home educators is "how do I know we're covering enough?". You do not need software or a paid planner for that. We publish a printable checklist for every year group and subject — every topic for that year, with a tick box, and each topic linked to checked resources with access requirements shown clearly. Print the ones for your child's year, put them somewhere visible, and tick topics off as you go.

Ticking a box is not the point in itself — the point is that three months in, when you wobble at 11pm and wonder whether you are doing enough, you can look at a piece of paper covered in ticks instead of guessing. If your child is working above or below their school year in a subject, print that year's list instead; the checklists are a map, not a test.