Home education

If you've decided that home education is right for you and your family you'll need information and advice to help you organise your curriculum and schedule.
Read our guide to home education in England, home education in Scotland, home education in Wales and home education in Northern Ireland to find out about local requirements and the legalities of home education, then write a home education philosophy, decide how you're going to track your home-educated child's progress and investigate home education groups near you.
Find out more about home-educating siblings of different ages or a home educating a child with special educational needs and boost your confidence as a home educator with expert tips.
You can also share the first-person experiences of UK home educators who choose home education.
Key home learning skills for every year group
Feeling overwhelmed by school closures and your new home teacher status? You are not alone! We've asked our teacher contributors (who are also parents!) to highlight the key skills we should all be focusing on with each year group as we start our home schooling.
- Reception key English and maths skills for home learning
- 7 key areas for Year 1 home learning
- Year 2 English and maths: key home learning
- Year 3 maths and English learning at home
- At-home learning support for maths and English in Year 4
- Key English and maths skills in Year 5
- Year 6 maths and English key home learning topics
Struggling to see how you're going to get your own work done under these conditions? We have 11 top tips for working at home while your child is off school.
Home education planning pack
Get your home education journey off to a confident start: find out how to set up your own curriculum, how to write an educational philosophy, how to measure progress and evidence learning, how to keep a learning journal and how to use an academic diary in TheSchoolRun's Home education planning pack (available to subscribers only).
Templates and examples of documents are provided, as well as lots of information and tips from an experienced UK home educator.
Brilliant child-friendly museums for UK home educators
Bring home learning to life with a visit to one of the UK's best museums for families. Packed with opportunities to get hands-on with the exhibits, dress up, try some experiments and more, these venues come highly recommended by the most rigorous of critics: parents and children. You can also prepare for your visit by downloading the educational resources the museums provide, or joining special home-educator sessions.
- Mary Rose, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
- The Foundling Museum
- York Castle Museum
- The Geffrye Museum of the Home
- Eureka!
- Manchester Museum
- Museum of Liverpool
- Look Out Discovery Centre
- DIG, York
- World Museum, Liverpool
- York's Chocolate Story
- Discover Children's Story Centre
- Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre
- The Cartoon Museum, London
- SEA LIFE, Brighton
- W5, Belfast
- Titanic Belfast
- Warwick Castle
- Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds
- Arundel Castle, West Sussex
- The Cutty Sark, Greenwich
- National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
- Florence Nightingale Museum
- Dover Castle
- Old Operating Theatre
- Globe Theatre
- Churchill War Rooms
- Down House
- Cambridge Museum of Technology
- KidZania London
- Dickens Museum
- National Space Centre, Leicester
- Howletts Wild Animal Park, Kent
- Science Museum, London
Daily learning programme
Are you looking for daily inspiration to encourage your child’s love of learning? Do you want to develop their knowledge and skills with a structured programme of activities?
Introducing TheSchoolRun’s daily learning programme, suitable for parents of children aged 3-11 (equivalent to school years Nursery to Year 6).
Sign up for the programme and each weekday we’ll send you a bite-size email with easy-to-use ideas and resources to support your child's learning at home.
The programme runs for 6 months and is perfect for parents who have taken their children out of school for a period, those who are setting out on the home education journey or just parents who want daily activities to boost their child’s learning.
Targeted by age/school year, the programme includes a range of activities such as:
- English, maths or science worksheets to download and print.
- Interactive maths tutorials – our digital teacher will explain the method, show you examples and then give you a chance to practise what you've learned.
- Topic-themed learning packs and workbooks to explore.
- Fun activities and games you can do at home to keep your child busy