Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government how elective home education students can access exam centres as external candidates.

Parents who choose to educate at home assume full responsibility for the education of their child, including financial responsibility, as a state school place (or state-funded place) is available.

Home educators are not required to follow the national curriculum but if they choose to, local authorities can be a source of information and advice for parents.

As part of the children not in school measures within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the department is introducing the first ever duty on local authorities to provide support for home educating families, in the form of advice and information. This will include signposting to high-quality, reputable educational materials, such as those offered by the Oak National Academy.

Government does not provide funding to local authorities for the specific purpose of assisting home educating families accessing examinations. Local authorities do have discretion to provide such financial assistance from within their existing budgets, and we are aware that some do so.

To sit an exam as a private candidate, students need to find an exam centre to enter them for all aspects of their chosen subject or subjects, including any assessments.

The department is committed to supporting home educated students to access exams and as such have worked with the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) to better support home educating families. This includes a search function on JCQ’s website, which enables students to locate the nearest centre available to sit their GCSE, AS or A level exams.