We’ve been home educating for ten years. In the early years, I kept everything, saved every piece of work, just in case. Eventually, I found a simpler approach: a single ‘Evidence of Education’ report, updated periodically, that I could share with the local authority if needed. Given that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is likely to require something similar from all home educating families going forward, I’m sharing an example document and a draft you can use yourselves below.
Do I Need to Keep Records of Our Home Education?
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is in its final parliamentary stages as of April 2026, with Royal Assent expected shortly. When it passes, it will introduce compulsory registration of home-educated children with local authorities. Some families — those classed as “relevant children” — will need consent before deregistering from school. Local authorities will have new powers to request information and, in some cases, home visits. The exact details won’t be confirmed until secondary legislation follows Royal Assent, but the direction is clear: the expectation of documentation is coming, even if it isn’t here yet.
Starting the habit now, before it’s required, is considerably easier than reconstructing a year’s worth of learning from memory when someone asks.
There’s also a more immediate reason that has nothing to do with legislation. In those first months of home education, when you’re still finding your feet and the days feel shapeless and you’re genuinely not sure whether what you’re doing counts, having a record of it can be the difference between confidence and a spiral. Looking back at what a term actually contained — the books read, the projects finished, the skills developed — does something useful for your parent-teacher brain. It makes the invisible visible. And in home education, a lot of the best learning is invisible.
What good documentation actually looks like
It doesn’t need to be elaborate. What a local authority is looking for, if they ask, is evidence that your child is receiving an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude. That’s the Section 7 language (the Education Act 1996), and it sounds more intimidating than it is. In practice it means: show us that learning is happening, that it’s appropriate for this child, and that you’re paying attention to progress being made.
An annual report is one of the clearest ways to do that. Not a daily log — that’s a different tool for a different purpose — but a once-a-year document that covers your educational approach, the subjects and areas you’ve worked on, what progress looks like, and what evidence exists. Written, signed, dated. Something you could hand over if asked.
The downloadable Education Evidence Report below is a structured template built around exactly that. It follows the shape of what a local authority would reasonably want to see: family details, your approach, subjects covered with approximate weekly time, progress notes, learning environment, any SEN provision, plans for the coming year, and a checklist of what evidence you hold. There’s a completed example — a fictional family, filled in completely — so you can see what it looks like finished before you fill in a blank.
It takes an afternoon to complete properly. Most families would do it once a year, at the end of the academic year or whenever a natural pause arrives.
A note on the Bill
If you’ve just deregistered, or you’re in the process of it, the Bill is worth understanding. The requirements it introduces won’t come into force immediately after Royal Assent — secondary legislation and statutory guidance need to follow, and the earliest these measures are likely to apply is late 2026. But the registration requirement is coming, and with it a reasonable expectation that you’ll be able to describe what your child’s education looks like.
Getting into the habit of annual documentation now means that when registration arrives, you’re not starting from scratch. You have a record. You know what you’ve been doing and you can say so clearly.
(The deregistration process itself, including what to send to the school and what your local authority may contact you about, is covered in this Deregistration post.)
