L-03-W · Legal
Legal Compass
Wales
The Welsh home-education legal framework without the jargon — Section 7, deregistration, local authority enquiries, School Attendance Orders, and ALN and IDP considerations. What the law actually says.
16 min read
Wales
Updated August 2026
Legal
Section 7. This is where everything begins.
Wales shares the same starting point as England: Section 7 of the Education Act 1996. But Wales now has its own home-education reality around that starting point — Welsh guidance, Welsh terminology, the ALN system, Estyn, and a stronger emphasis on…
The rest of this guide
With an account you get every remaining section, in full — the same headings you see here, written through to the end.
- 02What “suitable” actually means
- 03Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026
- 04Deregistration · How to legally leave school
- 05LA enquiries · What local authorities can and cannot do
- 06How to respond
- 07School Attendance Orders · What an SAO is and when it happens
- 08ALN, IDPs & Special Schools · The specific picture for ALN families
- 09Where to go from here.
