The Compliance Portfolio
Records, without the dread.
What UK home-education law actually requires, what counts as suitable evidence, and how to build a portfolio as you go — without turning your home into an admin office.
Less than most parents think
The anxiety around compliance in home education is almost always disproportionate to what the law actually requires. Most families who dread the local authority letter are worrying about something they are already doing.
Here is the legal framework in plain English.
Section 7 · Education Act 1996
What the law actually says
Parents must ensure their child receives efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude, and any special educational needs — either at school or otherwise.
That is it. No curriculum. No timetable. No specified hours. No prescribed format for evidence. The law requires suitable education, not school-shaped education.
What "suitable" means in practice is interpreted differently by different local authorities. But the baseline is clear: learning that is appropriate for your child, broad enough to support their development, and consistent enough to be described as full-time. There is no legal requirement to follow the National Curriculum, teach in set hours, or produce a specific type of evidence.
📌 The Wellbeing Act (2026)
The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 introduces a compulsory registration scheme for home-educated children. This does not change what Section 7 requires — the standard of "suitable education" remains the same. See the Wellbeing Act guide (F-03) for what the new registration requirements mean in practice.
What a local authority can and cannot do
✓ The LA can
- Ask you informally whether your child is receiving suitable education
- Request information about what your child is learning
- Issue a School Attendance Order if genuinely concerned
- Ask to meet with you (you are not legally required to agree)
✗ The LA cannot
- Insist on a home visit as a condition of being satisfied
- Require you to follow the National Curriculum
- Demand to see your child or assess them directly
- Require you to produce evidence in any specific format
- Presume education is unsuitable without evidence
"The LA's job is to satisfy itself that education is suitable — not to inspect, assess, or approve your approach. Those are meaningfully different things."
Evidence that actually works
There is no prescribed format for compliance evidence in England. What matters is that you can describe — in some form — what your child is learning and why it is suitable for them. Almost anything that captures learning counts.
Project writeups
A child's account of what they did and learned. Cross-curricular, personal, and hard to dismiss. One well-written writeup covers multiple curriculum areas simultaneously.
Photographs
A photo of a child at a working farm, a water treatment facility, or a forest school session. Visual evidence of learning in context is some of the most compelling you can produce.
Reading logs
A simple record of books read, topics explored, and questions raised. Doesn't need to be detailed — even a list with a brief note per entry shows intellectual engagement.
Creative work
Art, writing, music, models, baking, construction. Creative output is evidence of applied learning — especially when accompanied by even a brief note about what the child was exploring.
Weekly summaries
A brief written summary of the week's activities — three or four sentences is enough. Written as you go, these become a powerful longitudinal record over months and years.
External achievements
Club membership, certificates, sports participation, voluntary work, community involvement. Evidence that learning is happening in the wider world, not just at home.
💡 The breadth question
Local authorities sometimes ask whether education is "sufficiently broad." The honest answer is that the law doesn't define breadth precisely — but a portfolio that covers literacy, numeracy, and several other areas of learning across a year will satisfy most enquiries. You don't need to cover every subject every week.
How to capture the year as you go
The families who dread compliance are usually the ones who tried to keep records retrospectively — gathering evidence after the fact for an LA enquiry they didn't expect. The families who find it straightforward are the ones who capture as they go, in a format that takes minutes rather than hours.
Here are the approaches that consistently work for home-educating families:
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The phone is your portfolio
A photo a day of something your child did, learned, or made. At the end of a year, that's 365 pieces of evidence — timestamped, geotagged, and backed up automatically. Organised into a shared album, this becomes one of the most compelling portfolios a family can produce.
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The Friday five minutes
Once a week, write five sentences about what happened. Where you went. What your child asked. What they made. What they read. What surprised you. Over a year, this is a rich and authentic record of an education in progress.
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The child's notebook
A notebook that belongs to the child — for sketches, observations, questions, and whatever they want to put in it. Not a workbook, not an exercise book. A thinking space. After a year, this is often the most powerful single piece of evidence you have.
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The quarterly folder
Every three months, gather the written work, printouts, photos, and certificates into a folder — physical or digital. Label it with the dates. This gives you four clearly organised periods of evidence per year, without needing to be systematic every day.
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The annual letter
Some families write a one or two page letter at the end of each year describing their child's education — what was covered, how, and what the child achieved. Written honestly and specifically, this is accepted by most local authorities as sufficient evidence of suitable education.
"I stopped thinking of it as record-keeping and started thinking of it as capturing. Capturing is something you do naturally. Record-keeping is something you dread."
The most powerful evidence you can produce
Of all the forms of compliance evidence available to home-educating families, project writeups are consistently the most powerful. Here is why.
A project writeup — a child's account of what they did, what they found, what they learned, and what questions it raised — is simultaneously:
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Cross-curricular by nature
A single morning out covers geography, science, PSHE, maths, and English — without any of them being formally named. A writeup of that morning is evidence across all of them simultaneously. See the Real-World Projects guide (F-01) for the subject mapping from two real projects.
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Evidence of literacy and communication
The act of writing the account demonstrates literacy, sequencing, vocabulary, and the ability to reflect on experience. The writeup is both the record and the evidence of English.
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Evidence of higher-order thinking
A child who can explain why something works, what surprised them, and what questions it raised is demonstrating critical thinking — one of the hardest things to evidence from a worksheet.
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Accompanied by photographs
A writeup with photos of the place, the work, and the child in context is the strongest possible compliance document. It is almost impossible for an LA to question an education that is visibly happening in the real world.
📓 In the LifeLearn library
Two project writeups — a weekend bird feeder build and a morning bike ride — are available as examples in the LifeLearn project showcase. Each one includes a learning overview showing exactly which curriculum areas were covered and how.
What to do when the letter arrives
Most families receive their first LA contact within the first year of home education — triggered by their deregistration from school. For most families, this is straightforward. For a few, it becomes a source of significant anxiety. Here is how to approach it.
📌 First: don't panic
An informal enquiry from a local authority is not an inspection, a legal proceeding, or a threat. It is a routine request for information. Most families who respond honestly and specifically receive no further contact.
What a good response looks like
A written response to an LA enquiry should be:
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Specific, not vague
"My child is studying mathematics through daily life — measuring in cooking, counting change, and working through a Singapore Maths workbook at Year 5 level" is better than "we cover maths." Specificity signals confidence and substance.
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Organised by area, not by day
Group your response by subject area or pillar of learning, not by a daily timetable. This shows breadth clearly without making your education look more school-shaped than it is.
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Accompanied by evidence
Three or four examples — a photo, a piece of writing, a project writeup — attached to a clear written account. Evidence doesn't need to be comprehensive. It needs to be specific and credible.
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Sent promptly
A prompt, confident response is the best signal you can send. Delays or defensive language tend to prompt follow-up. A clear, warm, specific letter — sent within a week — usually ends the enquiry.
For a complete template — including sample phrasing for literacy, numeracy, social opportunities, and the other areas LAs commonly ask about — see the Written Response guide (R-02) in the library.
"The letter felt threatening until I realised it was actually just a question. Once I answered it honestly and specifically, we never heard from them again."
Find your community
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