Deregistering, step by step

1. Write to the headteacher, by letter or email, saying you are taking your child off the school roll to home educate. Date it, and keep a copy.
2. The school may offer a meeting first, and you can ask for a council home education officer to be there.
3. The school takes your child off roll and tells the council.
4. The council gets in touch, usually with some information and a first check-in. Each council does this a little differently: see your council below.

When it works differently

• If your child is on the roll of a special school, the council has to agree before they can be taken off roll.
• If there is a school attendance order for your child, ask the council to revoke it first.
• If your child has never been to school, there is no school to write to. In Reading, for example, you tell School Admissions and the home education officer instead.
• The new law will change some of this once it starts. Read about the new register.

Your council's own process

• Oxfordshire County Council
• Reading Borough Council
• Wokingham Borough Council

Where this comes from

• Oxfordshire schools: elective home education
• Reading: parent and carer information booklet (September 2026)
• Wokingham: informing the school