Academic year 2023/24

Elective home education

Data guidance

Published

Description

This document describes the data included in the Elective home education ad-hoc statistics release underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in a new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab). The methodology document should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

The release provides information on the number of children in elective home education at census date in each term, plus the number of children in elective home education education at any time in the previous academic year.

File formats and conventions

LA and regional data has been rounded to the nearest 10, national figures are rounded to the nearest 100. 

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

x - unavailable

low - denotes figures based on count that rounds to 0, but is not 0. Figures may not sum to breakdowns due to rounding.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Elective home education at census date

Filename
ehe_census.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2022/23 Autumn term to 2023/24 Autumn term
Content

The number of children in elective home education at the census date in each term. Includes Autumn 2022 to Autumn 2023.

Includes breakdowns by sex, expected year group and primary reason for EHE

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable nameVariable description
filterEHE children on census date by characteristics
numberNumber of EHE children on census date
pcPercentage of EHE children on census date
rateRate of EHE children on census day by population
Footnotes
  1. Local authority response rates to the data collection vary by census date. To account for non-response, national and regional figures have been uprated based on local authority pupil populations. 
  2. Rates of EHE are calculated based on ONS mid-year population estimates (opens in a new tab) for children aged 5 to 16 years. The rates for 2023/24 are based on 2022 population estimates.

Elective home education at any point in the academic year

Filename
ehe_academic_year.csv
Geographic levels
Local authority; National; Regional
Time period
2021/22 to 2022/23
Content

The number of children in elective home education (EHE) at any point in the academic year. Includes 2021/22  and 2022/23 academic years only.

Includes the number of starts in EHE, number of returns to education, number of section 437(1) notices issued, number of school attendance orders and school attendance orders revoked

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable nameVariable description
ehe_anytime_full_yearNumber of EHE children at any point during the year
ehe_leaveNumber of EHE children who leave the local authority during the year
ehe_returns_full_yearNumber of EHE children returning to school during the year
ehe_sao_issued_full_yearNumber of school attendance orders issued
ehe_sao_revoked_full_yearNumber of school attendance orders revoked
ehe_schtype_acadNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type academy
ehe_schtype_acad_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type academy
ehe_schtype_apNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type alternative provision
ehe_schtype_ap_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type alternative provision
ehe_schtype_eheNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type home educated outside the local authority
ehe_schtype_ehe_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type home educated outside the local authority
ehe_schtype_else_unkNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type elsewhere/unknown
ehe_schtype_else_unk_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type elsewhere/unknown
ehe_schtype_eyNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type early years
ehe_schtype_ey_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type early years
ehe_schtype_freeNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type free school
ehe_schtype_free_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type free school
ehe_schtype_indNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type independent
ehe_schtype_ind_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type independent
ehe_schtype_lamainNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type local authority maintained
ehe_schtype_lamain_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type local authority maintained
ehe_schtype_noneNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type none (previously not of compulsory school age)
ehe_schtype_none_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type none (previously not of compulsory school age)
ehe_schtype_pruNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type pupil referral unit
ehe_schtype_pru_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type pupil referral unit
ehe_schtype_specNumber of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type special
ehe_schtype_spec_pcPercentage of children who started EHE in the year with previous school type special
ehe_section_437_full_yearNumber of section 437(1) notices issued
ehe_starts_full_yearNumber of children who started EHE during the year
Footnotes
  1. Local authority response rates to the data collection vary by census date. To account for non-response, national and regional figures have been uprated based on local authority pupil populations.