Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support home schooled children with additional needs.

As part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, the department will introduce mandatory Children Not in School registers in every local authority in England and Wales. When implemented, these registers will support local authorities to identify children who are home educated, including those additional needs such as special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The Act also introduces, for the first time, a statutory support duty on local authorities to provide advice and information to home educating families on the registers who request support. This will establish a consistent baseline of support across all local authorities in England and Wales, including for families of children with additional needs who choose to access this support.

More widely, the Every Child Achieving and Thriving white paper sets out the government's vision for SEND reform to support every child to achieve and thrive.