No. In England and Wales, you do not need teaching qualifications, a degree or A-level knowledge of every subject to home educate your child. You can learn alongside them and use books, online courses or tutors, while remaining responsible for ensuring they receive a suitable education.
Do you need qualifications to home educate?
The Department for Education’s guidance for parents confirms that parents in England do not have to acquire specific qualifications to home educate. The Welsh Government’s home education handbook gives the same answer for Wales.
For a child of compulsory school age, the responsibility is to ensure an efficient, full-time education suited to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs. Your own exam results are not the test of whether you can provide that.
If you are wondering what this means in practice, our guide to suitable education explains the term.
What if you do not understand a subject?
You do not need to know every answer before your child asks a question. What matters is having a way to help them find an accurate explanation and work through anything they find difficult.
For example, if you have forgotten how fractions work, you could:
- Read a worked example together and try it with objects or drawings.
- Use an online lesson, pausing to discuss each step.
- Choose a workbook with explanations and answers.
- Arrange help from a tutor if you need more support.
Learning alongside your child is one option. You can say, “I’m not sure. Let’s find out,” then show them how to check a source, try an approach and recognise a mistake.
This is part of being a parental facilitator: finding resources and supporting learning, as well as explaining things yourself.
Do you have to teach every lesson yourself?
No. You can combine your own involvement with online courses, books, group learning or individual tuition. Different subjects may benefit from different approaches.
Before committing to a resource, look at a sample. Are the explanations clear? Can your child ask questions or get feedback? Does it start at a level they can access?
Choosing a course does not remove your responsibility for the overall education. Stay involved enough to notice whether your child understands the material and whether the support is working.
What happens as the learning becomes more advanced?
Your child may eventually study subjects you have never learned yourself. That is a reason to plan the next source of support, rather than assume you must master everything in advance.
Learning should develop with your child’s abilities and needs. That may involve tackling more complex ideas, revisiting foundations or trying a different explanation. It does not mean making every lesson harder simply because another school year has passed.
For an unfamiliar topic, try one manageable section together. If you are both stuck, change the resource or seek help before frustration builds.
Using Strew
When learning involves several resources or tutors, Strew’s learning log gives you somewhere to record activities and brief notes about what your child understood. Those notes can help you spot what to revisit and what they are ready to explore next.
Video transcript
Do you need to be a genius to home educate?
Yes, you need to be a genius 😂. You need to understand maths, English, science, geography, every single subject to an A-level standard, to make sure you can teach that to your children.
Absolutely not is the correct answer.
There are tons of online resources that can make the learning journey easier for children who are home educated. Not just for the child, but for the parent as well.
Yes, as that child develops and gets through the traditional school ages of learning, the education they’re receiving should get increasingly harder. There’ll be a lot of things parents won’t know. But that’s the beauty of home education.
If you’re taking on a home education role, you’ve got a few options. How you teach your child is up to you.
Some people use outside resources like tutors. Some people use online courses and lessons. Some people sit with their child and learn all the material at the same time as them, so they can have that experience together.
You don’t need to be a genius. You just need to be supporting your child appropriately.
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