Here is a list of LEA's that have responded and links to their response to the new DFES guidelines. If yours is listed you may find it very interesting reading!

Following requests from individual home educators, we have heard from the following Local Authorities as to their responses to the 2007 DfES consultation on home education guidelines:

Bolton

Bournemouth

BrightonAndHove

Calderdale

Cambridgeshire

Cornwall

Doncaster

Lancashire

North Yorkshire

Nottinghamshire

Portsmouth

Southwark

Stockport

Suffolk

Surrey

Swindon

Warwickshire

Worcestershire

    If you LEA isn't listed here be sure to keep checking back to the website as they are adding new ones as soon as they get the responses in. You can find the list here at Action for Home Education's site. 

   Hope you find this information helpful and informative. I just thought it is good for us to know what is going on with the LEA's in our areas.

   Personally I found our LEA (Nottinghamshire) to be a little unimpressed with the new guidelines. They seem to find there are alot of places for children to slip through the cracks. Our personal experience of them is that they are EXTREMELY helpful and supportive of our choice to home educate. So I have no worries about them.

   Most of their concerns seem to be focused on families who make a snap decision to home educate as a quick solution to a problem in school without really weighing up the costs and the commitment. Fair enough! There are many families who are not prepared to make or sustain the commitment it takes to home educate.

   I have never found them judgemental or had any pressure on me to return the kids to school or to change a single thing we are doing. Under the 'recommendations' section of the inspection form it usually says something like 'continue with current provision'. In other words keep doing what you are doing!  That suits us just fine!

   Hope you enjoy the reading if your LEA is listed!