Home education

Young people must engage in education, training or employment with training, until the age of 18.

This includes:

• sixth form
• college
• apprenticeships
• employment with training
• volunteering

Thurrock Careers service offers impartial information and advice. Young people can drop-in or book appointments to talk with personal advisors about career pathways, including routes into further education, apprenticeships or work with training.

Attending college

The Southend campus of South Essex College offers a 'Pathway to College' course for Year 10 and Year 11 pupils who have been educated at home. This course offers pupils the chance to attend college part-time to study an accredited Level 1 or Level 2 Certificate alongside English and maths GCSEs.

To be eligible, pupils must:

• have been educated at home for a period of at least 6 months,
• attend a successful interview
• provide evidence of work completed at home
• complete a written assignment and show they are working at GCSE Grade 1 or above

The course should not be considered as a full-time provision but may be available to strengthen an existing home education provision.

Other provisions may also be available at other colleges outside Thurrock.

Work experience

Children can benefit greatly from experiencing a real work environment. You must assure yourself that your child can do this safely.

The employer should be able to show they:

• have carried out a risk assessment for the role
• have the appropriate level of insurance for your child to be on their premises for work purposes

Without this information work experience would not be recommended.

We do not complete risk assessments and do not have insurance to cover work experience carried out by home educated young people.

Child employment

A young person is of compulsory school age until the last Friday in June of the academic year in which they turn 16 years-old.

Child employment law applies to all children, including children educated at home. It says:

• your child can only work for a set number of hours
• work can only take place before or after school hours, at the weekends or during school holidays

An employer would need to apply for a licence for your child prior to employment and ensure that risk assessments and appropriate insurance is in place. For more information, go to our child employment pages.