The survey was created and distributed using Jisc Online Surveys. Responses would be personal and possibly sensitive, and it was important that participants had full control over the details they chose to share; therefore, all questions were optional. To recruit participants, the survey link and an invitation to take part face-to-face were posted on my professional blog, Twitter, and in closed Facebook groups for home-educators and/or parents of children with SEND. From these locations, participants shared the survey further, enabling contributions from 93 families with six months to over a decade of home-education experience. No minimum experience of home-education was required, and parents reported on children’s school experiences across the compulsory school age range. One young person, a GCSE student who did not disclose their age, contributed to the online survey. These data were included in the analysis, since listening to and valuing young people’s voices is intrinsic to the study’s ethical stance. This is in keeping with the right of children and young people to participate and make their views known (Alderson& Morrow, 2020).

Responses to the survey’s opening question: What did you anticipate about your child/children’s education before they reached school age? contextualise participants’ perspectives. Most responses to this question related to one of three parental expectations:

Replies to Question 2: What circumstances led you to home educate? Please describe the decision-making process. document a transition to disappointment from initially high expectations of schools. An example of this can be seen in the responses of S73 (18/03/19):

Transition to school, between schools or key stages, and sometimes to a new class or teacher caused or exacerbated difficulties for some children (27%). For some, the transition to home-education was precipitated by deterioration in children’s mental health (33%) or ongoing distress (44%):

Certain responses indicate a gulf between teachers’ and parents’ understanding of children, for example, one parent, a teacher herself, reported that her son’s autism diagnosis had been received following transition away from school aged eight:

Done and Murphy (2018) recognise that classroom teachers cannot reasonably be expected to identify and support children’s mental health difficulties. This is also reflected in parental responses, such as, ‘it is very disappointing, but also very realistic to reach the conclusion that our mainstream schools struggle to support good mental health’ (S32).

Bullying (26%) and anxiety (32%) following a school transition drove some families to deregister:

One parent (S82) who had remained in full-time education to postgraduate level found her daughter’s experience of school as bewildering as it was distressing, as ‘she started to develop severe anxiety about social situations in general and school in particular.’ The child was called ‘emotional’ and a ‘drama queen’ by staff. Another child was deregistered aged ten when:

The range of parent-reported issues contributing to breakdowns in school relationships and eventual transition to home-education is illustrated in Figure 4. Parents described schools’ misunderstanding or denial of children’s needs (73%). Sometimes this led to difficulties in accessing local authority or NHS diagnostic and support services, though participants also reported teachers ‘failed to understand […] needs despite a diagnosis’ (S26). Other parents reported shock on hearing of difficulties for the first time at a parents’ evening, for example ‘after 2 terms in reception I was told not to expect anything from my eldest’ (S15); or S8, who was told she ‘[…] needed to do much more work with [her five-year-old] at home if [she] expected him to catch up’.

Parents described the frustration of ‘years in meetings’ (S28) and ‘repeated discussions with school, but nothing changed’ (S33). Most reported more than one of the experiences charted in Figure 7, with 26 parents outlining three or more. Participants considered the views of education professionals to differ from their own, and from their children’s, for example, ‘telling me that [my child] was fine when she wasn’t’ (S32). Conflict–linked to failed meetings (29%) and to schools not addressing the concerns of families (33%)–led to irreconcilable differences and resulted in transition from school to home-education. At times, this was described in ‘warring’ terms, echoing Ofsted (2021):

The bio-ecological systems model can be used to analyse and understand the impact of ‘proximal processes’ between an individual and those they interact with (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007, p.796). Such processes may be ‘positive’ leading to ‘competence’ or ‘negative’, resulting in ‘dysfunction’ (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007, p.803). For the study’s data, a possible representation combining bioecological systems theory with Turner’s (1974) stages of social drama is illustrated in Figure 5. Based on their interpretation of policy, parents might have expected schools and teachers to act as a bridge to wider services for their children. These types of mesosystemic interactions between teachers or schools and local authority, health and social care resources were considered lacking or detrimental by the study’s participants.

Parents described investigating alternatives to school education, undertaking ‘detailed consideration and research’ (S50), for ‘hours and weeks researching online’ (S17) or longer ‘3–4 months’ (S53). Some families reported trialling home-education first ‘we agreed to give it a go, just for the year’ (S44), ‘we tried […] for the summer holidays’ (S84). At times, it was proposed by the children, such as when ‘my daughter brought the idea of home schooling to me [… I] knew something had to change so I agreed to trial it’ (S33).

Parents described realising that school might not be the best place for their child, for instance, ‘school could not provide the type of environment he needed to thrive’ (S38); ‘I honestly believe [this happened] because the school was not the right environment’ (S93). In rare cases, parents and schools agreed:

Some parents stated that home-education was initially an involuntary undertaking, for example, ‘I have had no choice but to home educate’ (S7); ‘we were left with no other choice’ (S64). Others expressed frustration at the official terminology ‘Elective Home Education’, ‘there is nothing elective [about] our home education’ (S23); ‘this is NOT elective home education’ (S41); ‘this was not elective’ (S58); I refused to de-register her as I was not going to be forced into ‘elective’ home education’ (S21).

Just one-fifth of participants reported support from their close networks when beginning home-education, with parents describing ‘disapproval’ (S37), ‘discrimination and suspicion’ (S80) from family and friends that led to ‘friction’ (S74) and feelings of ostracization. This was sometimes exacerbated by encounters with strangers:

It is possible that reproof experienced by these families is informed by mystery and subsequent mistrust of home-education described by Lees (2010), and/or a perception of school attendance as a national duty noted by Bhopal and Myers (2018). Families gave voice to the extent to which this was felt and its consequences, for example:

The loss of trust expressed by parents related to their children’s school experience extended beyond deregistration: ‘I have no faith that schools can help me’ (S9), ‘I think most home educators feel that the LA is against home education and don’t actually trust them at all’ (S20), ‘It’s an easy fix for LAs to push ASN families into home education’ (S91).

Since home-education is undertaken by individual families, it is perhaps unsurprising that reported practices vary in the immediate aftermath of deregistration. Whereas S37 recalled ‘we deregistered on the Friday and began HE on the following Monday,’ some families began home-education in September after the summer holidays and still others found more time was needed to adjust. For example, S30 ‘spent 6 months taking time to heal’. S63 ‘spent 2 years deschooling’ a term coined by Illich (1971) and adopted by some home educators to describe the period between deregistration and undertaking of planned—rather than incidental—learning experiences.

All but one participant reported their experiences of local and national support networks, including home educators’ groups, charities, camps and other annual events, or charities and groups dedicated to families of children with additional needs. This is shown in Figure 6.

Over half considered activities organised by local home-education groups as opportunities for learning and socialisation. The word ‘community’ was used to describe this (29%), for example: ‘They made lots of friends and we became part of the Home Education community’ (S76). Of the six parents whose support came predominantly from SEND/ALN-focused groups, five said their children had not yet begun to participate in group activities, for example ‘we are working up to attending HE groups as her anxiety becomes more manageable’ (S81).

The proportion of parents reporting participation in social media groups is perhaps unsurprising since the survey was circulated online. Furthermore, given the family and community experiences of censure noted above, the relative anonymity and opportunity to observe in online spaces may offer some confidence to some parents, for example: ‘I’ve never messaged anybody in the group, but I sometimes find the information helpful’ (S70).

One child’s transition to home-education did not mean others in the family automatically deregistered, for example: ‘our second child attends school, […] the environment suits him’ (S3). As well as potentially complicating the social difficulties noted above, this placed logistical demands on parents: ‘I juggle my time […my] husband can be flexible with his work’ (S12). Things were not necessarily easier for parents whose children were all home educated:

Participants noted that the opinions of family and friends sometimes changed over time, for example, ‘some […] objected until they saw the state of my daughter. They then saw how she flourished and have been very supportive’ (S14). Feelings of parents, who may have undertaken home-education reluctantly also changed. For some, this seems transformative:

Outlining possible enhancements to their children’s home-education, parents listed examples such as access to a national resources bank and local facilities normally only available to schools, funding for GCSEs (available in some, but not all areas of the UK) and flexi-schooling, where home educated children attend school part-time or for specific subjects. A small number of parents described successful flexi-schooling, offered by very few schools (Gutherson & Mountford-Lees, 2018). Other participants (15%) reported that they had tried but been unable to negotiate flexi-schooling, perhaps because this impacts schools’ attendance figures and resultant ranking in England and Wales.

As noted, for some families the deregistration was driven by factors including children’s long-term difficulties, their mounting distress, and/or successive failed parent-school meetings leading to a realisation that school was not ‘right’ for their child. Participants described critical moments informing their decision to home educate, sometimes extending over prolonged periods. Such parents reported ‘detailed’, ‘thorough’ research, for ‘weeks’ or ‘months’ before withdrawing from school to home educate. Some deregistered to mitigate the impact on children of long-term discord with teachers, schools and/or local authority representatives or departments.

For certain families, deregistration resulted from exclusion; others were clear that they had had no choice but to deregister, echoing Turner’s (1969) concept of a ‘passenger […] pass[ing] through a cultural realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state’ (p.94). With their reduced macrosystemic agency, the same applies to children. Turner expects such liminal entities to be supported through the communitas of others who have come through the ritual process. For most study participants, this support was provided by existing home educators.

The study replaced Turner’s ‘breach’ with discord, to reflect the experiences of parents and children outlined in previous sections. Discordant relationships with schools made it difficult or impossible to engage with education system processes. As in Turner’s (1974) metaphor, with no support from school—the ‘disturbed social system’ (p.39)—such discord led to crisis for participants. In a traditional model of liminality, ‘communitas’—support from previous liminal entities, or ‘liminars’—should facilitate reintegration. Turner considered the reintegration stage must be institutionalised so that ‘a basic generic bond is recognized beneath all its hierarchical and segmentary differences and oppositions’ (1974, p.57). Otherwise, an ‘irreparable schism’ results, and communitas can only be provided by others who already operate outside the accepted social norm (Turner, 1974, p.41). For the study data, this is illustrated in Figure 7. Whereas 40% of families aspired to re-enrol at school, the children of just three participants had done so successfully, highlighting issues around reintegration.

Most participants described their developing home-education practices positively, sometimes with family support, but more often supported by parent networks and other home educating families. For some parents and their children, relationships with more experienced individuals and groups seemed key to establishing their educational practices outside school. Such communitas was reportedly found, locally, nationally, and online, in parent-run groups for home educators and/or for parents of children with additional needs. Rather than reintegration into the school system, the study data indicate this form of communitas supports transition to confident home-education. This echoes Turner’s (1974) contention that social drama is resolved through coherence that is ‘a function of communitas’ (p.50).

In this context, Turner’s ‘communitas’ has parallels with Bronfenbrenner’s ‘mesosystem’, with potential to ensure children’s education through facilitating interactions or ‘proximal processes’ between individuals and relevant ‘systems’ or ‘structures’. In the same way, lacking mesosystemic support and/or school-based proximal processes that are dysfunctional might cause discord leading to families’ experience of ‘crisis’.