An earlier post in this series established that Steiner and Montesori school pupil numbers (4,000 and approximately 17,000 respectively) are a mere fraction of the 630,000 pupils in independent (private) schools as a whole. Similarly, when considered as education movements, both Steiner and Montessori are dwarfed by a much larger educational alternative that’s grown rapidly in recent years – elective home education (EHE)  or ‘home schooling’ as it is more commonly called. For this, the final post in the Painting by Numbers series, we look at home schooling.

Official data (scroll down to ‘Headline facts’) from the Department for Education (DfE) shows that at the time of the Autumn 2024 census 111,700 children in England were reported as being electively home educated – around 1.4% of the comparable school-age population. Last year the figure rose to 126,000. For the Autumn 2024 census local authorities identified 153,300 children who were home educated at some point in the 2023/24 academic year –  up sharply from previous years – and the upward trend continued into 2024/25 with 175,900 children reported as home educated during that year.

Confused? Note that the local authority figures are cumulative. They include children who were home educated for the whole year, started mid-year, stopped mid-year, and those who moved in and out of home education during the year. The autumn census figures are snapshots: they record the number of children officially recorded as home educated at that specific point in time. Overall, the figures are enough to say that home schooling has gone mainstream.

So, why are families choosing home schooling?  The Department for Education’s own statistics list the most common recorded reasons as follows:

Reported reasons for home education (England, recent DfE data):

• Mental health concerns / school anxiety – ~14%

• Philosophical or parental preference – ~14%

• Lifestyle choices (travel, bespoke learning, flexibility) – ~9%

• Unknown / not provided – 40%+ (that is a very large data gap)

Be aware that the tallies do not total 100% as local authorities record multiple or additional reasons, and many cases are categorised as “other”. Some examples are dissatisfaction with school environments, insufficient SEND support in mainstream schools and a lack of flexibility in mainstream education.

Home schooling is legal throughout the United Kingdom but regulatory frameworks differ between the four nations. For example, in England and Wales, parents are not required to notify local authorities that their children are being educated at home, though they must ensure they receive suitable education. In Scotland, parents withdrawing a child already on a school roll must notify the local authority (usually granted quickly). In Northern Ireland, home education remains legal but largely unregulated, with no mandatory registration.

As there is no universal register and many home-educated children are not known to local authorities, the UK figures we do have likely understate the true total of home-schooled children. When missing and unreported cases are factored in, independent estimates (see e.g. this Sky News report and good old wiki) suggest that well over 130,000 children may be home educated across the UK at present. If we compare the figures with those of the Steiner education movement, in England alone the official DfE numbers of home schooled children exceed Steiner school attendance by more than 25-to-1. The DfE figures for Wales alone are around 7,000 home schooled children, whereas there are at most 4,000 children attending Steiner schools across the whole of the UK.

These are potentially worrisome figures for the SWSF leadership and the UK Steiner education movement generally. After the Steiner schools crisis the movement’s PR messaging has repeatedly pitched its community of schools as being newly transformed, professionalised and safe. However, the messaging appears not to have translated into growth: despite the market potential that the expanding home education sector might offer, there has been no discernible uptick in Steiner Waldorf school pupil numbers since the crisis. Taking its PR messaging at face value, you’d expect at least some improvement in on-roll figures. In contrast, Montessori – again, if PR messaging  is to be believed – claims to be seeing an increase in interest in its schools.

Of course, PR shouldn’t simply be taken at face value, but it did suggest a line of enquiry – how Steiner school pupil numbers might have changed over time. That is now a work in progress.

Well, that’s it for this series of ‘painting’ posts. The surprise for me in all of this is the tiny size of the Steiner Waldorf private school pupil numbers. I hope you found something of interest along the way.