{"id":395718,"date":"2025-09-03T22:59:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T22:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395718\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T22:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T22:59:14","slug":"home-schooling-in-wales-three-times-higher-than-before-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395718\/","title":{"rendered":"Home schooling in Wales three times higher than before Covid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gareth Pennant JonesNewyddion S4C<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Meinir said her daughter Mali had become “much happier” since she started being educated at home<\/p>\n

The number of children being home schooled in Wales has almost tripled since before the Covid-19 pandemic, statistics have shown. <\/p>\n

A total of 7,176 children in Wales were home schooled last year, the highest number on record, compared with 2,517 in 2018-19, although this is less than 2% of children in Wales.<\/p>\n

The mother of one 15-year-old girl said her daughter had become a “lot happier” since she started being home educated after she started suffering from panic attacks.<\/p>\n

The Welsh government said the majority of children were best served by attending school. <\/p>\n

Meinir, from Vale of Glamorgan, said her daughter Mali was diagnosed with dyslexia in Year Seven and has struggled with processing information gradually over the years. <\/p>\n

“Every now and again she would be in a lesson, and she would ask to leave because she needed a break and she would forget the time because she has time blindness,” she said.<\/p>\n

“She would then be walking around the corridors and miss more work. She would go back to the class and would have missed another 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

“She was falling behind and I think that led to the panic attacks.”<\/p>\n

Mali asked to be educated at home over Christmas and, despite being reluctant at first, her parents agreed to it. <\/p>\n

Meinir said she had become a “completely different child and a lot more confident”. <\/p>\n

She added: “The standard of her work has gone up and she is concentrating a lot better because she can concentrate in smaller chunks and have a break and come back to it when it suits her. It’s gone really well.”<\/p>\n

When records began in 2014-15, there were 1,399 children being home schooled in Wales. <\/p>\n

The rate of home educated pupils has also increased year-on-year, from 1.6 in every 1,000 pupils in 2009-10 to 15.3 per 1,000 pupils in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

The highest rate has consistently been reported in Ceredigion, where 32.6 of every 1,000 pupils were educated at home in 2024-25. <\/p>\n

Parents voluntarily notify their local authority that they are home educating their children unless they have withdrawn their child from school, so the total figure may be higher. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Gavin and Kate Gibson say going back to school has been challenging for a lot of children who worked from home during Covid<\/p>\n

Former secondary school teachers Gavin and Kate Gibson started a home education business in 2024 and said many children suffered from social anxiety. <\/p>\n

Ms Gibson said: “Schools are very busy places and after being at home in the quiet to work at their own pace in their own time, going back to that school environment for a lot of our children who are neurodiverse was really challenging.”<\/p>\n

She said schools could find it difficult to support children as the number of diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and other conditions had increased. <\/p>\n

Wales’ children’s commissioner Rocio Cifuentes said some families felt home education was the “only option” because their children were struggling at school.<\/p>\n

“Often this is related to issues like poor mental health, or a lack of support for additional learning needs,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Funding and resources for our education system must be a key priority to be able to meet children’s needs in these areas.”<\/p>\n

She also said the Welsh government must ensure “all children in Wales can be accounted for and that none are invisible”.<\/p>\n

The Welsh government said there had been an increase in people choosing to home educate their children since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

“Whilst the majority of children are best served by attending school, we recognise the right to home educate,” it added.<\/p>\n

“Where families decide to home educate their children, local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that all children receive a suitable education.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gareth Pennant JonesNewyddion S4C BBC Meinir said her daughter Mali had become “much happier” since she started being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-395718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115142850875447101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}