Registration & Assessment for Home Education

All parents or guardians who wish to educate their children at home in Ireland must be registered with the NEWB. Registration is not automatic and is a legal obligation to apply for registration and the onus is on parents or guardians to so do.

The Registration Process

1. Before You Apply

If your child is already at school, inform the school that you will be home educating and will be applying for registration. The school will pass this information to the NEWB who will contact you, or you can can apply directly to the NEWB for an application form
If your child has not yet started school, or has never attended school, apply to the NEWB directly for an application form.

2. The Application Form

Assessment Guidelines

Along with the application form the NEWB will send you a copy of the guidelines by which they assess home education. The main purpose of the guidelines is to outline to parents the constitutional requirements of a 'minimum education', which they will be required to meet in their education of their children. It is vital that you have read and understood these and thought about how you will meet the guidelines before you make your application.

You can download a copy of the Guidelines in PDF format. Read and re-read them until they are as familiar to you as your own name!

Fill in the form with great care - it will have a very big effect on both the success of your application and the speed with which your registration will be accepted.

3. Preliminary Assessment

This consists of an in depth interview with an official from the NEWB and will be based on the information you provided in your application. The interview can take place anywhere and your children do not need to attend. The official will use the interview to establish that you have made adequate provision to provide a 'minimum education' for your children. After a preliminary interview you may be granted registration - so it is very important and you need to be very well prepared beforehand.

You will be asked about the following general matters:

Your reasons for choosing to educate at home
Your child's educational experience and progress to date and any formal assessments that have been completed
Any special talents/abilities or special learning needs that your child has
Your motivation and the opportunities you have to provide learning experiences for the child.
What assistance, formal or informal, you will have with educating your child
Your educational qualifications or background or any relevant experience you have
(Note: you are not obliged to have any particular qualifications or have reached any specified level of education)

You will be asked about the type of education you plan to provide

The principles or philosophy underlying the education method
The considerations given to how the learning needs of the child are/will be met
How and whether plans will be recorded
The approaches and methods that will be used to facilitate learning
(eg autonomous learning, semi-structured approaches, structured learning, a mixture of these)

You will also be asked for information about the physical and practical provision you will make:

The time you will allocate to the education of the child
Whether learning will be scheduled or partly scheduled and your approach to time tabling
The estimated number of days annually on which you will provide education
The size of the space that will be available and the type of furniture you will have
Any outdoor areas that can or will be used by the child
Equipment, books and other materials that will be be used during the provision of education
Your access to material from libraries or other sources

You will also be asked specific questions related to numeracy, literacy and the provision of education in specific subject areas.

You may like to read this short note about the Irish Language.

After the Preliminary Assessment

After the preliminary assessment, the official will evaluate whether the proposed education meets the criteria for being a 'minimum education, moral, intellectual and social'. They will then complete a draft Assessment Report, which they will discuss with you before it is finalised.

Following the report you will either be entered into the register or referred for secondary assessment.

4. Secondary Assessment

A secondary assessment is undertaken if the NEWB has not determined to its satisfaction that you are in a position to provide a 'minimum education' during the preliminary assessment. This is a far more in-depth procedure which will include an assessor spending time with you and your children, watching how you interact, inspecting your provisions in terms of space and materials and speaking with your children.

At the end of the assessment you will either be entered onto the register or refused registration. In the case of a refusal there is an appeals procedure in place.