THE number of children being home-educated in Carmarthenshire could be higher than some of its secondary schools by the summer, a meeting heard.

Vicky Jeremy, the council’s children and education integrated services senior manager, said the number was 736 as of May 12 – more than double what it was five years ago.

She said: “We potentially could reach 800 by the end of the academic year, which is significant and huge – bigger than some of our secondaries.”

The rise in home-educated children in the county mirrors the growth seen across Wales. Carmarthenshire has the second highest number of Wales’s 22 council areas on a per population basis.

Councillors on the education, young people and Welsh language scrutiny meeting were keen to know more about the reasons parents elected to home-educate and what monitoring the council could do.

Deborah Elias, a parent governor member of the committee, said she was home-educating one of her six children with a view to her returning to school at some point, and that from her perspective it “was the right decision”.

Ms Jeremy said the council had three elective home-education officers who supported the learners involved and undertook reviews. A register is maintained of all home-educated children known to the authority. However, parents are not obliged to meet up with council officers.

Ms Jeremy said the council generally had a good working relationship with parents who educated children at home. She said some parents made it very clear that they didn’t “want to be part of the system” and didn’t engage, while some said they would meet up with a home-education officer in a Starbucks, for example, rather than at the home.

The majority of parents who home-educated did so for philosophical and lifestyle reasons, said Ms Jeremy. Another reason was anxiety, mental health or neurodiversity issues relating to the child. Social difficulties at school was another factor.

Ms Jeremy said the council acknowledged a parent’s right to home-educate but said it tried to keep children on a school roll.

Councils have a duty to ensure that children of school age not on a roll received a suitable education, but Ms Jeremy said it could be quite hard for officers to say what was appropriate because the Welsh Government guidelines on educational philosophy were “very loose”. She said: “We try to make sure it (the home education) is broad and balanced.”

A report before the committee on the safeguarding side of the council’s work said children being home-educated were spoken to in around half of visits made by officers in 2023-24, and that no “school attendance orders” requiring a child to return to school had been made in recent years.

It added that there was a group of home-educating parents who encouraged families not to engage with the council when they chose to educate their child at home.

Ms Jeremy said councils could be given some extra powers, potentially next year.

Welsh Government-funded classes are offered to home-educated children at venues including the Quay Centre, Carmarthen, while sessions about horse anatomy and health have taken place at a riding centre. Last summer 13 home-educated children sat 37 GCSEs; the figure this year is expected to be 24 children sitting 52 exams.

Cllr Glynog Davies, cabinet member for education, said: “Personally, I think that children are better in a classroom with other children where the education happens together and they socialise and learn to get along with other children. That is my opinion. There are people who have a different opinion, of course.”

Cllr Edward Skinner said he found it “a bit disturbing” that councils didn’t have a statutory right to see a home-educated child, while Cllr Stephen Williams wanted to know if home-educated children were encouraged to take part in youth or sports groups. Ms Jeremy said the council could encourage families to engage in activities and that some children did attend various groups.

Ms Elias said the council was doing a “fantastic job” based on her experience of home-educating her daughter. She gave a reason for making this decision and said she was building her daughter’s confidence back up to return to school in the future.

She added that as someone who’s done supply teaching, behaviour at schools was “a big issue”.