ALN Act Wales: What Homeschooling Families Need to Know

If your child has additional learning needs and you're thinking about deregistering from a Welsh school, you're navigating two overlapping legal systems at once. Most guidance you'll find online was written for England or predates the wholesale replacement of Wales's SEN framework. This post focuses specifically on what the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 — commonly called ALNET or the ALN Act — means in practice for families considering elective home education.

What the ALN Act 2018 Actually Changed

Prior to ALNET, Wales followed the same SEN framework as England, with Statements of Special Educational Needs issued to children with significant support requirements. The ALN Act 2018 abolished that system entirely and replaced it with Individual Development Plans (IDPs) for learners aged 0–25.

This transition completed in August 2025. As of that date, no child in Wales holds a Statement of SEN. Every child who previously had one either had their needs assessed under the new framework and received an IDP, or was determined not to meet the threshold for a statutory plan.

The IDP system covers a broader population than Statements did. Schools are now expected to identify and respond to additional learning needs at three tiers: universal (classroom adjustments), targeted (short-term interventions), and specialist (IDP). The threshold for a statutory IDP sits at needs requiring specialist provision that the school cannot deliver through universal or targeted means alone.

The other critical difference: England uses EHCPs (Education, Health and Care Plans). Wales uses IDPs. These are entirely different legal documents under entirely different legislative frameworks. If you submit a withdrawal letter referencing EHCPs or cite English guidance to a Welsh school or LA, you signal immediately that you don't know Welsh law — which tends to invite scrutiny.

What Happens to an IDP When You Deregister

This is where it gets legally specific, and where most generic guides fail Welsh families entirely.

When a parent deregisters a child with a school-maintained IDP from a mainstream school, the school cannot simply close the IDP. Under the ALN Code for Wales, the school must formally request that the local authority takes over responsibility for the IDP. A panel within the local authority then decides whether the child continues to have ALN that requires an LA-maintained IDP.

There are a few possible outcomes:

• The LA agrees the child has ongoing ALN and takes over the IDP, becoming responsible for ensuring the Additional Learning Provision (ALP) described in the plan is actually delivered.
• The LA reviews the needs and determines that, now the child is not in a school setting, the level of provision required has changed.
• The child's ALN is considered able to be met through universal provision that the parent delivers at home, and the LA-maintained IDP is not required.

The critical point is what happens if the LA does maintain the IDP: the LA has a statutory duty under the ALN Code to satisfy itself that the required ALP is being delivered. If you as a home-educating parent cannot provide the specific provision the IDP specifies — specialist speech and language therapy, for instance, or intensive literacy intervention — the LA must consider how to fund or secure that provision. This is not widely understood. In practice it is bureaucratically complex and LAs do not volunteer this information, but it is a legal obligation, not a discretionary favour.

How ALNET Affects the Deregistration Letter Itself

For most mainstream school withdrawals, deregistration is straightforward. You write to the headteacher invoking Regulation 8(1)(d) of the Education (Pupil Registration) (Wales) Regulations 2010, and the school must immediately remove your child from the register. No permission required.

Having an IDP does not change this mechanism for mainstream schools. The school cannot withhold deregistration because a child has ALN or an IDP. That would be unlawful.

However, if your child attends a special school — not a mainstream school with specialist resourced provision, but a school designated as a special school — the position is entirely different. Under Regulation 8(2) of the same 2010 Regulations, you cannot unilaterally deregister from a special school. You must apply for the local authority's consent. This is the most significant procedural trap for ALN families in Wales, and it is covered in more detail in the post on withdrawing from a special school in Wales.

What the ALNCo's Role Is (and Isn't)

Every Welsh school is required to have an Additional Learning Needs Coordinator — the ALNCo. When families are considering withdrawal, they are often in the middle of an adversarial process with the ALNCo: waiting for an IDP that hasn't materialised, disputing whether provision is adequate, or trying to get the school to acknowledge their child's needs at all.

The ALNCo's role is to coordinate ALN provision within the school. They do not have authority to approve or block deregistration. If your child is in a mainstream school, your withdrawal letter goes to the headteacher, not the ALNCo. You are not legally required to attend an exit meeting with the ALNCo, though schools frequently request one.

After deregistration, if the LA takes over the IDP, you may find yourself dealing with a different LA-based professional — an LA ALN officer — rather than the school's ALNCo.

The August 2025 Transition: What It Means for Your Records

If your child was assessed under the old SEN framework and was waiting for transition to the new ALN system, that transition is now complete. There are no Statements of SEN still in force in Wales. If you were told your child would be reviewed but nothing happened, they have either been issued an IDP, placed on school-level support, or the review has been completed and found not to meet IDP threshold.

Before withdrawing, it is worth requesting current documentation from the school confirming your child's ALN status and what provision is currently in place. This matters because once you deregister, whatever is in the school's records becomes the baseline the LA uses if they conduct a subsequent review.

Getting the Withdrawal Right When ALN Is Involved

Withdrawing a child with ALN from a Welsh school requires a letter that correctly invokes Welsh law, handles the IDP transfer properly, and doesn't inadvertently invite unnecessary LA involvement. The process is not complicated if you understand the legal framework — but it is easy to get wrong if you're working from guidance written for England or from outdated templates.

The Wales Legal Withdrawal Blueprint covers the full ALNET withdrawal process, including what to say (and not say) when your child has an IDP, how to respond if the LA contacts you about ongoing provision, and the consent procedure for special school families. It's written specifically for the Welsh legal framework and updated for the post-August 2025 transition.

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