Education in Wales: Our National Mission and What It Means for Home Educators

"Our National Mission" is the Welsh Government's overarching education reform framework. It underpins the Curriculum for Wales, the Additional Learning Needs Act 2018, and the Welsh Government's stated goals for all learners up to age 16. If you are home educating in Wales, you will encounter this framework — in council correspondence, in LA guidance documents, and in how EHE officers frame their expectations.

Understanding what the national mission means in practice, and what it does not require of elective home educators, is worth the investment before your first local authority contact.

What "Our National Mission" Actually Is

The national mission is the Welsh Government's programme to raise school standards, reduce the poverty-related attainment gap, and build a national education system that reflects Welsh identity and values. Its centrepiece is the Curriculum for Wales, which replaced the previous national curriculum and became mandatory in maintained schools from September 2022 for Years 1 to 9, with Year 10 following in 2023 and Year 11 in 2024.

The curriculum is organised around six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs):

• Expressive Arts
• Health and Well-being
• Humanities
• Languages, Literacy and Communication
• Mathematics and Numeracy
• Science and Technology

Underneath these areas sit "Four Purposes" — the overarching goals that every learner should move toward:

1. Ambitious, capable learners
2. Enterprising, creative contributors
3. Ethical, informed citizens
4. Healthy, confident individuals

These are the terms Welsh LA officers think in. When an EHE officer asks whether your child is receiving a "broad and balanced" education, they are filtering your response through the lens of these purposes, even if they do not say so explicitly.

Does the National Mission Apply to Home Educators?

No — not legally. The Welsh Government's statutory EHE guidance is unambiguous on this point: electively home-educated children are not required to follow the Curriculum for Wales. The national mission, the six AoLEs, and the Progression Steps attached to each area are frameworks for maintained schools, not for families exercising their right under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996.

Home educators in Wales must provide an "efficient full-time education suitable to the child's age, ability, and aptitude." That standard is set by case law (Harrison and Harrison v Stevenson) and predates the national mission entirely. Suitability is assessed on your own terms — your approach, your child's needs, your methodology.

Why the National Mission Still Matters for EHE Families

There is a significant gap between what the law requires and how LA officers approach their work. Local authority EHE officers are, by training and institutional culture, deeply embedded in the Curriculum for Wales framework. Their mental model of "a broad education" is built around the six AoLEs and the Four Purposes. When they read your annual report or portfolio summary, they naturally interpret it through that lens.

This creates a useful opportunity. You are not legally obliged to map your home education to the Curriculum for Wales, but if you choose to voluntarily reference the Four Purposes when describing your provision, you speak the officer's language directly. A sentence like "Our project-based approach develops ambitious, capable learners while fostering ethical, informed citizenship through community participation" means nothing legally binding but communicates a great deal practically to someone whose working life is organised around those terms.

Many Welsh home-educating families use this strategically — not as an admission that the national curriculum applies to them, but as a diplomatic bridge that shortens LA enquiries significantly.

The ALN Act 2018 Is Part of the National Mission

The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 is formally part of the national mission's reform agenda. It replaced Special Educational Needs (SEN) statements with Individual Development Plans (IDPs), with the transition process running through 2025.

For home educators, this matters particularly if your child has, or previously had, additional learning needs. If your child was deregistered from a maintained school while holding an IDP (or a legacy SEN statement in transition), the LA must convene a panel to determine whether your child still has ALN that requires the LA to maintain an IDP while home educated.

If the LA decides it must maintain the IDP, your documentation must directly address the objectives set within it. Your portfolio should show how your home provision meets those specific, legally binding targets — not just that your child is learning broadly, but that the particular needs identified in the IDP are being addressed by your educational programme.

If the LA decides no IDP is required in the home education context, you are not entirely free of the framework. Your documentation should still reference how you are supporting the additional learning needs, because the LA retains oversight duties under the ALN Code 2021 even when no formal IDP is in place.

The Mandatory Register Proposal

The national mission also provides the political context for the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would introduce a mandatory register of children not in school. Welsh Government ministers have framed this as a necessary component of the national mission — ensuring all children in Wales have access to a suitable education and no child falls through the cracks of the system.

From the Welsh Government's perspective, a child on no register is a child whose welfare cannot be monitored. From the home educator's perspective, the register represents a significant expansion of state oversight into a domain previously defined by parental autonomy.

The bill as amended in March 2025 would require parents to notify their local authority that they are home educating. Registration would not be the same as gaining permission — the right to home educate would remain — but it removes the practical option of not engaging with the LA at all.

The Estyn Angle

Estyn is the education and training inspectorate for Wales. Unlike Ofsted in England, Estyn does not inspect home education directly. However, Estyn inspects Welsh local authorities on how effectively they are discharging their duties — including their EHE oversight duties. LA officers who face Estyn scrutiny are incentivised to demonstrate that they have made appropriate enquiries of home-educating families and have satisfied themselves that the provision is suitable.

This is worth understanding when you receive an informal enquiry letter. The officer writing to you is not acting out of personal suspicion; they are fulfilling a documented statutory duty that their own inspectorate may ask them to account for. Responding with a well-organised written summary satisfies their obligation cleanly and efficiently.

What to Document in Relation to the National Mission Framework

You do not need to restructure your home education around the Curriculum for Wales. But if your documentation is going to work effectively in the Welsh regulatory environment, it should:

Address literacy and numeracy explicitly. These are the areas most heavily scrutinised by Welsh LAs and are specifically referenced in the statutory EHE guidance as foundational requirements.

Demonstrate breadth. Evidence across science, humanities, arts, and physical activity demonstrates that your provision is not narrowly focused. You do not need to label these as AoLEs, but the breadth they represent should be visible.

Show social engagement. Welsh EHE guidance specifically mentions social skills as a component of suitability. Evidence of clubs, community groups, sports, Eisteddfod participation, or other peer interaction addresses this directly.

Reference your educational philosophy. Welsh LAs are accustomed to dealing with a range of home education approaches — structured, Charlotte Mason, classical, unschooling, forest school. A brief statement of your approach tells the officer how to read the rest of your documentation and prevents them from applying the wrong framework to evaluate it.

Include the child's perspective. Welsh statutory guidance references the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 12 on the views of children. Many Welsh LAs will ask to speak with your child or request a statement from them about their learning. Having the child contribute to the portfolio — even informally — demonstrates responsiveness to this expectation.

Bilingual Documentation

The national mission includes a strong commitment to the Welsh language. The Welsh Government's target of one million Welsh speakers by 2050 is a stated political priority. Gwynedd, Anglesey, Ceredigion, and other Welsh-speaking areas have LAs where bilingual provision carries real weight in how your documentation is received.

You are not required to teach in Welsh. But if your child is learning any Welsh — through a tutor, a community group, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, or even basic conversational practice — documenting this specifically will resonate positively with councils in Welsh-speaking areas. Even in predominantly English-speaking areas, a portfolio that includes bilingual headers or acknowledges Welsh language learning demonstrates awareness of the national educational context.

If you want documentation that is built for the Welsh regulatory environment rather than adapted from English or American templates, the Wales Portfolio & Assessment Templates at homeschoolstartguide.com/uk/wales/portfolio cover the Four Purposes framework, ALN and IDP tracking, WJEC private candidate documentation, and the informal enquiry response letter that LA officers in Wales expect to see.

See more United Kingdom homeschool guides →