Special Education in the United Kingdom: How Wales Differs from England

If you're researching special education in the United Kingdom for your home-educated child, one of the first things you need to understand is that the UK is not one unified system. England and Wales diverged significantly in 2018, and using English resources — which make up the vast majority of what you'll find online — when you are subject to Welsh law can leave you badly misinformed and poorly prepared for any engagement with your local authority.

This post explains the split, what it means in practice for families in Wales, and how documentation requirements differ on both sides of the border.

England and Wales Are Not the Same System

It is a persistent source of confusion. Because England and Wales share many historical legal roots, most general "UK home education" advice treats them interchangeably. They are not.

In England, the special educational needs framework is governed by the Children and Families Act 2014. A child with significant needs can receive an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), which is issued and maintained by the English local authority. If a child with an EHCP is withdrawn from school to be home educated, the LA still maintains the EHCP, but the duty to fund special educational provision can shift depending on whether the parents' preferred educational provision is deemed suitable.

In Wales, the equivalent of the EHCP is the Individual Development Plan (IDP), introduced under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 — commonly called the ALN Act or ALNET. This transition completed in August 2025. No child in Wales now holds a Statement of SEN. Every child previously on a Statement has either been issued an IDP or determined not to meet the new threshold.

The ALNET framework also covers a broader age range than its predecessor — from birth to age 25 — and applies to all learners with additional learning needs (ALN), not just those with the most severe needs.

Why This Matters for Home-Educating Families in Wales

When a home-educating family in Wales interacts with their local authority — whether responding to an informal enquiry under Section 436A of the Education Act 1996 or navigating a deregistration — using the wrong terminology immediately signals that you don't understand your own legal position.

Specifically:

• If you reference an EHCP in correspondence with a Welsh LA, you are referencing a document that does not legally exist in Wales.
• If you cite the Department for Education or Ofsted in any context related to your compliance, you are citing English bodies with no jurisdiction in Wales. The relevant bodies are the Welsh Government, local authorities, and Estyn (the education inspectorate for Wales).
• If you use the term SEN rather than ALN, you are using pre-2025 language that has been replaced in Welsh legislation.

These are not pedantic distinctions. Local authority EHE officers in Wales are trained on Welsh legislation. A letter using English terminology tends to invite more questions, not fewer.

Three Tiers of ALN Support in Wales

Under the Welsh system, all schools are required to respond to additional learning needs at three levels:

Universal: Classroom adjustments available to all learners. No statutory plan needed. Teachers are expected to differentiate as a baseline.

Targeted: Short-term interventions for children whose needs cannot be met through universal provision alone. Still no IDP required at this tier.

Specialist (IDP): Where the child has needs that require specialist provision beyond what the school can deliver through universal or targeted means. An IDP is a legally binding document specifying the provision to be made.

For home-educated families, this tiering matters because the LA's duty to maintain an IDP continues even after deregistration — but only for children whose needs sit at the specialist tier. If your child's needs were being met at the universal or targeted level, the LA's obligations may change significantly once you withdraw.

What Happens to an IDP When You Home Educate in Wales

This is one of the most practically significant questions for families withdrawing a child with complex needs from a Welsh school.

When a child with an IDP is deregistered from a maintained school, the school must immediately notify the LA. An LA panel then convenes to determine whether the child still has ALN that requires the LA to maintain the IDP while the child is home educated. The LA is not automatically relieved of its IDP duties simply because the parents have taken on the educational role.

In practice, this means that if your child held an IDP at school — particularly one that specified therapy or specialist input that the school was delivering — withdrawing to home educate does not make that plan disappear. The LA will assess whether you, as the home educator, can independently meet those specialist needs. If they conclude you cannot, they may seek to maintain the IDP and potentially argue that a suitable education cannot be provided at home for that child.

This is the scenario where documentation becomes critically protective. A parent who can present a structured record — showing how each of the IDP targets is being addressed through home-based provision — is in a far stronger position than one who cannot.

What Welsh LAs Expect from Documentation for ALN Learners

Because the Welsh framework emphasises that education must be suitable to the child's "age, ability, and aptitude, and to any additional learning needs" (Section 7, Education Act 1996), LAs in Wales are specifically required to evaluate whether home education meets the child's ALN — not just their general academic needs.

The Welsh Government's statutory guidance explicitly directs LAs to consider whether the home-based provision is addressing the child's additional learning needs in their assessments of suitability. For home-educating parents, this means a general portfolio covering literacy and numeracy is not sufficient if the child has a documented ALN. The documentation must show how the home environment is meeting those specific needs.

Practically, this means including:

• A summary of the child's known ALN and the previous IDP targets (where applicable)
• Evidence of any specialist input being received privately (e.g., speech and language therapy, occupational therapy)
• A record of how daily activities are adapted to the child's specific profile — whether that is a sensory-sensitive environment for an autistic learner, additional processing time for a child with dyslexia, or movement breaks built into the learning day for a child with ADHD
• Where possible, progress notes showing that the child's identified needs are being addressed over time

In the 2024/25 academic year, 7,176 children were formally known to be home-educated in Wales — and the true number is considered higher. A significant proportion of these families deregistered precisely because mainstream schools failed to meet their child's ALN. The documentation burden for these families is higher than for neurotypical learners, but the evidence produced also functions as a protective record against future LA overreach.

The Portfolio Gap for Welsh ALN Families

Most portfolio templates available online — on Etsy, Teachers Pay Teachers, or general UK home education websites — were designed for English families and structured around EHCPs, Ofsted criteria, and the English national curriculum. They do not include any framework for documenting ALN provision under Welsh law, tracking IDP targets, or mapping evidence against the Welsh Government's "Four Purposes."

A Wales-specific documentation toolkit that includes an IDP continuity tracker — allowing parents to log how each plan target is being addressed at home, with dated entries — removes this gap. It also provides a coherent paper trail if the LA subsequently revisits whether the home education remains suitable for the child's needs.

The Wales Portfolio and Assessment Templates include a dedicated ALN section structured around the Welsh legislative framework, covering IDP tracking, evidence mapping, and language calibrated for Welsh EHE officers rather than English LA procedures.

The Practical Bottom Line

If your child has additional learning needs and you are home educating in Wales, you are operating under a distinct Welsh framework with no equivalent in England. The ALN Act 2018 created a system that places active ongoing duties on both parents and local authorities. Documentation that acknowledges this system — using the right terminology, referencing the right legislation, and tracking the right outcomes — is the clearest path to maintaining your educational autonomy without triggering escalated LA intervention.

The most common mistake is not the education itself. It is presenting documentation that signals unfamiliarity with the Welsh framework, which invites the LA to look more closely at provision that might otherwise be readily accepted.

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