Home-educated candidates have no guaranteed route to public examinations

England is formalising oversight of home education. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 creates mandatory Children Not in School registers, with commencement expected around 2027, and offers no reciprocal service entitlement. Private candidates cannot enter exams directly with awarding bodies. They depend on goodwill from registered exam centres, places are limited and conditional, and costs typically run £100 to £250 per GCSE subject, which is £600 to £1,200 for five. Access is currently mapped by volunteer wikis rather than by the state.

Home education is the UK's largest genuine parallel institution in daily operation, and it is being regulated without being serviced. Exam access is the choke point that converts educational freedom into credentials. Its absence penalises poorer families most and undermines the legitimacy of the new registration regime.

A statutory duty on local authorities to secure private-candidate examination places at cost, or a DfE-funded national exam-centre access network, commenced alongside the registers as the service half of the new settlement.

// Build together: Counterparty: exam boards and willing centres for a charitable private-candidate access network; statutory duty is the end-state.

The 2026 Act regulates home education without servicing it, the exam choke point hits poorer families hardest, and the service half has to be legislated alongside the incoming registers.