Getting started

Home education in Ireland: how to get started

By Laura · Founder, Home Ed Ireland · 2 September 2026 · 10 min read

If you’re reading this, you’re probably somewhere between “could we really do this?” and “okay, but where on earth do I start?” I’ve been there. The good news is that home education in Ireland is completely legal, more common than you’d think, and a lot less daunting once someone lays it out plainly.

So that’s what this is: one parent walking you through how it works here, in the order the questions usually arrive.

Is home education legal in Ireland?

Yes. Home education is a right written into the Constitution. Article 42 says the family is “the primary and natural educator of the child,” and that parents are free to provide that education “in their homes.” The State can ask that your child receives “a certain minimum education,” and that’s the one string attached.

In plain terms: you’re allowed to educate your child at home. You don’t need permission to do it. You do need to register, and you do need to be giving your child a reasonable education. That’s it.

Do I need to register, and with who?

Yes, and this is the one piece of paperwork that matters. Since 2000, home educated children have to be listed on a national register. It used to sit with the Department of Education, then moved in 2014 to Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. The bit of Tusla that handles it is a mouthful: the Alternative Education Assessment and Registration Service, or AEARS.

You apply to register if:

• Your child is aged 6 to 15, or
• Your child is 16 or 17 and hasn’t finished three years of secondary school yet.

Under six, there’s nothing to do. Six is the age the law expects a child to be in education, so that’s when registration kicks in. A few other things worth knowing: all of a child’s legal guardians have to agree to the application, and if you’re registering more than one child you fill in a separate form for each.

How to apply

It’s more straightforward than the acronym suggests:

1. Fill in the home education application form from Tusla’s AEARS.
2. Include a certified copy of your child’s birth certificate (a certified copy of their passport is accepted too). “Certified” just means a solicitor, Garda, notary or Peace Commissioner has seen the original and signed the copy.
3. Send it by email to home.education@tusla.ie, or by post to the address on the form.

Officially, you can start home educating as soon as Tusla confirms your application is complete. But I’d say we started getting into the swing of things when our daughter was 5 and all her crèche-mates went to school.

What is the Tusla assessment like?

This is the bit that worries everyone, so let me take the fear out of it. There’s no exam for your child, and no inspector poking around your kitchen with a clipboard. It’s a conversation.

There are two possible stages, and most families only ever see the first.

The preliminary assessment. An assessor meets you (at a place of your choosing) and asks about three things: what you’re teaching, the books and materials you use, and how much time you spend on it. That’s it. As the Home Education Network puts it, “most families are put on the register after this initial assessment and get highly commended for the provision of education they are providing their children.”

The comprehensive assessment. Only happens if the first one leaves questions unanswered. The assessor visits where your child learns and spends a bit of time observing, looking at their development and the space and materials you use.

Once you’re on the register, Tusla may occasionally ask for a review assessment. There’s no fixed schedule, and it often just happens when a younger sibling is being registered too.

If an application is ever refused, or you’re given conditions you don’t agree with, you can appeal to the Department of Education and Youth within 21 days.

How do I take my child out of school?

If your child is already in school, the steps are the same, with one extra. You don’t need the school’s permission, and you don’t need to give a reason. Home education is your right, not something the school grants you.

In practice: register with Tusla’s AEARS as above, and let the school know in writing that you’re withdrawing your child. The school takes them off the roll. If you’re unsure about timing, HEN will talk it through with you, and it’s worth having your Tusla application in motion before the last day.

One honest note if your child gets special needs support through the school (an SNA, resource hours): that support is tied to the school and will end when you withdraw. More on additional needs below.

Do I need to be a teacher, or follow the curriculum?

No, and no. You do not need a teaching qualification, and you do not have to follow the national curriculum. This surprises people, and it’s one of the loveliest parts of it.

What you do have to provide is that “certain minimum education.” Stripped of the legal language, it means an education that:

• Suits your child’s age, ability and personality
• Covers a balanced range of learning, including language, literacy and numeracy
• Supports their thinking, their social and personal development, and their sense of right and wrong
• Helps them reach their potential and prepares them for life

How you get there is up to you. Some families buy a boxed curriculum and follow it to the letter. Some stitch together workbooks, library trips, nature, projects and online classes. Some do very little “at a desk” at all.

What about unschooling?

Unschooling, letting learning follow the child’s interests rather than a set timetable, is a recognised approach and it’s perfectly legal here. You still register, and you still show that your child is getting a rounded education. You just get there a different way. The assessment asks whether your child is learning, not whether you’re doing it between nine and three.

Will my child be able to sit exams and go to college?

This one is a little nuanced, but here’s the latest on where things stand.

For years the standard answer was simple: home educated teenagers sit the Junior Cycle and Leaving Certificate as external candidates, registering through a school that takes external students. That route still exists, but it’s gotten much harder. The redeveloped Leaving Certificate now builds project work and coursework into more and more subjects, and those components have to be completed and signed off through a school across the two years. An external candidate sitting the written papers on their own can’t complete them, which leaves them at a serious disadvantage in the reformed subjects, and often unable to pick up the full marks. The Junior Cycle has a similar catch, and even sitting the final written exams means finding a school willing to take an external candidate, which plenty won’t.

None of this shuts the door on further or higher education. It usually just means a different door. Options worth looking into:

• QQI and Further Education (FET) courses through your local ETB, from foundation level up to levels 5 and 6. A QQI level 5 or 6 award is a recognised way into a lot of third-level courses.
• Post Leaving Cert (PLC) courses, which don’t all need a Leaving Cert to start and can lead on to college.
• Youthreach, for teenagers who’ve left mainstream school, offering QQI awards and a supported route forward.
• Apprenticeships, and later on mature student entry from age 23, which opens up college without the Leaving Cert at all.

We go through each of these, and how they connect, in our guide to routes into college without the Leaving Cert.

If exams matter for your teen, check the current arrangements straight with the State Examinations Commission before you build a plan around them, since the reform is still rolling out subject by subject. Citizens Information has a clear overview of the further education and QQI routes.

What does it cost, and is there any grant?

The day-to-day of home educating, the books, the materials, classes and trips, you fund yourself. There’s no grant simply for choosing to teach your own child. But there’s one payment a lot of people assume home educating rules them out of, and it doesn’t.

The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance is a means-tested payment from the Department of Social Protection. If you’re getting a qualifying social welfare payment and your household income is under the limits, you can claim it for a child aged 2 to 17. For that age group it isn’t tied to being in school, so home educating doesn’t disqualify you. (The higher rate for 18 to 22 year olds does require a recognised school, so it won’t stretch to an older home-educated teen.) It’s means-tested rather than automatic, so it’s worth checking your own eligibility on Citizens Information or MyWelfare.

What you don’t lose: your child keeps their child benefit, and stays entitled to the same HSE health services, including the childhood vaccination programme and eye and hearing checks. The one difference is that these are usually organised through schools, so you arrange them yourself through your local HSE health office or GP rather than them happening on a school day. You can’t use the free schoolbooks scheme, but honestly, the freedom to skip the uniform shop tends to balance the books.

You may have seen mention of the Home Tuition Scheme. That’s a different thing: a compensatory, interim support for specific situations, mainly early intervention for autistic children and children with special educational needs who have no recognised school place available, plus certain medical cases. In the Department’s own words, it’s “not to be regarded as an optional alternative to a school placement.” So it isn’t a home education grant, and it’s worth knowing that before you pin any hopes on it.

Home educating a child with additional needs

A lot of families come to home education precisely because school wasn’t working for a child who’s autistic, anxious, or simply not thriving in a classroom. It’s a completely valid reason, and you’re far from alone in it.

A few honest things to hold together:

• The Tusla assessment is meant to fit your child. The standard is an education “appropriate to their age, aptitude and ability,” so an assessor should be looking at progress for your child, not measuring them against a class of thirty.
• School-based supports (an SNA, resource teaching) end when you withdraw, because they belong to the school placement.
• The Home Tuition Scheme above may apply in specific circumstances, so it’s worth checking against your situation rather than assuming either way.

This is an area where talking to families who’ve walked the same road is worth its weight in gold. HEN and local groups are full of parents home educating children with additional needs who’ll tell you what helped.

You’re not doing this alone

If there’s one thing I’d want you to take from all of this, it’s that home education in Ireland isn’t a lonely path off on its own. There are families doing it in every county, meeting in forests and libraries and halls, running park meet-ups and messy art mornings and swapping the reassuring “us too.”

• Find the community near you: browse home-ed groups and meet-ups by county.
• Stuck for things to do together: days out around Ireland, added by home educating families.
• And if the wobble is what brought you here, you might like Everyone’s Going Back to School. We’re Not.

Your first few steps

If you want a simple place to begin, it’s roughly this:

1. Have a look at Tusla’s AEARS and download the application form.
2. Get your child’s birth certificate (or passport) certified.
3. Send off the application (and if your child is in school, tell the school in writing).
4. Find your local group. A few people who get it changes everything.
5. Take a breath. You don’t have to have it all figured out before you start.

Everything here is for guidance only. We do not and cannot give legal advice. For the official detail, always check Tusla's AEARS and Citizens Information, and speak to Tusla about your own circumstances. Spotted something that needs updating? Tell us.