Co-opBrighton
A home education provision in Brighton with up to two and a half days a week of main lesson and activities for children aged 6 to 14, in three class groups.
Home Education Groups in England
As of October 22, 2026, we list 8 home education groups in England, across 8 counties.
Hear when a new home education group in England is added to Starpath
If no group here fits, the co-op starter pack comes with it: 12 pages from the Starpath Library for starting a small Waldorf-inspired co-op of your own. They include an agenda for the first meeting and a first term, week by week. Leave your email and you’ll be on the list for both. You can stop the emails any time.
Or read the co-op pages in the Library nowEngland does not use the word co-op much. What exists here is the home education group: families meeting weekly or fortnightly, sometimes with a rota of parent-led sessions, often with a hired hall and a small charge to cover it. The structure is looser than an American co-op and the vocabulary is different, which is worth knowing if you have been reading American homeschooling sites and wondering why nothing matches.
You do not have to register with anyone to home educate in England, and there is no set number of hours. The law asks for education that is efficient, full-time and suitable to the child, and it does not define full-time for home educators. A regular group is one of the easier ways to show what a child is actually doing if a local authority makes informal enquiries.
A register of children not in school is expected to arrive with the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. It is not in force yet, and nothing on this page assumes it is. Check the England requirements page for where that has got to before you act on it.
Groups here are listed by county, because that is how families search and how far anyone is realistically willing to drive on a weekday.
Listed
8
home education groups
Counties
8
covered
Checked
2026-09-11
every listing
Co-ops and groups near you
Type a town or postcode in England, or use your location, and we’ll list the 10 nearest. Your location stays in your browser. Distances are from each group’s town, not its meeting place.
Does co-op time count toward England requirements?
England sets no minimum hours or days, so there is nothing for a co-op day to count toward. What a co-op gives you here is teaching you are not doing alone, not compliance.
The full England requirementsHome Education Groups by county
Brighton1
Cambridgeshire1
GroupCambridgeshire
An inclusive, parent-led community for home educating families in Cambridgeshire, free to join, with a calendar of local meet-ups and trips.
Chartham1
Co-opChartham
A home education community on Garlinge Green Road in Chartham, near Canterbury, with tutor-led class groups for children aged 6 to 13 on a site surrounded by biodynamic farmland.
Devon1
MicroschoolDevon
An outdoor education company with Forest School sites in Exmouth, Escot near Exeter, Okehampton and Totnes, running sessions for home educating families, a toddler club for parents and toddlers, holiday clubs and Forest School leader training.
- Ages
- children of all ages and backgrounds
East Bristol1
Co-opEast Bristol
A Steiner-inspired home education project in East Bristol run by home-educating families, with small tutor-led groups by age, each with a garden classroom near woods, meeting three or four days a week.
Hampshire1
GroupHampshire
- Ages
- toddlers to teens
- Meets
- Mondays and Tuesdays
London1
GroupLondon
A London charity and community centre for home educating families, open on Thursdays in term time, with trips and activities.
- Meets
- Thursdays, 11am to 3pm, in term time
Stroud1
Co-opStroud
Part-time home education sessions in Stroud for children aged about 6 to 10, from 9am to 3pm, Wednesday to Friday, in a younger and an older group.
Learning at home?
Teaching at home between co-op days? Starpath’s Waldorf-inspired lessons cover grades 1 to 3, and grade 4 is being added. Sophie, a Waldorf class teacher, wrote the stories, verses and activities for each day. 14 days for $7, then $47 a month. Cancel before the trial ends and you aren't charged again.
Questions families ask about England home education groups
How do home education groups work in England?
Most meet weekly or fortnightly in a hired hall during term time. Some run a rota where parents lead sessions in turn, others bring in a tutor for one subject and split the cost, and many are simply a regular meetup with the structure kept deliberately light. Fees are usually a few pounds per family per session to cover the room. Almost all of them expect parents to stay.
Do I have to tell anyone my child attends a home education group?
No. There is no registration requirement for home education in England at present, and no obligation to report where your child spends their week. If your local authority makes informal enquiries, a group is useful evidence of a suitable education, but attending one is not something you are required to declare.
How much does a homeschool co-op cost?
It depends on what the co-op has to pay for. A group meeting in a member's home with borrowed materials can run on almost nothing, while a co-op hiring a hall and paying outside tutors for a few classes costs real money per term. The fees each group publishes are listed on this page where we have them, taken from the group's own website, so you can compare rather than guess. Ask what the fee covers before you commit: some cover the hall only, and materials are extra.
Do you need a co-op to homeschool?
No. A co-op is a choice, not a requirement, and plenty of families never join one. What a co-op gives you is the subjects that are hard to do alone, a timetable someone else is holding, and other children in the room. What it costs you is a fixed day each week and, in most cases, a share of the work.
Read more
Run a home education group in England?
Claim your listing and it stays current, because it reads from your own term plan rather than from whatever we last checked. Starpath is free for co-ops to run on.
Add or claim a listingOr start running your home education group on Starpath, free: the week, the families and the classes in one place.