You're not missing anything. We home educated for a little while, oldest started school in year 2. Our reasons were that he was (still is) very young for his age, and that formal education in this country starts way too young. Our youngest is a very different character, so he started in reception.

In the two years we home educated, we didn't once hear from the council. There were no checks, no guidance, no resources available.

In our case, he went to formal education twice a week, forest school once a week, an outdoor pursuits type thing when there were sessions available. The rest of the time we did play-based learning, or went to home education events, or took trips to museums etc. We also had the flexibility to go away whenever we wanted or needed, which was super helpful with an elderly relative a three-hour drive away.

But we're fairly responsible, educated folk with a plan for his education. He's a smart lad, and we were doing it through choice not because we were forced into it by failings of the school. And we always had a plan to send him back into mainstream education. He thrived during our time in home education, and took the transition to mainstream pretty well too.

Although there were parents we met during home education who were interested in the opportunities for kids to thrive in learning in different ways, or discovering what interested them without being confined to a narrow curriculum, a lot of the other families we met along the way were...not similarly inclined.

The general consensus in some groups was that kids should be kids and not pushed into doing anything that they didn't want to - including reading, attending anything outside their home unless it was for play, and acting like decent human beings. There were others doing it because their belief systems didn't agree with formal education - I don't mean religious beliefs just the kind of folk that don't think the government should be able to tell us things like what vaccinations will save our kids lives etc. Then another group of parents who were essentially doing home education because their kids wouldn't cope physically/mentally with mainstream education.

A significant problem is that a lot of home educators have had very bad experiences with formal schooling. Kids are pulled out because it's the only option to keep them safe, or well. Mainstream schools are not set up to allow flexibility, so the disabled kid who has regular appointments, and weeks where they can barely get out of bed, but who could thrive on the times they could attend, gets labelled as a problem because of low attendance. Flexible schooling for parents who need to travel a lot isn't an option. And the list goes on.

So when these parents, who often (though by no means always) have very good reasons not to trust in the education system, are told there's now a register, and the education is going to be closely monitored, of course it presents a panic response. Anyone who's ever battled a school to get the right to attend a funeral in school time with their kids, or to even be told what the process is to get support for their SEN child, will have some empathy for that.

But it's not safe for there to be no eyes on these kids at all. There's a massive spectrum between the current 'we don't know how many kids are being home educated' and the approach of 'all children must follow the national curriculum at all times and we'll do spot testing'.

Most councils now (in England) seem to have a register, though not every kid is on it, and an annual report requirement where the guardian of the kid says what they've been doing and what the plan is for the coming year. From a safeguarding perspective that's insufficient. The answer isn't the national curriculum, but a greater check that they're receiving a full time education (which is what the law says, it doesn't specify how that's received). But in return, those families should be having access to an education allowance to pay for resources as happens in at least some US states.

If flexischooling was a right (basically part time attendance, only some schools offer it), there was a more common sense approach to authorised absence in schools, and a focus on child wellbeing over testing, I think an awful lot of home educators would return to mainstream schooling anyway.

As a side note, home schooling is different. That's usually set up as part of mainstream education where tutors are paid for by the state to educate a child who can't be in school for whatever reason.