The last school place ended with a phone call asking you to collect your child early, again. The one before that ended in a letter. And somewhere along the way, in a meeting or a parents’ group, someone said the words “EOTAS package” and moved on as if everyone knew what they meant.
EOTAS stands for education otherwise than at school. If a school place has never quite held for your child, it’s worth understanding properly, because it changes who carries the load.
An EOTAS package is education your local authority (LA) arranges and pays for outside any school, under section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014. The LA can only agree it when it’s satisfied a school or college setting would be inappropriate for your child’s special educational provision.
This explainer covers England only. It walks through what sits inside a package, how EOTAS differs from home education and from Section 19 provision, and how to ask for it.
What an EOTAS package actually is
The word “package” is doing real work. Instead of one school place, your child’s education arrives in parts. A tutor on weekday mornings, speech and language therapy on Thursdays, online lessons for the subjects a tutor can’t cover.
The LA arranges all of it and pays for all of it. The Department for Education (DfE) home education guidance describes the arrangement plainly. The LA “may arrange that the special educational provision that the child needs is made elsewhere”, including in your own home, “but not by you as parents”.
In practice, EOTAS runs through an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). The package exists to deliver the provision written into the plan, and the plan is what makes it enforceable.
After months of watching a placement fail, education built around your child rather than around a building can sound too good to be true. It’s real, and it’s been in the law since 2014.
The section 61 test: when school would be “inappropriate”
Section 61 lets an LA arrange any special educational provision it has decided is necessary “otherwise than in a school or post-16 institution”. That’s the statutory phrase behind the acronym. The gate sits in subsection (2).
An authority may do so only if satisfied that it would be inappropriate for the provision to be made in a school or post-16 institution or at such a place.
“Inappropriate” is the word everything turns on, and the Act doesn’t define it. The judgment is about your child specifically: their needs, the placements already tried, and what the professional evidence says about why a school setting can’t work.
The test reaches wider than one school failing. The LA has to be satisfied that provision in any school or post-16 setting would be inappropriate for your child. Expect questions about what else has been tried or considered.
You’re part of the decision by law, not courtesy. Subsection (3) requires the authority to consult you, or your young person if they’re over compulsory school age, before it arranges provision this way.
If the LA refuses, the disagreement doesn’t have to end there. Once the plan is finalised or amended, you can appeal its contents to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) under section 51 of the Children and Families Act 2014.
EOTAS is not the same as home education
Both can happen at your kitchen table. Legally, they’re opposites.
Elective home education is a choice parents and carers make, and the DfE guidance is explicit that the right applies equally when a child has special educational needs (SEN). The same guidance is blunt about what that choice means. You “must be prepared to assume full financial responsibility for the child’s education, including bearing the cost of any public examinations”. Tutors, materials, exam entries: yours to fund.
An EHCP doesn’t change that split. If you home educate and your arrangements are suitable, section 42(5) of the Children and Families Act relieves the LA of its duty to secure the plan’s provision. EOTAS flips every one of those switches back to the council.
| Elective home education | An EOTAS package | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose decision | Yours as a family | The LA’s, after consulting you |
| Who arranges the education | You | The LA |
| Who pays for it | You | The LA |
| Section I of the EHCP | Notes your own arrangements | Left blank, no school named |
| If it breaks down | You ask the LA to step in | Fixing it stays the LA’s duty |
Don’t deregister your child in the hope it forces the LA’s hand. Home educating switches off the LA’s duty to secure the plan’s provision while your arrangements are suitable, and deregistering from a special school needs the council’s permission anyway. Ask for EOTAS with your child still on roll.
How EOTAS differs from Section 19 provision
There’s a second lookalike, and it confuses professionals as often as parents. When a child of compulsory school age misses suitable education through illness, exclusion or anything else, section 19 of the Education Act 1996 requires the LA to arrange it.
The two answer different questions. Section 19 asks whether your child is missing suitable education right now, and it catches any child, with or without an EHCP. Section 61 asks a longer-range question: whether a school setting is an appropriate place for your child’s provision at all.
They behave differently too. Section 19 is a duty that switches on by itself once the trigger is met, there to keep education going while your child can’t attend. EOTAS is a decision written into the EHCP about where education should happen, and it stands until a review or an appeal changes it.
The same family often meets both. Section 19 provision might carry your child through the months after a placement collapses, while the evidence builds that no placement would work; EOTAS is where that evidence can lead. Our Section 19 guide covers the safety net in detail, including what triggers it and what “suitable” means.
What goes inside a typical package
No two packages match, because each one is built from Section F of your child’s plan, the section listing their special educational provision. Councils do publish examples of the ingredients. Hertfordshire’s local offer, for instance, lists online or home tuition, mentoring, and therapies such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy or physiotherapy.
- One-to-one tuition - at home or online, usually the academic spine of the week
- Therapies - speech and language therapy, occupational therapy or physiotherapy, delivered as part of the education
- An online school - live, timetabled lessons with other pupils, without the building
- Mentoring - a consistent adult who keeps confidence and learning moving between sessions
Whatever the mix, it should be written like any other Section F provision. The SEND Code of Practice expects provision to be “detailed and specific and should normally be quantified”, down to type, hours and frequency. Vague packages drift; quantified ones can be enforced. Our Code of Practice guide shows how to quote requirements like that one back.
Personal budgets and direct payments
Once EOTAS is agreed, someone has to book the tutors and pay the therapists. The LA can commission everything itself, and some families prefer exactly that.
Many want more control. Under section 49 of the Children and Families Act 2014, if you ask for a personal budget the LA must prepare one. The Code of Practice calls it “an amount of money identified by the local authority” to deliver the plan’s provision, with you involved in securing it.
Direct payments take it furthest: the money comes to you, and you choose the tutor, sign the contracts and account for the spending. You can also mix approaches, with the LA commissioning the therapies while a direct payment covers tuition. If your young person is past compulsory school age, the right to ask sits with them.
Our EHCP personal budgets guide walks through the mechanisms, the narrow grounds for refusal, and how to challenge a no.
A personal budget isn’t payment for home educating, and it doesn’t shift the legal load onto you. The money stays the LA’s way of meeting its own duty; holding it makes you the commissioner, while the funding responsibility stays with the council.
Where it sits in the EHCP, and how it’s reviewed
The package lives in Section F, like any other special educational provision. Section I, where a school or college would normally be named, stays empty. Hertfordshire’s guidance spells it out: “Section I in your child’s EHCP will remain blank”, because no setting is considered appropriate.
That Section F home matters for enforcement. Under section 42, the LA must secure the provision in the plan. The duty covers a tutor who never materialises just as much as a school cutting support. If parts of the package stop happening, our guide to an EHCP not being delivered covers how to respond.
EOTAS gets no exemption from review either. The plan must be reviewed at least every 12 months under section 44 of the Children and Families Act 2014. The package gets looked at as part of that annual review. Many councils treat EOTAS as a bridge, so expect a return to a setting to come up. You don’t have to agree, and if the LA amends the plan against your wishes, that decision carries a right of appeal.
Common misconceptions
“EOTAS is home education with funding.” It isn’t. Home education puts the arranging and the cost on you. EOTAS keeps both with the LA, along with the legal responsibility when something falls over.
“You need to deregister your child first.” No. Keeping your child on roll while you ask protects the LA’s duty to secure their provision. Deregistering can be read as making your own arrangements, which weakens your position.
“Once agreed, it’s permanent.” The plan, and the package with it, is reviewed at least every 12 months. For some children EOTAS is long-term; for many it’s a calm rebuilding period before a supported return to a setting.
“Our council doesn’t do EOTAS.” Section 61 is national law, not a local scheme. A council can have views about how packages run, but whether one is agreed turns on your child’s situation, not on whether the LA has a policy for it.
What to do next
- Gather the evidence. Professional reports, the placement history, and a dated record of what each setting tried and what happened. The “inappropriate” judgment is built on this.
- Ask in writing. Write to the LA’s special educational needs (SEN) team, name section 61, and say why a school setting would be inappropriate for your child.
- Use the plan’s machinery. Raise it at the annual review, or ask for an early review if things have broken down since the last one.
- Propose the package. Hours, subjects, therapies, who delivers what, and how progress will be checked. A concrete proposal is harder to wave away.
- If the answer is no, take advice. Once the plan is finalised or amended without it, an appeal about the plan’s contents is open to you.
Ask for your EOTAS request, and the LA’s reasons if it says no, to be recorded in the annual review paperwork. A written trail turns “we discussed it” into something a tribunal can actually read.
Getting help
IPSEA (Independent Provider of Special Education Advice) publishes a plain-English quick guide to education otherwise than in a school. Its free legal advice service can talk through whether section 61 fits your situation.
SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service) is the free, impartial service every LA area must provide. Our SENDIASS explainer covers what it can and can’t help with, and the Council for Disabled Children hosts the directory for finding yours.
Not Fine in School is a parent-led community for families whose children struggle to attend, with practical resources many families lean on while EOTAS conversations are happening.