Home Visits in Education – what’s the purpose? 

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2025, sets out the legal duties’ that schools must follow to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18. 

When working in attendance, home visits are an essential and vital part in understanding and ensuring that the child’s safety is always of the highest priority. Home visits hold key information in understanding the daily lived experience of the child and family, whilst giving insight to the demographics of the child’s life, needs and circumstances.  

Home visits should be completed when we are concerned about the welfare of the child and when the child is not attending school. School staff will visit the property to physically see the child and to communicate with the parent, to provide support and address any underlying needs. As well as providing a vital lens into a child’s lived experience, home visits also allow us to address any barriers to them attending school. 

What are school home visits?  

Schools should be completing home visits when a child has not been seen for a period of time. Schools are legally required to follow their attendance and safeguarding policies and procedures, and home visits are usually conducted on day 3 (or more) of a child’s absence or earlier when the welfare of a child is a concern. Schools have a legal duty to ensure the welfare of any children on their school roll.  

The purpose of Home Visits by school staff:  

Some parents may have a perception that home visits are unnecessary, and often they can feel that there is a lack of trust or that their privacy is being invaded. However, home visits are a vital part of safeguarding and attendance procedures and the safety of the child is always the main priority. Some reasons why schools decide to conduct home visits are: 

• If staff are worried why the child is not attending school 

• Schools have a legal duty to the welfare of the child 

• When there are known risks to the child being at home or out in the community 

• It is good practice conduct a home visit when a child is persistently absent 

• It’s a supportive measure to address any concerns  

• To understand a child’s lived experience and to look at ways to address barriers to attendance 

• To help provide support or interventions to help with attending school 

• An opportunity to work collaboratively with school and parents in supporting children 

• To help improve parental engagement, by working closely with families and other agencies to enhance and promote a multi-agency way of working 

• To discuss and understand school absence patterns and the possible links to ongoing absence and safeguarding 

School staff and other professionals have a duty to work in partnership with parents and carers to support children in attending school. ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ outlines the need to “recognise, engage and work with parents and carers who are unwilling or unable to engage with services.” (WTSC). 

Stronger trusted relationships and effective communication is needed between parents and school staff in order to help identify any issues at the earliest possible stage, so that we can provide support and early intervention to children and families.  This could be offered in the form of Early Help. 

Sadly, there are some cases where children have been at significant risk of harm or have died because professionals did not follow up on their welfare or absence concerns. In these cases, home visits have been recognised as practice that may have influenced outcomes for these children. Where staff are repeatedly unsuccessful in seeing children at their homes when attempting home visits, they may be able to refer to the police or children’s services to follow up on concerns for the child’s welfare. 

Home visits also allow staff to gain a better understanding of what a parent’s needs are. This could be physical or mental health, unemployment or housing, support with routines and boundaries or any other level of support that they may not know is available until that visit takes place.  

Quite often I will ask: “What does a ‘good day’ look like for the parent?” “What does a ‘bad day’ look like?” “Have we considered parental health needs?” “What support is the parent asking for?” And “is this a reasonable and achievable adjustment?” 

Keeping Children Safe in Education states that, “no single practitioner can have a full picture of a child’s needs and circumstances. If children and families are to receive the right help at the right time, everyone who comes into contact with them has a role to play in identifying concerns, sharing information and taking prompt action.” 

What is the school’s legal duty with regards to home visits? 

It is a legal requirement for school to follow legislation and to know and understand the welfare of any child on their school roll. School staff are to encourage “building strong relationships and work jointly with families, listening to and understanding barriers to attendance and working in partnership with families to remove them” (Working Together to Improve School Attendance) whilst supporting the needs of the child and family. All schools are working to provide a ‘support first’ approach, which means showing empathy to the dynamic needs of children and families, whilst offering intervention and support so that children can access their right to education. 

Some home visits are not easy; they can be challenging but the safety of the child always comes first. School staff want to communicate consistently with parents and to get to know their families. Their role is to understand challenges whilst demonstrating empathy and providing supportive solutions. 

Many parents, more than ever, are needing support whether this be with their own personal challenges, mental or physical health, issues within their wider community or complex concerns for their children. The call on schools to help support parents in getting their children into school is at an all-time high.  Building trust with families is not an over-night process, it takes resilience, empathy, consistency and trust, with communication being effective throughout. 

Can school staff come into your house?  

Home visits are not about staff coming into homes and making judgements about conditions or parenting. The main priority is to check that the child is safe and well, and to offer support. If anything, a home visit is often a simple ‘hello’ and a check-in to make sure everything is OK, whilst also providing an opportunity for you to discuss any concerns, in the comfort of your own home. Schools appreciate that parents do not always want to come to them to ask for help, whether this is due to shame or embarrassment, not knowing who to speak to, or perhaps because the thought of coming into the building feels daunting. Lots of parents may have also had previously poor experiences of working with professionals, so are reluctant to engage with school staff. Accepting an offer of help often feels easier than asking for it. 

Schools want to build and enhance successful, trusted relationships. Home visits are not just a ‘box ticking exercise’ but the glue to addressing not only any safeguarding concerns, including having ‘eyes on the child’ but to observe key information in understanding the child’s life, and journey to school. Successful home visits should form part of the approach to building positive working relationships and should be conducted with manners and respect to gain the best outcomes for the child and family.  

If you have any further questions, please get in touch with our Safeguarding Team.