EOTAS (Education Otherwise Than At School) is provision your council must arrange outside any school when it agrees a school placement would be inappropriate for your child, funded through their EHC plan.
What EOTAS actually is
EOTAS is the power, set out in section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014, for a council to arrange the provision a child needs somewhere other than a school, college or nursery. In practice the package is written into Section F of an EHC plan, and the placement section, Section I, is left blank because there is no school named. It might fund a mix of one-to-one tutoring, therapies, and activities delivered at home or in the community, all coordinated by the council rather than by a school.
The most important thing to know up front: EOTAS only exists through an EHC plan. A child without a plan cannot be given EOTAS, because the provision lives in Section F of the plan. If your child does not have a plan yet, the route is to secure one through an EHC needs assessment first. Your child does not need any particular diagnosis to qualify, but they do need an EHC plan, or to be pursuing one.
Can my child get it? The high legal bar
It depends, and the legal test is set deliberately high. A council can only agree EOTAS where it is satisfied that making the provision in any school or post-16 setting would be inappropriate. The Court of Appeal has read “inappropriate” as meaning “unsuitable” (TM v London Borough of Hounslow, 2009). That means it is not enough that you would prefer your child at home, and not enough that the current school is struggling. The question is whether provision in any setting, including specialist and independent schools, would be unsuitable for your child.
When the council weighs this up it has to look at the round of factors the courts have set out (NN v Cheshire East Council, 2021), including:
- your child’s background and medical history;
- their special educational needs;
- the facilities a school could offer compared with provision elsewhere;
- the comparative cost of each option;
- your wishes as a parent, and any other relevant circumstances.
Why this matters: EOTAS is not home education
This is the distinction the local-offer pages most often blur. Under EOTAS the council keeps the legal responsibility. Once provision is named in Section F, the council is under an absolute duty to secure and fund it (section 42 of the Act). Under elective home education, by contrast, you choose to take your child off-roll, and you take on the responsibility and the cost of their education yourself. EOTAS keeps the duty with the council; home education moves it to you. That single legal flip is what makes EOTAS worth fighting for where school genuinely is not workable.
You can ask for EOTAS as part of the EHC needs assessment, in response to a draft or final plan, or at an annual review. If the council refuses, or names a school in Section I that you say is unsuitable, you have a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal over the content of Section F and Section I.
One reform note
The 2026 Schools White Paper and the proposed Education for All Bill signal that EHC plans may be narrowed toward the most complex needs over the next decade. None of that is law yet: the government has said no changes will begin before September 2030, and current EHC plan holders are protected. EOTAS through an EHC plan remains the route under current law.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.