Exempt provision during home education
8.—(1) The circumstances referred to in articles 2(1) to 2(4) are where a person—
(a)is educating a child under a home education arrangement, and
(b)the provision made is incidental to the arrangement.
(2) A “home education arrangement” means an arrangement under which a child, who is of compulsory school age(1) and is receiving full-time education otherwise than at school, is partly or wholly educated by a person other than a parent of the child.
Section 8(1) the Education Act 1996 (c.56) provides that sections 8(2) and (3) of that Act apply to determine for the purposes of any enactment whether a person is of compulsory school age. Section 8(2) provides that a person begins to be of compulsory school age when he attains the age of five, if he attains that age on a prescribed day, and otherwise at the beginning of the prescribed day next following his attaining that age. Article 2 of the Education (Start of Compulsory School Age) Order 1998 (S.I. 1998/1607) provides that for the purposes of section 8(2), 31st August and 31st December shall be prescribed days for 1998 and successive years, and 31st March shall be a prescribed day for 1999 and successive years.