Right now, do this
Which of the three letter types is it?
Almost every letter a home-educating family in England will get is one of three kinds, and they have very different deadlines and tones. Knowing which type you have in front of you is the whole job of the first ten minutes.
1. The informal enquiry
The most common letter. The envelope looks official, the tone is polite and the ask is vague: "We understand you have chosen to educate your child at home. We would like to know a little about your provision." It does not cite a specific statute, it often does not name a deadline and the person signing it is usually an elective home education (EHE) officer rather than a legal officer.
You do not have a legal duty to reply to an informal enquiry, though most families reply in writing because it is the quickest way to close the file. A one-page factual note tends to be enough.
2. The Section 436A enquiry
Section 436A of the Education Act 1996 gives every local authority a duty to make arrangements to identify children in their area who are not receiving a suitable education. A 436A letter is the council exercising that duty: the letter will usually cite 436A by number, name a target date two to four weeks out and ask for a written description of your educational provision.
A 436A enquiry is more formal than an informal enquiry but it is not an emergency. The LA is still at the "we are trying to work out whether suitable education is happening" stage. A calm written reply, on or before the target date, is almost always enough.
3. The Section 437 Notice to Satisfy
Section 437 is the serious one. The letter will explicitly say "Notice to Satisfy", cite Section 437 and give you a minimum of fifteen days to provide information demonstrating that a suitable education is being provided. If you do not reply, or if the LA is not satisfied by the reply, it can progress to a School Attendance Order (SAO).
This is the point at which you stop handling the correspondence yourself and ring a specialist. See the red flags box at the bottom of the page and the dedicated article on School Attendance Orders in the related reading.
What should actually be in the reply?
A one-page written description of your educational provision, split into five short paragraphs and signed off with your name and the date. Nothing longer is required and nothing longer is recommended.
The opening paragraph confirms the factual basics: the date you deregistered, the fact that you are providing a suitable education under Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 (the law that says parents must provide a suitable education, either at school or otherwise) and that this letter is your reply to their enquiry. Two sentences is enough.
The second paragraph names the approach you are taking. You are allowed to be specific here ("broadly Montessori-inspired, child-led, with some Charlotte Mason influences") or deliberately general ("a child-led approach that follows my daughter's interests while covering core literacy and numeracy"). You do not have to commit to a label.
The third paragraph describes a rhythm of a typical week: two or three mornings of sit-down work, an outing day, a home-ed group meet, whatever is actually true. "We tend to" is a useful phrase; specifying a rigid timetable is not required and can be awkward if your week drifts, which weeks do.
The fourth paragraph gives concrete examples of recent work. Keep it short: a book you have read together, a maths topic you have covered, a museum you went to, a practical project your child is halfway through. Three or four lines, not a list.
The fifth paragraph, optional, invites the LA to write again if anything is unclear and notes that you are able to respond by letter or email but would prefer not to have a home visit at this stage. A single sentence closes the file.
What should you leave out?
Every one of the following is lawful to include and none of them is helpful:
Lists of resources, URL directories, screenshots of workbooks, photographs of the house, photographs of the child, apologies, explanations of why you deregistered, arguments with the school, philosophical manifestos, curriculum-mapping tables, reading-age results, copies of any tests, a CV of the home-educating parent, an offer to start a timetable or any claim that you are "following the National Curriculum". A one-page factual note reads as calm and credible; a twelve-page appendix reads as defensive, and defensiveness is the single most reliable way to extend the correspondence.
The template
That is the whole reply. Resist the urge to add appendices.
A real LA exchange
A mum we will call Chenai received an informal enquiry from her LA ten weeks after deregistering her Year 1 son. The letter asked about her "educational provision" and named a target date a month away. She spent two evenings over-drafting a long reply with timetables, photographs and a curriculum map, then binned it and wrote the template above in about forty minutes. She sent it the next morning.
Six weeks later the LA wrote back thanking her, noting the provision as "satisfactory" and closing the case subject to an informal annual check-in. She marked the date in her calendar. The next annual check-in, a year later, was the same template with one extra paragraph of updated examples. It also closed at the first round.
This is roughly the median outcome for a well-written informal or 436A reply. The households that end up in multi-round correspondence are almost always those where a defensive twelve-page reply invited twelve pages of follow-up questions.