AHEd is a national group in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, supporting home education. We are writing to you because members have made us aware of new requirements being imposed with reference to education group visits to National Trust properties. As you know, many home educating families enjoy visits to National Trust properties using an education group membership - which allows home educated children the opportunity to enjoy access to National Trust properties in a similar way to school pupils.  However, as you are also no doubt aware, there is a big difference between a family visiting a property, and a group or school party doing so.

Members have brought it to our notice that the use of this option now includes the requirement for home educating families to purchase public liability insurance. This requirement is making education group membership impractical for home educators. For some, this places educational access to National Trust properties out of their reach financially and practically.

We would suggest to you that this requirement is unreasonable and impractical. A family is not a public body requiring public liability insurance and we are not aware of insurance companies who provide a public liability insurance for such purposes to private families. In addition, unless the National Trust also imposes this requirement on all families who visit their properties or who take up any memberships with the National Trust, such as the ordinary membership offered to families, we suggest that requiring home educating families to purchase public liability insurance in order to visit a National Trust property constitutes an unfair act of discrimination against home educators in that it excludes them from access to National Trust properties for educational purposes.

We ask for your urgent assistance with this matter and look forward to being able to tell our members that education group membership of the National Trust is a reasonable and realistic option rather than an impossible and discriminatory idea.