home education and deregistration

[hshall36]

Please help someone. My daughter has been having a lot of problems at school, mainly by her teacher. I approached him on many occasions and he just got worse to her.
I have since sent a deregistration letter to the school, recorded delivery and its been received.
It was signed for yesterday and today, when i was at work and my 6 yr old was with herbig sister, a family support worker turned up at my house and left a note from the head of the school saying i had to write directly to the lea and is concerned i have underlying reasons for taking her out of school.
I am worried sick now, I dont want her going back to school, she is so happy at home and is learning a lot! Do i have to contact LEA myself? and am I breaking some law by keeping her home?

[Snowfire]

How scary for you! I have just done this as well and have only sent the school the letter, it is their responsibility to contact the Lea. Sounds like the school don't know the protocol but that isn't your problem, you have done nothing wrong.
For your peace of mind, it might be worth talking to your local elective home ed person at the council, they would be contacting you anyway and will be able to put your mind at rest.

[Saracen]

I agree. The school is completely in the wrong here. On the one hand it is understandable that they won't know the law with respect to home education: they may never have had a child removed from their school to be HE. However, it is inexcusable to harass you without getting their facts straight first. It wouldn't have been hard for them to look this information up themselves, or ring the LA for advice about what they should do upon receiving a deregistration letter from a parent.

FWIW, your reasons for choosing to home educate have no legal relevance, and you don't have to justify your decision to anyone. I'm sure many children are sent to school for the "wrong" reasons, but nobody comes knocking on their doors. In law, all that matters is whether you are in fact providing your daughter with a suitable education.

[Thinking2014]

Saracen the woman who called me asked why I withdrew my DD...obviously trying to be clever & I forgot I'm under no obligation to explain myself! Ah well. But then being an exclusions support officer I was skeptical of her anyway ;-)

Op you should look on the ed-yourself website, there's lots of useful info there (im on my mobile so it won't post the link but Google it) the school need to inform LEA but they'll probably "misplace" the letter so keep a copy.

You don't need to let anyone (apart from social services I believe) into your home either & ask for any "requests" to be put in writing :-) hth and glad your DD is happy. I had some issues with my DDs yr3 teacher. Only one other mum knew what I meant because he was so good at changing his behaviour around people :-/ I was going to inform the Head of my concerns until I heard the teacher was being promoted to head of year!

[hshall36]

Hi

Thanks for your replies. The support officer came back tody while i was at home. I invited him in and told him i am NOT taking her back to school. I told him about the bullying teacher and then he was fully supportive of my decision. He wants me to make an official complaint which leads me to believe he has done this before.

I asked if I had to inform the La as head says in her letter and he said I do! I will fwd a copy of the letter i sent the school to the address the head supplied and that should then be that.

The support officer was very helpful when he realised I wasnt going to change my mind. He offered any support i need and gave me his number stating I can ask for any help or advice as and when needed and if cant help, he will know someone who can.

I am hopeful this will be over soon now. phew :)

Just enjoy teaching my DD at home

[Saracen]

He is mistaken; you have no legal obligation to inform the LA and if they can't trust their own staff (headteacher) to do that correctly then that's a bit worrying.

Never mind though, if you don't mind forwarding a copy of your letter to the LA to save them the trouble of doing their own admin then no harm done, and I'm glad you are finding him helpful in other respects.