A year off school?

[wigglybeezer]

I am considering taking DS2 off school for a year to enable him to catch up academically (and relax and enjoy learning too). He has mild Aspergers and finds school hard going, especially concentrating in a classroom setting.

He could rejoin his classmates to transition to high school together after a year.

Another alternative is to move him to a tiny village school (10 pupils) up the road.

Should I tell him this is a one off for one year only or should I leave it open? I enjoy his company and know we could work well together but there is also the issue of his two brothers, they might be jealous of him staying at home indefinitely.

He is also one of the very youngest in his year and keeping him at home for a year between leaving primary and going to high school could also be on the cards.

What do you think?

[Openbook]

I think Education Welfare will have something to say about it if you simply keep him at home. Sorry, it is illegal.

[pooter]

openbook - of course it's not illegal!! Home education is a perfectly legitimate choice - and one that sounds like it could suit the OP's family very well.

[hippipotamiHasLost77lbs]

Well it won't be illegal if you register him as being home-edded.
However, if I have understood you correctly you are planning to keep him home for a year between leaving primary and starting highschool so that he will no longer be the youngest in the school year? This plan of delaying his high school entry may come unstuck. In my area you have to go to the correct school year for your birth date. So if you kept him home for a year after he has finished primary and then start him in secondary a year after his current classmates he would go straight into Y8, not year 7. Resulting in him having missed a year of secondary school teaching. Not sure if that would be a help or a hindrance?

[Openbook]

Was there any reference to home education in OP? Apologies if I've misunderstood.

[ommmward]

It's in the Home Education topic, openbook but not sending your child to school is perfectly legal in any mumsnet thread, as long as you either never send them, or deregister them with a form letter if they have been in school. [slightly different deregistration system in scotland, but still perfectly legal]

My thoughts to the OP:

Leave it open. see how he goes, how you go. You can't guess whether, at the end of the first year, you'll be willing to continue, or whether he'd rather go back into school, or what. So just say it's an experiment and you'll both see how it goes, and if he likes to know in advance how things will be, then maybe say that after 6 months you'll have a chat about how it's going and make a decision together for the next 6 months (unless that would cause him massive anxiety - you know best how to play it!)

I would think, even if you don't open up the choice at this point to your other children, about how life might be if all of them wanted to be Home Educated. It's very common in a family for one child to come out of school and then for the others to follow, all for positive reasons - the first one is thriving and the parents want the others to get some of that thrivement (I just invented that word); the others see the one not going to school and then the fact that they'd really rather not go comes out, and the parents just can't manage to be so unfair as to make them go; the entire family is sick to the back teeth of having to be up for the school run and for the HE day to get interrupted at school's out time so they all leap into HE and the glories of pyjama days and lie ins... whatever. Just, can you imagine how you might juggle all your children at home? I think it's a thought experiment worth engaging with, and perhaps asking here or on the email lists what sorts of lives people live with more than one HE child.

and if he finds school tough and you are thinking of educating him at home, then the sooner the better - no point waiting!

[piscesmoon]

If you want to do it, I would sort it all out beforehand so that he can go back a year and do yr 7 instead of yr 8. If you definitely only want to do a year I should tell him that it is only for a year-only leave it open if you are willing to do more. I wouldn't worry about the brothers-unless they hate school they are unlikely to be jealous.

[Openbook]

ommmmward - re my post - picked this up from unanswered messages and simply didn't look at heading - the snow has affected my brain, sorry! Thank you for being polite.Have to say I know nothing about home educating so will now shut up.

[wigglybeezer]

Hippopotami - we are in Scotland and his birthday is in one of the months where you have the option to defer entry to primary school (my sister did this with her son, I really wish i had too), therefore I should be able to "put him back a year" by home-edding him for a year before highschool as there would still be children the same age as him in his new year group. (I know of a few children who have repeated a year to catch up but I don't think DS1 would put up with that).

I thought that leaving primary was one of the times when you didn't have to de-register, you just don't register for a high school? I haven't read any literature recently though.

[hippipotamiHasLost77lbs]

Ah wiggly - you are lucky then Ds is near the end of August but we don't have the option to defer.

It sounds like it could benefit your ds, so best of luck

[piscesmoon]

It sounds a good time to do it but I would be very surprised if you can finish primary and just not register for secondary.

[wigglybeezer]

Piscesmoon, I have just checked on Schoolhouse.org and 'tis true, you don't need consent from the local authority to withdraw if your child has finished primary in one school but not started high school in another, the same is true if you move from one education authority to another at any time! (In Scotland anyway).

[julienoshoes]

Same in England at the moment wigglybeezer

[wigglybeezer]

Good, no wonder so many HE families end up moving house to avoid undue interference.

[piscesmoon]

No problem then! I have to say that I am surprised.

[stressedHEmum]

Wiggly,

Just make sure that you don't fill out the forms that they will send at the end of this month/beginning of next to register for Secondary or send him to the induction days, if you are sure that you are going to HE for first year.

If you fill out the forms/go to inductions some LAs will use this against you (mine did) even though they don't have a leg to stand on really, and will then harass you for ages with their ridiculous demands. If you do return forms etc. you may have to go through the whole withdrawal process at the beginning of August. It took us almost 6 months of fighting with our LA (NAC)when we withdrew DS2 between P7 and 1st Year. He also has AS, quite severely, but was one of the oldest in his year because we did defer him for a year at the beginning of primary school (January birthday).

Schoolhouse are definitely the people to speak to if you have any questions or problems, but I will help in anyway that I can, as I have been through the withdrawal thing with 4 of my 5 kids.

[wigglybeezer]

Thanks stressed (hope you aren't too stressed).
Do you think they would hassle me for turning down induction stuff, they are very into extended early induction activities for special needs kids here, they may get wind of my plans because of that.

DS2 is only in P5 at the moment so I have some time to make my mind up.

His school is a "nice' primary, never any bullying etc. but he is just making such painfully slow progress (which doesn't seem to bother the school), I'm no longer confident that he will catch up by high school. He has caught up a lot in the one area of the curriculum that I have given him extra tuition in.

[stressedHEmum]

Hi, Wiggly, not too stressed at the moment , although I am often seized by an urge to commit murder. I have 4 of them at home (17-almost 7) and 3 of them have special needs, 2 AS and one with dyspraxia/dyslexia/visual motor/organisational type issues that don't appear to have a collective name!!! It gets a bit much at times, to be honest, but that's another story.

It's good that your DS is only P5 at the mo., that gives you time to decide what to do and to see what happens. Although, in all honesty, secondary school is very difficult for Aspergers kids. My DS1 and his best friend, who are both now at uni, both have Aspergers and both went through the full 6 years of secondary. THey found it very easy academically, but personally and socially, it was a nightmare. it took years to get used to the constant changes, for example. Every year, they would just get the hang of moving classes and all the different teachers, when the summer would come round and everything would change again. And then there was all the special stuff for DS1, remembering when his music lessons were or his public speaking stuff, for instance. Also the horrendous treatment from the other kids because they weren't good at sports and didn't misbehave in class. That didn't stop until they were in the very senior years and all the neds had left. I don't want to scare you, but our experiences of secondary were not good, but then our secondary schools are not good.

As far as hassling you about registration forms, I would just tell them that you intend to try HE for a year, so don't need to fill them in. The school will probably make an issue of just not returning the forms at all, but if you tell them why,then there is nothing that they can do or say. I wouldn't worry about upsetting them or anything and they have absolutely no right to voice an opinion or harass you in any way over it. All I can tell you is that my LA tried to claim, for months, that because my DS2 had been for induction days that meant he had attended the school. Completely bogus of course, because he was still a pupil at the primary when he went for induction, but it made everything much more difficult than it should have been, compounded by the fact that we had filled in the registration forms. I was even getting letters several times a week from the schools head teacher and visits from the truancy officers, threats of court action, the lot. None of that would have happened if we hadn't filled in the forms or gone for induction.

Sadly, we actually intended for DS2 to go to Greenwood, but the LA refused to fund any sort of support package for him at all, despite his Aspergers. They wanted him to go for a year so that they could observe him and evaluate if he needed support! So, we couldn't safely send him. If I had to do it again, I would just not take any part in the transfer programme and stuff anything that the school or LA might think or say. I know that this can be quite daunting at first and nobody ever wants to upset the teachers, but really and honestly, there is nothing for them to be upset about.

Could you, maybe, contact Schoolhouse to discuss the whole thing, They should be able to give you pointers as to how to handle the whole forms/visits things and the particular situation with SN kids re. educational provision and the types of problems that you might encounter with your LA, who are bound to make things difficult.

Whereabouts are you, Wiggly, and I might be able to advise about how cooperative your LA is likelt to be, or not. Although, Schoolhouse are experts at dealing with out of control education departments.

[wigglybeezer]

STRESSED, I'm in Clackmannanshire at the moment but we are planning to move over the border a couple of miles because Perth and Kinross has a better choice of secondaries.

At the moment lots of parents where we are request out of area placements and the authority (and our headmaster) are getting a bit sniffy about it, hence our potential move to avoid future doubts about placement requests.

I have heard several stories of children with AS and their parents being shown lovely new learning support units and being led to believe that their kids will be able to use them and then finding out that their child is then expected to manage in the classroom with little help because they are academically able.

DS1 (also a little bit "wonky") starts secondary this year and we are waiting to find out if he gets a placing request. I expect to learn a lot from his experience.

I will definitely join schoolhouse, however last time I suggested HE as a possibility to DS2 he declined, its difficult to know whether to insist for his educations sake or to let him struggle bravely on (he has never made a big fuss about going to school, just gets frustrated sometimes about his inabilty to keep up workwise).