To not even bother sending my child to school?

How about small independent faith schools? There are some small nurturing Hindu/Christian schools near us with fees 300/1k per month and they do take children from other faiths. Our youngest is likely SEN and we are considering our choices for Y3. Maybe worth finding out?

@MotherOfSEN Your DD sounds quite a bit like me. I couldn't cope with secondary school and was desperately unhappy. My parents took me out after a few months to home educate me, and it was a really positive experience. At school, I had no friends and was very anxious all day every day, but once I was home educated my anxiety improved almost instantly. I was able to join various extracurricular activities and also a home ed group, which helped my social skills a lot.
By 16, I felt ready to return to mainstream education. I went to an FE college to do my A-levels and really enjoyed it.
I'd recommend following your instincts; school can be a nightmare for some children, especially if they are autistic or have other sen. Many people will insist that children need school for social development, but the school environment is very artificial and nothing like adult life. School taught me to be very frightened of other children because I'd only ever experienced bullying or rejection from them. In my experience, home ed and extracurricular groups were much more inclusive. In smaller groups and away from the school environment, I think it’s often much easier for children to be kinder and more accepting of differences. Best of luck with whatever you decide. 🙂

When DD was being home educated it was the most sociable time she's ever had. She attended groups every day. So many kids were ND like her and she made actual friends, people were understanding, she was more comfortable. It was the opposite of isolating.

This is utterly untrue. The social opportunities in home ed are far
more than in school. More diverse too. Try your local home education Facebook groups. There’s group learning, socials, trips. I think with the children’s wellbeing and schools bill coming n you will find it increasingly difficult to withdraw her.

As a parent of a now 16 year old with ADHD the jump between secondary and primary is massive and if a child is not getting the support they need it’s likely that grades will start to drop. I’m in another country where they are very behind in helping ND children and my daughter basically just started failing multiple subjects at secondary level. In year three here they have a class for kids, usually full of those with ADHD, with a different style of learning, less homework, more practical activities rather than lots of exams and studying etc, which allows them to pass with the same certificate as children going down the usual route, so this saved DD. She won’t do the equivalent of A levels and will do a more vocational course instead. She has luckily never struggled socially, so that side of a school environment wasn’t a problem. If you are worried about both the educational and social side I think homeschooling sounds like a very sensible option.

OP, yes, you can absolutely choose your own amount of subjects such as Maths, English and Science plus history/geography. She will be online for about 15 hours a week but on a zoom call to her teacher and 6-8 other students. It costs about £3-4k a year.

Well that's always been true really, ever since the national curriculum came in, being able to access material doesn't mean you will be able to effectively teach it.
Like anything it is more complicated than that- you can't just access material and circumvent years of training and experience and be a good, or even adequate teacher.

DS has moved from a specialist setting to a mainstream setting for secondary. We were terrified for similar reasons to the ones you suggested but he absolutely loves it. He loves the way you move between classes in secondary, he loves doing different subjects which he is not great at because he might not be that academic but he loves the canteen most. I’d be inclined to get the EHCP as soon as possible and try the school with a view to pulling her out if it is not a good setting for her.

You should apply for EHCP as soon as possible. Primary schools have a habit of saying child doesn’t need because primary can cater much better for their needs in general. I had this with my daughter and boom, secondary school was horrific. I put in an EHCNA within a month of her starting and moved her as soon as it was through (not an easy process) into SEN school. Where we live the diagnosis doesn’t mean much - sure the secondary school have to do some level of support (my daughter is ND and has a very rare syndrome with huge medical problems) but that support was “unlimited time off for appointments and able to leave class and go to the [quiet area] when needed”. Personally I would be getting your EHCNA ducks in a row and getting it done whilst you are still in primary - we needed two terms worth of evidence.

So the world is made of sharp glass and if you go out your feet will bleed. So stay home. Or get a really strong pair of boots and set off dealing with reality.

OP tried for private but can’t afford full fees and didn’t get a bursary.

To deprive teenagers of social interaction with their peers is not setting them up for feeling like they are a contributing member of society. You learn so many incidental cues and observations about personality types by merely being near other kids and hearing and seeing them interact.

Your daughter likes her privacy so I think you would be doing her no favours to have her home schooled and dependent on you for everything.
Try harder to either find a school that is more suitable or to accompany your daughter to the two schools and see which one would be more suitable.
She might like one of them.

Give her a chance. Put more effort into helping her cope, if you have the time for home schooling.

Enrol her in a special hobby where she will make a different group of peers and have contacts outside of school.
Ideally her Dad could also do a club of some sort with her for a couple of hours when he sees her - cake decorating, swimming, fishing.

Op, have you considered whether an alternative school like a Waldorf or Montessori school or similar might be an option?
Just thinking in terms of small schools ...

Actually that’s not really true nowadays - unless you are planning to be the sole teacher and curriculum setter.

There are loads of options for parents now including virtual schools, homeschool coops and groups, tutors, bespoke curriculums with live online support.

The groups and coops help with socialization issues, the main concern is being organized and sticking to schedules and meeting bench marks.

Parents don’t have to be able to offer degree level experience in all subjects they just need to know how to access that information.

How educated are you?
How well distributed are your talents for different subjects?
How good are your public speaking skills?
Unless your answer is at least degree level and very well distributed talents I don't think home schooling is a good idea. The lack of social interaction, especially as this is a struggle for DD, could also be disastrous.
To home school effectively you need at least as many talents as a professionally trained teacher, in a far broader range of subjects- to be fair that is not very likely.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this lately as my daughter is struggling through high school and I’m not sure this is logical at all. Yes of course my daughter - and all children - need to learn a level of resilience and school is part of that. But when she’s an adult she will have so much more control over her environment than she does now. She won’t choose to spend 7 hours a day surrounded by noisy, chaotic, yelling teenagers throwing water bottles at each other. She will almost certainly work outdoors or in something physical (she wants to be a dance teacher or a stonemason just now). She will be able to choose to live alone, to keep her lights dim and to structure her social and personal life as she chooses.

She is academically able and enjoys the learning, but finds the surroundings very, very difficult. Shes not interested in exploring options, and has 2 friends (and is uninterested in more) and a couple lunchtime clubs she likes. We just got her a maths tutor as she genuinely couldn’t take in the teaching with all the disruptiveness in the classroom and might need more tutoring as exams approach.

If she was open to something non traditional I’d be all for it as I see the toll school is taking on her and her weekends are very, very purposefully quiet so she can reset a bit. I’m worried that she might fall apart at some point as she masks hard all day, every day and that’s really tiring. And I am really not sure what being in this environment is teaching her really - how to pretend? How to ignore chaos? How to survive something and be super grateful when it’s over? She will never again need to be trapped in somewhere she hates after she leaves high school and I remind her of that all the time.

My daughter was well enough supported at primary school but I knew secondary wasn't going to work so I applied for a then Statement in year 5 and started looking at alternative provision.

I had no idea what her actual needs were as she had never been assessed and school were perfectly happy to leave her just trundling along - she wasn't disruptive and it was clear to me that by this point they knew they just had another year with her, so why spend sen resources on her?

Of course the request was refused but I had spoken to SOS!SEN who advised me to get my daughter assessed by an Ed psych, SALTand OT.

The reports were incredibly detailed, especially the SALT and OT. All three said that she needed significant support. The LA caved before tribunal - we got the Statement and the specialist school.

Her head teacher was furious with me. It was a very difficult final year!

There was another girl in her class who was only diagnosed asd at the end of year 6 and she went to the local secondary school, which was a disaster. She refused to go back after half term but the LA then provided home tutors while they sorted out a Statement and she moved to a specialist school too.

I would suggest that you apply for an ehc as it puts your daughter on the LA's radar. They will of course turn you down but you can gather your own evidence. I would speak to SOS!SEN for advice on timings, who to use etc but it could mean that if secondary doesn't work out, you are well into the process.

I'd only home school as a last resort.

Your daughter deserves the chance to have a normal childhood and school experience - it will prepare her for life.

The more protected children are the less resilient they become and the more they will struggle as adults when nobody will be bothered to tippy toe around them.

She sounds very like my daughter. We sent her to a school in the next town that we felt was a better fit for her than the secondaries in our own town. Yes it’s a bus ride, but it’s a smaller school, and the SEN provision has been accommodating. We looked at a range of schools all outside our immediate area to find the one that we felt would suit her best.

@MotherOfSEN if you are sure you can support her academically then I would plan to homeschool/virtual school for years 7 and 8, and use that time to save enough to fund the smaller private school from year 9 - which would her a year to get used to being back in the school environment before GCSEs.

Tell her father this is the surest path to her making school a success, and talk to DD about why this will be the best plan too.

I hope her father is on board with helping you to save up for the private school funding.

both my late diagnosed autistic daughters do not socialise in the traditional way and haven’t since around Y4.
School was deeply traumatic for my eldest and she’s in college now, after finishing school working from home.

When my youngest started struggling in Y9, we did a watch and wait. But after a disastrous start to y10, we decided to home school.

Was the best thing I’ve ever done.

I do think though the experiences my girls had, have helped them understand themselves and also about people they do not want to associate with.

But for my eldest we have deep rooted trauma which is going to take years to fix.

Start the EHCP process as soon as possible.
SAR on the primary school to have all paperwork if they are not willing to help or support the EHCP application.
everything you have said is enough for an EHCP.
My son’s primary told me he wouldn’t get a diagnosis, let alone an EHCP and was just naughty. I too worked in SEN.
He did get a diagnosis in Year 6!

Started Mainstream secondary and couldn’t cope! And this was a secondary school with an ASD unit!
We got the EHCP and he was in specialist school by the November of year 8.

Hes now 17, in mainstream college by choice with GCSE’s doing mechanics.

I know someone who homeschooled from year 8 onwards.

it was purely so they could do year 7 and try to make some friends. Which did happen larger cohort and found more of their group.

They have thrived homeschooling and there is so many groups and support out there. You know your child better so go with your gut

@MotherOfSEN you sound really informed and measured in your analysis of the situation.
It's the minority of secondary schools who put wellbeing first, and that's what's needed for pupils like your DD. But schools haven't kept up with changing needs and the rocketing diagnosis of ND. I think to try and fail would be devastating for your DD and given your ability to provide a strong personalised alternative for her that looks like a very positive option.