Hello everyone,
I’m having lots of trouble with dd. She has been labelled as a 'school refuser' and is now at her sixth school. It’s awful because she cries literally every morning and begs not to go. Her attendance is low and we have started to receive warnings about it. The school tried putting her in a special centre they have for children with SEN so she can work in a small group, but this didn’t change anything.
In classes she’s the opposite of a troublemaker – teachers all say she’s very well-behaved, always follows instructions and is kind to the other pupils. So there are no behavioural difficulties in that sense, but she’s quietly very rebellious/anti-authoritarian and complains about worksheets being boring. I’d understand if she didn’t like learning, but she is academically motivated outside of school. At the moment she’s self-teaching Arabic from a book and CD, and whenever she gets pocket money the first thing she buys is a book. She’s at the bottom of the class for maths and at the top for English. She never really excels in exams and says that she doesn’t understand what the questions mean.
She’s also different – in personality and interests – to lots of the other students. Her favourite bands are the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith, she reads Allen Ginsberg (!) and is interested in Taoism. She gets on better with her teachers than her classmates and doesn’t like being forced to play with her own age group at break times. At parties dd always wants to sit with the adults. A while ago she refused to return to the Brownies after disagreeing with the pledge (she doesn’t like the royal family and disagrees with patriotism). She hasn’t got this from her parents – I’m neutral on these issues! Despite seemingly not caring about schoolwork she is a worrier with a perfectionist streak.
Not sure whether HE is possible. There are practical reasons why it would be difficult. Also, dd is painfully shy and would never want to go outside unless she really had to!
I just don’t know what to do anymore. She’ll be starting senior school in September so I’m tempted to wait and see whether the environment of secondary school will suit her more. Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations? Do you think she’ll ever adapt to school, or do we need to look at alternatives? She comes out of her shell when she’s in a very informal environment and when she doesn’t feel as though teachers are talking down to her.
(I asked her what she would do if she wasn’t at school. Her response: ‘I could make a treehouse and keep hedgehogs in it!!!’ 
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