AIBU to take my 12 year old out of school for 18 mths to HE....

[Reddragon116]

and then send him back for GCSE's - he is board rigid with the lessons in year 8 and starting to get stress migraines. Does what they cover in years 8/9 lead on to what they do at GCSE level ?

Further south Red rather than mid.

As you say he's started to become a school refuser, what makes you think that he will obediently return to school in 18 months time? Getting him to go to school again in 18 months time could be even more difficult.

He's likely to perceive school as being just as "boring" then plus he will have had 18 months of getting out of the routine of getting up and going to school. He may also have to go to a new, unfamiliar school joining a group of classmates who have been together since they were 11 - or he may be able to return to his old school but find that his old friends have moved on and, despite keeping up with his learning, it would a big adjustment and there are bound to be things that he's not familiar with or struggles a bit with. Yes, none of these are insurmountable problems for a child who is willing to go to school and give it a go but, for a child who's already started to refuse to school, these extra barriers may reduce the chance of him ever returning.

I also presume you are going to try to make his home education an interesting , fulfilling experience - If this is successful, why on Earth would he want to start going to "boring" school again? I think he would be likely to revert to refusing school to try to force you to continue with the home education.

I think HE for the first 3 years of senior school sounds a plan, as long as you can get to the same point as the school in terms of coverage.

In my experience the first 3 years of senior school (before year 1 of GCSE) can boring. Sometimes it seems as if it is more about behaviour management, training the pupils to fit in with the way the school wants to teach, rather than exciting them about learning. To be fair, my DCs went to brilliant prep schools, where they learned a lot. & had masses of fun and all of them found that the move to secondary school frustrating.

If school had not been so convenient, and if my DCs had not derived amusement from finding ways to not comply with the more stupid rules without completely alienating the teaching staff, I would quite liked to have home educated them and got a few GCSEs out of the way a year or so early giving them time to look at subjects they may want to do in uni in more depth before doing A levels at a 6 th form college

I'm neither pro nor anti home ed (vaguely interested but doesn't work for me right now).

But I'd be concerned about the particular bit that you are planning to home ed for. With GCSEs you have a firm target to work towards but with year 9 things are a bit more fluid. For example when I was in school in year 9 9G did the physics and chemistry modules, then in year 10 chem and bio then in year 11 bio and physics. 9H did a different combination as did 9J etc.

But you won't know what class he'll be going back to so he could end up bored in some classes and out of his depth in others.