My daughter has suffered extreme mental health through her gcse course.
She self harms frequently by cutting, all up her arms, on her legs, across her neck and on her face. She has attempted suicide 7 times. She is under camhs. She has missed alot of school.
She originally wanted to do a levels at sixth form but realised at the moment a sporting course at college is more appropriate, no exams, play sport every afternoon, no one from school is going there so fresh start.
We have special arrangements in place to do exams, she can take them at home, rest breaks, white noise playing, etc.
Since Christmas she has been on the road to recovery, not great but better (small steps). However as we have got closer to the exams she has become worse, bad self harming, nightmares, not sleeping, intrusive thoughts....
We have discussed and looked at withdrawing her from exams as she won't cope. We are advised that school will apply for grades with their evidence (mock results, statement from her tutor, teacher assessments) and letter from camhs. They tell us either the grades will be awarded, she will be awarded a statement of recognition (not real grades) or neither.
The sixth form is happy with this so will have a place there but the college that she really wants to go to will not accept a statement of recognition.
What do we do? Do we just hope and pray actual grades will be awarded to her? Do we push her to sit them and hope she copes? Because what is likely is she will zone out during the exam, in which case she will fail anyway. But if she doesn't do them and gets a statement of recognition then what about college?
Has anyone been in this situation? What did you do? Really struggling with this pressure